A Problem with "Prayer Man"

[Chris Davidson]

33 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Chris Davidson I wasn't familiar with your key role in the process.

Will you share specifics that cause you concern and prevent you from betting the farm?  Do you see holes in the argument?

FWIW, @Roger Odisio contrary to those who might allege I'm solidly in the camp that scoffs at PM simply because I'm posing questions, I'm on the fence but leaning toward the conclusion Oswald couldn't be effective standing outside.

It wasn't a key role. I fortunately had acquired material that was helpful in that situation. In fact, I wasn't interested in Sean's research at all.

I don't think it serves much purpose any longer, regardless of what the strengths/weaknesses are, at this time.

It's idle chit-chat leading nowhere.

The Bell frame I supplied earlier might be a more interesting investigative subject, at least for now.

I have other fish to fry.

 

 

 

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Chris Davidson I wasn't familiar with your key role in the process.

Will you share specifics that cause you concern and prevent you from betting the farm?  Do you see holes in the argument?

FWIW, @Roger Odisio contrary to those who might allege I'm solidly in the camp that scoffs at PM simply because I'm posing questions, I'm on the fence but leaning toward the conclusion Oswald couldn't be effective standing outside.

I'm not sure if you're aware, Leslie, but the whole Prayer Man thing started right here, on this forum. Some relative newbies to the forum were trying out new ideas. I was actually intrigued by the idea PM was Oswald but was kind of alarmed at the enthusiasm they were showing to something I considered unlikely. When I admitted that I thought Prayer Man could be a woman, well, I was deemed a heretic, and some of the faithful ran off to worship in their own church where they wouldn't have to listen to heretics such as myself. 

So you're onto something, I think. The Prayer Man belief took shape at a time the body alteration/photo alteration/film alteration branch of Conspiracy research (in the form of James Fetzer) was driving people away. The recently intrigued needed something of their own, and VOILA!, up popped Prayer Man.

And, yes, I'm serious. I used to be a regular attendee at the conferences, and got to know people like Lane, Wecht, Thompson, Marrs, Groden, and Aguilar. And when I asked them what they thought of Prayer Man, they would give me a blank stare. They hadn't heard of it, and/or didn't take it seriously. Not a one. To them, It was something the newbies played with on the internet. As a relative newbie myself, of course, I knew full well that even if there were no problems with Prayer Man, it would take awhile before the old guard caught on. 

But there were problems. Lots of 'em. 

[Leslie Sharp]

5 hours ago, Chris Davidson said:

It wasn't a key role. I fortunately had acquired material that was helpful in that situation. In fact, I wasn't interested in Sean's research at all.

I don't think it serves much purpose any longer, regardless of what the strengths/weaknesses are, at this time.

It's idle chit-chat leading nowhere.

The Bell frame I supplied earlier might be a more interesting investigative subject, at least for now.

I have other fish to fry.

 

 

 

One person's "idle chit-chat" is another dozen researchers' concerted effort toward a permanent take down of the official version of the assassination AND identification of who killed JFK.   Not a parlor game for me.

I guess I misinterpreted your contribution as genuine interest.

[Leslie Sharp]

I appreciate you hanging in on this.  We can wrap it up after your responses, and of course you can choose to ignore this last round altogether.

RO1  Oswald was in custody for about 43 hours until he was murdered. We know almost nothing we can rely on about what he was asked or what he said during that time. 

 

LS 1: I think you're saying the limited notes of his interrogations that ended up in NARA reveal very little. Can you clarify at what hour the questioning first turned to the assassination of the president?

RO1 In his first interrogation he did offer an alibi when asked.

 

LS 1: It's odd to emphasize "when asked" because he's being accused of either shooting a DP officer and/or the president of the United States.  If he was totally innocent — meaning oblivious of the plot —  wouldn't you agree he would have seized every opportunity to state spontaneously and unequivocally "I Was Outside." I don't know why that's difficult to acknowledge, except that his failure to do is indication he was indeed cognizant of aspects of the plot and realized he'd been manipulated into serving as the pigeon. As I recall, an early iteration of the PM argument was, Oswald Is Innocent.  From my perspective, that's when the credibility began to slide.

