Biography: Trent Adams

[Trent Adams]

My name is Trent Adams. Although born in Wisconsin, my family relocated to the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex when when I was seven years old. I have lived in this area for the past 30-plus years, except for a couple years, when I relocated due to consulting work I was doing. I currently hold an management position in the retail industry (which I never dreamed I would do), and previously worked as a Manager in the Airline Industry for over 9 years. Prior to my airline work, I was an Executive Board member of a "large international union", and before that, I worked as a consultant and worked in New Market Development of the International Division of "large cosmetics company" based in Dallas. I am a college graduate who persued not only undergraduate degrees, but also an MBA and an MS Degree in History, Economics and Political Science. Pretty exciting, huh?

My interest in the forum is primarily related to contributing to the discussions surrounding the Assassination of President Kennedy, the murder of Officer Tippitt, everything surrounding that centerpiece of all this, Lee Harvey Oswald. I will never claim to be an expert researcher, but with the established researchers, experts, and experienced individuals already contributing to this site, I don't need to be. My contributions will be of value when presenting my theories and helping others work through theirs. Although I have been trying to "solve the case" for over 30 years, I find the only thing I am sure about is that I haven't figured it out yet. Therefore, I am open to all types of theories, but then attempt to work through them to determine where they work and where they begin to fall apart (in my own mind). In a sense, I may approach my reasoning backwards. I learn, or develop, the theory and take it as 'the truth' and then work my way backwards by attempting to tear it apart. As I go through it that way, and work my way back down to determine if the theory (or parts of it) fit or even make logical sense. I work to disprove the scenario as best I can, from a logical standpoint. The day it all makes sense, or fits, I will let everybody know....LOL

I first became interested in the Kennedy Assassination right after we moved to the DFW area (I was not born when the assassination took place). My father drove the family to downtown Ft. Worth and then back to downtown Dallas. Upon our approach to Dallas, my father pointed out the TSBD by saying "You see the big Hertz sign?

Well that is were President Kennedy was killed." This was the first time I ever remember hearing about the assassination, but this was fascinating to me. I had been in Texas less than a week and instead of seeing some place where some Western shootout took place (my impression of Texas at the time), there was this big sign where a President was killed.

That year, we traveled back to Wisconsin to see our relatives and stayed at my grandparents house. I had mentioned something about the Hertz sign as one of the highlights of Texas. About an hour later, my grandparents told me to come with them to where they kept some books. They showed me some books relating to the Kennedy Assassination and a picture of the Hertz sign that I was talking about. I sat there for the next week and all I did was read and look at pictures. I went in during that week and asked my parents and grandparents who shot Kennedy and my grandmother said, "We don't know, but we know you will figure it out for us." Ever since then, I wanted to find out so that everybody would know what happened. LOL!

For the longest time, my "research" had been based on books, pictures, and testimony that I could get hold of. When I was first able to drive, I had cause to be in downtown Dallas quite a bit, and I finally went and just walked around Dealey Plaza trying to "soak it in". It is much smaller than even little photographs made it look. Many things had changed there, but most of the basics were still there. Just being there made everything I had read or seen just start rushing through my mind, and some things made more sense to me and some things seemed absolutely ridiculous (as far as theories go). I would listen to the folks who would always be down there, just to hear their theories to see if anything would click for me. I never had any real conversations with anybody down there, I would just listen. The only one I ever ended up having a conversation with at any point in time was Robert Groden, and that was the first time I think I ever got to share things and ask questions. It was also at this time I decided that I needed all the film footage I could get my hands on, and Mr. Groden was very helpful in that regard. Whether I accept all his views or not, it is of no consequence, because I am grateful for his contributions to this cause and for assisting me with obtaining some video for review.

The only real connection I have to the the events of November 22-24, 1963, is through my ex. All I will say about this is that her father was a Dallas Police Officer at the time, and he still maintains his close friendships with many other officers who worked at that time. My ex knew of my fascination with the Kennedy assassination, but told me to never bring it up with her parents, friends, etc. Now it wasn't due to something sinister, or anything cool like that (I wouldn't have been that lucky). It was supposedly just due to the fact that the DPD was accused of all sorts of "bad things" that weekend, so it was just something they didn't like talking about. So basically, I was never allowed to bring up the assassination, the fact that I didn't like tomatos, and that for years I never once tasted her mom's famous squash casserole, without her even noticing. Those were my "orders" from the boss!

