Prayer Man More Than A Fuzzy Picture

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 8/11/2023 at 2:57 AM, Gerry Down said:

Lovelady saw Baker and Truly run up the stairs? Maybe he meant he saw them run up the front steps of the tsbd.

With regard to the two white men that Baker saw. There appears to be less people on the front steps of the tsbd in the Darnell footage than at the time of the altgens 6 photo. I wonder if some of the people on the steps at the time of the altgens 6 photo had gone back inside by the time of the Darnell footage. 

Truly most likely asked Shelley to guard the elevator after coming back down. If truly was so thoughtful to get someone to guard the front elevator, then wouldn't he also have got someone to guard the back elevators while he ran up the stairs?

Gerry,

As I mentioned earlier, the whole "Truly and Baker raced up the back stairs within a minute or so of the shots" narrative is extremely suspect, in my opinion.

What Lovelady stated to the HSCA (that he saw Truly and Baker race up the back stairs) would be correct if Baker and Truly did not start their ascent for three or four minutes or so after the assassination. 

If I'm right, then neither Adams or Lovelady or Shelley were consciously lying - but Baker and Truly sure were! 

[Greg Doudna]

Some comments on Prayer Man that may be new, in support of Bart Kamp's book's thesis

Who is Large-Framed Figure standing immediately to the left of Buell Wesley Frazier on the same top landing level in Darnell?

I wrote a fuller discussion of this above to Pat Speer who has not as yet responded, maybe others might wish to address this. It is astonishing to me that I do not see prior proposals that Large-Framed Figure (LFF) to Frazier's immediate left, in the Darnell film, is Sarah Stanton. The width of LFF's body frame corresponds to Sarah Stanton's obesity. The height of LFF at 5'6" (hair included) agrees with Sarah Stanton's height. And LFF is in exactly the position that Buell Wesley Frazier said Sarah Stanton was, and Pauline Sanders said Sarah Stanton was, to Frazier's left as Frazier explicitly said (not to his right where Prayer Man was)--no, LFF is exactly where Frazier located Sarah Stanton to his immediate left, with whom Frazier exchanged words back and forth as she stood next to him. Large-Framed Figure is exactly a match to Sarah Stanton. 

Yet surprisingly LFF has not been so identified (as Sarah Stanton) previously so far as I can tell. Andrej Stancak in his discussions identified Large-Framed Figure (LFF) as Shelley. But if Shelley is correctly identified in the Crouch film as walking with Lovelady west in front of the TSBD, as I believe most now consider that more or less settled, Shelley is not LFF. Others have identified LFF as Molina. Superficially there is a case for this match because Molina testified that he was right in front of the door, on the top step, when he saw Truly come in to the TSBD, which Molina estimated was 20-30 seconds after the shots, at about the same time as Darnell.

But a Molina identification for LFF is not right for the following reasons. First, look at the hair on LFF. It looks like at least an inch up from the head all over the head, consistent with a photo of Sarah Stanton's hair. LFF's hair matches Sarah Stanton's hair. It does not match Molina who from photos appears semi-bald or with thinning flat hair. Second, LFF is extremely wide in body, more than normal, consistent with Sarah Stanton's obesity, but not obviously in agreement with Molina who I think was a more normal build. Third, I don't have height data for Molina but 5'6" height of LFF, including hair, 5'5" or even 5'4-1/2" actual height to the top of the head not counting hair, is at the heart of the bell-curve of women's heights, not most men's heights. Fourth, Molina is identified in the Altgens6 photo as a figure standing a step or two down in the sun with his arm raised and shielding his eyes from the sun, and the same posture and figure, that is, Molina, appears in Darnell distinct from and a little lower and to the left of LFF, therefore is not LFF. And fifth, Molina's language in his Warren Commission testimony of being outside in front of the door is well understand as general language which would be used for being anywhere outside on that landing or steps, and it is overprecision to say that Molina's testimony of being out in front of the door can only mean LFF's position.

If Large-Framed figure is Sarah Stanton, then Sarah Stanton was not Prayer Man, in agreement with Frazier who has always remembered Sarah Stanton at his left but is unable to identify Prayer Man to his right. If Prayer Man were Sarah Stanton, Frazier would identify her. The simplest explanation for why he does not identify PM as Stanton is because he knows Sarah Stanton was to his left, where she visibly IS in the Darnell photos, as Large-Framed Figure.

With Sarah Stanton excluded as Prayer Man (if the LFF Sarah Stanton identification is accepted as convincing), and with no other good identification for Prayer Man in place, the possibility that Oswald was that figure receives heightened focus.

To spell it out: removal of Sarah Stanton as Prayer Man (because she is Large-Framed Figure to Frazier's left) removes the only major claimed alternative to Oswald himself as the leading candidate for identification of Prayer Man.

Did Prayer Man come out through the doors of the front entrance before, during, or after the shots?

It is usually assumed that the Prayer Man photograph in Wiegman was taken a few seconds before the fatal head shot of JFK of Z312. While that may be correct, it is possible that photograph was taken an unknown number of seconds after the shots were fired, according to a technical analysis of Stancak although Stancak does not draw a post-Z312 Wiegman conclusion directly. Stancak presents an argument that there was frames removal of some sort in the Zapruder film on the basis of comparison with two checkpoints in Wiegman, and discrepancies between Altgens6 and a conventional assumption of match to the time of a frame in Wiegman: https://thejfktruthmatters.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/the-timing-of-wiegman-film-and-altgens6-photograph-questions-the-continuity-of-frames-in-zapruder-film/.