 

 

RO1 We have no idea if he said any more about that as you think logic dictates.  If he did, it's a safe bet we wouldn't know about it. They tried to suppress his alibi

LS 1: Meaning the "out with Shelley in front" alibi? Or, the "I'm just a patsy" alibi?  If it was only a single statement — in response to a single question — "Out with Shelley in front," it is a very weak alibi.  However, if you're convinced he said more and/but we'll never know he said more, that should be factored in. 

 

RO1 and killed him so he couldn't defend himself and they were free to create their own story.

 

LS 1: who specifically do you posit arranged for Ruby to kill Oswald so he couldn't defend himself; who do you posit was responsible ... as in actively involved... in creating their own story? 

 

RO1 Any lawyer would have advised him to keep his mouth shut, particularly about his alibi, until he had representation.

 

LS 1: but he didn't have a lawyer, so why argue that he would keep his mouth shut, particularly about his alibi, of his own volition?  Inherent distrust of authority, OR, was he processing his being the fall guy for an operation he knew at least something about?

RO1 

LS:  Right from the time he was apprehended in the theater, Oswald had been screaming for a lawyer to tell his story to.  I thought he was mostly "screaming" that he didn't have a gun?

 

RO; One thing does not preclude the other.

LS: are you saying he did scream, "I was outside", at the time of his arrest, or en route to the station, or while he was in custody at any time other than a mild, "out with Shelley in front".

RO1:  Obviously not.  I don't know that and neither does anyone else.

 

LS 1: I'll let this slide.  Something doesn't make sense, but I don't think it alters the salient issue one way or the other.

RO1 So if Oswald was PM that would establish that he didn't kill JFK and was a patsy as he claimed.

LS 1: Or . . . Oswald was the patsy, and he doesn't need to be PM.

 

RO1 As indicated in the LaFitte datebook.  And it would blow up the WR in the process to provide a basis for determining who actually did the murder.

LS 1: As indicated previously in this thread, my concern is that the now somewhat high profile PM hypothesis could collapse and the blowback would be, "see! we told you Oswald was the assassin."

 

RO1 All of your points that I disagreed with and tried to refute, including some I wondered where they came from, was your way of trying to firm up and verify the PM story, not an indication you disagreed with it.

 

LS 1: But I didn't say I was trying to firm up and verify the PM story,  I said I saw a problem with Prayer Man (ergo the title of the post) because he's standing outside the building and his designated role as patsy is compromised by being caught on film.

 

RO1 PM is consistent with the Oswald as a patsy story in Coup in Dallas.

LS 1: No. Oswald was the patsy as defined in Lafitte's records. Was Oswald the PM is the question at hand.

[Chris Davidson]

7 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Chris Davidson

Will you share specifics that cause you concern and prevent you from betting the farm?  Do you see holes in the argument?

Me sharing my specifics doesn't serve a purpose, regardless of what I believe the strengths/weaknesses are, at this time.

Me sharing my arguments is idle chit-chat leading nowhere.

One person's "idle chit-chat" is another dozen researchers' concerted effort toward a permanent take down of the official version of the assassination AND identification of who killed JFK.   Not a parlor game for me.

My speculation has nothing to do with others and their research.

Rephrased.

 

[Leslie Sharp]

1 minute ago, Chris Davidson said:

Rephrased.

 

Got it.  Thanks for the clarification.  

[Paul Bacon]

11 hours ago, Chris Davidson said:

I have other fish to fry.

Yes you do!  And I hope you'll serve them up soon.

[Eddy Bainbridge]

Hi Leslie,

Not wishing to derail this thread but earlier you stated :

"re: NBC
You may be aware, but a respected member of the JFK forensics community and author of peer reviewed articles for medical journals was in the NBC studio and was shown (briefly but long enough for certain details to register) a copy of the original Z film before it was tampered with."

