Vickie Adams Interview

[Sandy Larsen]

13 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

I didn't realise Lovelady was still on the steps in this footage?

 

Tommy Graves and I identified Lovelady in the Darnell film years ago. First we had to identify Gloria Calvery, which we did after a good deal of work. Here she is in Darnell and in Zapruder (inset). Along with one of her coworkers, either Karan Hicks or Carol Reed... we're not sure which. We filled several forum threads looking for Calvery.

 

 

If you single step through the Darnell frames, you will find that Calvery has stopped going up the steps, whereas her workmate keeps climbing. You can see that her workmate has her by the arm and is attempting to get her to continue up the steps.

That person in front of her is Lovelady. He is facing Calvery, obviously talking to her. If you single-step through the frames you will see that Lovelady is bending over as if trying to hear her better, after which he straightens up.

The following gif shows that 1) the guy talking to Calvery is indeed facing her (you can barely make out a face) and 2) is balding. In this animated gif, he first looks toward Calvery, and then to his left. When he turns to his left, you can see his hair.

 

 

Through process of elimination, that had to be Lovelady.

 

[Gerry Down]

13 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Tommy Graves and I identified Lovelady in the Darnell film years ago. First we had to identify Gloria Calvery, which we did after a good deal of work. Here she is in Darnell and in Zapruder (inset). Along with one of her coworkers, either Karan Hicks or Carol Reed... we're not sure which. We filled several forum threads looking for Calvery.

 

 

If you single step through the Darnell frames, you will find that Calvery has stopped going up the steps, whereas her workmate keeps climbing. You can see that her workmate has her by the arm and is attempting to get her to continue up the steps.

That person in front of her is Lovelady. He is facing Calvery, obviously talking to her. If you single-step through the frames you will see that Lovelady is bending over as if trying to hear her better, after which he straightens up.

The following gif shows that 1) the guy talking to Calvery is indeed facing her (you can barely make out a face) and 2) is balding. In this animated gif, he first looks toward Calvery, and then to his left. When he turns to his left, you can see his hair.

 

 

Through process of elimination, that had to be Lovelady.

 

Fascinating detective work. That is indeed where Lovelady is in the altgens 6 photo.

This must mean it would have taken Lovelady and Shelley a significant amount of time to make it to the railroad yard and then back into the tsbd via the side door where they were seen by Vicky Adams.

[Sandy Larsen]

11 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

52 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

What lying are you talking about? I don't recall seeing any Oswald lies when I read the interrogation reports.

11 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Well, let's see. For starters, he lied about:

- owning a rifle

- being in Mexico City

- telling Wesley Frazier that his package contained curtain rods

- the backyard photographs taken at Neely Street

- living at Neely Street

 

- Oswald didn't own a rifle. The Carcano was part of the cover up.

- Oswald was never in Mexico City. The CIA plotters used that to place the blame of the assassination on the Cubans and Russians. The so-called Oswald who visited the Cuban Consulate was a CIA-employed impersonator. You should read the Lopez Report and Peter Dale Scott's Phase 1 / Phase 2 analysis to understand the Mexico City incident.

- How do you know the package didn't contain curtain rods? I just assumed it did... no reason to think otherwise.

-Those aren't photos of Oswald with the rifle, pistol, and newspapers. Obvious fakes.

- I don't know if he lied about Neely Street. Why would he lie about living somewhere? Maybe it was a safe house. If so, then yeah, I could see him lying about that.

 

[Jonathan Cohen]

7 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

- Oswald didn't own a rifle. The Carcano was part of the cover up.

- Oswald was never in Mexico City. The CIA plotters used that to place the blame of the assassination on the Cubans and Russians. The so-called Oswald who visited the Cuban Consulate was a CIA-employed impersonator. You should read the Lopez Report and Peter Dale Scott's Phase 1 / Phase 2 analysis to understand the Mexico City incident.

- How do you know the package didn't contain curtain rods? I just assumed it did... no reason to think otherwise.