Wiegman himself said he remembered the second shot of the JFK shooting happening as he stepped out of his car in the parade, and then started running with movie camera running, but could not remember whether he started the film running before or after he left the car. If there were some seconds, say as much as 10 seconds before Wiegman got his movie camera started recording, combined with the hypothesis of removal of an unknown quantity or segment of frames from Zapruder at some point later than Z255 which Stancak argues was the case on independent grounds from analysis of Wiegman and Altgens6, one could get a scenario of Wiegman's Prayer Man not being a photo at the same moment as Altgens6 but a little later, perhaps after the fatal shot of Z312.

The reason this might matter is, on the one hand, Oswald said in his interrogations that he had gone to the second floor to get a coke with his lunch before the assassination, then (following that) he went out front "to watch the P. Parade" (Hosty notes) or "out with Bill Shelley in front" (Fritz notes). 

And yet in the hallway to reporters when asked if he was in the building at the time (of the assassination)--and this was after he gave those answers in interrogation--Oswald did not volunteer that he was out front, but said he was inside the building.

(Note in that exchange Oswald also did not say to those reporters that he was on the first floor of the building where he would have witnesses, even though he did claim that when he was interrogated. The point is it can equally well be asked why Oswald would not say "first floor lunchroom" if he had been there, as "on the landing outside the front door"--both would potentially have witnesses.) 

Here is what Oswald said:

"to 1st floor had lunch/ out with Bill Shelley in/ front/ left work..." (Fritz handwritten notes)

"O [Oswald] stated he was present for work at TBD on the morning of 11/22 and at noon went to lunch. He went to 2nd floor to get Coca Cola to eat with lunch and returned to 1st floor to eat lunch. Then went outside to watch P. [Presidential] Parade" (Hosty handwritten notes written no later than Nov 23, 1963)

"Oswald stated that he went to lunch at approximately noon and he claimed he ate his lunch on the first floor in the lunchroom; however he went to the second floor where the Coca-Cola machine was located and obtained a bottle of Coca-Cola for his lunch. Oswald claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed this building." (FBI, Bookhout and Hosty, report dated Nov 23, 1963 of Oswald interrogation of Nov 22)

The objection that no one saw Oswald out front of all the witnesses who were there--arguably not so 

The objection that no witnesses saw Oswald there, therefore he was not Prayer Man, could equally be raised in objection to the common belief that Oswald left the TSBD by the front of the building. Apart from testimony from reporter Pierce Allman that he encountered Oswald about 3 minutes after the assassination at the front doorway, in agreement with Oswald's claim to Secret Service Inspector Kelley that he had been asked by a "Secret Service" agent at that location to direct him to a phone, no other witness to my knowledge is reported to have seen Oswald at the front or leaving by the front at that time--why not? Is that much difference in principle from asking why no one is reported to have seen Oswald at the same front doorway area 2-1/2 minutes earlier as Prayer Man?

Two reports, largely overlooked, of TSBD witnesses who may have seen and told of seeing Oswald in the front doorway area at the time Prayer Man was there

(1) The first is Carolyn Arnold in a statement to the FBI of Nov 26, 1963. Note how early this is, how detailed and specific, and how contrary to interest it is on the part of the FBI to have her say this--all three details weighing in favor of a genuine report, which stands despite Carolyn Arnold in 1978 telling reporter Earl Golz she had no memory of having said it, evidently having forgotten it. But the written FBI report did not forget.

"[She] left that office [on the second floor] between 12:00 and 12:15 PM, to go downstairs and stand in front of the building to view the Presidential Motorcade. As she was standing in front of the building, she stated she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of Lee Harvey Oswald standing in the hallway between the front door and the double doors leading to the warehouse, located on the first floor. She could not be sure that this was Oswald, but said she felt it was..." (FBI, Nov 26, 1963, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10406#relPageId=44)

 A later FBI statement has her saying she did not see Oswald "at that time or at any time during that day", which conflicts with that early FBI report (unless an FBI focus on her lack of certainty might have been deemed cause for leaving it out of their writeup?), and also conflicts with Carolyn Arnold's repeated insistence in later interviews that she also saw Oswald before the assassination in the second-floor lunchroom, in agreement with Oswald in interrogation who said he had gone there before the assassination to get a coke to have with his lunch on the 1st floor. Carolyn Arnold, who said she never saw the FBI reports the second of which it is alleged she signed, later expressed surprise that her second-floor lunchroom sighting of Oswald before the assassination was not in the Nov 26, 1963 interview report for she was sure she would have told it to the FBI.  

This should not be read as a discrepancy on Carolyn Arnold's part concerning the location of a single Oswald sighting. It reads to me as two distinct claims of Oswald sightings: one that she forgot (and expressed uncertainty concerning at the outset), and the other, the second-floor lunchroom sighting, of which she was never uncertain. Carolyn Arnold was not called to testify to the Warren Commission, and the above FBI statement with what she thought was her sighting of Oswald at the TSBD front doorway reportedly was not in the Warren Commission's published exhibits (http://22november1963.org.uk/carolyn-arnold-witness-oswald). 

(2) The second comes from the report of the Brian Doyle interview of Rosa Daniel and her daughter Wanda, the daughter-in-law and granddaughter respectively of Sarah Stanton, in this January 2019 article published by Richard Gilbride, https://jfkinsidejob.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/FURTHERING-THE-LUNCHROOM-EVIDENCE.pdf. I am here quoting brief passages from the Gilbride publication for purposes of research and discussion in accord with legal "fair use", with acknowledgement to the copyright owner of that article.  

