The sniper at the middle window on the 6th floor

[Donald Willis]

The sniper at the middle window on the 6th floor

A notion not given much play nowadays. Not since March 19, 1964. In fact, three witnesses, in all, seemed to situate a sniper at a 6th-floor window other than the sniper's nest window. One was Howard Brennan, who (a) circled both windows in the east end double-window, as the location of the sniper, and (b) circled the third single window from the east end of the depository, as the apparent location of the two 5th-floor witnesses he espied up there. (See CE 477.) (A) echoes, in part, the 12:37 DPD radio transmission re suspected shooting from the "second window from the end". (B) put Harold Norman at a window other than the one in which he is seen in the Dillard photo. More to the point, Brennan thus effectively moved Norman out of the end window (just below the sniper's-nest window) from which, he stated, he had heard the "bolt action of the rifle". (SS affidavit 12/4/63) To hear Brennan tell it, then, Norman heard the bolt action coming from the third single window from the east end right above him. Norman and Brennan, out of sync.

The second witness who moved Norman bodily out of the end window was SS Agent Forrest Sorrels. He testified that the "two colored men" he saw on the 5th floor "were about, oh, maybe a third of the distance from the right to the left, maybe not quite that far." (v7p344) That too put Norman in about the third or fourth single window from the east end. And, again, if true, would have those bolt-action sounds coming from the corresponding window on the 6th floor.

Brennan and Sorrels, true, might have misremembered a scene which they saw only briefly. But it would not seem possible that our third witness could suffer such a memory lapse. Because he was himself one of the three 5th-floor witnesses, Bonnie Ray Williams. And he held to his radical situating of the three of them for almost four months. In an 11/23/63 FBI interview, Williams stated that when he joined Norman and Jarman they "were looking out windows on the south side of the building approximately at the middle of the building." In the next two weeks, by contrast, Norman, properly, it would seem, put himself in the window at the SE corner of the 5th floor. (SS affidavit 12/4)

But, quite independently of Norman & Jarman, Williams continued to maintain, as late as 3/19/64, that the three of them "were at the windows which are located at about the center of the building on the south side". (FBI statement) And it was there, he went on, that the famous "little pieces of cement hit [him] on the head." (Those eccentric fragments actually started out life hitting *Norman* in the face, according to Jarman's 11/24 FBI interview, and returned to Norman in the latter’s 10/20/77 HSCA interview!) That 3/19 date, above, is significant--it was the day before Norman, Jarman, & Williams assumed their locations (as shown in Dillard) near the SE end of the 5th floor for an indoor photo, and five days before Williams, finally, testified that he was in his Dillard location at the second single window from the end. In his Commission testimony, he corrected several earlier statements, but for some reason not his "middle"/"center" references. Finally, the twain met--i.e., Williams, on the one hand, and Norman & Jarman, on the other.

But why these odd, conflicting narratives (until 3/20/64)? It may have begun about 1:12 on 11/22/63, when DPD Insp. Sawyer radioed that shells had been found on the 3rd [sic] floor, and then later told reporters, “Police found the remains of fried chicken and paper on the fifth floor. Apparently the person had been there quite a while.” (Stockton Record [AP] 11/22/63 p8) The DPD Crime Lab photographed, that same day, a pop bottle and a bag of chicken scraps, apparently found below the third double window from the east end, almost in the middle of the 6th floor. ("JFK First Day Evidence", p169) Echoing Sawyer’s comments, news photographer Tom Alyea wrote (in a 12/19/63 statement), “at the time, it was suspected that the assassin had stayed quite a time there. There was a s[t]ack with a stack of chicken bones on it. There was a Dr. Pepper bottle which they dusted for fingerprints.” Apparently in response to this interesting find, there was a change in Williams' itinerary—the first in a series of changes. In his initial statement, on Friday, he wrote, in an affidavit, that he "went up on the 5th floor with a fellow called Hank and Junior." However, the next day, in his FBI statement, he was now averring that he "went back upstairs in the elevator to the 6th floor with his lunch”. And in his testimony, he said that, yes, the Dr. Pepper bottle and the chicken were his. (v3pp170-71)

Perhaps indicating the haste with which Williams’ story was amended, on Saturday, he then—in his Commission testimony—stated that, No, he did not descend “to the 5^th floor using the stairs”--as he had so stated in the 11/23 interview. No, he testified, at the hearings, “I didn’t tell [the FBI] I was using the stairs. I came back down to the 5^th floor in the same elevator I came up on.” (v3pp171-72) Finally, Williams amends his 2^nd amendment: In the same testimony, he changes his descent elevator from the west one to the east (p172). A many-tangled web.

Now, it may be perilous to try to put oneself in the mind of someone long ago and far away, but there seems to be no other way to explain Williams' two bizarre FBI statements to the effect that he, Norman, and Jarman were looking out the windows "approximately at the middle of the building" on the 5th floor. But when he was instructed--as he must have been--to claim the bottle and bag as his own and to say that he first went back up to the 6th floor, he must have assumed (as did Alyea) that the two items had belonged to the assassin, and that, further, the third window from the east end on the 6th floor, then, was where the assassin had done the shooting. (Williams, it seems, did not consider that the assassin might have eaten his lunch in one spot and shot from another.) So, in order to forestall others from coming to the same conclusion that Alyea and Williams did, the latter was enlisted to demystify the third-window mystery. Williams’ “instructors” were taking no chances, brooking no ambiguity re the placement and number of shooters.

[Sawyer’s “fried chicken”, however, still had to be addressed. To that end, several deputies and policemen were told to say that they saw pieces of chicken adorning the nest. But Crime Scene Det. Studebaker nixed that idea, testifying that if there had been any chicken present there, it would have appeared in his photos of the area. (v7p147)]

Consequently--on his own initiative, presumably, without instruction--Williams told the FBI that--from the middle of the building--he had heard shots "from right over his head" (11/23/63), "from directly above me" (3/19/64). However, for his came-the-dawn Commission testimony--when he testified that he was, in fact, at the second single window from the east end--he was saying that *Norman*, at the east-end-corner single window, "was directly under the window that Oswald shot from" (v3p175). That "directly”, as well as the magic cement pieces, moved with Williams from about the third double-window to the first, and from himself to Norman.

The fact that Williams was so quick to say that he had heard firing from “directly above” him, at that middle window, suggests that this “directly above” factoid was scripted for him, but for use only in the east-end windows. He must have thought, mistakenly, that there had, for some reason, been a last-minute change in the shooting location. Unless one believes that there was actually shooting from the 6th-floor middle window… And the cement was clearly another factoid, transferring, as it did, from one witness (Norman) to another (Williams) and back again… These factoids were meant of course to reinforce the evidence of the presence of a sniper on the 6^th floor, whether or not there really was one.

Why did Williams' assassination "instructor" not correct him after that 11/23 "middle of the building" bungle? Perhaps because the main order of the day was to have him claim the Dr. Pepper and bag lunch as his. And if counsel, at the hearings, asked him if he had said “middle of the building”, he could simply have replied that he did not. However, he pretty obviously did--twice. That twice may be why the subject was not brought up again, anywhere.

Making things more interesting, and more complicated, Alyea--in one of his periodic statements on the scene in the depository--maintained that he had filmed Studebaker, on the 6^th floor, "dusting the Dr. Pepper bottle which had been brought up to him from the 5th floor". ("Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window" p45.) A fine new kettle of fish...

Edited March 13 by Donald Willis
correct "at" for "as" make "Sniper" in title "sniper"