-Those aren't photos of Oswald with the rifle, pistol, and newspapers. Obvious fakes.

- I don't know if he lied about Neely Street. Why would he lie about living somewhere? Maybe it was a safe house. If so, then yeah, I could see him lying about that.

You are truly hopeless.

[Gerry Down]

11 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Peter Dale Scott's Phase 1 / Phase 2 analysis to understand the Mexico City incident.

Do you know where this can be got?

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

This must mean it would have taken Lovelady and Shelley a significant amount of time to make it to the railroad yard and then back into the tsbd via the side door where they were seen by Vicky Adams.

 

Every indication is that Lovelady and Shelley did NOT go down that little road to the railroad yard, and then back into the TSBD through the door on the west. The simplest proof of that is that Victoria Adams saw them when she arrived on the first floor from the fourth floor, just 60 seconds or so after the shooting.

The only way for that to happen is if Shelley and Lovelady went back inside the TSBD from the steps very shortly after the shooting.

The coverup artists concocted the railroad yard story in 1964 in order to discredit Victoria Adams when they discovered her testimony was a problem. Before that time, in the many interviews the FBI had with Shelly and Lovelady, NOT ONCE did they mention their trip to the railroad yard and entrance to the TSBD through the west door.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

13 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

25 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Peter Dale Scott's Phase 1 / Phase 2 analysis to understand the Mexico City incident.

Do you know where this can be got?

 

Deep Politics III by Peter Dale Scott

https://www.history-matters.com/pds/DP3_Overview.htm

BTW, it was written in 2000, so it isn't up to date. But it's pretty good.

Dr. Scott might have actually thought that Oswald was in Mexico City. It doesn't really matter, but no, he was never there. Oswald was impersonated by a short, blond guy. A CIA agent.

 

[Ron Bulman]

42 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

You are truly hopeless.

The pot can't call the kettle black.

[Tony Krome]

42 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Every indication is that Lovelady and Shelley did NOT go down that little road to the railroad yard, and the back into the TSBD through the door on the west. The simplest proof of that is that Victoria Adams saw them when she arrived on the first floor from the fourth floor, just 60 seconds or so after the shooting.

That's what I'm looking at, how those guys get to the freight elevators so quickly if they walked to the railway yard.

Where's the part about railway yards in both their affidavits??

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

On 1/1/2024 at 9:28 PM, Andrej Stancak said:

Marjan:

where did you get information about Adams and Styles going first to the lift before heading to the stairwell? This diversion was not mentioned either in her WC testimony or in her exchanges with Barry Ernest, or in the audio recording from 1966 which opened this thread. 

I am involved in reconstructing movements of Vicki Adams, alleged Oswald's movements, and the trajectories of Truly and Baker using a computer technology and realistic (measured) time estimates of individual nodes of movements such as opening the door leading from the stairwell to the 2nd floor or durations of descending/ascending a flight of stairs by a male or female. I have been consulting Barry on details of Vicki's and Sandra's departure.

This is what Barry wrote to me in April 2021:

"Vicki estimated she left the window between 15 and 30 seconds after the shots. Both she and Sandra told me they remembered seeing Clint Hill rush to the car, and they started away from the window  before the car entered the Triple Underpass. This may be a rather imprecise way of figuring it, but if you look at the single frames of the Z-film, you'll see Hill reach for the limousine's rear hand-hold at about Z-342. The car is close to entering the Underpass at Z-462. That leaves 120 frames which, at an average speed of 18.3 frames per second, gives us 6.5 seconds.

Since Vicki was not included in any of the timed tests, absolutes are difficult."

This conversation led me to assume a 10-second interval between the time of the last shot and Vicki Adams leaving the window on the fourth floor.