Although Sarah Stanton is reported to have signed an FBI statement saying she never saw Oswald on the day of the assassination, as I understand it the FBI supplied the Warren Commission with the statements but not those signatures (even in photocopy form), and so far as I can tell no one has reported having seen the signatures. (I can certainly find no signatures for those statements on the MFF site.) But, the FBI says Sarah Stanton signed it. Even though her family told a very different story of what Sarah Stanton always said to them.

I do not have the same interpretation as Gilbride does in his article but the content of the interview could be significant in a way that has not been appreciated. 

For according to Sarah Stanton's family, Sarah Stanton met Oswald on "the stairs", where she had "went down" from the second floor, to see the President "on the stairs".

Rosa: "That, uh--she [Sarah] said, 'I went down because they said that, uh, the--that the President was going--they were already coming, but not--not there yet.' So she wanted to prepare herself and be on the stairs--where--where she met Oswald." 

Anyone can read the Gilbride article to get more of the interview. Rosa tells of what Sarah Stanton always said, how she had met Oswald that day "on the stairs".

How she had gone down "to prepare herself and be on the stairs" to see the president (front steps of the TSBD entrance?).

How she told of Oswald having a Coke when she saw him "on the stairs" (Prayer Man with a coke on the front steps?).

How she spoke to Oswald there "on the stairs" (steps?). How Oswald told her he was going to return to "his room" (the domino room?).

Gilbride interprets the "stairs" where Sarah Stanton said she wanted to go early to "prepare herself" for seeing the president's parade, as the NW stairway, rather than as the front steps of the TSBD as I am suggesting.

I believe this can be read as an instance in which one TSBD employee/witness on those front steps ("stairs") near Oswald, Sarah Stanton who had gone there to see the president, may have seen Oswald as Prayer Man, perhaps spoke to Oswald as he passed by her (perhaps after Frazier moved forward down to the sidewalk as he said he moved next). And according to the family, Sarah Stanton told of this for years to her family, of that meeting on the "stairs" with Oswald where Sarah had gone to watch the president.

Possible reconstruction: from Carolyn Arnold's contemporary report written up by the FBI on Nov 26, 1963, Oswald may have been seen by her standing inside the double doors at the entrance, coke in hand, behind the glass partition of the doorway, watching the parade go by, still "inside the building" when the assassination happened, in agreement with Oswald's answer to the reporters' question in the hallway asking where he was at the time. From that vantage position he would have been able to see, and also would have heard the shots when they happened. 

Upon hearing the shots he may have seen talking happening outside and stepped through the door and moved to the shadow area at the northwest of the landing, then forward to the edge of the shadow area one step down, in order to overhear what was being said (his reason for going out the door). Wiegman captures Oswald on film as Prayer Man. Some seconds later Darnell also captures Oswald as Prayer Man. After hearing whatever he wanted to overhear he leaves, retreats, perhaps speaking a word to Sarah Stanton as he went by in response to her speaking friendly to him (after Frazier had stepped forward down to the sidewalk area as Frazier said was his next movement). Now intent on leaving the building, Oswald goes up the NE stairwell to the second floor, with intent to go out the NW stairwell, back down and out the rear, but sees officer Baker through a glass window in the NW stairwell (and is seen by Baker). They have their encounter, followed by Oswald returning back down the way he went up, by the NE stairwell to the first floor again. 

Comment on Frazier's failure to identify Prayer Man as Oswald

Frazier's comments have been consistent--he says he does not remember and has no idea who Prayer Man was.

That is an extremely strong argument for excluding that it was Sarah Stanton.

It is not a weighty argument however for excluding that it was Oswald. Here is Frazier:

"To answer the question about Prayer Man: I have been looking at this all day, and I can tell you this: I 100% have no idea who that person is. I can also tell you 100% that is not Lee Harvey Oswald. First, Lee was not out there. I know that to be true. Second, for anyone who thinks Prayer Man is Lee, the individual has a much larger frame than Lee." (Buell Wesley Frazier, Facebook, March 28, 2021)

On his statement of knowing Oswald was not there, that may be simply explained: he may believe the second-floor lunchroom encounter of Baker and Oswald is in contradiction to Oswald as Prayer Man, therefore Oswald cannot be he because he was somewhere else. That reason, if so, is not coming from his knowledge as a witness. And it is also a mistaken conclusion or belief since as has been discussed earlier in this thread, Oswald as Prayer Man is not inconsistent in timing and logistics with Oswald going up to the second floor to make his exit out the rear of the building and encountering officer Baker.  

Frazier's second reason for negative certainty (that Prayer Man is not Oswald), that the figure looks too heavyset to be Oswald, is a simple judgment of photo interpretation of no more or less strength than anyone else's, also unrelated to his being a witness.

What Frazier has not claimed as a reason for his negative certainty that I have seen, is: if it had been Oswald he would have noticed.

But although Frazier did not notice Prayer Man's or Oswald's presence even though Prayer Man had come in from behind and was close to Frazier to his right, Carolyn Arnold and Sarah Stanton may have seen Oswald at that front doorway area of TSBD at the time of the assassination and said so.

Conclusion

It is probably not correct to claim that "no one" saw Oswald out at those front steps. I have just cited two arguably credible claims from TSBD employees who said they did (in Sarah Stanton's case as remembered by her family, interpreting "stairs" as changed in the telling from Sarah Stanton's meaning of the TSBD's front steps).   

Neither of these two women, Carolyn Arnold or Sarah Stanton were called to testify by the Warren Commission.

If Oswald was "in front" (Fritz notes) and "outside to watch P. Parade" (Hosty notes) after eating his lunch on the first floor, not only might those two women have told of seeing him there, but it might even have been captured on camera ... it would be surprising if it were not captured on camera.  