Please can you expand on this. Do you know who the 'respected member' is and what did they say about the 'certain details' of the film.

 

[Tom Gram]

This might have been posted already, but it deserves a bump: 

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2743-the-latest-pm-thread-at-the-ef#42169

Alex Wilson, who knows a lot about WWII and European history, requested temporary posting status on the EF to debate Leslie. Can we start a petition? Mods, you know you want to see this happen. 

Maybe if Jeremy,  Jonathan, Roger or Gil( if he's still a member here, and by the way Gil, kudos for your patience and your photo collage. I believe that's what's known colloquially as " Checkmate ") would be kind enough to ask if I could be briefly granted guest posting status, over on the 13 inch head emporium,  I would be very interested in debating Ms Sharp in person. 

As the issues ive raised here are just the tip of the iceberg,  regarding the errors,  omissions,  inventions and flat out falsehoods relating to WW2 era history and wider European history in general 

I'm at a loss to understand why anyone would decide to publish a book crammed with basic errors and proveable falsehoods. 

And that's not even mentioning the myriad of unresolved issues relating to the so called datebook.

[Andrej Stancak]

Well, even if some Forum members would like to shovel away the problem of Prayer Man identity, the fact remains that that unknown man resembling Lee Oswald stood there at the western wall, and the question of who that person was is a very legitimate one. The story can be closed once we have a positive identification of that person as being someone else than Lee Oswald. Until then, the identity of Prayer Man is a challenge that needs to be addressed. I understand that quite many people got frustrated and could not find any way to explore the issue further but their pessimistic attitudes do not serve the JFKA community well. Arguments like who from the well-known JFKA researchers had ignored Prayer Man are laughable. Writing a book on e.g., medical evidence does not make a researcher capable to also comment on Prayer Man identity.

So, can someone please name one single feature that would disqualify Lee Oswald as Prayer Man? Just one such feature would close the case immediately. For instance, if Prayer Man had blonde hair, we could exclude Lee Oswald right away because Lee's hair as dark. 

In contrast, we stare at a long list of points that strengthen the possibility of Lee Oswald being Prayer Man. Sorry for repeating the same arguments again and again:

1. Prayer Man was a male, as was Lee Oswald. This feature excludes about 50.5% of general population as Prayer Man candidates.

2. Prayer man was a White Causasian, as was Lee Oswald. This excludes 15% of Dallas population who belonged to one of race minorities in Dallas in 1963.

3. Prayer Man had dark hair, as Lee Oswald had.

4. The shape of Prayer Man's hairline was that of type II male baldness, as was Lee Oswald's hairline. About 25% of males have this type of hairline, age not being a factor here.

5. Prayer Man's body height was between 5'9'' and 5' 10'', matching Lee Oswald's body height. The height data requires some detailed analysis. Being an author of a book on JFKA does not help. You really need to use realistic measures of the doorway and a realistic 3D model of the doorway to be able to determine Prayer Man's body height. I understand that some Forum members opted not to invest time, effort and funds to carry on such modelling project. They chose not to want to know Prayer Man's body height. 

6. Prayer Man could only stand at one particular location in the doorway else, if he stood at any different location, the distances from other objects in the doorway, e.g. the door frame, the brick wall seen on the western wall, or figures of other people standing next to Prayer Man, would not match the scene depicted in Darnell still. The problems of body height and Prayer Man's exact location in the doorway are inseparable. If you want to estimate Prayer Man's body height, you need to also say where exactly did he stand.

7. The exact location of Prayer Man at the edge of the top landing dictates that he had to stand with his right foot on the step below the top landing and his left foot on the top landing and slightly forward. There are couple of frames in Darnell film which also show the space occupied by Prayer Man's left leg, and those stills allowed to visualise the bend left leg, after applying 3D brightness coding of the still. Again, I am not sure how writing a treatise on some aspect of assassination can help a researcher to figure out a detail such as this. Of note, Lee Oswald used to stand this exact way, which is documented in several photographs. 