The two girls took the shortest possible route to get to the entrance to the stairwell and that route would be shorter than the presumed Oswald's route from the most east corner of the sixth floor plus the time required to stash the rifle among the books. Therefore, there was no chance that Lee Oswald, should he be on the sixth floor, could descend via the stairs ahead of Adams and Styles. In the SS reconstruction of Oswald's movements, agent Howlett (Oswald) was walking while moving from the sniper's nest window to the entrance of the stairwell. In contrast, Vicki and Sandra were running both to reach the stairwell and to descend to the first floor, which adds additional seconds to their advantage.

I have also enquired with Barry about movements of Mrs. Garner. Dorothy Garner moved to the north-west part of the 4th floor immediately after Adams and Styles left. If Oswald would be following the two girls, both girls would hear his steps, and Garner would either see Oswald or for sure hear hist steps. Nothing of this happened. 

The only conclusion is that nobody was using the starirwell to escape from the sixth floor in the seconds or a minute elapsing after the last shot.

However, I am not disputing a part of Baker's and Truly's encounter with Lee Oswald in the 2nd floor lunchroom, albeit in a different scenario. In my view, Lee Oswald went to the 2nd floor from the first floor via the front stairwell once he realised Kennedy has been shot. However, this is for a different thread.

Sean Murphy    Apr 30, 2011, 8:50:14 AM  to

A couple of years back, I made contact with Sandra Styles. She told me
that she felt Victoria Adams had significantly exaggerated the speed
with which the pair descended from the fourth to the first floor after
the shooting.
In the light of Barry Ernest's new book 'The Girl on the Stairs', I
decided to contact Sandra once again to discuss this matter. She has
some rather interesting things to say.
Rather than summarise them (and risk putting words in Sandra's mouth),
I shall simply offer the relevant text from Sandra's own emails. In a
number of places I've asterisked key details.
Before doing so, however, I would like to apologise to Barry Ernest
for having on a previous occasion called his integrity as a researcher
into question. The gap between what Sandra has told me and what Barry
says she told him is not at all as large as I had alleged. My
apologies, Barry.
Sean Murphy

***

In my first email I asked Sandra to respond to the following words
from Barry (as posted on a research forum), who was himself responding
to what Sandra had told me a couple of years back:

'When I interviewed Sandra Styles in 2002, she said absolutely nothing
of the kind to me. What she did say was, she couldn't be sure exactly
how quickly she left the window and went down the stairs, but she
recalled she did so "rather quickly," in her words, and "when Vicki
did," again in her words. Why she would say otherwise now, especially
when she said what she did then and added, "Vicki was the more
observant one," is beyond me.'

Here was Sandra's response:

'First of all, I do not recall that Barry put much emphasis on the
timing or that we spent time discussing that aspect. I stand by what
I said to you. *At the time, I first thought we went downstairs
quickly; but in thinking about it further, I came to the conclusion
that it was not immediately. I told an interviewer (FBI? not sure)
that when we got downstairs, the police were there so I assumed we
went down quickly; however, the interviewer told me that it took the
police 15-20 minutes to get to the Depository, so I accepted that we
must have taken longer to get downstairs than I first thought.* I went
with what Victoria said because she spoke with such certainty; since I
couldn't say for sure, I didn't argue with her. *She also told office
workers that on the way down, she noticed the freight elevator cables
were moving.* I'm not sure what that would prove; but since I did not
notice that, that is what I meant when I said she was more observant.
Barry was working closely with her, and I didn't want to get into it
with her when I couldn't prove it either way.

Barry's main discussion with me concerned the outlay of the office:
the exact location of the back stairs in relation to the other
elevator, which direction the building faced, etc. Since I didn't
have scanning capabilities, I had to describe all that verbally in
several emails. We were all interviewed several times by different
entities over the next year. I always said the the same thing to each
one: that I had nothing of importance to help their investigation.
Their concern was whether I knew Oswald, had ever seen him, etc. As
to the timing of the whole thing, I wasn't sure then and can't say for
certain now. I only go by what seems reasonable. I can only report my
personal recollections the best I can. I was easily led back then,
lol. *If she said we went down immediately, I thought that must be
true. If the interviewer said that was not possible due to the amount
of time it took the police to get over there, I re-thought it and
accepted HIS assessment.* The truth may lie somewhere in between.
What is logical is that, in all the pandemonium, it is unlikely that
we would hear shots and head for the back stairs!'