Making Bart Kamp's website and book, Prayer Man: More than a Fuzzy Picture, one of the most important issues in any current discussion of the JFK assassination (because if Oswald was Prayer Man, he did not assassinate President Kennedy, and that would be, to put it mildly, a game-changer, an Innocence Project genre outcome for the ages). 

Important to not let this go until there is a real identification of this figure who definitely existed, who has no good identification as other than Oswald, and who is where Oswald said he was at the time.   

Edited September 29, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Karl Kinaski]

There is one huge flaw in Bart Kamps reasoning. In order to discredit witness statements by comparing it and pointing to contratictions he takes all Warren Commission testimonies for untainted. They are not, as we know from Jean Hill etc. To compare tainted Warren Commission testimonies in order to discredit witness in order to make a fuzzy picture more credible is laughable. PRAYERMAN MORE THAN A FUZZY PICTURE is build on sand. 

[James DiEugenio]

Karl, he takes all WC testimonies as untainted?

Are you serious?  Have you read the book?

He compares testimonies from different venues and evaluates them.  

[James DiEugenio]

And let me say this once more, in the strongest terms since DPF is rapping  about it.

Prayer Man is NOT SARAH STANTON!  

I know this to be the case for sure.

 

[Roger Odisio]

10 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

So

10 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

  

Important to not let this go until there is a real identification of this figure who definitely existed, who has no good identification as other than Oswald, and who is where Oswald said he was at the time.   

There's a lot here.  I'll respond to a couple of points.

 

GD:  Some comments on Prayer Man that may be new, in support of Bart Kamp's book's thesis

 

Did Prayer Man come out through the doors of the front entrance before, during, or after the shots?

 

It is usually assumed that the Prayer Man photograph in Wiegman was taken a few seconds before the fatal head shot of JFK of Z312. While that may be correct, it is possible that photograph was taken an unknown number of seconds after the shots were fired, according to a technical analysis of Stancak although Stancak does not draw a post-Z312 Wiegman conclusion directly. Stancak presents an argument that there was frames removal of some sort in the Zapruder film on the basis of comparison with two checkpoints in Wiegman, and discrepancies between Altgens6 and a conventional assumption of match to the time of a frame in Wiegman: https://thejfktruthmatters.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/the-timing-of-wiegman-film-and-altgens6-photograph-questions-the-continuity-of-frames-in-zapruder-film/.

 

Wiegman himself said he remembered the second shot of the JFK shooting happening as he stepped out of his car in the parade, and then started running with movie camera running, but could not remember whether he started the film running before or after he left the car. If there were some seconds, say as much as 10 seconds before Wiegman got his movie camera started recording, combined with the hypothesis of removal of an unknown quantity or segment of frames from Zapruder at some point later than Z255 which Stancak argues was the case on independent grounds from analysis of Wiegman and Altgens6, one could get a scenario of Wiegman's Prayer Man not being a photo at the same moment as Altgens6 but a little later, perhaps after the fatal shot of Z312.

 

RO:  It's clear parts of Zapruder *were* altered, starting the weekend of the murder with the diversion of the original film to the National Photo Interpretation Center in DC and the CIA's then secret facility at Hawkeye Works in Rochester where the alterations were begun. As Doug Horne's interview with Homer McMahon, who worked on the second set of briefing boards, makes clear the alterations extended beyond that weekend for who knows how long after, since the film was kept out of view by Life, fronting for the CIA, for about 12 years. I explained the how and why of the alteration process in another thread a few days ago.

 

A simple example is the missing footage of the turn on to Elm Street when an assassin in either the TSB or Dal-Tex had a clear and easy shot.

 

A better example is the head shot in the extant Zapruder.  Dino Brugioni was emphatic that  the film he saw Saturday night while making the first set of briefing boards showed a very different head shot.  It went on for several frames, not one, and there was a dramatic spray of blood, tissue, and bone several feet in the air.  Dino's boards he made of that were later destroyed.

 

It's likely the alteration was done to obscure the fact that there were two, not one, shots to the head that were close together.  Two shots as well as least five in total is what Tink Thompson asserts. based mainly on a more careful assessment of acoustical evidence in his recent book.  Two shots to the head will be discussed at Duquesne U in November.  That's a game changing possibility as well. 

 

GD:  The reason this might matter is, on the one hand, Oswald said in his interrogations that he had gone to the second floor to get a coke with his lunch before the assassination, then (following that) he went out front "to watch the P. Parade" (Hosty notes) or "out with Bill Shelley in front" (Fritz notes). 

 

And yet in the hallway to reporters when asked if he was in the building at the time (of the assassination)--and this was after he gave those answers in interrogation--Oswald did not volunteer that he was out front, but said he was inside the building.

 

(Note in that exchange Oswald also did not say to those reporters that he was on the first floor of the building where he would have witnesses, even though he did claim that when he was interrogated. The point is it can equally well be asked why Oswald would not say "first floor lunchroom" if he had been there, as "on the landing outside the front door"--both would potentially have witnesses.) 

 

Here is what Oswald said:

 

"to 1st floor had lunch/ out with Bill Shelley in/ front/ left work..." (Fritz handwritten notes)

 

"O [Oswald] stated he was present for work at TBD on the morning of 11/22 and at noon went to lunch. He went to 2nd floor to get Coca Cola to eat with lunch and returned to 1st floor to eat lunch. Then went outside to watch P. [Presidential] Parade" (Hosty handwritten notes written no later than Nov 23, 1963)

 

 

RO: What Oswald said briefly to some reporters in the hallway is both ambiguous and understandable in his situation.  He was asked 4 times in about 30 seconds, did you kill the president?  He denied it twice.  He was asked then "were you in (not "inside") the building at the time".  What does "in the building" and "at the time" mean?

