WHEREABOUTS AT 12:30 PM
ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963....
BART KAMP SAID:
"Then went outside to watch the P. parade."
Read all about it HERE.
MICAH MILETO SAID:
I mean I can't believe my eyes! Does the page [below] say "Oswald said 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. Parade"?
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID:
This is a breakthrough finding. In spite of all the cover up and witness manipulation, eventually a proof of true course of actions has emerged. Lee was on the second floor before the assassination, however, he returned to the first floor to eat his lunch. The second floor encounter with Officer Marrion Baker could not and did not happen. Lee Oswald was Prayer Man -- all the physical evidence point to his presence in the doorway as Prayer Man, and now this new evidence which was buried in [the] archives for 55 years.
It would be useful and correct to write a letter to the Sixth floor museum with the new evidence and a renewed request for releasing a high-resolution image of Darnell doorway - at least the sharpest frame.
TONY KROME SAID:
I've seen it handled by some as far as the Fritz notes is concerned as meaning Oswald was "out front" after the encounter with Baker on the 2nd floor, but these notes have the additional mention of "P Parade" (Presidential Parade)?
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID ALL THIS.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
That is really a good find by Malcolm. Nice one fishing it out, Bart.
This seems to be from hand notes before they were transmitted and typed into a report. Therefore, it's the closest thing we have to a tape of Oswald in detention.
BTW, how many notations do we have now depicting him as being outside? Is it three?
Andrej: yes, it would seem that Hosty, to be kind, forgot his notes.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Reality Interjection....
As I've said before, nobody who was standing on the TSBD steps at the time of JFK's assassination would have claimed they were "in the building". And that's because, of course, the steps of the Depository are clearly OUTSIDE the front entrance to the building. But Oswald HIMSELF admitted multiple times that he was INSIDE the building at the time of the shooting, including his statement to the press on live television at 7:55 PM CST on November 22nd (see the video below).
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Davey reminds me of the Chaplin's cannon scene. The cannon fires. And the shell drops out of the mouth of the turret a few inches in front.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So, Jim, I guess you must think that Buell Frazier and Billy Lovelady and Bill Shelley were really INSIDE the building when they were watching the motorcade, huh?
And why are you totally ignoring what Oswald told the press in my above video?
Looks to me like my cannon fired much farther than yours. Better try again, Jimmy. Because Oswald's own words are sinking the "Prayer Man" ship.
MICAH MILETO SAID:
Oswald may have been using sarcasm to imply that it [was] silly to bother apprehending him.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yeah, why would the cops bother to apprehend a guy who was fighting wildly with the police while waving a gun around in a movie theater? Officer McDonald, after getting his face all scratched up by Oswald's revolver, should have merely shaken his finger at Sweet Lee and said "Don't do that again, okay?", and then just let Oswald go......right?
BART KAMP SAID:
Boyd and Sims were there.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Where?
BART KAMP SAID:
Inside the room where Oswald was interrogated.
BART KAMP ALSO SAID:
Now let's destroy the BS Von Pein posts above, and has been posting in the past 5 years shall we?
A full transcribe of that sequence puts this stupid rubbish by Von Pein in a whole different perspective, no? You cannot even hear the question that leads to Oswald saying "I work in that building", and the steps are part of that building and Oswald was on one step below the landing. Sure, Oswald was just outside the front door, but those steps and landing are part of the building.
Horrendous nitpicking like Von Pein's has no place here, we have been through all this way too many times before.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I love it when CTers decide to put their ordinary common sense on hold as they try to pretend that this entryway is actually INSIDE the Book Depository Building. Ridiculous....
BART KAMP SAID:
Go home Von Pein.
You have no right to be in here sharing your dross.
State specifically what the differences between the two Bookhout (and Hosty) reports are first, then we will talk.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I have "no right to be in here"???
WTF?
Who the heck do you think you are?
Geesh.
BART KAMP SAID:
You think you can waltz in here while denying and not answering a basic question a couple of weeks back. Answer that first and then we will talk!
This is the same deplorable tactic you keep on using. You are not welcome in here.
This is my thread!
So buzz off!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Good attitude. I'm sure the moderators just love you to death!
BART KAMP SAID:
Whether they do or not is besides the point.
You have no place in here as you run off with your tail between yer legs all the time anyway.
Now off you go, I'd like to see this thread not being soiled by you any further.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Tough. You don't get to decide when and where I post. And what I've posted in this thread is certainly not "BS". I've posted the WHOLE Oswald "Patsy" statement for all to hear! And he clearly says he was IN the building "at the time" of the shooting....not OUTSIDE the building.
But CTers will do their pretzel act and twist things to conform to their Prayer Man speculation, even though Oswald never once told anybody that he was ON THE STEPS at 12:30---even though he had MANY opportunities to do so on both Nov. 22 and Nov. 23.
MICAH MILETO SAID:
If Oswald was innocent, and believed that he should not be considered suspicious in any way, then from that perspective the dirty-ass Dallas Police were harassing him.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So, let me ask you this....
Do you think Lee Oswald pulled a gun on the cops and fought with those cops in the theater?
MICAH MILETO SAID:
Isn't your only source for that the Dallas Police?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Certainly not. Civilians Johnny Brewer and George Applin were also witnesses to Oswald's actions inside the theater.
MICAH MILETO SAID:
And there was a list of witnesses in the theater that mysteriously vanished?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Is it the list that supposedly "mysteriously vanished"? Or the witnesses themselves?
~shrug~
MICAH MILETO SAID:
And the Box Office lady broke down crying when asked if Oswald bought a ticket?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But how is that relevant to whether or not Oswald pulled a gun on the cops and fought with them?
~another shrug~
MICAH MILETO SAID:
And the guy at the concession stand said he sold popcorn to Oswald?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Again, what's the relevance to my question?
MICAH MILETO SAID:
And Oswald had a torn one-dollar bill in his wallet?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Who cares? (And, again, what's the relevance to my inquiry?)
MICAH MILETO SAID:
And notes from the Dallas Police say two other halved one-dollar-bills were found?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You like the cloak-and-dagger spy stuff, don't you?
MICAH MILETO SAID:
I don't think your side is looking too good, man.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And I don't think your "Oswald Was Innocent" side is even in the race. Oswald's very own actions are providing ample proof of his guilt.
MICAH MILETO SAID:
The evidence suggests that he [Oswald] did in fact watch the motorcade.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And yet not a single one of his co-workers who we know WERE standing on the steps said a word about seeing Oswald right there by them on the steps. How come?
Were all of those fellow workers blind? Or were they all trying to frame him?
RICH POPE SAID:
I wish the moderators would ban DVP.
BART KAMP SAID:
Yes, other than derailing threads and utter[ing] the same drivel time and time again, he does not add anything new here.
The reason why no one said anything about Oz being on the steps? Hmmmm, let's see....
....Oswald is brought in as a cop killer, the DPD don't even talk about him killing JFK until the 23rd. So, hmmmmmmm, would any co-worker associate himself with the worker who only arrived 4-5 weeks prior? Doubt it.
....Lovelady, weapons charge, paid off by V.P. Ochus Campbell. Where would your loyalty be?
....Joe Molina, harsh treatment from Dallas' finest, check the list of people who went down to his place at 2 am and tossed it. And make him stay at City Hall for 6/7 hrs the day after.
....Buell Frazier, picked up harshly from hospital and shoved a confession in front of his face as an accomplice by good ol' Will [Fritz]. Intimidation? Hell no. Not at all, according to our furry friend while dragging his rear over the EF carpet one more time.
....The few women that did talk were made sure not to divulge anything about that newbie who had only been around for one month and who was a commie defector. Risk your job for someone like that? Doubt it.
....Shelley, who lied his arse off during his WC testimony. Even Von Pein cannot go around the observation that Shelley and Lovelady said they stood longer on those steps than Oswald's departure. Kind of difficult to reconcile the coke guzzling shooter's departure with their own. Absolute horse manure.
Lying and intimidation gets you quite far.
That is why no one said a thing.
To get back to Von Pein, [he] deserves his own padded cell.
And yes, David, I do hope the mods and admins are watching, as it is time for you to go.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Even though I have posted NOTHING that is against any of the rules of this forum --- and you damn well know it!
But, I should be banished anyway....for providing my anti-conspiracy opinion (coupled with facts and citations and videos of Oswald saying the things he said, etc.). Right?
You CTers have a unique (i.e., very strange) way of looking at things.
Mr. Pot and Mrs. Kettle would be oh so pleased with the hypocrisy that conspiracy theorists exhibit here on a daily basis. It's downright hilarious.
BART KAMP SAID:
Oswald: “I work in that building.”
Reporter: “Were you in the building at the time?”
Oswald: “Naturally, if I work in that building, yes sir.”
TONY KROME SAID:
This has been taken out of context by many people.
Oswald says he WORKS in the building.
The reporter then asks a question, "Were you in the building at the time?"
Oswald understood the question like this: Were you in the building at the time at the time you were WORKING?
That is why Oswald sarcastically replies, "Naturally, if I work in the building, yes sir."
Oswald thought it was a silly question.
So people take it as meaning Oswald meant he was inside at the moment of assassination, which is what the reporter meant to ask.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But, Tony, Oswald's response to the reporters in the TV news film generally matches the alibi that Oswald gave to Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz that same day, with Oswald telling Fritz that he was "having his lunch about that time [of the assassination] on the first floor" (Warren Report; Pg. 600).
Fritz never said that Oswald told him that he was "out with Bill Shelley in front" or "standing on the top step in front of the building with Wesley Frazier" as the assassination was taking place. Oswald specifically said that he was inside the building on the first floor (which was a big fat lie, of course). But, per CTers, I guess I'm supposed to believe that Captain Fritz was the person telling a bunch of lies, instead of Mr. Oswald.
But the main point I always stress to CTers when this topic comes up is....
When given several chances to shout out to the world (via the live television cameras and microphones that were being shoved in his face on both November 22nd and 23rd at Dallas City Hall), Lee Harvey Oswald never uttered a word about being on the front steps of the Book Depository at precisely 12:30 PM on November 22.
Don't you think that's mighty strange if Lee Oswald had, in fact, been located on those steps when JFK was being killed?
TONY KROME SAID:
Dave, can you please direct me to [the] part where they asked Oswald if he heard any rifle shots or how many shots he heard?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You know, Tony, that's an interesting point you just brought up. I don't think I've ever heard this discussed before --- i.e., whether Oswald himself was ever asked any of the questions that the eyewitnesses and earwitnesses were all asked --- e.g., How many shots (if any) did you hear?, Where did the shots come from?, Did you see any strangers in the building?, etc.
As far as I am aware, Oswald was never subjected to that type of "witness" questioning. But I think it would be fascinating to hear Oswald's answers to such questions. It makes me curious as to what type of lies he would have come up with if Captain Fritz had dished up those kinds of questions for Oswald to answer.
But even if Oswald were totally innocent, we can be pretty certain that he definitely was aware, even before he left the building, that the President had been shot (or at least shot at). And the reason we can know that Oswald knew this fact is because TSBD employee Mrs. Robert Reid told Oswald "the President has been shot, but maybe they didn't hit him". (That sentence, as phrased by Mrs. Reid, makes no sense whatsoever, of course. But that's what Reid said she said to Oswald on the second floor within minutes of the shooting. It's likely, though, that Reid probably meant to say the word "kill" instead of "hit".)
TONY KROME SAID:
If Oswald was having his lunch "about that time" at the rear of the building, as the notes imply, what could clearly be heard from there?
Was he eating his lunch when he faintly heard the same backfiring of Harleys that Frazier heard as the motorcade approached, then began to walk out to watch the parade?
Did Oswald arrive at the front door area just as people were yelling and running around and therefore was not remembered by his colleagues as being a spectator in their company?
Did Oswald later equate the faintly heard backfiring as possible gunshots, so he therefore answered Fritz's question as "was having his lunch about that time on the first floor"?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, Tony, you have to remember that my opinion about the statements that Lee Harvey Oswald made to Captain Fritz are totally different from the opinions of most conspiracy theorists when it comes to evaluating those exact same statements uttered by LHO. (That is, if you're inclined to believe that Oswald made any such "I was on the first floor" statement to Fritz in the first place, which many CTers do not believe; they think Fritz just made up all, or most, of Oswald's statements.)
My opinion is (and has been for decades) that Oswald was lying through his teeth when he told Captain J.W. Fritz that he was on the first floor having his lunch about the time of the assassination, because I firmly believe (based on a whole bunch of evidence in the case) that he was up on Floor #6 firing three rifle shots at the President.
So if you're trying to get me to look at Oswald's utterances from the POV of Lee being a completely innocent patsy and being on the first floor enjoying a leisurely lunch at 12:30 on Nov. 22, I won't be able to help you much there. Because the evidence indicates to me quite the opposite.
BART KAMP SAID:
Von Pein is such a coward that he goes to Facebook and refers to the
above points as lame ass excuses, yet lacks the balls to refute let alone
debate them here.
A tactic used many times by John MacAdams [sic].
FYI Von Pein, you seem not to be aware what the social and political climate was back then or just wilfully ignore it.
And Steve Roe ought to know better since he wrote about it. Talk about being in denial. Pathetic.
I am utterly fascinated by what one document has done to you lot.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
It's done nothing to the LNers. I chose to post in this thread mainly to add some more stuff to my archives at my website. (So I thank you for that.) But to the "Prayer Man" CTers, this "P. Parade" find is apparently like the Holy Grail.
But even if the handwritten notes were written by James Hosty (and they probably were; I'm not arguing that they weren't), then IMO it's just another in a long list of lies being uttered by Lee Oswald after he was arrested.