***

In my reply, I put two points to Sandra:

1) The authorities' claim that it took 15-20 minutes for police to get
to the Depository was way off.
2) Barry had come across the so-called Stroud document, in which
Dorothy Ann Garner is reported to have told authorities she saw Baker
and Truly come up onto the fourth floor AFTER Adams and Styles had
left it.

Sandra's response:

'Hmmmmmmm, points to ponder. At this point, I'm wondering whether I
was even there! hahaha
1. My initial sense was that we went down soon after, and the 15-20
minute delay given by the investigator DID seem a bit long, but I took
his word for it. We did linger at the window a bit trying to sort it
out, and I'm sure it was Vicki's idea to go find out what was going
on; therefore we wouldn't have waited a long time to make the decision
to go downstairs.

I am certain that we went to the public elevator
first, but may not have waited long there either.

My hesitancy on the
timing in all the interviews probably accounts for why they did not
pursue further information from me. As I told everyone who ever
asked, I had no real sense of that aspect of the investigation.
Still, logic tells me it had to take a couple of minutes at least for
things to sink in and to make the decision to go. Therefore, *I'll
give up a few of those minutes but still don't remember it's being a
matter of a few seconds. However, I yield to wiser heads if the
evidence is there.*

2. I know nothing of Dorothy Garner's part. I don't know where she
was at the time. Her office was near the front elevator, but she
could have been in the lunch area on the other side near the back
stairs. It seems odd to me that if the two men ran up the back stairs
a minute or so after the shooting, we did not encounter them on our
way down even if we had left immediately and even more strange that
Mrs. Garner would have been in a position to see them coming up. It
all goes back to the fact that I could be totally off on my
calculations, and anything is possible. I cannot swear in any venue
that what I thought was actually true. I still see it all in my
mind's eye and have not changed my opinion about what we did and when,
but I could be mistaken about the number of minutes. I suppose I
could blame the fact that I am 71 and let it go at that!! No, that
would be too easy.'

***

In my reply, I asked Sandra a number of follow-up questions:

a) Could she recall what her initial time estimate for their going to
the stairs was - i.e. before she was told that the police didn't get
to the Depository for 15-20 minutes?
Her answer: 'Not less than a minute, I thought more like a couple. I
do realize that time takes on feet of its own in a situation like a
shooting or other catastrophe, and witnesses have different takes on
it. I am glad to have the 15-minute thing put to rest; even then it
didn't make sense that it would take the DPD that long to cross the
street.'

b) Could she describe the layout of the fourth floor?
Her answer: 'Here is the layout of the office: Mr. Bergen's office
was in the SE corner and opened into the reception area, as did the
publlic elevator and Dorothy's office. Directly across from Dorothy's
office was a small conference room. Behind the reception area were
the desks of the Customer Service Reps (I was one of those) and
Records (Elsie's job). Then there were the stacks where free teacher
aids and supplies were kept. On the other side of the stacks was the
break/lunch area (not a separate enclosed room), which had a table,
coffeepot and a refrigerator (no drink machine). It was all open; the
only doors were in the bosses' offices, the conference room, and the
back. The elevator opened directly into the reception area. The door
in the NW corner of the breakroom led to the stairs/freight elevator/
storage area.'

c) Could she give any more detail on Victoria's observation about the
elevator cables moving?
Her answer: 'I don't remember any of that. She didn't mention it to
me on the way down or up. As I recall, she only mentioned it later
offhandedly, but I don't recall the circumstances as to how or exactly
when it came up in conversation.'