 

This exchange was around 7:00 the first night. The reporters knew he had been picked up at a movie theater that afternoon shortly after the murder.  It likely was an early question to establish his general whereabouts around the time JFK was murdered (hence the vagueness of "at the time").  They could have simply been asking if Oswald went to work that day or something similar.

 

It's unlikely it was asked to establish whether he was inside the building or outside of it.  The reporters didn't know anything about Oswald's alibi at the time. Substituting "inside" for "in" has been used by those disingenuously trying to claim a discrepancy between his response to the reporters and what he said at his first interrogation.

 

Saying he was in the building at the time is consistent with the idea that he went briefly out on the steps at some point during or after the murder.

 

Moreover Oswald knew better than to be discussing his alibi with the jackals nipping at his heels as he was dragged briefly through the hallway. He had emphatically denied the charge that he shot JFK.  No lawyer would have advised him to go further.

 

As I said previously, even telling his alibi during the first interrogation without a lawyer present allowed his framers to begin right away to try to destroy evidence of it. Within a few hours they had Frazier in a room trying to intimidate him to say he was Oswald's accomplice.  Maybe they even already had evidence that Oswald was standing next to Frazier on the steps. They showed up that first night to ask Lovelady if that was him on the steps in Altgens 6. They were already at work countering any evidence Oswald was on those steps once he told them that's where he was.

 

GD: Oswald stated that he went to lunch at approximately noon and he claimed he ate his lunch on the first floor in the lunchroom; however he went to the second floor where the Coca-Cola machine was located and obtained a bottle of Coca-Cola for his lunch. Oswald claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed this building." (FBI, Bookhout and Hosty, report dated Nov 23, 1963 of Oswald interrogation of Nov 22)

 

RO:  The Bookout and Hosty report cannot be taken at face value.  The coverup and frame were underway and they weren't going to contradict it.  Oswald would be dead the next day so he couldn't dispute anything they say. That's why the Hosty note taken at the first interrogation *is* important.  There were not supposed to be notes taken and any that were taken were supposed to be destroyed.  Hosty kept his notes and wrote a book in the 90s. He then donated the note with his other material to NARA, where Bart found it among Malcolm Blunt's files.

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

And let me say this once more, in the strongest terms since DPF is rapping  about it.

Prayer Man is NOT SARAH STANTON!  

I know this to be the case for sure.

 

Okay, I'll bite. HOW do you know this for sure? 

[Pat Speer]

13 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Some comments on Prayer Man that may be new, in support of Bart Kamp's book's thesis

Who is Large-Framed Figure standing immediately to the left of Buell Wesley Frazier on the same top landing level in Darnell?

I wrote a fuller discussion of this above to Pat Speer who has not as yet responded, maybe others might wish to address this. It is astonishing to me that I do not see prior proposals that Large-Framed Figure (LFF) to Frazier's immediate left, in the Darnell film, is Sarah Stanton. The width of LFF's body frame corresponds to Sarah Stanton's obesity. The height of LFF at 5'6" (hair included) agrees with Sarah Stanton's height. And LFF is in exactly the position that Buell Wesley Frazier said Sarah Stanton was, and Pauline Sanders said Sarah Stanton was, to Frazier's left as Frazier explicitly said (not to his right where Prayer Man was)--no, LFF is exactly where Frazier located Sarah Stanton to his immediate left, with whom Frazier exchanged words back and forth as she stood next to him. Large-Framed Figure is exactly a match to Sarah Stanton. 

Yet surprisingly LFF has not been so identified (as Sarah Stanton) previously so far as I can tell. Andrej Stancak in his discussions identified Large-Framed Figure (LFF) as Shelley. But if Shelley is correctly identified in the Crouch film as walking with Lovelady west in front of the TSBD, as I believe most now consider that more or less settled, Shelley is not LFF. Others have identified LFF as Molina. Superficially there is a case for this match because Molina testified that he was right in front of the door, on the top step, when he saw Truly come in to the TSBD, which Molina estimated was 20-30 seconds after the shots, at about the same time as Darnell.

But a Molina identification for LFF is not right for the following reasons. First, look at the hair on LFF. It looks like at least an inch up from the head all over the head, consistent with a photo of Sarah Stanton's hair. LFF's hair matches Sarah Stanton's hair. It does not match Molina who from photos appears semi-bald or with thinning flat hair. Second, LFF is extremely wide in body, more than normal, consistent with Sarah Stanton's obesity, but not obviously in agreement with Molina who I think was a more normal build. Third, I don't have height data for Molina but 5'6" height of LFF, including hair, 5'5" or even 5'4-1/2" actual height to the top of the head not counting hair, is at the heart of the bell-curve of women's heights, not most men's heights. Fourth, Molina is identified in the Altgens6 photo as a figure standing a step or two down in the sun with his arm raised and shielding his eyes from the sun, and the same posture and figure, that is, Molina, appears in Darnell distinct from and a little lower and to the left of LFF, therefore is not LFF. And fifth, Molina's language in his Warren Commission testimony of being outside in front of the door is well understand as general language which would be used for being anywhere outside on that landing or steps, and it is overprecision to say that Molina's testimony of being out in front of the door can only mean LFF's position.

If Large-Framed figure is Sarah Stanton, then Sarah Stanton was not Prayer Man, in agreement with Frazier who has always remembered Sarah Stanton at his left but is unable to identify Prayer Man to his right. If Prayer Man were Sarah Stanton, Frazier would identify her. The simplest explanation for why he does not identify PM as Stanton is because he knows Sarah Stanton was to his left, where she visibly IS in the Darnell photos, as Large-Framed Figure.

