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Posted
18 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Hicks worked in the same room/office nr. 203 as Hughes, Hicks was outside but went in her office shortly after the shooting (and out again, etc).

 

hickx.jpg

Yes, everyone in the SW Publishers office went outside...with the exception of Carol Hughes, who stayed behind with the door locked.

During business hours.

Who locks their doors during business hours, while occupied? 

 

Posted
3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Yes, everyone in the SW Publishers office went outside...with the exception of Carol Hughes, who stayed behind with the door locked.

During business hours.

Who locks their doors during business hours, while occupied? 

 

Just a reminder but it was during lunch time so maybe they would lock doors especially if employees left. 

Posted
4 minutes ago, Paul Cummings said:

lunch time so maybe they would lock doors

That's right. I worked in retail. Door managers live for the moment they can permissibly lock the door.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Paul Cummings said:

Just a reminder but it was during lunch time so maybe they would lock doors especially if employees left. 

Well, yes, except Carol Hughes did not leave. 

Again, I am not positing Carol Hughes or someone in the SW publisher's office did the deed. 

I am positing that if this is an example of how the WC did its job...then who knows what else happened in or around the TSBD that day? 

 

Posted
3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Yes, everyone in the SW Publishers office went outside...with the exception of Carol Hughes, who stayed behind with the door locked.

During business hours.

Who locks their doors during business hours, while occupied? 

 

That’s a really good question Ben. The only explanations I can think of are:

1. The last person out of the office didn’t know that Hughes was still in there and locked the door. 

2. Hughes locked the door as a safety precaution since she was alone in the office. 

I’m not sure what Hughes would be so worried about in the TSBD though, maybe strangers on the street? I think option one is a lot more plausible, but this door locking business really does seem strange considering the circumstances. Did anyone else from SW Publishers mention locking the door when they left the office to watch the parade? 

Posted
Just now, Benjamin Cole said:

Well, yes, except Carol Hughes did not leave. 

Again, I am not positing Carol Hughes or someone in the SW publisher's office did the deed. 

I am positing that if this is an example of how the WC did its job...then who knows what else happened in or around the TSBD that day? 

 

Ben, what I'm saying is I don't think it's uncommon what she did given the time of day. 

Posted
Just now, Tom Gram said:

That’s a really good question Ben. The only explanations I can think of are:

1. The last person out of the office didn’t know that Hughes was still in there and locked the door. 

2. Hughes locked the door as a safety precaution since she was alone in the office. 

I’m not sure what Hughes would be so worried about in the TSBD though, maybe strangers on the street? I think option one is a lot more plausible, but this door locking business really does seem strange considering the circumstances. Did anyone else from SW Publishers mention locking the door when they left the office to watch the parade? 

In 1963, on the second floor of the TSBD...I doubt danger was much of an issue....

A possibility is Hughes chose privacy to attend to private medical issue.

Possibly to call her husband to beg he not divorce her in a tear-filled conversation, that sort of thing. 

In fact an explanation like the above is likely. But the dang thing is, it was not checked out.

And after thee "cannon shots" were heard---Hughes did not answer an imploring office neighbor?  No even a quick nod through the door, "Oh, I am on the phone."? 

In fact, Geneva Hine (WC) said the adjacent publisher's office office, Lyons and Carnahan, was locked, but was apparently empty. Probably to avoid petty theft, that sort of thing. But it appears locking publisher office doors was done on the lunch hour. 

Also, Hine evidently did not know the name of Carol Hughes. Hine had worked for the TSBD for seven years, so from before they moved into the infamous structure. 

Hine does not mention Hughes name on April 7, 1964, in the WC testimony...indicating she still did not know Hughes name. In a rather small work area, on the TSBD second floor floor where perhaps a dozen people worked. 

Did Hughes leave work at the publishers' office shortly after the JFKA? 

Who knows, maybe Hine was a terror who people avoided, including Hughes.

But rings funny.....

Like I said, if this was not checked out, who knows what other leads were ignored by the WC?  

 

 

Posted
20 minutes ago, Paul Cummings said:

Ben, what I'm saying is I don't think it's uncommon what she did given the time of day. 

Maybe so. I think I disagree, but that's just IMHO....

Posted (edited)

A South-Western Publishing Company Addendum....

Re: whether or not the office of South-Western Publishing was searched or not....