Edited January 4 by Marjan Rynkiewicz

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

redhair...@gmail.com

unread, Apr 22, 2019, 11:11:03 AM

to

Welcome Eugene Barnett said he looked immediately at the fire escape. He
said he thought the shots came from the building and that everybody else
was going to the wrong place, hence, he stayed on Houston Street east of
the TSBD. Of course, he worked for the murderers, so one needs to read his
testimony carefully. He's the traffic cop Baker whom thought was running
into the building with him, but Barnett was actually running to the north
loading dock, and then back.

Mr. BARNETT - No, sir; because I was standing to close, was the reason. And
I looked back again at the crowd, and the third shot was fired. And I
looked up again, and I decided it had to be on top of that building. To me
it is the only place the sound could be coming from.
Mr. LIEBELER - What did you do when you concluded that the shots were
coming from that building?
Mr. BARNETT - I ran to the back of the building.
Mr. LIEBELER - Ran down Houston Street?
Mr. BARNETT - Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER - There is a door in the back of the Texas School Book
Depository. Does it face on Houston or around the corner?
Mr. BARNETT - It is around the corner from Houston Street.
Mr. LIEBELER - Did you go in the building?
Mr. BARNETT - No, sir; I didn't get close to it, because I was watching for
a fire escape. If the man was on top, he would have to come down, and I
was looking for a fire escape, and I didn't pay much attention to the door.
I was still watching the top of the building, and so far as I could see,
the fire escape on the east side was the only escape down.
Mr. LIEBELER - Since you surmised that the shots had come from the building,
you looked up and you didn't see any windows open. You thought they had
been fired from the top of the building?
Mr. BARNETT - That's right.
Mr. LIEBELER - So you ran around here on Houston Street immediately to the
east of the Texas School Book Depository Building and watched the fire
escape?
Mr. BARNETT - I went 20 foot past the building still on Houston, looking up.
I could see the whole back of the building and also the east side of the
building.
Mr. LIEBELER - Did you see anybody coming off the fire escape up there, or
any movement on top of the building?
Mr. BARNETT - Not a thing.
Mr. LIEBELER - What did you do after you went around behind the building?
Mr. BARNETT - I went looked behind the building and I saw officers
searching the railroad cars. I looked around in front towards the front of
the building and I saw officers going west.
Mr. LIEBELER - Going west down the little street there in front of the
School Book Depository Building?
Mr. BARNETT - Yes; but there was no sign they were going into the building
or watching the building, so I decided I was the only one watching the
building. So since this was the only fire escape and there were officers
down here watching the this back door, I returned back around to the front
to watch the front of the building and the fire escape.

Edited January 4 by Marjan Rynkiewicz

[Tony Krome]

12 minutes ago, Marjan Rynkiewicz said:

She also told office workers that on the way down, she noticed the freight elevator cables were moving.

I am certain that we went to the public elevator
first, but may not have waited long there either.

 

If they went to the passenger elevator, it obviously did not respond to their call, so off they went.

So both the passenger elevator and one of the freight elevators were in use at the time.

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

Leave a comment Filed under Uncategorized 

April 15, 2021 · 1:48 pm

Vicki Through The Years

In her words, Vicki successfully “low-profiled” her past after Dallas. Her husband advised it. Close friends were kept in the dark. Still others never made a connection. At most, the name Victoria Adams was linked only to a lead singer of the Spice Girls.

“I tend to be reclusive,” she once admitted. “I thought I was this private person, a roving gypsy who lit and flitted through life.”

Supporting that itinerant notion were repeated job changes, six uninterrupted years drifting along the blue highways of America, and a Warren Commission that effectively dismissed her on seemingly reasonable grounds.

./The%20Girl%20on%20the%20Stairs%20_%20The%20Search%20for%20Victoria%20Adams_files/image-4.png _{The self-styled ‘gypsy” with her husband Skip, here enjoying New Mexico, 1993}

What little that was available about her came mainly from her scanty official testimony and a cursory FBI interview stuffed deep into the 26 volumes. A few other documents popped up, but only by way of in-person searches at the National Archives. Some of the pioneers who scoured such evidence came across her comments and were drawn to three areas of interest: when she came down the stairs (“immediately”), where she felt the shots came from (“the right below rather than from the left above”), and who she saw outside (a man “very similar” in appearance to Jack Ruby).