With Sarah Stanton excluded as Prayer Man (if the LFF Sarah Stanton identification is accepted as convincing), and with no other good identification for Prayer Man in place, the possibility that Oswald was that figure receives heightened focus.

To spell it out: removal of Sarah Stanton as Prayer Man (because she is Large-Framed Figure to Frazier's left) removes the only major claimed alternative to Oswald himself as the leading candidate for identification of Prayer Man.

Did Prayer Man come out through the doors of the front entrance before, during, or after the shots?

It is usually assumed that the Prayer Man photograph in Wiegman was taken a few seconds before the fatal head shot of JFK of Z312. While that may be correct, it is possible that photograph was taken an unknown number of seconds after the shots were fired, according to a technical analysis of Stancak although Stancak does not draw a post-Z312 Wiegman conclusion directly. Stancak presents an argument that there was frames removal of some sort in the Zapruder film on the basis of comparison with two checkpoints in Wiegman, and discrepancies between Altgens6 and a conventional assumption of match to the time of a frame in Wiegman: https://thejfktruthmatters.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/the-timing-of-wiegman-film-and-altgens6-photograph-questions-the-continuity-of-frames-in-zapruder-film/.

Wiegman himself said he remembered the second shot of the JFK shooting happening as he stepped out of his car in the parade, and then started running with movie camera running, but could not remember whether he started the film running before or after he left the car. If there were some seconds, say as much as 10 seconds before Wiegman got his movie camera started recording, combined with the hypothesis of removal of an unknown quantity or segment of frames from Zapruder at some point later than Z255 which Stancak argues was the case on independent grounds from analysis of Wiegman and Altgens6, one could get a scenario of Wiegman's Prayer Man not being a photo at the same moment as Altgens6 but a little later, perhaps after the fatal shot of Z312.

The reason this might matter is, on the one hand, Oswald said in his interrogations that he had gone to the second floor to get a coke with his lunch before the assassination, then (following that) he went out front "to watch the P. Parade" (Hosty notes) or "out with Bill Shelley in front" (Fritz notes). 

And yet in the hallway to reporters when asked if he was in the building at the time (of the assassination)--and this was after he gave those answers in interrogation--Oswald did not volunteer that he was out front, but said he was inside the building.

(Note in that exchange Oswald also did not say to those reporters that he was on the first floor of the building where he would have witnesses, even though he did claim that when he was interrogated. The point is it can equally well be asked why Oswald would not say "first floor lunchroom" if he had been there, as "on the landing outside the front door"--both would potentially have witnesses.) 

Here is what Oswald said:

"to 1st floor had lunch/ out with Bill Shelley in/ front/ left work..." (Fritz handwritten notes)

"O [Oswald] stated he was present for work at TBD on the morning of 11/22 and at noon went to lunch. He went to 2nd floor to get Coca Cola to eat with lunch and returned to 1st floor to eat lunch. Then went outside to watch P. [Presidential] Parade" (Hosty handwritten notes written no later than Nov 23, 1963)

"Oswald stated that he went to lunch at approximately noon and he claimed he ate his lunch on the first floor in the lunchroom; however he went to the second floor where the Coca-Cola machine was located and obtained a bottle of Coca-Cola for his lunch. Oswald claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed this building." (FBI, Bookhout and Hosty, report dated Nov 23, 1963 of Oswald interrogation of Nov 22)

The objection that no one saw Oswald out front of all the witnesses who were there--arguably not so 

The objection that no witnesses saw Oswald there, therefore he was not Prayer Man, could equally be raised in objection to the common belief that Oswald left the TSBD by the front of the building. Apart from testimony from reporter Pierce Allman that he encountered Oswald about 3 minutes after the assassination at the front doorway, in agreement with Oswald's claim to Secret Service Inspector Kelley that he had been asked by a "Secret Service" agent at that location to direct him to a phone, no other witness to my knowledge is reported to have seen Oswald at the front or leaving by the front at that time--why not? Is that much difference in principle from asking why no one is reported to have seen Oswald at the same front doorway area 2-1/2 minutes earlier as Prayer Man?

Two reports, largely overlooked, of TSBD witnesses who may have seen and told of seeing Oswald in the front doorway area at the time Prayer Man was there

(1) The first is Carolyn Arnold in a statement to the FBI of Nov 26, 1963. Note how early this is, how detailed and specific, and how contrary to interest it is on the part of the FBI to have her say this--all three details weighing in favor of a genuine report, which stands despite Carolyn Arnold in 1978 telling reporter Earl Golz she had no memory of having said it, evidently having forgotten it. But the written FBI report did not forget.

"[She] left that office [on the second floor] between 12:00 and 12:15 PM, to go downstairs and stand in front of the building to view the Presidential Motorcade. As she was standing in front of the building, she stated she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of Lee Harvey Oswald standing in the hallway between the front door and the double doors leading to the warehouse, located on the first floor. She could not be sure that this was Oswald, but said she felt it was..." (FBI, Nov 26, 1963, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10406#relPageId=44)

 A later FBI statement has her saying she did not see Oswald "at that time or at any time during that day", which conflicts with that early FBI report (unless an FBI focus on her lack of certainty might have been deemed cause for leaving it out of their writeup?), and also conflicts with Carolyn Arnold's repeated insistence in later interviews that she also saw Oswald before the assassination in the second-floor lunchroom, in agreement with Oswald in interrogation who said he had gone there before the assassination to get a coke to have with his lunch on the 1st floor. Carolyn Arnold, who said she never saw the FBI reports the second of which it is alleged she signed, later expressed surprise that her second-floor lunchroom sighting of Oswald before the assassination was not in the Nov 26, 1963 interview report for she was sure she would have told it to the FBI.  