My goodness, are LNers supposed to now fold up their tents and go home whimpering because another lie has been discovered coming from the lips of Lee Harvey Oswald (assuming LHO actually did say those exact words about going outside to watch the "P. Parade")? [EDIT -- And I have some doubts about whether Oswald actually did utter those exact words; Click Here.]
LNers didn't fold their tents after seeing that Oswald told Fritz he was on the first floor (and not the sixth) at the time of JFK's murder. So why would LNers now decide that this new revelation discovered by Malcolm Blunt in the National Archives is revealing something TRUTHFUL being spoken by Oswald? That'd be crazy.
So, nothing's changed for Lone Assassin believers. Nothing at all. The hard evidence of Oswald's guilt in both the JFK and Tippit murders doesn't suddenly stop being in existence just because of one additional lie being told by the assassin himself. To think otherwise is to be mired in the "Prayer Man" garbage, which is where "Wishful Thinking" and a reference to "P. Parade" will now merge to provide the "PM" disciples with something to make them feel that their fantasy about Oswald being on the TSBD steps has now turned into reality. But, at most, all that's been "discovered" is just one more lie being told by a World Class Liar named Oswald.
VANESSA LONEY SAID:
So your position is that in all his other statements Oswald was lying, but in this video he was telling the truth?
What is your rationale for that?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oswald didn't lie about everything. He told the truth when he felt that telling the truth wouldn't incriminate him in any way. Such as when he admitted that he took a bus and a cab to his roominghouse just after the assassination. And he told the truth when he told Captain Fritz that his normal working hours at the TSBD were from 8:00 AM to 4:45 PM. And he told the truth about having lived in New Orleans prior to coming to Dallas. None of those truthful facts incriminated him as a double murderer---so he didn't need to lie about them.
But whenever the subject turned to something connected directly to the murders of JFK and Officer Tippit, then Oswald turned into a Lying Machine. He lied when he said he didn't own a rifle. He lied when he said he never had said a word to Buell Frazier about wanting to go to Irving on 11/21 to get curtain rods. He lied when he said he didn't bring a large-ish package into the Depository on the morning of 11/22. He lied when he said the Backyard Photos were fakes. And he lied in this video when he said he was "Just a patsy". And, of course, he lied when he said he never shot anyone.
But since conspiracists seem to think Lee Harvey was telling nothing but the truth in his many statements after his arrest, then they must think Lee was being truthful when he told the press at 7:55 PM CST on 11/22 that he was INSIDE the building when the President was being shot, right? CTers surely can't believe he was outside on the steps but decided to LIE to the reporters and say he was inside, correct? That would be a fairly silly thing for Mr. Oswald to want to do (and a silly thing for any CTer to believe), wouldn't it?
VANESSA LONEY SAID:
Your methodology is unsound, David. It has inherent bias.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I prefer to think of it this way, Vanessa....
My methodology has inherent facts.
VANESSA LONEY SAID:
And that is a perfect example of your flawed logic. Your 'facts' are whatever you choose to call facts.
Let's discuss some actual facts then. Holmes, Fritz and now Hosty confirm that in his interrogation Oswald said he was watching the Presidential parade.
That is Oswald's alibi as presented by Holmes, Fritz and Hosty.
Do you agree that is a fact?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, if Oswald actually made the statement about going out to watch the parade (which, of course, as mentioned earlier, would merely be another of LHO's lies), then such a statement SHOULD show up in some of the notes of the people who were there to hear such a statement. So there's nothing unusual about that.
But....
I don't know where you got the idea that the specific "Presidential Parade" statement shows up anywhere in the notes or reports of J.W. Fritz and Harry Holmes. As far as I know, neither Fritz nor Holmes said anything about LHO saying he watched the "P. Parade".
Please provide the citations for Fritz and Holmes saying any such thing. Thanks.
(And Fritz' "Out with Bill Shelley in front" note certainly doesn't qualify.)
BART KAMP SAID:
From this post on, they [David Von Pein and Francois Carlier] will be treated with my silence as life is simply too short.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Hopefully that means Kamp's constant whining will cease.
Thank the Maker!
VANESSA LONEY SAID:
We now have 3 investigators confirming that Oswald claimed to be outside when the President passed by.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Again....
Where did Fritz and Holmes "confirm" this? What notes? What report? Please cite the links. I don't think either man ever said any such thing.
VANESSA LONEY SAID:
David, I'm referring to Fritz and Holmes WC testimony. I'm sure you know it.
Holmes said that Oswald said he 'had come out to this front part' at 'the front entrance to the first floor'.... That is the TSBD doorway.
Fritz said that Oswald said he came outside and 'saw all the excitement'. Oswald couldn't have seen the excitement from the 2nd floor lunchroom. It was windowless.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You must be joking with this.
In both of those testimony excerpts, Holmes [at 7 H 305-306] and Fritz [at
4 H 213] are clearly referring to a time which was AFTER the assassination had taken place, not WHILE the shooting was occurring. That fact couldn't be clearer.
So, as I said yesterday (and it seems I was correct)....
"I don't know where you got the idea that the specific "Presidential Parade" statement shows up anywhere in the notes or reports of J.W. Fritz and Harry Holmes. As far as I know, neither Fritz nor Holmes said anything about LHO saying he watched the "P. Parade"."
From the Hosty/Bookhout report:
"Oswald claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed this building." [Warren Report, Page 613]
From Captain Fritz' report:
"I asked him what part of the building he was in at the time the President was shot, and he said that he was having his lunch about that time on the first floor." [Warren Report; Page 600]
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
I think this is what Vanessa was referring to when she mentioned the testimony of Holmes. This is from the original Sean Murphy thread that launched this whole idea of PM and LHO and it was quoted by Terry Adams....
Mr. BELIN. By the way, where did this policeman stop him when he was coming down the stairs at the Book Depository on the day of the shooting?
Mr. HOLMES. He said it was in the vestibule.
Mr. BELIN. He said he was in the vestibule?
Mr. HOLMES. Or approaching the door to the vestibule. He was just coming, apparently, and I have never been in there myself. Apparently there is two sets of doors, and he had come out to this front part.
Mr. BELIN. Did he state it was on what floor?
Mr. HOLMES. First floor. The front entrance to the first floor.
...
Mr. HOLMES. There was a commotion outside, which he later rushed downstairs to go out to see what was going on. He didn't say whether he took the stairs down. He didn't say whether he took the elevator down. But he went downstairs, and as he went out the front, it seems as though he did have a coke with him, or he stopped at the coke machine, or somebody else was trying to get a coke, but there was a coke involved. He mentioned something about a coke. But a police officer asked him who he was, and just as he started to identify himself, his superintendent came up and said, "He is one of our men." And the policeman said, "Well, you step aside for a little bit."
----------
This comes very close to placing LHO outside, if the vestibule refers to the space between the outer and inner doors as one exits to the foyer.
The other reason this is key is that it clearly denotes that the soda machine encounter did not take place on the second floor.
PS -- My God, DVP is recycling that whole Bookhout nonsense which Bart Kamp exposed as a sham last week. So that means we can count Fritz and his notes.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
LOL. Jimmy's all mixed up. He thinks he can take this testimony by Harry D. Holmes and somehow come to the conclusion that Oswald was outside the building at the time of JFK's assassination....
HARRY HOLMES -- "There was a commotion outside, which he [LHO] later rushed downstairs to go out to see what was going on. He didn't say whether he took the stairs down. He didn't say whether he took the elevator down."
The above testimony not only clearly indicates that Oswald was talking about a point in time that was AFTER the shooting, but it also clearly indicates (assuming Holmes has paraphrased Oswald's statements correctly) that Lee Oswald was NOT on the first floor at all when all this "commotion" was going on outside. Hence, we find the words "rushed downstairs" and "he didn't say whether he took the stairs down" and "he didn't say whether he took the elevator down".
Now, why on Earth would anyone (even a rabid Anybody-But-Oswald CTer like Los Angeles' own Jimmy DiEugenio) utilize such "rushed downstairs" testimony to try and support their belief that Lee Harvey Oswald was located outside on the front steps of the TSBD Building (or even on the first floor of that building) when the assassination was occurring in Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63? That's crazy.
And, in fact, that precise testimony [plus this December 17, 1963, report] provided by Harry Holmes is used by Vincent Bugliosi in his book, as Vince tries to make the point that Oswald "slipped up" during his final interrogation session on 11/24/63 and accidentally placed himself on the sixth floor during the assassination....
"During Sunday's interrogation Oswald slipped up and placed himself on the sixth floor at the time of the assassination. .... In his Sunday-morning interrogation he said that at lunchtime, one of the "Negro" employees invited him to eat lunch with him and he declined. .... He said before he could finish whatever he was doing, the commotion surrounding the assassination took place and when he "WENT DOWNSTAIRS," a policeman questioned him as to his identification, and his boss stated that he was one of their employees. .... WHERE WAS OSWALD AT THE TIME THE NEGRO EMPLOYEE INVITED HIM TO LUNCH, AND BEFORE HE DESCENDED TO THE SECOND-FLOOR LUNCHROOM? [Answer:] The sixth floor." [All emphasis Bugliosi's.] -- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 957 of "Reclaiming History"
----------
Let me also add this other relevant testimony from Harry Holmes (which CTers will likely try to ignore)....
DAVID W. BELIN -- "Did anyone say anything about Oswald saying anything about his leaving the Texas School Book Depository after the shooting?"
HARRY D. HOLMES -- "He said, as I remember, actually, in answer to questions there, he mentioned that when lunchtime came, one of the Negro employees asked him if he would like to sit and eat lunch with him, and he said, "Yes, but I can't go right now." He said, "You go and take the elevator on down." No, he said, "You go ahead, but send the elevator back up." He didn't say up where, and he didn't mention what floor he was on. Nobody seemed to ask him. You see, I assumed that obvious questions like that had been asked in previous interrogation. So I didn't interrupt too much, but he said, "Send the elevator back up to me." Then he said when all this commotion started, "I just went on downstairs." And he didn't say whether he took the elevator or not. He said, "I went down, and as I started to go out and see what it was all about, a police officer stopped me just before I got to the front door, and started to ask me some questions, and my superintendent of the place stepped up and told the officers that I am one of the employees of the building, so he told me to step aside for a little bit and we will get to you later. Then I just went on out in the crowd to see what it was all about." And he wouldn't tell what happened then."
MR. BELIN -- "Did he say where he was at the time of the shooting?"
MR. HOLMES -- "He just said he was still up in the building when the commotion-- he kind of----"
MR. BELIN -- "Did he gesture with his hands, do you remember?"
MR. HOLMES -- "He talked with his hands all the time. He was handcuffed, but he was quiet---well, he was not what you call a stoic phlegmatic person. He is very definite with his talk and his eyes and his head, and he goes like that, you see."
----------
Replay.....
"He just said he was still up in the building when the commotion..."
VANESSA LONEY SAID:
David, you've completely missed the point of this new evidence. It shows that Oswald gave an alibi that placed him out front and the authorities suppressed it by not taking a Statement from him to that effect.
Any permutation you want to go with in deconstructing the WC testimony of Holmes or Fritz is not going to turn out well for you. Because both of them got caught up in their own lies and made statements that don't support the official story but do indicate that Oswald gave an alibi.
Holmes is being asked about when the police officer (Baker) detained Oswald and instead of placing it on the 2nd floor clearly says it was on the first floor at the front of the building.
Fritz is also being asked about the 2nd floor encounter and claims that Oswald 'saw the excitement', something it would have been impossible for him to do if he was in the 2nd floor lunch room.
And now we have Hosty confirming that Oswald said he was outside.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And if Oswald DID say he was outside at the time of the assassination, it's a provable lie. Let's take an inventory....
1. Nobody testified that they saw Lee Harvey Oswald on the TSBD steps at 12:30 PM on 11/22.
2. Oswald was identified as the sixth-floor sniper by Howard Brennan (via Brennan's Warren Commission testimony that every CTer I've ever encountered has decided to throw out the window; that's their choice, of course, to toss Brennan aside if they want to, but Howard's WC testimony is still going to be there—forever—just the same).
3. We know Oswald was near the back of the TSBD building, in the second-floor lunchroom, within two minutes of the assassination (or less), even though the current Internet trend amongst conspiracy theorists is to now totally throw out the "Lunchroom Encounter" entirely and pretend it never even happened. Which means, of course, those same CTers can now never again utilize the previous popular argument concerning the Lunchroom Encounter that most CTers have used for decades---i.e., the (totally inaccurate) argument about LHO not having enough time to get from Floor #6 to Floor #2 before encountering Officer Baker.
4. During his "Patsy" hallway statement at City Hall, Oswald admitted he was inside the building at the time the President was shot.
5. Oswald told Captain Fritz that he (Oswald) was inside the building, on the first floor, at about the time JFK was being shot [WCR, Page 600].
So, anyone who wants to build a case for "Prayer Man" being Lee Oswald must somehow ignore or successfully debunk each of the above five items. And I've yet to see any of those five things "debunked", let alone all five of them.
RAY MITCHAM SAID:
Ochus Campbell said he saw Oswald in the locker room just inside the vestibule door, just after the shooting.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Where on Earth did this revelation come from (and when)? It's the first I've ever heard of this.
And the above "sighting" of Oswald is particularly interesting considering the following statement made by the same Ochus Campbell in an FBI interview on November 24, 1963 [via Commission Document No. 5]....