Her first open mention occurred in Mark Lane’s 1966 book, Rush to Judgment. Briefly noting her quick descent from the fourth floor of the Depository, Lane focused instead on her implication shots originated from the grassy knoll (p. 110), and her probable sighting of Ruby in a place he shouldn’t have been (pp. 262-63).

She was later talked into appearing with Lane as a guest on the Mort Sahl show in Los Angeles. She discussed her whole story then, but was disappointed with the result. “They were only interested in whether or not I had seen Ruby,” Vicki said. “So I just gave up.”

Sylvia Meagher, however, set her sights on the critical stairway angle. “We now revert to Victoria Adams,” she wrote in Accessories After the Fact, “bearing in mind that if her story is accurate it decisively invalidates the Warren Commission’s hypothesis about Oswald’s movements between 12: 30 and 12:33 pm” (pp. 72-74).  Published in 1967, one must wonder why such recognized significance was never pursued.

Harold Weisberg took a slightly different track. In 1967’s Photographic Whitewash, he used Vicki’s statement that her view of the motorcade was temporarily obstructed by an oak tree in an attempt to pinpoint the president’s position when the first shot struck him (pp. 51-52).

Also that year, Josiah Thompson in Six Seconds in Dallas listed Vicki as one more who felt shots came from the knoll.  To his credit he clarified that labeling by citing what she actually had said: “below & to the right” (p. 254).

“And I was even in Playboy magazine,” Vicki teased one day. Indeed she was, but not how most might think. In a lengthy February 1967 Playboy interview with Mark Lane, the attorney brought up her name, telling readers that based on her testimony, she was on the stairway at the same time as Oswald. “He wasn’t there,” Lane quoted Vicki as saying.

 

Misspelling her name, Jim Bishop in 1968 wrote this colorful and imaginative prose in The Day Kennedy Was Shot: “Not many, even in the plaza, noticed the group of girls squealing with anticipation on the fourth floor of the School Book Depository. They clasped and unclasped their hands with delight as the lead car approached. The office belonged to Vickie Adams. She had invited her friends, Sandra Styles, Elsie Dorman, and Dorothy May Garner to watch with her. The girls were thrilled because of the exceptional view, looking downward into the car, and the possibility of seeing the youthful, attractive First Lady and what she was wearing. The girls were prepared to discuss Mrs. Kennedy’s shoes, gloves, hat, coiffure, even the roses” (pp. 168-69).

In 1968’s Moment of Madness: The People vs. Jack Ruby, Elmer Gertz writes: “Victoria Adams is cited by [Mark] Lane as a witness to Ruby’s presence at the scene of the assassination. Her only comment was that the man she saw looked ‘very similar’ to Ruby. Her testimony indicated that the man she saw was probably on the corner for more than fifteen minutes [his emphasis], which exceeded the maximum time that Ruby could have spent there in order to return to the [Dallas Morning News] newspaper office on time” (p. 526).

Warren Commission attorney David Belin, who took Vicki’s official testimony in 1964, used the exact same arguments from back then to discredit her all over again—this time to even greater lengths—in his 1973 book, November 22: You Are the Jury (pp. 268-71). As a result of his initial questioning of Vicki, he pointed out in his book, “[Joseph] Ball and I had come to another dead end in our efforts to establish the innocence of Oswald or the existence of a co-conspirator.”

Despite showing an interest in Vicki, the HSCA failed to acknowledge her in its 1979 final report.

“Indeed, one witness, Victoria Adams, testified she was on the stairway at that time, and heard no one,” David Lifton correctly penned in his 1980 best seller, Best Evidence. “The Commission concluded she was wrong as to when she was coming down the stairs” (p. 351).

Only snippets of her story were presented in 1989’s wide-ranging Crossfire by Jim Marrs (pp. 44, 53, and 325).