So, one day, they decide to have tomato sandwiches, so my cover was finally blown by my ex, regarding my total aversion to tomatos. They asked me, "Why didn't you ever tell us you didn't like tomatos?" I responded, "I wasn't allowed to." They said, "What?" (laughing) and I used the opportunity to open Pandora's Box. I told them, "I was instructed to never bring up not liking tomatos, not liking squash, and anything about the Kennedy assassination." My ex looked at me like I just told her parents that "I" was pregnant...she couldn't believe I went there. Needless to say, nothing was said about Kennedy, but we had an incredibly interesting conversation about tomatos and squash. (yawn)

Later that night, we were all sitting around just talking about nothing and having some drinks. Her father left the room and walked back in a few minutes later with a bunch of "stuff". He just handed it to me saying, "Maybe you want to look at some of this." I was just kind of shocked and was sitting there while her parents were just looking at me, and her mother said, "You know I was questioned by the FBI?" All I could muster at this time was "What?!" She went on to say that they came to her place of employment and informed her that they needed to talk to her. She ended up telling me that it was a big misunderstanding, and that she was misidentified because she supposedly had the same name as one of Jack Ruby's dancers/employees. She said that it was quite stressful having the FBI come to where you work and want to ask you questions about "things". She then got up and walked into another room and came back and showed me one of Jack Ruby's business cards with writing on it. (I honestly can't remember what it said.) She said that they knew Ruby pretty well and stated that he had always been good to them, and they used to go to one of his clubs. No shock here when she said that Ruby always seemed to be good to the police officers.

We basically had a conversation about what it was like that weekend, as he had been working that weekend. Basically, I figured they thought that what had been put forward was what happened. To my surprise, they both didn't believe "the official story". Her mother felt there had been a conspiracy, although she didn't say why she felt that way. Her father didn't say much, but he said that he didn't investigate it, so he didn't know if there was or not. He said that he knew a lot of the officers that were "involved" in the investigation (investigators and/or witnesses) and it still pisses him off that people would try and "dirty their names". He said that he didn't really know anything about Tippitt. He said he still doesn't understand why Ruby did what he did, because it just didn't seem like something he would have done, the way it was described. He added, "I'll tell you one thing, there is no way he came down that ramp. Vaughn was a good man if he said Ruby didn't come down that ramp, he didn't come down. They tried to make it seem he did a bad job, or was a xxxx."

After I just listened to what they were saying, I basically got the impression that they didn't believe the "official story", but they didn't provide any real "proof" as to why. I began looking at the papers and there was stuff in there that didn't mean much to me, but there was something in there by Curry indicating that he believed that there was probably more to this story than just Oswald. I wish I had that "stuff" to mull through and follow up on. There was nothing ground-breaking in there, but EVERYTHING that I looked at pointed to the fact that many in the DPD felt there was "more to the story". Additionally, it appeared that there was a lot of resentment by the DPD as to how they were limited, pushed aside, or made to look bad. It was interesting, to say the least. I have searched his name, her name, and the names of some of the other officers I had met through them.........NOTHING! In one respect, I'm glad. On the other hand, it would have been cool to find something out that had thus far been unknown. These were really nice people, so I'm glad I had the opportunity to hear their thoughts/story.

Other than that, I used to do investigations for submission to the FAA and NTSB, among other less serious investigations. Additionally, I used to represent parties in arbitration hearings, on either side of the fence. I'm not claiming to be a "real" investigator or some wannabe attorney, but I have had to investigate, depose, and research incidents that had to be critiqued by others. I understand what makes sense and what doesn't. I go to DP quite often and leave it trying to follow the various routes that Oswald allegedly took. To this day, I can't figure out how he got to 10th and Patton in time to shoot Tippitt without getting a ride there or running pretty darn quickly. I have been focusing on this quite a bit over the past few months and no matter how many different ways I try, I cannot get that one to work. (Unless he never stopped at his rooming house, although I feel he did).