"Mr. CAMPBELL observed a photograph of LEE HARVEY OSWALD...and stated that he is sure this is a photograph of the employee named above, but added that he is not personally acquainted with him and has never seen him." [DVP's emphasis]
Of course, we now need to ask: How in the world could Mr. Campbell have been so "sure" that the picture he was shown was definitely Oswald if Campbell had never before seen Oswald in his life?
~big shrug~
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
Follow-Up regarding Ochus Campbell....
I now remember where I heard the name "Ochus V. Campbell" in relation to an alleged sighting of Lee Oswald shortly after the assassination....
It was when Jim Garrison mentioned such a sighting during his appearance on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson" on January 31, 1968. (Go to 22:15 in this video.)
In that 1968 interview, Garrison says that there is an article in the 11/22/63 Dallas afternoon paper which says that Ochus V. Campbell claimed to have seen Oswald on the first floor after the shooting.
Well, it just so happens I have a copy of that newspaper (the Times Herald) here at my home, so I looked through it, and I couldn't find the name "Ochus Campbell" mentioned anywhere. Plus, the name "Lee Harvey Oswald" is not mentioned in the 11/22/63 edition of The Dallas Times Herald either, and that's obviously because Oswald's identity wasn't revealed to the press (and to the world) until after 2:00 PM Dallas Time on Nov. 22, which means that that info came out after the evening Dallas paper went to press.
But it's possible that Garrison was really referring to the 11/23/63 Dallas Morning News, which I also happen to own a copy of, and that paper does mention the name of "O.V. Campbell" in an article on page 6 (see photo below).
Now, if, in fact, the above DMN article from November 23, 1963, is the exact article that Garrison was talking about during his interview with Johnny Carson, then Mr. Garrison had his facts mixed up considerably. Because that article doesn't say anything about Campbell seeing Oswald on the first floor. It does, however, provide further verification (as of the morning edition of the paper on Saturday, November 23rd) that Roy Truly (who is mentioned by name in the article) and "a Dallas policeman" had an encounter with Lee Harvey Oswald inside the Book Depository just after JFK was shot.
The article, however, incorrectly says the encounter took place "in a storage room on the first floor", which is information that will likely make many conspiracy theorists very happy, because they can now continue to pretend that Roy Truly and Marrion Baker lied their eyes out when they each later said they saw Oswald on the second floor and in the lunchroom (as opposed to seeing him in a "storage room on the first floor").
But it's quite obvious that that early report about the encounter in the Nov. 23 paper was merely mistaken about exactly where the encounter took place. It's either an innocent mistake or everybody will have to crawl into bed with the outer-fringe conspiracy theorists who love to call Roy S. Truly and Officer Baker liars. Now, I ask, which of those two options is the most reasonable to embrace?
FOLLOW-UP #2....
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
After doing a little more digging on the Internet, I came up with the newspaper article that Jim Garrison was most likely referring to when he said what he said to Johnny Carson in 1968 concerning Mr. Ochus V. Campbell....
It's an article that appeared in the New York Herald Tribune on November 23, 1963, and it does, indeed, say that Campbell said he saw Oswald "in a small storage room on the ground floor" of the TSBD just after the assassination:
The above image from the New York Herald Tribune is an image I found at Vince Palamara's blog. (Thanks, Vince.) Vince got it from the Prayer Man website.
That New York Herald Tribune article, however, needs to be evaluated with a large grain of salt by your side, because it is riddled with factual errors.
I think now might be a good time to repeat this segment of that FBI interview with Campbell that I linked to earlier....
"Mr. CAMPBELL observed a photograph of LEE HARVEY OSWALD...and stated that he is sure this is a photograph of the employee named above, but added that he is not personally acquainted with him and has never seen him."
So, on 11/23/63 (via the New York newspaper), Ochus Campbell supposedly says he positively saw Lee Harvey Oswald on the first floor of the Depository within a short time of the assassination. But then, the very next day (11/24/63), he is interviewed by two FBI agents and says he "has never seen" Lee Oswald before.
Somebody get me the Bufferin! I feel a headache coming on!
FOLLOW-UP #3....
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
A few more thoughts regarding the "Storage Room" discussion....
In the Warren Commission's scenario of Lee Harvey Oswald's movements on 11/22/63 (and I agree with it), Oswald would have been very near that storage room area as he came down that staircase from the second floor to the first floor. And he would have been there about three minutes after the shooting.
So even if someone did see Oswald in that general location (or even IN the storage room itself, although I can't imagine why Oswald would want to go into that room at that moment in time when he was likely wanting to exit the building as quickly as he could), such a first-floor sighting just AFTER the assassination doesn't really conflict with the overall "Lone Assassin" scenario....because Oswald (per that "LN" scenario) DID use that staircase next to the storage room prior to LHO exiting the building via (probably) the front entrance at approximately 12:33 PM.
Now, via the corroborative testimony of both Roy Truly and Marrion Baker, we know for a fact that the Oswald/Baker/Truly encounter did not (and could not) have occurred in or near the "storage room" on the first floor (despite the article in the 11/23/63 DMN which claims it did occur there) ---- but as far as one or more potential witnesses possibly catching a glimpse of Oswald in or near that storage room after the assassination, that is something that's certainly not an impossibility at all.
But --- I am very skeptical about accepting the Ochus Campbell "first-floor sighting" (for the reasons previously stated).
Also consider this....
To those people who believe that the "encounter" between Oswald and Officer Baker did occur in the "storage room" on the first floor....ask yourself this question:
Why would Officer Marrion Baker, who was attempting to catch a Presidential assassin who was (according to Baker's initial impression) located on the roof of the Book Depository Building, have had any desire whatsoever to make two right turns immediately after rushing into the building in order to stop someone who might have been located in that storage room, which is a room that is right next to the entrance to the building?! That would have been a crazy time-consuming thing to do at that particular time, if you ask me.
Baker couldn't possibly have had it in his mind to search an area that was RIGHT NEXT TO THE FRONT DOOR HE HAD JUST ENTERED! Especially since we know he was rushing toward the TOP floors of the building in order to get to the roof as soon as possible. Baker couldn't possibly have thought any assassin would have been located on the first floor, right next to the front door, at that moment in time (which was---what?---20 or 30 seconds after the last shot had been fired at President Kennedy?).
The things I just pointed out about Marrion L. Baker's probable mindset when he entered the Texas School Book Depository Building on November 22, 1963, in my opinion provide some additional circumstantial evidence (via just ordinary common sense, if nothing else) that leads to the inevitable conclusion that the "Baker/Truly/Oswald encounter" most certainly did not occur near the building's front entrance.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
...it is the answer that Von Pein gets for what he did with Baker's first day affidavit. He said it's the same thing except he got the floor wrong.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
That's correct. And Francois Carlier agrees with me on this point without a shred of a doubt, as does every other "LNer" in the world (without a shred of a doubt). How could LNers NOT agree with me on this point about the Baker affidavit? They agree with me that Baker stopped Oswald in the lunchroom on the second floor. Ergo, they agree with me about what I have said about the affidavit of Baker.
And yet DiEugenio, incredibly, seems to want to isolate ONLY DAVID VON PEIN when it comes to this subject of Baker's affidavit (and other sub-topics too). How silly can Jimmy get?! ALL LNers think exactly like me when evaluating Marrion Baker's 11/22/63 affidavit! How could they think anything else?!
So why don't you start berating all those other LNers too, okay Jimmy? Because I've got news for you --- there are a LOT more "LNers" out there besides just Francois Carlier and David Von Pein. And every single one of them knows that Marrion Baker, in his November 22 affidavit, was describing the one and only encounter he had with Lee Harvey Oswald (which occurred on Floor #2 and no other floor, as confirmed by Roy S. Truly).
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
So FC [Francois Carlier], that is why that is it for the misrepresenter. And I will hold you to the same standard. I do not mind arguing with the Dark Syde, but if you do something like that, then that will be it.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Translation....
If Francois ever dares to interpret the evidence in a proper, reasonable, and commonsense fashion (which James DiEugenio rarely does), then he (Francois) will be shunned and banished from Jimmy's Kingdom forever.
Good policy, Jim.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
But I still think you and he belong at Duncan's [forum]. That is more like WWE. We are more evidence based here.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oh good God! Give everybody a break!
"Evidence based"???? You???
You're the guy who has decided to just THROW OUT all of the following "evidence based" things....
1.) The paper bag that Oswald took to work on 11/22. (Jimmy has declared that that bag NEVER EXISTED AT ALL. Frazier & Randle [and the cops] just INVENTED it.)
2.) The lunchroom encounter. (Jimmy thinks it was COMPLETE FICTION. Just a made-up story by Truly & Baker & the cops).
3.) And Jim doesn't even think Howard Brennan was present at ANY POLICE LINEUP at all on November 22nd, 1963. (Jimmy has decided, on his own, to make Brennan's lineup go POOF! It's gone! It never happened, per this guy named James who claims he is so "evidence based"!)
And I'm sure I could add several more items to the above list of things that really did happen but Jim says never happened at all.
You're too much, Jimmy!
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
You know what they did to [Buell Wesley] Frazier that night [11/22/63], don't you?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
All (or most) of which was totally understandable from the point-of-view of the Dallas Police Department on the night of 11/22/63, in my opinion.
The cops have a suspect (Oswald) who they know was driven to work (along with the JFK murder weapon) on the morning of the assassination by this other TSBD worker (Frazier). The cops don't know what (if anything) Buell Frazier knows about the planning of the shooting. Maybe this guy Frazier is an accomplice. The police can't tell at that point.
Frazier's alleged "rough treatment" might be considered too excessive by some people, but IMO, given what the police knew and didn't know at that early hour on 11/22, I think the DPD's behavior with respect to Buell Wesley Frazier was totally within reason. (The part about Captain Fritz "raising a hand" to hit Frazier is something I've got some doubts about, however. I'm wondering if that episode really did occur, or whether Buell was adding in a little extra "drama", shall we say, to the story he told later on. We know that Buell was prone to "add" some things to his story as the years went by. Such as the "added" part about Buell seeing Oswald walking down Houston Street after the assassination, which is something he never told anybody [AFAIK] until 2002.)
RON BULMAM SAID:
You (?) you think Frazier was adding to the story he told later on? Heck, I've wondered for years, at the "urging" of others, might he have added a package of custom wrapped curtain rods to the story. One that Oswald could carry cupped in his palm with the other end stuck under his arm pit.
Then again, if he was adding to, he could have been holding back as well. Like about Oswald being out front, with Shelley, others, and him.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
There's no doubt that he "added" the "I saw Oswald on Houston Street" stuff to his story many years after 1963. Because he said this on 11/22/63 [in this sworn affidavit]....
"I did not see Lee anymore after about 11:00 AM today, and at that time, we were both working, and we were on the first floor."
TONY KROME SAID:
After the assassination, they were trying to piece together for a long time how and when Oswald left the TSBD ... yet Frazier had that information in hand all along.
Now why would he not say anything at the time?
Could it be that at first he did tell them that he saw Oswald both walking up the street and next to him watching the parade?
Fritz gets all slap-happy, threatens Frazier and advises him to keep his mouth shut and just say he never saw Oswald at all.
I wonder if they confiscated Frazier's Enfield to use against him?
"NBC and WBAP radio identified it as a British Enfield .303."
Imagine Frazier if they pointed out that radio report to him with a wink.
INSTANT REPLAY....
TONY KROME SAID:
...they were trying to piece together for a long time how and when Oswald left the TSBD ... yet Frazier had that information in hand all along.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I doubt that very much. (Check Frazier's first-day affidavit again.)
[EDIT -- In addition, if Buell Frazier had really gotten a glimpse of Lee Oswald walking along Houston Street several minutes after the assassination, which is what he told Gary Mack in 2002, I would have to think that such an Oswald "sighting" (coming as it allegedly did---i.e., so soon after the shooting itself) would have been mentioned by Frazier when he gave this statement to the FBI on March 18, 1964. But it is not mentioned there at all.]
REPLAY....
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
You know what they did to Frazier that night, don't you?
FRANCOIS CARLIER SAID:
Whatever was done or told to Buell Frazier in 1963, nobody killed him nor did any physical harm to him. Besides, that was 55 years ago and whoever may have been there at the time is most probably dead today.
Are you saying that Buell Frazier is still afraid of the conspirators or the authorities?
Come on, Buell Frazier has been seen everywhere, from JFK-Lancer conferences to Sixth Floor Museum interviews. He is free to talk. You probably have met him during one JFK-Lancer conference or one of your trips to Dallas. Has he ever told you that he thought that "prayer man" was Oswald? Has he ever told you or somebody else that when he was outside Oswald was with him or near him? Has he ever told you that he knew that Oswald was near him, outside the building, but he was afraid to tell the truth?
Those are legitimate questions.
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID:
Time to ask Mr. Frazier once more about the person standing less than three feet from him. Mr. Frazier actually has been asked but somehow could not answer. So, why? If it would be some fellow employee, Mr. Frazier would say who Prayer Man was. He would not say who that man was only if it was Lee Oswald. Indirectly, Mr. Frazier confirms that Prayer Man was someone of identity so sensitive that he cannot say.
I always wondered how could Mr. Frazier be so sure that Lee was innocent. Mr. Frazier says only nice things about Lee Oswald and believes in his innocence even if it was his testimony which pinned the guilt for [the] President's killing on Lee Oswald -- the elongated paper bag and no bag with lunch.
Well, Mr. Frazier could be so certain only if he knew dead well that Lee was not the shooter. For instance, if he saw Lee less than three feet apart from him just seconds after the last shot.
FRANCOIS CARLIER SAID:
Someone has to ask him point blank as soon as possible and video tape the conversation.