But Oswald had his long-awaited day in court in Walt Brown’s 1992 The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald. In this fiction-based-on-fact courtroom drama, Appendix A reveals that Vicki was subpoenaed as a witness for the imaginary trial but, true to form, was not called to testify (p. 613).

Vicki made her silver screen debut in 1992’s hit movie JFK. Oliver Stone portrayed her running down the stairs as a frenzied Lee Oswald rushes by, a taunt by the director at how it had to be if the Warren Commission’s scenario of that particular event were true.  The actress who depicted Vicki was not named in the credits.

./The%20Girl%20on%20the%20Stairs%20_%20The%20Search%20for%20Victoria%20Adams_files/image-5.png _{The girl on the stairs, courtesy of Oliver Stone in the 1992 movie JFK}

The real Victoria Adams is alphabetically listed as a witness in two encyclopedic paperbacks: 1992’s The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James Duffy and Vincent Ricci (p. 5), and 1993’s Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination by Michael Benson (also p. 5).

Vicki’s “immediate” run down the stairs is elevated in 1993 to taking “at least four to five minutes after the third shot”—an opinion introduced by way of a footnote, no less—in Gerald Posner’s Case Closed (p. 264). Posner reportedly smiled and quietly walked away when shown a document by a fellow researcher that contradicted his inflated time estimate and instead corroborated her speediness.

 

She’s noted only as a looker-on to the story of co-worker Elsie Dorman’s jumpy attempt at filming the presidential motorcade from their fourth-floor perch in Richard Trask’s 1994 Pictures of the Pain (pp. 443 and 445).

Coverup, written in 1998 by Stewart Galanor, correctly cites Vicki’s testimony where she said the sound of the shots “seemed as if it came from the right below rather than from the left above” (p. 75).  Yet a bit later, Galanor lists her as still another witness who felt the shots came from the knoll (p. 171).

In Murder in Dealey Plaza, a collection of articles edited by James H. Fetzer and published in 2000, you’ll find Vicki’s actions between 12:30 and 12:32 described chronologically as part of “Part I: The Day JFK Was Shot” (pp. 45-46).

Professor Gerald McKnight provides a general account of Vicki’s statements and actions in 2005’s Breach of Trust. But then he writes “immediately after the assassination Adams gave the same account to Dallas police detective James R. Leavelle” (pp. 113-14). Actually, Vicki gave that account to Leavelle nearly three months after the assassination. And in footnotes on page 377 (#13 and #17), McKnight says that Vicki corrected her Warren Commission testimony on February 17, 1964, a task hard to imagine since her testimony didn’t take place until April 7, 1964. The February 17 date was when she was interviewed by Leavelle.

Her name takes on the more fashionable “Ms. Adams” in G. Paul Chambers 2010 book Head Shot (p. 61). And she is christened as a possible assassin, of all things, in Vincent Bugliosi’s 2007 tome, Reclaiming History. “Why not?” he asks, hopefully in jest for his sake. “Women can pull triggers too, you know” (p. 832).

Once The Girl on the Stairs was commercially published in 2013, Vicki’s full narrative finally became known. Had she lived to see it happen, it’s doubtful she would have changed her style.

“You know what?” she told me one day. “Here is the truth: I want nothing. I do not crave fame nor fortune. I just want to help you since it has been so terribly important to you. I just want someone to hear the truth. Should your book be published before I die, I do not want anyone to know where I am. I want no publicity. And I know on an inner level that you will respect my confidentiality.”

As hoped, The Girl prompted further discussions and studies of this overlooked woman. Yet it still didn’t stop the occasional errors of fact. For instance, Jerome Corsi in his 2013 book Who Really Killed Kennedy? devotes a section to Vicki that he titles “The Girl in [sic] the Stairs.” He tells readers Vicki “produced for Ernest a 1964 letter her attorney had written to J. Lee Rankin…complaining that someone had made changes in her deposition, altering her meaning” (pp. 94-95). Vicki didn’t produce the letter; it was discovered in the National Archives. The letter was written to Rankin by Asst. U.S. Attorney Martha Joe Stroud, who certainly was not counsel to Vicki. And the letter merely listed a few grammatical corrections Vicki had noted after reviewing a transcript of her deposition. It contained no complaints about changes that altered her meaning. That would surface later.