6. Prayer Man's clothing (the shirt and the trousers) form one, almost continuous grey area. We know what garment Lee wore on Friday morning: the maroon CE 151 and the slacks CE157. The shade of grey in photographs of these two pieces of clothing matches the grey seen on Prayer Man's figure. Of course, this is not a proof of identity. However, if Lee had on himself his darker shirt CE150 and his trousers CE158 in which he was captured in the Texas Theatre, there would be no match with Prayer Man's grey clothes, and we could exclude him as Prayer Man right here.

8. I leave out my observation of dark spots seen on Prayer Man's shirt and their resemblance with the spots seen on shirt CE 151 as this aspect requires some further analysis. However, if Lee's shirt CE151 would not show any dark spots, we could already eliminate Lee as Prayer Man. The point is that that shirt actually shows some diagonally aranged spots. Just try to guess how many shirts on males watching the motorcade on Dealey Plaza (or in the entire Dallas) showed any dark spots arranged diagonally. It would be a pitifully small number of shirts; dare I say - maybe just this one.

9. Exclusion analysis: is there any better candidate among the Depository employees to be Prayer Man? This analysis has been done exhaustively early on on ROKC forum, and the simple answer was that there was no other person from among the Depository employees whose whereabouts and his physical features allowed to be considered as Prayer Man. Lee Oswald could be Prayer Man because his whereabouts have been made intentionally murky, but no one else.  

I do not understand the pessimism on the large part of Forum members as to whether the Prayer Man identity problem will ever be solved. It certainly will and it is only a matter of time. The work of quite many researchers who invested themselves into following this case will eventually come to fruition. In the meantime, we will tolerate those sceptic, often arrogant, voices promising an assured nil result. This is a martahon run, and the winner will only be known when we reach the finishing line.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Andrej Stancak

[Roger Odisio]

11 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

 

I appreciate you hanging in on this.  We can wrap it up after your responses, and of course you can choose to ignore this last round altogether.

RO1  Oswald was in custody for about 43 hours until he was murdered. We know almost nothing we can rely on about what he was asked or what he said during that time. 

 

LS:  I appreciate you hanging in on this.  We can wrap it up after your responses, and of course you can choose to ignore this last round altogether.

RO1  Oswald was in custody for about 43 hours until he was murdered. We know almost nothing we can rely on about what he was asked or what he said during that time. 

 

LS 1: I think you're saying the limited notes of his interrogations that ended up in NARA reveal very little. Can you clarify at what hour the questioning first turned to the assassination of the president?

 

RO2;  No, the opposite.  Hosty's note is a precise statement of Oswald's alibi.  I believe the first interrogation of Oswald, with Hosty present, began about 3:00 PM the day of the murder. 

RO1 In his first interrogation he did offer an alibi when asked.

 

LS 1: It's odd to emphasize "when asked" because he's being accused of either shooting a DP officer and/or the president of the United States.  If he was totally innocent — meaning oblivious of the plot —  wouldn't you agree he would have seized every opportunity to state spontaneously and unequivocally "I Was Outside." I don't know why that's difficult to acknowledge, except that his failure to do is indication he was indeed cognizant of aspects of the plot and realized he'd been manipulated into serving as the pigeon. As I recall, an early iteration of the PM argument was, Oswald Is Innocent.  From my perspective, that's when the credibility began to slide.

 

RO2:  Not odd.  Oswald's statement that he went outside to watch the p. parade *is* unequivocal.  We don't know what else was said by him or others. That's deliberate. They were going to kill him so he couldn't defend himself, and suppress anything he might have said beforehand.  Hosty's note was supposed to have been destroyed. 

 

I'm saying Oswald was "totally innocent" of shooting JFK. I have repeatedly said I don't know what he knew, if anything, about the plot.

 

RO1 We have no idea if he said any more about that as you think logic dictates.  If he did, it's a safe bet we wouldn't know about it. They tried to suppress his alibi

LS 1: Meaning the "out with Shelley in front" alibi? Or, the "I'm just a patsy" alibi?  If it was only a single statement — in response to a single question — "Out with Shelley in front," it is a very weak alibi.  However, if you're convinced he said more and/but we'll never know he said more, that should be factored in. 