FRANCOIS CARLIER LATER SAID:
Not only did [Lee Oswald] say to the press that he was "in the building at that time" and he never, ever said that he had been outside (neither to the press, not to his brother or wife!!!!!!), but Fritz's notes show that Oswald admitted to the second floor encounter ("claims 2nd floor Coke when officer came in").
Moreover, all the witnesses you quote talk about seeing Oswald inside the building.
I win again. It's sooooo easy!!!!
Now, you may say that Fritz's notes are fake. But then, why would you trust Hosty's notes?
There is one thing that you must understand: it is dangerous to select evidence. Among the numerous witnesses' statements, a researcher can easily find bits of information here and there to fit any pre-determined theory. But they are mutually exclusive, most of the time. You have to separate facts from fiction and that's difficult and requires an open mind and honesty and, more importantly, no bias! Otherwise, anybody can pretend to have evidence to support almost any theory that they invent...
Remember this:
Watson: "This is indeed a mystery. What do you imagine that it means?"
Holmes: "I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
What I am saying is that you (I mean, you and all the "prayer man" group here) are making the mistake of twisting facts to suit your "prayer man" theory. But you don't seem to even realize it.
You can pretend that Oswald was "prayer man" only by accusing Marrion Baker and Roy Truly of lying. That's bad. That's defamation. That's an easy cop out. That's really shameful.
Just think: "Oh, two people said that they talked to Oswald on the second floor? That's bothering me, since I have a theory that needs Oswald to be outside. Well, never mind, let's pretend that those two men were lying and I'm home free!".
That behavior may be convenient for you, but it is not honest. It's bad. It's wrong.
And I'm not even talking about the logic in all that. For years, conspiracy theorists have tried to use the Baker-Truly-Oswald encounter to show that Oswald couldn't have been on the sixth floor, since he would not have had enough time to come donwstairs. And now, to try to suit a new theory, all of a sudden, the Baker-Truly-Oswald encounter has ceased to exist...
Will that encounter come back into existence when still another new theory appears in a few years?
It reminds me of the Zapruder film issue. For years, the head snap was used to show that shots were fired from the front. Then some conspiracy theorists claimed that the Zapruder film had been faked, which prevented researchers from using anything in it as an argument against the official version. Until the Zapruder film sort of came back when everybody finally realized that it was never faked (and that was just an idiotic theory).
The same will apply here. Bart Kamp is to "prayer man" what Jim Fetzer was to the Zapruder film or Barr McClellan to the Wallace fingerprint: a spokesman for a new theory that will only last temporarily and eventually die down and disappear.
Mark my words!
B.A. COPELAND SAID:
Regardless of who you think Prayer Man is, the person must be accounted for for anyone proposing a theory as to what occurred in Dallas that terrible day. You must account for who that individual is and provide arguments and evidence to support your hypothesis.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
That's ridiculous. The "Prayer Man" figure doesn't need to be identified in order to provide a reasonable theory of the shooting. You might as well also say that every person in this Zapruder Film frame needs to be IDed in order to come to any conclusion about this case. And why would anyone think that?
There were dozens of people who were in Dealey Plaza who very likely will never be officially identified, including the beloved "Prayer Man". But that doesn't suddenly erase the fact that all the physical evidence points to Oswald as the killer.
It's my opinion that you simply cannot have this much evidence pointing directly at one individual (Oswald) and still have that individual being innocent.
B.A. COPELAND SAID:
I somewhat agree with you (we don’t need to ID everyone but....perhaps it would somehow help when connecting dots) though perhaps my wording leads you to respond in such a way as to say that everyone needs to be ID’ed in order to know what happened. That could actually be true. I mean, think of the film and video footage that had been confiscated never to return and how it would assist us in identifying those in the plaza. Suppose we ID someone who has been ID’ed elsewhere, say, Anti-Castro Cuban training camps, etc. It would help.
My position is that if we concern ourselves with accusing LHO, we should be more certain than not that the person standing in front of that vestibule of the entrance to the TSBD is not LHO. We need not ID every spectator in Dealey, though that would be incredible if we could. I speak primarily of the TSBD and its inhabitants or those closest to the bldg. as far [as] LHO being an alleged assassin is concerned.
The evidence point[ing] towards LHO is too weak today (and even then, which, in my humble opinion, [is] why he had to die)...Simpich lays a strong theory that even the alphabet agencies were at risk as agencies because of LHO and their relationships with them.
As far as evidence, we still need to learn who called in the “5’10, 165 lbs” to Sawyer. We also need to know who the living hell was impersonating LHO at Odio’s AND in Mexico City.
See, with those questions and anomalies I’ll never be confident accusing the guy. I don’t think anyone should be confident [of] accusing him with said facts.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
What you said here is true, B.A.:
"Suppose we ID someone who has been ID’ed elsewhere, say, Anti-Castro Cuban training camps, etc. It would help."
But my main point was that no matter how many "unidentified" people we have in the Dealey Plaza photos and films, the physical evidence that points to Lee Oswald is not going to disappear. It's going to be there until the cows come home (and beyond).
FRANCOIS CARLIER SAID:
This thread is just a dead-end!
Or, rather, it is a very good example of self-delusion at work!
I love the way you are all saying that Billy Lovelady gave the names of the colleagues around him and at the same time you all keep repeating that Buell Frazier did not say that Oswald was there because people didn't see their colleagues around them, as they were only focused on the parade.
You can't have it both ways. You must choose: were the people on the steps aware of their colleagues around them or not?
I say they were.
And guess what: NOT ONE OF THEM ever said that Oswald was near them!! Not even Billy Lovelady. Never. Not to the Dallas police, nor to the Warren Commission, nor to their friends, nor to their husbands/wives, nor to their children, not in 1963, nor at any time since then.
Nobody ever said that they saw Oswald next to them on the steps at the time of the shooting. Repeat: nobody, never.
Even in private, even at conspiracy conferences or in conspiracy books, not one of Oswald's colleagues ever said that he was with them on the steps of the TSBD (in 55 years!).
But you are all trying all you can to "guess", from selected pieces of interviews here and there.
Sorry, it won't wash!
Let's face it: you guys have nothing.
FRANCOIS CARLIER ALSO SAID:
I'd be happy if any JFK-assassination researcher who lives in the area of Dallas could try to go and visit Mister Buell Wesley Frazier and ask him a precise question, showing him all the so-called "prayer man" evidence (Wiegman and Darnell films): "To the best of your knowledge, Mister Frazier, do you recall Lee Oswald being there? Could it be him? Was he there?"
[...]
Can someone do that?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Let me remind everyone what Frazier told the Warren Commission in 1964 regarding the subject of "The Last Time Buell Wesley Frazier Saw Lee Harvey Oswald On November 22nd, 1963"....
JOSEPH A. BALL -- When was the last time you can remember you saw Lee?
BUELL WESLEY FRAZIER -- You mean on the 22nd?
MR. BALL -- On the 22nd, that day.
MR. FRAZIER -- Somewhere between---it was after 10 and somewhere before noon, because I remember I was walking down to the first floor that day, that was the only time I went up on the elevator was, like I say, for a few minutes and, I put that box of books up and put it down, and I was on the first floor putting up books all day and I seen him back and forth and he would be walking and getting books and put on the order.
MR. BALL -- That was the last time you saw him all day?
MR. FRAZIER -- Right.
MR. BALL -- You didn't talk to him again?
MR. FRAZIER -- No, sir; I didn't.
FRANCOIS CARLIER SAID:
I would be inclined to say that that settles it. The so-called "prayer man" CANNOT BE Lee Oswald.
I mean, it is a fact that Buell Wesley Frazier was there and he didn't see Oswald there.
Case closed!
(No, wait: some people who call themselves conspiracy theorists and were nowhere near Dallas that day want us to believe that despite the fact that nobody saw Oswald there and he himself said he was elsewhere, well, he must have been there anyway.)
Oh, well, never mind...
TONY KROME SAID:
But isn't it on permanent record at the Sixth Floor Museum that he did later see Oswald?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yes. But that was an AFTER-the-assassination alleged "sighting" of Oswald, and Buell said he saw Oswald walking along the side of the TSBD Building about "5 to 10 minutes" after the shooting. So even if Frazier is right about his later (2002) "sighting" of Oswald, that fact wouldn't change a thing with respect to where Oswald was at the time of JFK's murder and with respect to the evidence that will still point directly at Mr. Oswald as the murderer of both President Kennedy and Police Officer J.D. Tippit.
TONY KROME SAID:
There may be an answer as to his earlier repressed memory:
Freudian psychology suggests that psychogenic amnesia is an act of self-preservation, where the alternative might be overwhelming anxiety or even suicide. Unpleasant, unwanted or psychologically dangerous memories are repressed or blocked from entering the consciousness as a kind of subconscious self-censorship, but they remain in the unconscious.
Psychogenic amnesia, also known as functional amnesia or dissociative amnesia, is a disorder characterized by abnormal memory functioning in the absence of structural brain damage or a known neurobiological cause. It results from the effects of severe stress or psychological trauma.
Such repressed memories may be recovered spontaneously, years or decades after the event.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Here's another thought I had regarding Frazier's 2002 "bombshell"....
If Tony Krome is right about the "Psychogenic amnesia" stuff, AND if Oswald was really the "Prayer Man" figure, then we'd have to wonder WHY Frazier still said nothing about seeing Oswald on the steps at the time of the shooting?
Or did Frazier's "Psychogenic amnesia" only wear off PART OF THE WAY in June of 2002 when he said to Gary Mack that he saw Lee Oswald on Houston Street five to ten minutes after the shooting? And will Buell suddenly burst forth with Bombshell #2 in a few more years when his "Psychogenic amnesia" wears off to an even greater degree so that his memory blockage will be completely removed and he'll suddenly recall that Lee Oswald was with him on the steps all along?
And then when that unlikely scenario I just painted concerning Frazier does occur, the conspiracy theorists of the world would then only need to reconcile all of these other problems with the "Oswald Is Prayer Man" theory....
....Why didn't Oswald HIMSELF shout from the rooftops (when he was provided with multiple opportunities to do so when the live television cameras were focused on him at Dallas City Hall on both November 22nd and 23rd):
"I was outside with Wesley Frazier at the time of the assassination! Just ask Wesley! He'll tell you!" ?
....Why didn't Billy Lovelady, Bill Shelley, or any of the other people who were near the steps at the time when JFK was shot say they saw Oswald on or near the steps at that same critical "12:30" time? Were ALL of those other people suffering from "Psychogenic amnesia" too? And when do you suppose they too (if they are still among the living) will be able to free themselves from that affliction the way Frazier was freed from it?
....Why did Oswald tell Police Captain J. Will Fritz (within earshot of James Hosty and James Bookhout, who wrote the same thing in this FBI report) that he (Oswald) was INSIDE the building and specifically on the "first floor" at the time when JFK was being shot?
....Why didn't Oswald tell his wife or his brother or his mother the truth about how he was located out on the steps at 12:30 when all three of those relatives visited Oswald at City Hall on November 22 or 23? (Or are we dealing with three more cases of "Psychogenic amnesia" here?)
....Why did Lee Harvey Oswald shoot and kill J.D. Tippit if, in fact, he had really been located on the TSBD steps when John Kennedy was killed by some unknown non-Oswald killer(s)?
That should keep the conspiracy theorists busy for a few more years---even if Buell Wesley Frazier were to suddenly appear on CNN or Fox News beneath a Breaking News banner and declare on live television: "I saw Lee Harvey Oswald on the Depository steps at 12:30 P.M. on November 22, 1963; my Psychogenic Amnesia has just now totally worn off!"
TONY KROME SAID:
[Quoting Buell Wesley Frazier in this July 2013 interview, which is also embedded below....]
"You best keep silent, not go around talking, cause I don't want anything to happen to my family ..... I can accept a lot of things happening to me ..... but not my family." -- Frazier
Powerful stuff!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But stuff like this gets taken out of context a lot in this (JFK) case. Take Acquilla Clemons, for example....
"CLEMONS: But see, I take care of an ill man here. And she don’t want me in anything because it would upset him. She’s awful fond of me...
[Dale Myers speaking:] This is the first ah-hah moment – one that has been hidden from public scrutiny for better than fifty years. Here, for the first time, we have Mrs. Clemons explaining that it’s not a cadre of faceless, nameless law enforcement officers harassing her to keep quiet (as everyone has been led to believe by Mark Lane and the conspirati), but rather, a strong suggestion by her employers – John and Cornelia Smotherman – who are no doubt sick and tired of the parade of “journalists” (remember, this is the third visit in as many weeks) who keep showing up at her home." -- Dale K. Myers; November 1, 2017
| More here | -----> |  |
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
After watching the last minute of the above 2013 video featuring Buell Frazier, and after reading Tony Krome's post concerning Frazier's remark about "keeping silent", my previous comment above—"stuff like this gets taken out of context a lot in this (JFK) case"—rings even truer.
Here's the complete quote by Frazier that can be found in that 2013 video:
"But I knew, if there was people behind this, you best keep silent."
So Buell wasn't saying that somebody had told him to "keep silent". He was saying that IF there was anyone else involved in the President's assassination, he thought it would be better to "keep silent"---even though Mr. Frazier has been far from "silent" in the years since 1963. He's made numerous appearances over the years, even in the year just following the assassination, including an appearance in the Oscar-nominated 1964 feature motion picture produced by David L. Wolper, "Four Days In November".
But the way that Tony Krome has got that quote written out in his post, it makes it look like some third party is telling Frazier: "You best keep silent." But that's not what Frazier said or implied at all.