Also in 2013, Flip de May, gave Vicki the dues she had been denied. In a lengthy segment of Cold Case Kennedy, he traced Vicki’s step-by-step journey down the stairs in an elaborate and graphic timeline (pp. 351-62). He titled that part of his book “The women on the stairs,” the plural alluding to a neglected coworker who had accompanied Vicki.

And again in 2013, historian James DiEugenio offered up an accurate and thorough examination of Vicki’s unabridged account in Reclaiming Parkland (pp. 91-95).

The most recent mention of Vicki appears in Vince Palamara’s latest book, Honest Answers about the Murder of President John F. Kennedy: A New Look at the JFK Assassination. In this March 2021 volume, the author calls her version of events a “game changer” because “it proves that Oswald could not have been firing a rifle up on the sixth floor” (p. 110).

 

Today, additional considerations of Vicki are being planned.

Many years ago, Vicki tried to tell authorities her side of the story. “I said it so many times I got tired of saying it,” she once explained. But nobody wanted to hear it back then. “No one wanted to believe anything else other than what they wanted to believe.”   

Edited January 4 by Marjan Rynkiewicz

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Tommy Graves and I identified Lovelady in the Darnell film years ago. First we had to identify Gloria Calvery, which we did after a good deal of work. Here she is in Darnell and in Zapruder (inset). Along with one of her coworkers, either Karan Hicks or Carol Reed... we're not sure which. We filled several forum threads looking for Calvery.

 

 

If you single step through the Darnell frames, you will find that Calvery has stopped going up the steps, whereas her workmate keeps climbing. You can see that her workmate has her by the arm and is attempting to get her to continue up the steps.

That person in front of her is Lovelady. He is facing Calvery, obviously talking to her. If you single-step through the frames you will see that Lovelady is bending over as if trying to hear her better, after which he straightens up.

The following gif shows that 1) the guy talking to Calvery is indeed facing her (you can barely make out a face) and 2) is balding. In this animated gif, he first looks toward Calvery, and then to his left. When he turns to his left, you can see his hair.

 

 

Through process of elimination, that had to be Lovelady.

 

LOL, That's not Lovelady. This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Lovelady and Shelley claimed they walked around the building together, and a film shows two people who look just like them rapidly walking in that direction, just when they said they were walking in that direction...as Baker ran up to the front of the building. But Karnak claims he knows it's all a hoax because a blurry image of someone who doesn't look like Lovelady appears to be talking to someone Lovelady said he'd talked to. HERE is Lovelady. 

[Ron Bulman]

On 12/28/2023 at 11:54 PM, Bill Fite said:

One of the most interesting interviews I've heard.  

She's extremely well-spoken.

Link to Black Op Radio Interview

Thanks Bill.  I just finally listened to the whole Vickie Adams part.  This is gold, no one in the community has ever heard this?  A few notes.

Belin (running late) propped his feet up and said "let's talk."

Mort Sahl saw the Nix film at Nix's house, after it was returned by the FBI, with frames "ruined".

Chicken bones, gets a little funny.  *

The case is closed?  (forgot what they were talking about,?)

Lovelady was "meatier" than in the picture.

Baker/Truly, 3-4 minutes to lunchroom (which didn't happen!).

"I did see them by the elevators."  Fleetingly?

Damn.  That last one creates a conundrum for me.  I know and have read before what Sandy posted above.  But I've also leaned towards Vicky's later statement to Barry Ernest that she did not see Shelly or Lovelady when she came off the stairs.  That her statement was changed to reflect so.  I should have referred to it before posting, isn't that what she said in The Girl on the Stairs?

*  We got chicken in our bones . . .