This should not be read as a discrepancy on Carolyn Arnold's part concerning the location of a single Oswald sighting. It reads to me as two distinct claims of Oswald sightings: one that she forgot (and expressed uncertainty concerning at the outset), and the other, the second-floor lunchroom sighting, of which she was never uncertain. Carolyn Arnold was not called to testify to the Warren Commission, and the above FBI statement with what she thought was her sighting of Oswald at the TSBD front doorway reportedly was not in the Warren Commission's published exhibits (http://22november1963.org.uk/carolyn-arnold-witness-oswald). 

(2) The second comes from the report of the Brian Doyle interview of Rosa Daniel and her daughter Wanda, the daughter-in-law and granddaughter respectively of Sarah Stanton, in this January 2019 article published by Richard Gilbride, https://jfkinsidejob.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/FURTHERING-THE-LUNCHROOM-EVIDENCE.pdf. I am here quoting brief passages from the Gilbride publication for purposes of research and discussion in accord with legal "fair use", with acknowledgement to the copyright owner of that article.  

Although Sarah Stanton is reported to have signed an FBI statement saying she never saw Oswald on the day of the assassination, as I understand it the FBI supplied the Warren Commission with the statements but not those signatures (even in photocopy form), and so far as I can tell no one has reported having seen the signatures. (I can certainly find no signatures for those statements on the MFF site.) But, the FBI says Sarah Stanton signed it. Even though her family told a very different story of what Sarah Stanton always said to them.

I do not have the same interpretation as Gilbride does in his article but the content of the interview could be significant in a way that has not been appreciated. 

For according to Sarah Stanton's family, Sarah Stanton met Oswald on "the stairs", where she had "went down" from the second floor, to see the President "on the stairs".

Rosa: "That, uh--she [Sarah] said, 'I went down because they said that, uh, the--that the President was going--they were already coming, but not--not there yet.' So she wanted to prepare herself and be on the stairs--where--where she met Oswald." 

Anyone can read the Gilbride article to get more of the interview. Rosa tells of what Sarah Stanton always said, how she had met Oswald that day "on the stairs".

How she had gone down "to prepare herself and be on the stairs" to see the president (front steps of the TSBD entrance?).

How she told of Oswald having a Coke when she saw him "on the stairs" (Prayer Man with a coke on the front steps?).

How she spoke to Oswald there "on the stairs" (steps?). How Oswald told her he was going to return to "his room" (the domino room?).

Gilbride interprets the "stairs" where Sarah Stanton said she wanted to go early to "prepare herself" for seeing the president's parade, as the NW stairway, rather than as the front steps of the TSBD as I am suggesting.

I believe this can be read as an instance in which one TSBD employee/witness on those front steps ("stairs") near Oswald, Sarah Stanton who had gone there to see the president, may have seen Oswald as Prayer Man, perhaps spoke to Oswald as he passed by her (perhaps after Frazier moved forward down to the sidewalk as he said he moved next). And according to the family, Sarah Stanton told of this for years to her family, of that meeting on the "stairs" with Oswald where Sarah had gone to watch the president.

Possible reconstruction: from Carolyn Arnold's contemporary report written up by the FBI on Nov 26, 1963, Oswald may have been seen by her standing inside the double doors at the entrance, coke in hand, behind the glass partition of the doorway, watching the parade go by, still "inside the building" when the assassination happened, in agreement with Oswald's answer to the reporters' question in the hallway asking where he was at the time. From that vantage position he would have been able to see, and also would have heard the shots when they happened. 

Upon hearing the shots he may have seen talking happening outside and stepped through the door and moved to the shadow area at the northwest of the landing, then forward to the edge of the shadow area one step down, in order to overhear what was being said (his reason for going out the door). Wiegman captures Oswald on film as Prayer Man. Some seconds later Darnell also captures Oswald as Prayer Man. After hearing whatever he wanted to overhear he leaves, retreats, perhaps speaking a word to Sarah Stanton as he went by in response to her speaking friendly to him (after Frazier had stepped forward down to the sidewalk area as Frazier said was his next movement). Now intent on leaving the building, Oswald goes up the NE stairwell to the second floor, with intent to go out the NW stairwell, back down and out the rear, but sees officer Baker through a glass window in the NW stairwell (and is seen by Baker). They have their encounter, followed by Oswald returning back down the way he went up, by the NE stairwell to the first floor again. 

Comment on Frazier's failure to identify Prayer Man as Oswald

Frazier's comments have been consistent--he says he does not remember and has no idea who Prayer Man was.

That is an extremely strong argument for excluding that it was Sarah Stanton.

It is not a weighty argument however for excluding that it was Oswald. Here is Frazier:

"To answer the question about Prayer Man: I have been looking at this all day, and I can tell you this: I 100% have no idea who that person is. I can also tell you 100% that is not Lee Harvey Oswald. First, Lee was not out there. I know that to be true. Second, for anyone who thinks Prayer Man is Lee, the individual has a much larger frame than Lee." (Buell Wesley Frazier, Facebook, March 28, 2021)

On his statement of knowing Oswald was not there, that may be simply explained: he may believe the second-floor lunchroom encounter of Baker and Oswald is in contradiction to Oswald as Prayer Man, therefore Oswald cannot be he because he was somewhere else. That reason, if so, is not coming from his knowledge as a witness. And it is also a mistaken conclusion or belief since as has been discussed earlier in this thread, Oswald as Prayer Man is not inconsistent in timing and logistics with Oswald going up to the second floor to make his exit out the rear of the building and encountering officer Baker.  