Now, even when the correct context of Frazier's quote is taken into account, CTers can still believe (if they want to) that Buell Wesley Frazier is "keeping silent" and concealing (to this day) a big secret concerning the identity of "Prayer Man". But, Tony, you should have shown Frazier's whole quote, in order to give the proper context, don't you think?
DEREK THIBEAULT SAID:
I just saw in the Facebook group Fair Play for JFK that DVP copied the link to this particular forum on this topic [it was this link]. Is that appropriate? What's the point of doing that?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I don't understand. What's INappropriate about linking to a JFK discussion at a JFK Facebook group? I do it all the time at Jim Hess' FB group and Ed Cage's group and my own JFK FB group.
FYI / BTW, here's my Facebook group (which has 800+ members) (and I've got it set up as a "Public" group, so anybody [even non-members] can view its contents; it's not a "Closed" group, which many FB groups are):
If you want to join my group, Derek, just come on by. I've never refused membership to anyone who has asked to sign up. (Or maybe you're a member already. I can't recall.) :)
DEREK THIBEAULT SAID:
That [Fair Play For JFK] group seems more appropriate for his views on the assassination anyway, so why be here? Just to gunk up further learning and thoughtful discussion?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I really don't understand that mindset, Derek. This is a forum entitled "JFK Assassination Debate". It's not called "JFK Forum For Conspiracy Believers Only".
Good gosh, do you really want a forum on a controversial issue like this one that is totally one-sided? Do you really think that in my 5,000+ posts I have done nothing but "gunk up" the place? Do you really think I've offered up no evidence at all for my stated Lone Assassin position?
Come now. Let's be a little reasonable.
DEREK THIBEAULT SAID:
Ok, maybe I overreacted. I should assume positive intent.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Thank you for saying that, Derek. I appreciate it. :)
VANESSA LONEY SAID:
Frazier says his family were threatened.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
When did Buell Wesley Frazier ever say that his family was "threatened" (your word)? Please point that out to me.
And if you're talking about this 2013 interview with Frazier, you're wrong. Because Frazier most certainly did not say that his family had been "threatened" by anyone. He was merely speculating about what he thought could happen to his family if others besides Oswald were involved in JFK's murder.
You, Vanessa, are reading something into Frazier's words that simply are not there (if you are referring to that 2013 interview, that is).
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
A friend of mine asked Frazier this question about three years ago.
He said that he could not answer due to the poor quality of the photo.
Take that for what you think it's worth.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yeah, but what was the exact question that Frazier was asked?....
Was he asked: Is this person [Prayer Man] Lee Oswald?
Or was he asked: Do you know who this person in the doorway is?
That could make a big difference in the response you'd get from Buell Frazier.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
1. Callaway had to ask Benavides what had happened.
2. Callaway had to ask him which way the perpetrator fled so he could chase him.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Of course Callaway needed to ask those questions.
Why?
Because Ted Callaway DID NOT SEE THE ACTUAL SHOOTING OF OFFICER J.D. TIPPIT WHEN IT WAS OCCURRING. Callaway saw only the aftermath. And he needed to confirm that the guy he did see (Oswald) was the ONLY shooter.
How was Callaway supposed to know those things from a block away? Mental telepathy?
Geesh, use your head, man. This is incredibly obvious stuff.
EDDY BAINBRIDGE SAID:
Without the batting of an eye you had rejected this new evidence (to you) [re: Ochus Campbell] as quickly as you have rejected the evidence upon which this thread is based.
That is very closed minded behaviour. You had a conclusion prior to your assessment of the facts.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I rejected the Campbell "sighting" because....
1. Campbell, on 11/24/63, said to the FBI he had never seen LHO in his entire life, which contradicts Campbell's alleged statement in a newspaper from the previous day. So, which report should we believe? I really don't know, but I'll ultimately choose the "never seen" report. Why, you ask? See #2 below.
2. I'm satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that Oswald could not possibly have been in a storage room near the front entrance of the TSBD on the first floor at the time Ochus Campbell allegedly said to have seen Oswald in that room, and that's because the evidence (in total) indicates that Oswald was on the sixth floor shooting at JFK at 12:30.
EDDY BAINBRIDGE SAID:
That is a confirmation about what I said about your thought process. You have received two new pieces of evidence (Ochus Campbell article and Hosty report) and your response is:
"I'm satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that Oswald could not possibly have been in a storage room near the front entrance of the TSBD".
Of one thing there is NO doubt. The new evidence relating to Prayer Man casts doubt on the whereabouts of Oswald around 12:30. It is extremely disturbing that in 2019 we can look back and see a pattern of changing witness evidence.
Do you move even slightly from 'beyond all reasonable doubt' when faced with two pieces of contradictory evidence?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yes. (Slightly.) :)
But it's going to take a LOT more than that Ochus Campbell contradiction to get me to believe that Lee Oswald was located in a storage room on the first floor at the time of JFK's death. For one thing, Campbell's story seems to change slightly again when you read the 11/23 Dallas Morning News. In that particular newspaper story, it's implied that it was NOT Campbell who actually saw Oswald in the "storage room", but it was Roy Truly and a policeman instead. The DMN says Campbell was running toward the Grassy Knoll at that time. So the story in the Dallas Morning News about the "storage room" doesn't match the New York Herald Tribune story at all.
So I think there's some major conflation of the facts (plus some erroneous "facts") in BOTH of those newspaper accounts involving Mr. Ochus Campbell.
TONY KROME SAID:
How did the Dallas Morning News know there was "a storage room on the first floor"?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
That's a fair question. (And, yes, I know what you're implying by asking that question. I'm not quite as stupid as most CTers want to believe.) :)
And I don't have an answer to your question, Tony. I have no idea. But, as I stated in my previous post, I definitely do think there was some "conflation" of the facts going on in those early stories that were being printed in the various newspapers around the country and being broadcast on TV and radio.
It's my belief that the Dallas Morning News article is really describing the encounter with Oswald that took place on the second floor, not "in a storage room on the first floor". But the DMN, quite obviously, must have gotten the (erroneous) info about the "storage room" from somebody. They certainly didn't just make it up out of whole cloth.
So, yes, somebody told someone from the DMN that a policeman had stopped Oswald on the first floor. Who provided that information to the DMN? I haven't the foggiest. Maybe it was Ochus Campbell. I don't know. Do you know? Does anybody?
But, to me, there is ample corroboration between both Marrion Baker and Roy Truly to verify and prove that the one and only "encounter" that Officer Baker had with any person (i.e., suspect) inside the Book Depository occurred on the second floor and no other floor.
The above paragraph is either true---or the conspiracy theorists who think otherwise are going to have to do some picking-and-choosing of their own when it comes to which first-day story they want to believe....i.e.,
Do CTers want to believe what was printed in the Dallas Morning News on Saturday morning, November 23, 1963, which says that an "officer", with his "gun drawn"...."spotted Oswald"...."in a storage room on the first floor"?
Or do conspiracists want to believe Marrion Baker's 11/22/63 signed affidavit, which states that Baker encountered a man on "the third or fourth floor"?
They can't both be accurate, right? So one of those two accounts must be wrong. Although, strangely enough, it seems as though many conspiracy theorists seem to want to embrace both of those accounts as being the absolute truth. ~shrug~
Or, as an alternative, do CTers want to believe that there were really TWO different "encounters" between police officers and suspects within the TSBD on 11/22/63, with one of those encounters occurring on the 3rd or 4th floor, while another encounter (involving, apparently, a policeman who was not Marrion L. Baker) occurred "in a storage room on the first floor"?
It looks to me as if the CTers also have a choice to make as far as the things they want to accept as "true" vs. "erroneous" when it comes to evaluating some of the first-day information that was being revealed in the newspapers and in affidavits.
And, as everyone knows, erroneous information gets published and broadcast on television and radio all the time. And there were quite a few mistakes that made it "on the air" concerning this (JFK) case [see the video below].
RON BULMAN SAID:
It's interesting to note that out of 331 posts on this thread, 117 of them, over one third, are by Dave and Frank [aka Francois Carlier].
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Where did you get that info? Does Edu. Forum offer detailed analytics on every thread? (Or --- Don't tell me you actually went through all 23 pages and counted the posts by hand? You didn't really do that, did you? Surely not.) :)
RON BULMAN SAID:
Well Dave, the forum does provide the total number of posts for a topic. I used the scroll button on my mouse and just started counting 1-2-3-4, 96-96-97 [sic] every time I saw you or [Francois'] name. Didn't come close to 5 minutes.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Ten-Four. I was just curious if The Education Forum offered up some kind of "Thread Participant Statistics" or something like that there.
But thanks for admitting you performed such a meaningless manual mathematics task in order to try and bash Francois and myself some more. Good job!
RON BULMAN SAID:
I certainly didn't waste any time reading yours or his posts. His I pretty well skip over. Yours I generally skim and ignore.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yeah, I usually do that same thing when I see your posts too---"skim & ignore".
RON BULMAN SAID:
But there are so many by the two of you, it seems you're quite upset by the three references to Oswald being (likely briefly) out front when JFK was shot. I mean, it gives credence to the possibility of Oswald being Prayerman, and that would really upset your apple carts.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I'm not "upset" in the least. I'm actually kind of pleased that this thread was started, because it has given me some opportunities to add some of my thoughts about certain aspects of the case that I don't think I had yet archived at my website in the past --- such as these comments concerning Buell Wesley Frazier, which have arisen in this thread....
jfk-arguments-part-1308/The Rough Treatment Of Buell Wesley Frazier
jfk-arguments-part-1308/Frazier's 2002 Bombshell
My "Part 1308" is getting to be pert-near as long a page as Part 1058 (the "Hidell Money Order" discussion, which I think has the current record for "longest page" on my site at this time; that one takes about a year-and-a-half to read [~wink~]; but it's worth it, because it's such a fun battle, with more twists and turns and conspiracists in denial than a whole month's worth of posts at EF & DPF combined!). :)
BART KAMP SAID:
Marina Oswald: “It’s Lee”. ....
http://www.prayer-man.com/marina-oswald-its-lee
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
Damn this is cool!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But at the same time....so meaningless.
Marina Oswald looked at the same crappy, fuzzy image that all of us have looked at, and yet she somehow KNOWS "It's Lee".
Yeah, right.
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
FWIW....
From Duncan MacRae's forum....
"I just had a nice half hour phone conversation with Debra Conway and she told me Buell Frazier has told her several times that Prayer Man is Sarah Stanton. Conway then told me, "I know Buell, and I don't think he would lie about a thing like that"." -- Brian Doyle; February 17, 2019
TONY KROME SAID:
Can't see Frazier on her list.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So, you DON'T think Buell Frazier was on the steps at all, huh?
~shrug~
TONY KROME SAID:
Frazier was there for sure, I'm saying if that's Stanton standing next to him, she made no mention of him.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Chalk one up for Tony Krome. Good point.
RON BULMAN SAID:
From MacRae's forum via Doyle...this is true?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Beats me. I just happened to spy it on Duncan's forum tonight, so I thought I'd share it.
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
Excerpt from this 2015 Education Forum discussion:
"FWIW.....
I really have no idea if the "Prayer" person is a male or a female, but I took note of this statement in Commission Document No. 706 (also found in CE1381) by Mrs. Pauline Sanders, a 55-year-old white female, who was standing on the TOP STEP of the Book Depository Building at the time of the President's assassination.
Sanders, however, said she was standing on the EAST side of the top step, so that wouldn't exactly fit the bill for "Prayer Person's" position. But it's pretty close.
In her March 19, 1964, FBI statement, Mrs. Sanders said that another woman, Sarah Stanton (age 41), was "standing next to me" on the steps of the Depository. Here is Stanton's 3/18/64 FBI statement.
So that means there were definitely two different women (aged 55 and 41) standing on the steps of the TSBD during the time of the assassination (and very likely on the top step, and that looks like the same step where "Prayer Person" is located).
And here is an FBI report regarding an interview with Pauline Sanders on 11/24/63 (CE1434)." -- DVP; September 21, 2015
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID:
David: you would not believe anything that Mr. Doyle says, would you? Mrs. Stanton had thick grey hair on the top of her 5'6" body. She was seriously obese and she was, of course, a woman. Where can you see these features in Prayer Man?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Maybe somebody should ask Buell Wesley Frazier that question, instead of asking me.
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
For any person who believes that the "Prayer Man" figure is Lee Harvey Oswald and for those who are unaware of the document linked below, I'd recommend that they read that document, which is an April 3, 1964, FBI report consisting of signed statements from 73 different Book Depository employees. The FBI, in these statements, sought to discover some basic information from those 73 TSBD employees, including whether each of the employees had seen Lee Harvey Oswald at the time of JFK's assassination.
And if you read through all 73 statements, you'll find that there wasn't a single employee who said they saw Oswald at the time the shooting took place --- not even among the several people who said they were located on or near the front steps of the Depository at 12:30 PM on 11/22/63.
Do the "Prayer Man" advocates think all of the people who were in a position to see Oswald on or near the steps were lying? Or were they all just not very observant? And if it's the latter option, then conspiracy theorists have got to admit one thing for sure --- any conspirators who might have been attempting to frame Lee Harvey Oswald for President Kennedy's murder on November 22nd sure as heck got awfully lucky when their designated "patsy", who was standing right out in the open in front of the building for all to potentially see, just happened to go totally unnoticed in the eyes of every single spectator who was standing nearby.
Patsy-framing assassination plotters don't get that lucky very often. Do they? ....
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
You [Bart Kamp] think this batch of worthless fuzziness can tell us ANYTHING at all?