In this 2017 interview with South-Western TSBD employee Karen Westbrook (at the 27:55 mark), Karen talks about how the police came into her office after the assassination and pulled out all the filing cabinets. So that certainly implies that a "search" of at least a portion of the second floor did take place.

BTW, in that same 2017 interview (at 27:20), Karen Westbrook also said that after she returned to her office after seeing the President get shot, "the phones went dead" while she was on the phone talking to her mother, which must have been at least several minutes after the assassination had occurred, because Karen was out on Elm Street watching the motorcade during the shooting itself. She didn't say anything about the lights going out or a power failure, however.

BTW #2, the photograph below shows the South-Western Publishing Company office in early 1964. [EDIT -- It's actually not the SW Pub. office; see later posts for clarification.] The photo is part of Commission Document No. 496, a booklet of FBI photos and floor plans of the Book Depository. The picture below is a high-quality cropped version of this original photo from the CD496 booklet:

South-Western-Publishing-Office-2nd-Floo

Edited by David Von Pein
Posted
18 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

(Do I have this analysis right?)

Could be. I can't really tell.

Here's the 2nd-floor diagram again. It might help when comparing it to the photo. I noticed that the caption of the original FBI photo in CD496 (below) says the photo is "looking east"....

TSBD-Floor-Plan-Second-Floor.png

 

TSBD-19.png

 

Posted
8 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

A South-Western Publishing Company Addendum....

Re: whether or not the office of South-Western Publishing was searched or not....

In this 2017 interview with South-Western TSBD employee Karen Westbrook (at the 27:55 mark), Karen talks about how the police came into her office after the assassination and pulled out all the filing cabinets. So that certainly implies that a "search" of at least a portion of the second floor did take place.

BTW, in that same 2017 interview (at 27:20), Karen Westbrook also said that after she returned to her office after seeing the President get shot, "the phones went dead" while she was on the phone talking to her mother, which must have been at least several minutes after the assassination had occurred, because Karen was out on Elm Street watching the motorcade during the shooting itself. She didn't say anything about the lights going out or a power failure, however.

BTW #2, the photograph below shows the South-Western Publishing Company office in early 1964. The photo is part of Commission Document No. 496, a booklet of FBI photos and floor plans of the Book Depository. The picture below is a high-quality cropped version of this original photo from the CD496 booklet:

South-Western-Publishing-Office-2nd-Floo

DVP: Thanks for this info. 

From this photo and the diagram, it appears SW publishing had five and probably six windows facing Elm Street. 

Love the linoleum floors, and filing cabinets. People forget that pre-computer, everything was on paper. 

There is a lot of furniture in the photo. It sounds melodramatic, but a disassembled rifle in a false bottom....also the room is well large enough and with enough furniture that someone could have been hiding when Hine looked through the semi-translucent curtain....

Warren Caster was not the SWP manager but rather the asst. manager, so who knows if he rated his own office. 

From her interview, did Westbrook indicate at what time the police searched the SW Publishing office? The same day, or later? 

Was it before or after Carol Hughes left the premises? 

We do not know for how long Hughes remained behind her locked door. Five minutes? 10 minutes? 

.....

Interesting thought: If you think JFK was shot from behind, there has always been the problem of the bullet entering JFK's back on a downward slope, and then existing his neck-Adam's apple....

Less of a problem is JFK is shot from the second floor....

Oddity: Humes said the bullet path in JFK's back was at a 60-degree angle downwards. But I have never figured out exactly what means--60 degrees from back or front of JFK's body? 

That is why Humes spent so much time probing for bullet inside JFK's body. A projectile entered JFK's back at a 60-degree downward angle...and then disappeared. 

Interesting....

 

 

Posted
5 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Could be. I can't really tell.

Here's the 2nd-floor diagram again. It might help when comparing it to the photo. I noticed that the caption of the original FBI photo in CD496 (below) says the photo is "looking east"....

TSBD-Floor-Plan-Second-Floor.png

 

TSBD-19.png

 

I may be interpreting this incorrectly, but isn’t that photograph, labeled 28, the photograph taken from camera angle 28 in the diagram, which is in room 200 pointing east towards Campbell’s office (door at end of photo) - so not in SW Publishing Co.? 

Posted
13 hours ago, George Govus said:

That's right. I worked in retail. Door managers live for the moment they can permissibly lock the door.

SW Publishing was not a streetside retail operation.

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