Frazier's second reason for negative certainty (that Prayer Man is not Oswald), that the figure looks too heavyset to be Oswald, is a simple judgment of photo interpretation of no more or less strength than anyone else's, also unrelated to his being a witness.

What Frazier has not claimed as a reason for his negative certainty that I have seen, is: if it had been Oswald he would have noticed.

But although Frazier did not notice Prayer Man's or Oswald's presence even though Prayer Man had come in from behind and was close to Frazier to his right, Carolyn Arnold and Sarah Stanton may have seen Oswald at that front doorway area of TSBD at the time of the assassination and said so.

Conclusion

It is probably not correct to claim that "no one" saw Oswald out at those front steps. I have just cited two arguably credible claims from TSBD employees who said they did (in Sarah Stanton's case as remembered by her family, interpreting "stairs" as changed in the telling from Sarah Stanton's meaning of the TSBD's front steps).   

Neither of these two women, Carolyn Arnold or Sarah Stanton were called to testify by the Warren Commission.

If Oswald was "in front" (Fritz notes) and "outside to watch P. Parade" (Hosty notes) after eating his lunch on the first floor, not only might those two women have told of seeing him there, but it might even have been captured on camera ... it would be surprising if it were not captured on camera.  

Making Bart Kamp's website and book, Prayer Man: More than a Fuzzy Picture, one of the most important issues in any current discussion of the JFK assassination (because if Oswald was Prayer Man, he did not assassinate President Kennedy, and that would be, to put it mildly, a game-changer, an Innocence Project genre outcome for the ages). 

Important to not let this go until there is a real identification of this figure who definitely existed, who has no good identification as other than Oswald, and who is where Oswald said he was at the time.   

Greg, two women claimed to be on the top step: Stanton and Saunders. If the woman to Frazier's left is Stanton, then who's to say Prayer Person isn't Saunders? Has she been identified elsewhere? It would make a bit more sense, moreover if it was Saunders, seeing as Frazier couldn't ID Prayer Person, and he may not have known Saunders. 

Pauline Saunders (11-24-63 FBI report, 22H844) “advised she arrived at work at 8:45 A.M. on November 22, 1963 and immediately reported to main office where she was employed...she went outside to watch the presidential parade about 11:25 A.M...she stood in the last line of spectators nearest the door to the School Book Depository building…she could not recall the exact time but immediately after the Presidential parade passed she heard three loud blasts and she immediately realized that the shots or whatever it was came from the building above her…Mr. Campbell, Office Manager, arrived shortly after the police officer entered the building and she told him the blasts came from the upper part of the building however he insisted the shots came from the embankment.” (3-19-64 statement to the FBI, 22H672) “I am a caucasian female...I...was born November 6, 1908...At approximately 12:20 PM on November 22, 1963, I left the lunchroom on the second floor of the building and went out the front entrance to await the arrival of the presidential motorcade which I knew was due to pass the Depository about 12:30 PM. I took up a position at the top of the front steps of the Depository building facing Elm Street. To the best of my recollection, I was standing on the top step at the east end of the entrance. I recall that while standing there I noticed Mrs. Sarah Stanton standing next to me, but I am unsure as to the others. Mrs. Stanton is likewise an employee of the Texas School Book Depository. To the best of my recollection I did not see Lee Harvey Oswald at any time on November 22, 1963, and although I knew him by sight as an employee of the building I did not know him by name and had never spoken to him at any time. I do not recall seeing any strangers in the Texas School Book Depository Building at any time on the morning of November 22, 1963. After the motorcade car carrying President John F. Kennedy passed, I remained a moment on the steps, then walked out to the concrete island in front of the Depository Building to see what had happened. I remained there a moment and then returned to the Depository Building through the main entrance. I then walked to the second floor where I usually worked.” 

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by Pat Speer

[James DiEugenio]

56 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Okay, I'll bite. HOW do you know this for sure? 

I am bound by an NDA.  And that is as far as I will go.

But I reiterate, IT IS NOT SARAH STANTON.

 

[Pat Speer]

Just now, James DiEugenio said:

I am bound by an NDA.  And that is as far as I will go.

But I reiterate, IT IS NOT SARAH STANTON.

 

So you admit you saw a screening. Did you find the arguments convincing? 

[James DiEugenio]

I am bound by an NDA.  And that is as far as I will go.

But I reiterate, IT IS NOT SARAH STANTON.

[Miles Massicotte]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Karl, he takes all WC testimonies as untainted?

Are you serious?  Have you read the book?

He compares testimonies from different venues and evaluates them.  

I said the same thing on another thread. I don't think he's read the book. 

[Pat Speer]

30 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I am bound by an NDA.  And that is as far as I will go.

But I reiterate, IT IS NOT SARAH STANTON.

Let's talk about this NDA. If Buell Frazier made you sign an NDA, and then told you he made up the bit about the paper bag, would you honor it? Would you respect someone who did? 

[Miles Massicotte]

Personally I am quite convinced by what I have read on ROKC and by Greg's analysis above that Prayer Man is not Sarah Stanton. It could however be this individual in the attached pictures.

If you look at the arm position, the object in their hands, to me it looks identical to Prayer Man. This was discussed before in a thread I believe called Prayer Person here.

At the time I saw these images I was really puzzled. Perhaps Prayer Man is simply some random yet to be identified person. But Bart Kamp's book is doing a lot to dissuade me from that position and convince me otherwise. 

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by Miles Massicotte

[Karl Kinaski]

His book is based on a Rorschach test ... everybody is free to see in that fuzzy picture what he wants to see ...