Get real.
BART KAMP SAID:
That pic tells me more than anything you ever brought forward.
HA! Get real yourself, using Brian Doyle to put an argument forward.
Pathetic. Get some sleep. You are tired and not up to it any more.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Kamp uses a batch of pure mush and visual slop to try and prove a point, and yet it's me who is "pathetic".
Ya gotta love the arrogance of ABO [Anybody But Oswald] CTers.
BART KAMP SAID:
CE 1389 [sic; Kamp is wrong about the CE number here; it's really CE1381] is not of much use as a document.
The same six questions put together by Hoover asked to 73 TSBD employees.
4 months after the deed.
Oswald is dead anyway, so why go against the grain and stick your neck out and risk your job, livelihood or worse your life?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
This is a very poor argument, in my opinion.
Kamp is obviously implying that at least a few employees on the steps DID see and recognize Lee Oswald as a person who was also on the front stoop of the Depository Building at 12:30 PM, but due to the evil strong-arming tactics of the authorities (FBI, DPD, etc.), absolutely none of these TSBD employees (zero!!) had the courage to come forth in CE1381 (aka Commission Document No. 706) and tell the truth about Oswald being on the front porch of the Depository.
In other words, all of those witnesses who DID see Oswald out there simply LIED through their individual and collective teeth in CD706/CE1381! And Buell Frazier, who would have been standing within just a few short feet of LHO, must surely be one of those liars, right Kamp?
BART KAMP SAID:
Who is Prayer Man?
Can't be a stranger as per your fave document.
So who is it?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Why on Earth can't it be a "stranger"? In the CE1381/CD706 document, it appears that all (or most) of the employees only stated that they had seen no strangers IN the building that day. That doesn't eliminate the possibility of a stranger mixing in with some of the TSBD employees out on the front steps, which are located, of course, OUTSIDE the building.
So, yes, "Prayer Man" could very possibly be a "stranger" indeed.
And please don't start up the nonsense about the front steps and entrance area of the building really being INSIDE the building itself. Because that argument is too nonsensical to keep talking about.
TONY KROME SAID:
All his TSBD workmates said Oswald was a quiet guy who was happy to avoid people.
Where would a guy with this personality stand? ...... In the corner, in the shadows and behind.
What attracted his colleagues' attention out on the steps? .... A motorcade, a President, a First Lady, gunfire.
I just can't work out why they weren't staring at Oswald.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And yet many other TSBD workers were able to recall the names of the other people who were standing around them out on the steps on 11/22 --- even in the midst of "a motorcade, a President, a First Lady, [and] gunfire". And yet none of those employees said a word about Lee Oswald being among them on the steps. Go figure.
The logical (and sensible) answer, of course, is ---- Lee was never out there in the first place.
TONY KROME SAID:
MR. GARRISON: As the result of the conversations with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, what did you do?
RICHARD RANDOLPH CARR: I done as I was instructed, I shut my mouth.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Boy, were those plotters who were framing Oswald a bunch of lucky SOBs or what?
Everybody on the steps turns out to be subservient to the demands of Hoover's Almighty FBI.
And yet we still have NON-subservient "CT" witnesses popping up like S.M. Holland and Jean Hill and Marguerite Oswald and Lee Bowers and A.J. Millican (and many more).
But maybe it was only the "TSBD Workers" who bowed down to Hoover's cover-up demands, eh?
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
Another "Ochus Campbell" Addendum....
While I was browsing through the witness statements in CD706, I came across this March 19, 1964, statement provided by TSBD Vice President Ochus V. Campbell, and I noticed that it dovetails nicely with Campbell's 11/24/63 FBI interview, with respect to Campbell saying (in both documents) that he had never seen Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination. In his 3/19/64 statement specifically, Campbell said this:
"I have had occasion to view photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald and to the best of my recollection never saw him while he was employed by the Texas School Book Depository."
VANESSA LONEY SAID:
David, 13 TSBD employees are on the steps and they manage to identify who is standing behind them, in front and beside them.
But they all fail to identify one person, the same person.
And they don't even say there was a stranger there. Not one. Even though he is clearly visible standing right next to the door they need to open to get back into the building.
And no-one saw this stranger even though the FBI asked them if they saw any strangers that day.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, Vanessa, as Tony Krome pointed out earlier (and he made a good point), Sarah Stanton failed to say that Buell Frazier was there. And we certainly know that he was there.
But the "Prayer Man" person could most certainly be a stranger. There's no reason why it COULDN'T be a "stranger", despite the protests of CTers saying that that is impossible.
CD706/CE1381 doesn't specifically say that all 73 of those employees saw no strangers OUTSIDE the confines of the building on November 22. Most of them said they saw no strangers INSIDE the building. But do you think that statement is also meant to convey that they didn't see any unknown people standing on the steps of the building during the motorcade? I don't think it means that at all.
Therefore, IMO, the possibility (or even probability) of Mr. Prayer Person being a "stranger" is certainly still on the table.
B.A. COPELAND SAID:
We should never attempt to make PM irrelevant. He is someone and may be someone of potentially great relevance to the entire case, at least as far as the TSBD is concerned. Is he a potential suspect? Innocent bystander? Murderer? Thief? Employee? We should seek the truth in that regard.
PM could be a stranger, but Murphy (and others) have masterfully eliminated that possibility for the most part in that legendary thread. We ought to research who it is. Sadly that first gen. copy of the film may exist, but for some odd reason it’s quite impossible for honest researchers to obtain.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
There is no possible way that Sean Murphy (or anyone else) could totally eliminate the POSSIBILITY of "Prayer Man" being a "stranger" instead of a "TSBD worker". Sean might think he's done the impossible there, but when reality sets in, the "stranger" angle will never be totally eliminated. How could it be? There were a lot of "strangers" on Elm Street that day (from a TSBD worker's POV). Far more strangers than TSBD workers, that's for sure. And yet Sean Murphy has (somehow) systematically eliminated from contention any possibility of one of those non-Depository "strangers" climbing to the top of the TSBD stairs and watching the motorcade from there???
Puh-lease!
BRIAN DOYLE SAID [AT DVP's FACEBOOK GROUP]:
Jim DiEugenio and Bart Kamp live in a non-reality of their own making. They are posting that Buell Frazier needs to be confronted on the Prayer Man issue and asked about it directly. Debra Conway already did that and Kamp knows it. Jim D also knows it and thinks he's some kind of guru who can ignore evidence and remove people from the community.
Last October, Debra Conway posted on her Facebook page that she ran my Prayer Man evidence by Frazier and he agreed Prayer Man was Sarah Stanton -- a chubby Depository secretary whose obese features can be seen on Prayer Man by skilled observers.
I interviewed Stanton's granddaughter, Wanda, and she also emphatically agreed Prayer Man was her grandmother, Sarah. When Kamp attacked me in response on Debra's page, she banned him.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
BTW....
Just "for the record"....
I haven't the slightest idea WHO "Prayer Man" (or Woman) is, but I am much more inclined to believe that it is Sarah Stanton than I am to believe it is Lee Harvey Oswald. And, as a matter of fact, knowing the physical and circumstantial evidence in this (JFK/Tippit) case the way I do know it, I'd be inclined to believe that "Prayer Man" is just about ANYBODY other than Lee Oswald, because, in my opinion, one of the people who PM cannot possibly be is Lee Harvey Oswald. (IMHO)(FWIW)(YMMV)
BRIAN DOYLE SAID:
David,
Vanessa and Kamp are lying to you. If you read the LeDoux article, this is the image LeDoux is claiming that Marina stopped mid-sentence and said "It's Lee".
The Prayer Man people are not telling the truth and LeDoux is writing that this faceless dummy is the image that Marina looked at and immediately recognized Lee in and confirmed the Prayer Man theory because of.
Mr. Von Pein, what is very clear is Marina has no idea what theory LeDoux is trying to show her and never even looked at the material LeDoux sent her (as she tells him in the recording). Marina goes way back and she thinks LeDoux is referring to the original Lovelady as Oswald claim from Altgens. That's why she says all you have to do is compare Lovelady's face to Lee's in the recording.
She's just placating LeDoux and getting rid of him by just telling him what he wants to hear and LeDoux and Kamp are lying about what actually happened and trying to sell it as Marina's knowledgeable approval of their garbage Prayer Man claims. Nothing could be more deceitful or dishonest and there you have the CT community buying it unquestioningly and taking the entire credibility of the CT community to the ROKC gutter.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yes, Brian, based on what I have read at the "Prayer Man" website, I think you are right about this. Thanks for the nudge via your post at Facebook about this matter, which prompted me to take another look at this page of the "Prayer Man" site, on which we find these words (which evidently I didn't read carefully enough yesterday when I first looked at that webpage; emphasis added by DVP):
"When I [Ed LeDoux] got to Richard Sprague’s annotated sketches of Weigman [sic] and the label of an unknown figure marked J, she stopped me. Marina interjected and said, “That’s Lee”. I was taken aback, as she knew exactly what and who I had asked about. She volunteered her answer. I exclaimed, “What?”, to make sure I had heard her correctly. And she replied to me, “It’s Lee”, and did so as quite a matter of fact."
So it's clear from the above words written by Ed LeDoux that Marina didn't "identify" Lee Harvey Oswald as "Prayer Man" from any of the FILMS showing the front of the Book Depository during the time of the assassination (i.e., the black-and-white news films taken by Dave Wiegman of NBC-TV and Jimmy Darnell of WBAP-TV), but, instead, Marina evidently called out "That's Lee" when looking at this "sketch"....
....which, of course, is a sketch that depicts absolutely no clear features whatsoever that could possibly be utilized to positively identify ANY human being.
So when I said this yesterday....
"Marina Oswald looked at the same crappy, fuzzy image that all of us have looked at, and yet she somehow KNOWS "It's Lee". Yeah, right."
....I was probably incorrect, because it certainly would appear (according to the words we find at Prayer-Man.com) that Marina Oswald was NOT looking at this still frame from the Darnell Film when she exclaimed "It's Lee". She was merely looking at some drawing or "sketch".
So why in the world the Prayer Man and ROKC conspiracy theorists are propping up this "It's Lee" junk is beyond me. Because it couldn't be more obvious to me now that Marina Oswald's "It's Lee!" declaration is about as useful and meaningful as a blind person trying to figure out the identity of the "Prayer Man" figure.
In other words, Marina is very likely mixed up regarding which "Doorway Man" figure is which, and as such, her "It's Lee" remark is not credible at all. In fact, it's totally worthless. And it would still be totally worthless even if Marina WAS referring to the "Prayer Man" figure seen in the Darnell film. Because that figure cannot be positively identified as "Lee" (or anyone else) given its poor quality and low resolution.
It's also quite clear from the audio of LeDoux's telephone conversation with Marina Oswald in July of 2018 that Marina has no interest in reading the "Prayer Man" book that was sent to her by members of the "Prayer Man" online fraternity. She said to LeDoux very pointedly: "I'm not going to read that book".
So Marina certainly hasn't gleaned any knowledge from this book at all. And I have a feeling that she probably hasn't read a single thing about the "Prayer Man" theory---ever.
Plus, as Brian Doyle reminded me, Marina mentions the name of "Billy Lovelady" during her brief telephone conversation with LeDoux [linked below], implying that she was still of the opinion at that time that the "Classic Lovelady Figure" (for lack of a better way to describe it) in the James Altgens photograph was the focus of LeDoux's interest, and not the "Prayer Man" figure.
It's very curious to me (based on that one article at the "Prayer Man" website) that anyone in the PM community could possibly think that Marina had, in fact, said that the Prayer Man figure was Lee Oswald, when she clearly seems to think that the "Billy Lovelady" figure in the TSBD doorway is the prime focus of Ed LeDoux's inquiry. And thusly, she mentions "Billy Lovelady" in her follow-up phone conversation with LeDoux above. I think she is saying that she thinks Lee is the Billy Lovelady figure. She's not saying the "Prayer Man" figure is Lee at all.
And I'll add this....
Based on the words that Marina used in her interviews with LeDoux, I'm going to guess that even if Marina Oswald HAS seen this image from Jimmy Darnell's film, she could very well STILL think that the "Prayer Man" image is the same as the "Billy Lovelady" image. Both figures, after all, are standing very close to each other in the west portion of the doorway. So if Marina hasn't "studied up" on the "Prayer Man" theory specifically (and it's pretty clear that she hasn't, based on her comments to LeDoux on the phone), she could very easily be merging the two "Doorway Man" figures into just one, with that one (in Marina's mind) being this man right here in the Altgens photo.
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID:
David:
Marina was sent Prayer Man pictures, not Altgens6. She was taken through the schematic drawing of the doorway figures (Barnabei) and stopped at the one labelled "J", not at Lovelady or Shelley or anyone else. This was in context of previous Darnell and Wiegman pictures she received by mail.
It is true that the recorded conversation includes Marina's using the name Lovelady, in the sense that one only needs to understand the difference between the two men, Lovelady and Lee -- she was not saying that Lovelady in Altgens6 was Lee. That part may raise some questions and it would be very useful to sit with Marina, show her both Altgens6 and Darnell and record the responses.
However, I also gather that Marina may not be able to do it due to her health issues, which she has mentioned at the beginning of the phone conversation. Under such circumstances, Marina could be severely distressed and confused even in things which healthy people of younger age find easy or trivial. I appreciated that Ed had chosen to make the call short once Marina told she was unwell.
It may be worthy to prepare two (sets of) pictures, one with Altgens6-Lovelady and one with Darnell-Prayer Man, shuffle them and ask if any of the figures in any of the photographs resembles Lee. Give her enough time and put her at ease. I would say this should be done by someone who can visit Marina and can see if she is all right on the day. Maybe David Lifton or Gary Shaw?