 

RO:  Neither.  The I went outside to watch the p parade alibi.

 

RO1 and killed him so he couldn't defend himself and they were free to create their own story.

 

LS 1: who specifically do you posit arranged for Ruby to kill Oswald so he couldn't defend himself; who do you posit was responsible ... as in actively involved... in creating their own story? 

 

RO2:  The gang that murdered JFK.

 

RO1 Any lawyer would have advised him to keep his mouth shut, particularly about his alibi, until he had representation.

 

LS 1: but he didn't have a lawyer, so why argue that he would keep his mouth shut, particularly about his alibi, of his own volition?  Inherent distrust of authority, OR, was he processing his being the fall guy for an operation he knew at least something about?

 

RO2: He didn't keep his mouth fully shut as we've just discussed. He told his alibi in the first interrogation. I've argued he was smart not to talk about his alibi to the jackal of reporters in the hallway.  It seems to me a main reason he immediately started asking for a lawyer, and persisted, was he understood he needed advice about what to say or do.  This thought only grew as he realized the pickle he was in.  Which is why he said he would even consider a shyster from the Dallas bar if he couldn't get Abt or someone from the ACLU.

RO1 So if Oswald was PM that would establish that he didn't kill JFK and was a patsy as he claimed.

LS 1: Or . . . Oswald was the patsy, and he doesn't need to be PM.

 

RO2:  True.  But if he is PM it destroys the WR and paves the way for looking for who actually did it.  If PM is someone else, it doesn't matter. As you said, and I can verify, PM's view with the people in front of him was extremely limited.  It's unlikely he was on the steps for very long, but we don't know when he appeared on the steps or when he left.   Both Darnell and Wiegman captured a view of the steps only briefly, about 15 to 30 seconds after the shots.  It's easy to imagine that Oswald was out there at some point, yet not captured by one or both of them.  Point is, identification of PM is important and I assume you are on board for that.  

 

RO1 As indicated in the LaFitte datebook.  And it would blow up the WR in the process to provide a basis for determining who actually did the murder.  As you said, PM's view was extremely limited.  

LS 1: As indicated previously in this thread, my concern is that the now somewhat high profile PM hypothesis could collapse and the blowback would be, "see! we told you Oswald was the assassin."

 

RO2: You mean if they can prove he was even on the 6th floor.  No point in worrying about that.  Bad faith critics will try that kind of argument regardless about anything.

 

RO1 All of your points that I disagreed with and tried to refute, including some I wondered where they came from, was your way of trying to firm up and verify the PM story, not an indication you disagreed with it.

 

LS 1: But I didn't say I was trying to firm up and verify the PM story,  I said I saw a problem with Prayer Man (ergo the title of the post) because he's standing outside the building and his designated role as patsy is compromised by being caught on film.

 

RO2: You said PM was consistent with the information in the LaFitte notebook but you were concerned that without verification of the PM story, it could turn out to be a weak link in your story.  For that reason you were exploring the weaknesses you saw in the PM story. That's why I said you were trying to verify and firm up the PM story.  I concluded that was your purpose in discussing what you saw as weaknesses in PM.

 

RO1 PM is consistent with the Oswald as a patsy story in Coup in Dallas.

LS 1: No. Oswald was the patsy as defined in Lafitte's records. Was Oswald the PM is the question at hand.

 

RO2: Oswald as the patsy is part of the story in Coup and his being PM is consistent with that story. Yes, the question is was PM Oswald.

 

From a previous post:

LS:FWIW, @Roger Odisio contrary to those who might allege I'm solidly in the camp that scoffs at PM simply because I'm posing questions, I'm on the fence but leaning toward the conclusion Oswald couldn't be effective standing outside.

 

RO2:  A summary as a way to wrap this up:  If true, the PM story is consistent with the LaFitte notebook and the story in Coup. You're not sure it is true and are worried it could backfire on your work. I have tried to answer each of your criticisms of the thesis.