So, we are half-way through here. Some will interpret Marina's statements as a positive identification and some will point to uncertainty in her statements.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Andrej,
Good suggestions above. I agree that a sit-down, in-person conversation with Marina Oswald Porter would be the best way to straighten out exactly where she stands on the matter of "Altgens/Lovelady" vs. "Prayer Man". Because I think, as of right now, she is equating ALL "Doorway Man" images with the famous Altgens/Lovelady image. And I think that's why she said this to Ed LeDoux in one of their conversations:
"When I [LeDoux] asked Marina about the images of Prayer Man to Lee, she said, “Yes, seen it many times”, like it was old news."
Now, does anyone really think that Marina Oswald has seen the "Prayer Man" image "many times" since that theory first popped up on anybody's radar in 2013? I seriously doubt it. The image she has very likely seen "many times", however, is the Altgens/Lovelady picture.
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID:
David:
There were two phone calls. The earlier phone call, I gather, happened after Marina received a pack of Darnell and Wiegman stills which apparently also contained Barnebei sketches, and Ed and Marina went through the sketch while having other Darnell and Wiegman photographs around. It was at that point when Marina confirmed "J" person to be Lee. There was no association with Altgens6 during the first conversation.
The second phone call was the one which was recorded. Marina was not well, she did not read [the] Prayer Man book but she browsed through the book and realised she might not be able to understand because there were too many characters mentioned in the book, and she felt that was too much on her. Those having grandparents around their 80th year of life would understand right away what was the problem. She clearly was a bit confused at that moment and mentioned Lovelady and came back in her mind to Altgens6, which picture she had seen many times.
However, she did not think that she was identifying from Altgens6, she gave her approval to something which has been discussed during the first conversation, and that was Darnell's Prayer Man.
Ed [LeDoux] is a member on this forum and can shed more light on the problem. I may not interpret the course of events accurately as I was not the one making the calls.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
It doesn't really matter, Andrej. Because one thing is quite obvious to me after looking at this image just one time --- and that is:
Nobody can say for sure who the so-called "Prayer Man" person is --- not even Marina Oswald.
And anyone who thinks she can positively I.D. LHO as PM is only fooling themselves.
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID:
We will see about it. I am sure we can do a lot for clarifying the possibility of Lee Oswald being Prayer Man even with the versions of Darnell available now, and even more if a high-resolution copy of Darnell film will be available to researchers.
I would not recommend using the copy of Darnell's still which pops up after hitting the link in your message. I am afraid this version is already a processed image in which the contrasts have been increased. My preferred Darnell images are those obtained by disassembling Darnell film into individual frames.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, I have some other versions of the Prayer Man image saved on my computer too [below], if they will help. (You might not believe me, but I too would like to be able to find out who "Prayer Man" is, if at all possible.)
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
I also just today realized that I have in my video archives a fairly high-quality (enhanced) version of the NBC-TV coverage that aired on 11/22/63, and that coverage includes the news film taken by NBC cameraman Dave Wiegman. I'm not sure if my enhanced NBC coverage contains the Jimmy Darnell footage or not, but it might, because Darnell was employed by an NBC affiliate, WBAP-TV in Fort Worth, at that time. I'll go look now.
A FEW MINUTES LATER, DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Embedded below is one of my NBC-TV videos which shows the Wiegman film being broadcast on live television for the first time (narrated by Charles Murphy of WBAP-TV). Skip to about 37:00 to see the Wiegman footage. I can't see the "Prayer Man" figure at all in this video footage, but perhaps some of the photographic experts/wizards at this forum can extract the "PM" out of this footage.
Note --- This version below of NBC's assassination coverage is probably the very best and highest visual quality you will likely ever come across for this videotaped material. It was sent to me in 2015 by a Facebook friend who didn't want to be identified, and he gave me permission to post his enhanced footage anywhere I wanted on the Internet. The video below is a "raw file" that has not been re-processed by me or anyone else after I received it in 2015, which makes it a little clearer than my edited version that I've placed on my websites and elsewhere.
To see all five "Raw" parts in my NBC-TV series, Click Here. The Wiegman film is shown at least two more times by NBC later in the day on November 22nd, including in Part 5 of my series, when a very brief segment of the Darnell film is also seen (but not Darnell's footage of the TSBD, however).
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID:
The identity of Prayer Man as Lee Oswald is in "probability" terms unless clear facial features will pop up after a high-res copy shows them.
However, with the matches listed in my previous post [this post], a preliminary probability estimate in terms of odds ratio comes to about 1:700,000 (this figure may still change as different features are being added or withdrawn). This would be the odds that any random person would show the same matches with Prayer Man as Lee Harvey Oswald. 1:700,000 is the chance of dying due to being hit by a meteorite. The number of inhabitants in Dallas in 1963 was about 670,000.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Andrej,
You're just inventing those "1 in 700,000" odds. It's being based on data that YOU think is correct. While others might disagree with your data.
For example, you've decided that Prayer Man is a MALE. But we don't know that for a fact. It could be a female. In which case, your "1 in 700,000" figure would change dramatically.
Anyway, I don't place much stock in "odds" reached by CTers---especially since the "1 in 100 trillion trillion" junk (or whatever the number was) that came from the conspiracy crowd many years ago regarding the "Mysterious Deaths", which we now know was totally bogus.
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID:
David:
My odds ratio is preliminary, just to illustrate where it would be now with existing matches as they are known. The method is straightforward - calculation of conditioned probability with multiple features.
For instance, Prayer Man was a white Caucasian as was Lee Oswald. The probability of being white Caucasian in Dallas in 1963 was 0.86 as 14% of the population were other races.
Of course, there are features which are more difficult to estimate (e.g., the probability of Prayer Man and Lee having the same shape of hairline) and for those, it will be more correct to use a range of probabilities rather than a single probability value.
Once finished, I would post the probability figures for everyone to check.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But there's the rub right there, Andrej. How do we decide what is truly "known", vs. factors (or "matches") that are merely pure guesses? Such as Male vs. Female and the weight of the individual, to name just two factors?
It's a guessing game to a large degree.
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID:
The weight cannot be elaborated from a picture, however, the gender can. It is simple: the distribution of body heights of U.S. population in 1963 for people of a certain age is known. Prayer Man was 5'9" and the probability is approaching zero for such a person being female.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I'm sorry, Andrej, but I'm not buying that at all. 5-feet-9 isn't very tall at all. Yes, a woman who is 5-9 would be considered "tall" for a lady. But you said the probability is near "zero" that Prayer Man is a female, despite the fact that there were undoubtedly many thousands of females in the Dallas-Fort Worth area who stood at 5-9 or taller in late 1963. I have no idea exactly how many women were 5-9 or taller, but my gosh, your "approaching zero" odds are surely overstated to a large degree.
(Quick---somebody go through all the JFK records and see if they can find any details that might reveal the height of any of the female assassination witnesses---such as: Ruth Paine, Jean Hill, Mary Woodward, Vickie Adams, Marilyn Sitzman, Karen Carlin, Barbara Davis, Carolyn Walther, Geneva Hine, Linnie Mae Randle, Jeanne DeMohrenschildt, Barbara Rowland, Eva Grant, et al, etc., etc. Surely at least some of those women were 5'9" or taller.) :)
In addition....
How are you, Andrej, so absolutely certain that "Prayer Man" is exactly 5-feet, 9-inches tall? Have you considered every possible factor involving posture that could affect how the height of a person can be distorted in a photograph or film? And how can you determine the exact posture (or stance) of "Prayer Man"?
Seems to me, given the restrictions and limitations you're working with, the best you could possibly do would be to arrive at a range of possible heights for the unknown individual known as "Prayer Man".
ANDREJ STANCAK SAID THIS.
BRIAN DOYLE SAID THIS IN A FACEBOOK POST.
ANDREW PRUTSOK SAID:
Pretty solid of Mr. Von Pein to post the NBC footage. Hats off, considering the attacks he frequently receives — whether justified, or...they are mostly justified. I jest of course. I think it’s a noble gesture.
Personally, I suspect Prayerman is Lee Harvey Oswald. But the blurry Prayerman figure looks somewhat Rubyesque to me as well. The hairline, I think. Not suggesting it’s Ruby, just found it amusing.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Thanks for the kind words, Andrew. :)
And what you said about Ruby and hairlines is kind of interesting, because many people still to this day seem to think that Jack Ruby was roaming all over Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63. (Not as "Prayer Man" on the steps, but Ruby was allegedly seen in other locations within the Plaza, according to Jean Hill and others.)
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
I have a question for those who have more knowledge than I do about the "Darnell Film"....
I don't think I've ever seen the complete Darnell news film in uncut form. I have a copy of the film on my websites, but it doesn't begin with the Depository/Prayer Man scene. My copy starts with a shot of James Altgens standing on the sidewalk on Elm Street as Bill Newman is pounding the ground behind Altgens.
Does anybody know where a complete and uncut version of James Darnell's film can be found? I don't think I've seen an uncut copy on YouTube. I'd like to be able to find an uncut copy so that I can add it to my "JFK Assassination Films" webpage.
Thanks for any help anyone can provide.
[DVP Note --- I never received any response from anyone regarding my post directly above.]
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
Have you [Andrej Stancak] ever wondered why Oswald dashed up to the second floor to buy a Coke within seconds of witnessing the President getting shot out on the street? Seems kind of strange, doesn't it? (And you're not one of those CTers who thinks the Baker/Oswald Lunchroom Encounter never even happened....are you?)
[DVP Note --- Andrej's response to my above inquiry has been (to date): Dead silence.]
BART KAMP SAID:
It is strange as it didn't happen. The Hosty note kills it off and then some.
Which also brings me to the joint Hosty/Bookhout report and the solo Bookhout report, if I am not mistaken I asked you to discuss the major differences between the two for weeks on row already........
The 2FLRE [Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter] is dead in the water, no matter how desperate you try to revive it.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
YOU, Bart Kamp, are the "desperate" one. You and the rest of the "Baker & Truly & Fritz All Lied About The 2nd-Floor Encounter" crowd.
James Hosty's notes don't come close to debunking the comments and testimony of the two people who were there on the second floor with Lee Harvey Oswald on 11/22/63. And those two people are: Roy S. Truly and Marrion L. Baker.
With respect to the differences between the two FBI reports you mentioned....I discuss that here.
BART KAMP SAID:
I know this [is] hard for you to take in, David, but I suggest you stay calm.
The overall evidence (!), not just the bits you fancy, [shows] clearly that there was no 2FLRE on the 22nd.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The overall evidence, of course, does exactly the opposite, Barto.
But keep fighting reality. It's what ABO CTers do best.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
Not if the evidence has been tampered with, David.
The problem with most of your JFK [Assassination] analyses is that you won't consider the possibility of a coverup. This is a major flaw in your thinking. You use circular logic: We know there was no coverup because the (tampered with) evidence shows there was no coverup.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But in the particular topic that Bart and I were arguing about above --- the "2nd Floor Lunchroom Encounter" and whether or not that encounter occurred at all --- the physical evidence that can be examined in order to determine whether that encounter happened or not is certainly very minimal, as I'm sure you'd agree. There are the reports and notes of Fritz, Bookhout, and Hosty, plus some newspaper articles from various papers (none of which mention the SECOND floor, that's true, with at least one paper saying the encounter occurred on the FIRST floor).
But in a situation like this, we're really forced to rely on the words and statements and testimony of those people who were involved in the "2nd Floor Encounter" --- e.g., Roy Truly and Marrion Baker and, yes, even Lee Harvey Oswald, with Oswald HIMSELF (per Captain Fritz' final typed report) verifying that he was stopped by a policeman on the second floor of the Depository, with Oswald telling Fritz (again, according to Fritz' own report) that he was "on the second floor drinking a Coca-Cola when the officer came in".
Now, conspiracy theorists, if they choose to do so, can believe that those three people (Marrion Baker, Roy Truly, and J.W. Fritz) lied their eyes out when they each said that an encounter with Oswald occurred on the second floor. But, Sandy, does such a lie really make much sense at all? All that lying and manipulation of the facts just to put Lee Harvey Oswald on the second floor of a building, when everybody knows that the assassin of President Kennedy was located on the sixth floor of that building when the President was killed?
It's flat-out ridiculous.
A couple of "Common Sense" reminders....
"And all of that subterfuge and lying was done just so they could—what was it now?—oh, yes....just so they could falsely place Oswald on the SECOND FLOOR instead of the FIRST FLOOR (which is where most CTers say he was in the first place). Hardly seems worth it, does it? Because the SECOND FLOOR isn't the SIXTH FLOOR, is it? You'd think the crafters of this Baker/Oswald ruse would have had Baker and Truly (both rotten liars, according to CTers) say they saw Oswald dashing down the stairs between the SIXTH and FIFTH floors. Such a fabricated tale would have been infinitely better for the "Let's Frame Oswald" team of plotters. But no! They only wanted to say they saw him on the SECOND floor. As if THAT story somehow nails the resident "patsy" to the cross more efficiently. (Hilarious!) .... The fact that the "Lunchroom Encounter" makes ZERO sense if it were, in fact, just made up from whole cloth is one of the reasons to know that it really did happen the way Officer Baker and Roy S. Truly always said it happened." -- DVP; Dec. 2017
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Why can't conspiracists accept Marrion Baker's "third or fourth floor" statement for what it so clearly is — a simple and honest mistake made by a police officer who was in a chaotic and frantic situation within minutes of the President having just been shot, and who was not paying close attention at all to what floor he was standing on when he pointed his gun at Lee Harvey Oswald's stomach in the lunchroom on November 22, 1963?" -- DVP; Dec. 2017
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
Well that's a good point, David. Why didn't the WC's fabricated story have the Oswald/Baker encounter occur on, say, the fifth floor instead of the second?