 

If true, PM would be a tremendous breakthrough in the case.  If not true, PM would be just another irrelevant rabbit hole.  I would therefore assume you are interested in finding out if it is true, maybe even as much as I.

[Roger Odisio]

18 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I'm not sure if you're aware, Leslie, but the whole Prayer Man thing started right here, on this forum. Some relative newbies to the forum were trying out new ideas. I was actually intrigued by the idea PM was Oswald but was kind of alarmed at the enthusiasm they were showing to something I considered unlikely. When I admitted that I thought Prayer Man could be a woman, well, I was deemed a heretic, and some of the faithful ran off to worship in their own church where they wouldn't have to listen to heretics such as myself. 

So you're onto something, I think. The Prayer Man belief took shape at a time the body alteration/photo alteration/film alteration branch of Conspiracy research (in the form of James Fetzer) was driving people away. The recently intrigued needed something of their own, and VOILA!, up popped Prayer Man.

And, yes, I'm serious. I used to be a regular attendee at the conferences, and got to know people like Lane, Wecht, Thompson, Marrs, Groden, and Aguilar. And when I asked them what they thought of Prayer Man, they would give me a blank stare. They hadn't heard of it, and/or didn't take it seriously. Not a one. To them, It was something the newbies played with on the internet. As a relative newbie myself, of course, I knew full well that even if there were no problems with Prayer Man, it would take awhile before the old guard caught on. 

But there were problems. Lots of 'em. 

Were are the problems, Pat?  I mean besides the obvious ones of getting see Darnell and Wiegman and enhancing them to make identification more clear. 

[Pete Mellor]

On 6/30/2023 at 11:48 PM, Leslie Sharp said:

Neither does Lafitte reveal whether Bowen [Albert Osborne] and Hudson [John Wilson] were already in Mexico or if they traveled together or separately by auto, plane, or bus. He doesn't mention Bowen/Osborne as having been on a bus with Oswald although many researchers accept the itinerant preacher was on that bus. It should be noted that on September 22, Lafitte makes a notation "Oswald - Mex city" and beneath he writes, "Gaudet."

Leslie, Apologies for quoting your opening post on this thread, I've been away for some days.

I got hold of a letter that Uncle Albert wrote on the 13th April 1964 from Mexico to his relatives in Grimsby U.K. He wrote:-

For the past few months I have been under investigation by the American F.B.I.  They claim when I travelled to Mexico City on Sept 25th, a man named Lee Oswald sat next to me and held a conversation with me.  While I have not the slightest idea of travelling with such a man, they still are questioning about what he talked about.  It is strange in this day and age how a person can get involved.  But my conscious (sic) is clear on this matter.  So why should I worry.

 

[Leslie Sharp]

1 hour ago, Pete Mellor said:

Leslie, Apologies for quoting your opening post on this thread, I've been away for some days.

I got hold of a letter that Uncle Albert wrote on the 13th April 1964 from Mexico to his relatives in Grimsby U.K. He wrote:-

For the past few months I have been under investigation by the American F.B.I.  They claim when I travelled to Mexico City on Sept 25th, a man named Lee Oswald sat next to me and held a conversation with me.  While I have not the slightest idea of travelling with such a man, they still are questioning about what he talked about.  It is strange in this day and age how a person can get involved.  But my conscious (sic) is clear on this matter.  So why should I worry.

 

Thanks, Pete.  Very interesting read. It's remarkable he had opted to make a phone call related to the assassination;  does he deny that call as well, or is it an instance of presumed identity?

To reiterate, we make no mention of Osborne or Bowen traveling on a bus with Oswald because Lafitte makes no such note. 

[Sandy Larsen]

15 hours ago, Andrej Stancak said:

Well, even if some Forum members would like to shovel away the problem of Prayer Man identity, the fact remains that that unknown man resembling Lee Oswald stood there at the western wall, and the question of who that person was is a very legitimate one.

 

You've done some great work on Prayer Man, Andrej. Don't let the naysayers ever get you down.