Right off, I'd wonder if Baker even had enough time to get to the fifth floor. Didn't the reconstruction show that Baker just barely made it to the second floor?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, Sandy, yes, but if the whole "Encounter With Oswald" was just MADE UP in the first place, then obviously Baker's time to get to the FIFTH floor for a "fake" encounter with LHO would have been increased. And then, correspondingly, the reconstructed time of Oswald's "fake" trip to the fifth floor would have been slowed down, in order for him to have gone down just one flight of stairs, whereas Baker & Truly managed to climb 5 flights in about the same amount of time.
Point being: since the whole damn thing is fake and phony from the get-go (per many Internet CTers, that is), then the "reconstructions" could easily have been "faked" too. And, in fact, many CTers I've talked to DO think that both Marrion Baker's reconstructed time AND John Howlett's (Oswald's stand-in) re-enactment time were phonied up by the Warren Commission. They think the WC deliberately slowed down Baker and sped up Howlett/(Oswald) in order for the timing to work out perfectly for a second-floor meeting. But in reality, exactly the opposite is the truth with respect to the timelines of the re-enactments. Baker testified that he likely took LONGER to get to the 2nd floor on Nov. 22 than in his March '64 reconstruction; while Howlett was moving way slower (a "normal walking pace" and a "fast walk") than Oswald was probably moving on the 22nd.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
Also, what about the coke? It appears that the coke was an important factor in [the] Baker/Oswald story. I don't know the facts well enough to make this argument, but maybe there were reports of Oswald having a coke in his hand when he was caught. If so, the story would sound awfully suspicious if it said that Baker encountered Oswald on the fifth floor as he was rushing away from the sniper's nest with a coke in his hand. You mean Oswald took all those shots at Kennedy, took the time to hide the gun, and then grabbed a bottle of coke as he tried to get away?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, many CTers do think Oswald had a Coke in his hands when confronted by Baker (based on Baker's statement that he signed on September 23, 1964). But, you see, a lot of Internet CTers these days can't use that argument any longer to support some kind of an encounter on the SECOND floor, because those CTers have decided to totally WIPE OUT the 2nd-floor meeting altogether. It's gone. It doesn't exist, per those conspiracists. So they've got to start from scratch (I guess).
BTW, this 9/23/64 statement (which was initialed and signed by Marrion Baker) is yet another piece of evidence to support the notion that a Baker/Truly/Oswald encounter occurred on the second floor of the TSBD on November 22. And this 9/23/64 statement signed by Roy Truly is another piece of "second floor" evidence as well.
A lot of conspiracy theorists, naturally, are of the opinion that those two "late arriving" statements/affidavits with the names of Baker and Truly on them are merely two additional pieces of phony/manufactured evidence to help frame the deceased Mr. Oswald. I, of course, think those CTers are full of beans.
I talk a lot about Oswald, Baker, Truly, And The Coke (and those September '64 statements provided by Baker and Truly) in this article (and this one too).
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
There are more knowledgeable people than I who could hypothesize on this. Regardless, I don't think the second floor lunchroom was a terrible choice. After all, it did put Oswald way in the back of the building, far from the front entrance.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And I just thought of yet another person who has been called a liar by many CTers concerning this "Second Floor" topic --- Mrs. Robert A. Reid, who said she saw Oswald in the second-floor offices (with a bottle of Coke in his hand) just after the assassination.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
Hey, here's something: Maybe the WC thought they could get a witness on the second floor to testify that she saw Oswald there near the time of the encounter. Come to think of it, there was a witness who saw Oswald there BEFORE the shooting, right? Well, the interrogation notes that have Oswald encountering Baker have it happening BEFORE lunch! So the witness who saw Oswald on the second floor BEFORE lunch actually corroborates the Baker/Oswald encounter! All the lawyers had to do, if they chose to, was to say that this witness was mistaken about her seeing Oswald there before the shooting. Or they could just remove that from her testimony.
But, as I said, a more knowledgeable person could hypothesize this better.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I think you're referring to Carolyn Arnold. She's the witness who supposedly saw Oswald sitting in the lunchroom on the second floor before the assassination.
Problem being: She seems to have changed her story a time or two over the years. Plus, she never said anything about seeing Oswald on the second floor until 1978. So, I'd handle Arnold's tale with a grain or two of salt.
ALAN FORD SAID:
There was no way Officer Baker was going to come on board a story that he let loose a man caught dashing down the stairs between the 6th and 5th floors. It would have made him the second most despised man in Dallas.
It seems he was brought round to 'third or fourth floor' that day, but it soon became clear that that story wouldn't wash (Ms Adams, anyone?).
There was little option but to locate the fictitious incident in the 2nd [floor] lunchroom....
....close to the back stairway!
....away from prying eyes!
....Mr Oswald really had been in there (albeit before the shooting)!
Next step: pretend that Mr Oswald confirmed the lunchroom incident to Captain Fritz.
But the Hosty notes have now blown the lid off that deception. Those like Mr von Pein [sic] who wish to remain sweetly gullible in the light of the Hosty note are only making fools of themselves!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But why did the cops have to invent ANY Baker/Oswald "encounter"?
IMO, it would have been much better (and safer for those evil cops) to have had NO ENCOUNTER at all than to just MAKE UP some false story about seeing LHO on a floor that was FOUR floors away from the assassin's floor. It's just silly.
And we know Oswald admitted to being in the building at around noontime anyway. Plus, we know that Oswald WAS on an UPPER FLOOR at about 11:45-11:55, shortly prior to the shooting. (Verified by the four "elevator race" employees. They can't ALL be liars, can they?)
So a made-up second-floor encounter is superfluous. It's totally unneeded---even if the cops WERE framing Oswald.
JERRY FREEMAN SAID:
Baker had already given his testimony to the Warren Commission, but for some unknown reason the FBI had him come in, sit down and hand write another affidavit just before the Commission's works went into print. This document was entered as CE-3076.
[...]
But we had to get rid of that soda stuff. It just didn't look good.
[...]
The precious seconds it took to wiggle around the book stacks on the sixth floor...conceal a weapon...fly down the stairs...dig change out of a pocket...select the right coins...deposit money...select drink...wait for drink to ka-chink out of the machine...open...then start consuming, didn't sit well with the concept of an agitated killer going on the run.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But they couldn't just simply TEAR UP AND THROW AWAY the original affidavit that says "drinking a Coke" and write up a new one, could they? No, they wanted to KEEP that document (and not even cross out the word "Coke" entirely, which was another possibility if they wanted to HIDE the Coke).
You CTers need a new hobby. This one is just too embarrassing for you guys now.
The Baker (and Truly) 9/23/64 statements are explained here.
ALAN FORD SAID:
Question to those who believe the 2nd floor lunchroom incident involving Mr Oswald, Officer Baker and Mr Truly really happened!....
Do you believe that Mr Oswald confirmed this incident to Captain Fritz?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yes, of course he did.
Oswald knew he couldn't lie his way out of that question like he did with so many others that Fritz asked him. Oswald knew there were TWO other people who would confirm where the "encounter" took place, so he admitted it to Fritz.
Plus, he admitted it because he knew that just because he was in the lunchroom a minute or two after the shooting, that didn't have to mean he was the assassin. So he felt comfortable telling the truth (for once).
ALAN FORD SAID:
Thank you for your clear answer, Mr von Pein [sic]!
If Mr Oswald did indeed confirm the 2nd floor lunchroom incident, then how do we explain this from Agent Hosty?
Did Mr Oswald tell Captain Fritz he went to the 2nd fl lunchroom to buy a coke, came downstairs to eat his lunch, went out front to watch the parade, then (just after the shooting) went to the 2nd fl lunchroom to buy a coke, came downstairs to eat his lunch, went out front?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, I'm not a mind-reader, so all I can do is provide my best guess on this. And I'm basing this "best guess" on the fact that in none of the final typed-up reports of any of the people who heard Oswald being interrogated by Captain Fritz (Bookhout, Hosty, Holmes, Kelley, and Fritz himself) do we find anything about Oswald saying he went "outside to watch the Presidential parade".
So my best guess is:
I think James Hosty's "went outside to watch P. Parade" note was very likely referring to a point in time that was AFTER the assassination, not before (even though Hosty used the words "P[residential] Parade"). That note is likely referring to the "out with Bill Shelley in front" situation (which appears in Captain Fritz' notes).
And that "out with Shelley" chronology, according to James Bookhout's solo FBI report that appears on Page 619 of the Warren Report, is clearly something that occurred after the assassination and after Oswald's encounter with the policeman on the second floor.
With respect to why there are two separate FBI reports regarding some of this same information, well, I think it's quite possible that the two FBI agents involved in the first report (Hosty and Bookhout), after filing that first report (dictated on Nov. 23), realized that a relevant and important piece of information (the 2nd-floor lunchroom encounter) had not been included in that first joint Hosty/Bookhout report. Therefore, the necessity arose for a second report to be written which would include the information about Oswald being stopped by the police on the second floor (which became the "solo Bookhout" report that was dictated a day later, on Nov. 24).
But please keep this in mind....
The Warren Commission didn't HIDE or DESTROY either of those two FBI reports. The Commission didn't conceal their existence from the public. Both of those reports---warts, omissions, and all---are readily available for anyone to view and can easily be found right there in the Warren Commission's final report, just a few pages apart in Appendix XI.
ALAN FORD SAID:
The devastating words in Agent Hosty's notes about Mr Oswald's claim about a pre-motorcade visit to the 2nd fl lunchroom and about going "outside to watch P. Parade" were concealed from the public.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But there was no real need for the authorities to want to hide the fact that Oswald said he went outside to watch the parade (if, in fact, he really DID say those words, which I doubt very much, since nobody wrote those words in ANY official report at all).
Since the law enforcement people involved in this case knew that Oswald lied about so many other things during his interrogation (with those lies being made public), why would the Warren Commission or FBI feel the need to hide ONE MORE LIE coming from the lips of the accused Presidential assassin? The authorities had lots of evidence to charge LHO with JFK's murder within 12 hours of the crime. And they knew he was going to lie his ass off. That was obvious right from the start. So what's one more lie?
Do you really think the DPD and FBI knew for a fact that Oswald really was standing outside on the steps when JFK was shot, and that the "Prayer Man" theorists were going to surface in the future with their "bombshell" evidence in the form of the blurry Darnell Film that they say proves Oswald was in the doorway? And is that why the authorities concealed Hosty's note from the world until 2018 when Mr. Blunt dug it out?
And, BTW, why didn't the cover-uppers just destroy that Hosty note? If it's the "key" to the WC story crumbling into dust, why did "they" leave that bread crumb for Blunt to find?
CTers never answer logical questions like that, do they?
The problem that you (and all CTers) have is: There's just too much stuff on the "Oswald Did It" table for you to skirt around (including the Tippit murder evidence too, which only a hopelessly fanatical CTer can possibly deny was committed by Oswald).
You can try and pretend that it's all fake and phony evidence, but reasonable people can see that's just a convenient cop-out. And that evidence isn't going anywhere---regardless of "Prayer Man" and the "Hosty note".
ALAN FORD SAID:
Mr Oswald never said "I was INSIDE the building". He merely confirmed the reporter's "in the building". And, thanks to Hosty's notes, we now know exactly which part of the building he meant: the front entranceway.
You think the front entrance steps belong to the street rather than the building?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
No, but if I was on those steps, I most certainly would not consider myself to be IN the building. I would consider myself to be OUTSIDE the confines of the building---because I would, indeed, be OUTSIDE the confines of said structure AND I would also be OUTSIDE the front door.
(Why on Earth is this even a debatable point? It's not.)
ALAN FORD SAID:
Oh but it's not a debatable point anymore, Mr von Pein [sic]. We now have two statements from Mr Oswald as to his whereabouts.
1) Agent Hosty makes it perfectly clear that Mr Oswald told Captain Fritz he "went outside to watch P. Parade".
2) Mr Oswald confirmed to the reporter that he was "in the building at the time".
The front entranceway is outside, yet it is still within the building.
Had Mr Oswald gone down into the street, he would have answered the reporter's question with "No, I was out in the street." Not complicated!
Mr Oswald has helpfully given us his precise location for the assassination. That this location was a disaster for Captain Fritz and Co. explains why Mr Oswald's claim was suppressed. That the location is a disaster for your beloved Lone Nut fairytale is neither my fault nor my problem!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
It's typical of a conspiracy theorist to take two things that are totally contradictory in nature (i.e., the two things Mr. Ford cites above) and try to make them things that are perfectly compatable and in-sync with one another. But, of course, they're not.
Go to Billy Lovelady's testimony or Buell Frazier's (or anyone else's).....and see if they describe the steps/landing as being a place that is INSIDE the Depository Building.
And then let's go ask Buell Wesley Frazier if he was INSIDE or OUTSIDE the building when he watched the motorcade on 11/22/63.
What do you think would be Buell's answer to such an inquiry?
STEVE HOWSLEY SAID:
Those people who were on the steps outside the building were ... well, outside the building. Any other interpretation is just plain silly.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Exactly.
ALAN FORD SAID:
"On November 22, 1963 at approximately 12:25 PM I stood by myself on the inside of the front entrance of the Texas School Book Depository Building to watch President John F . Kennedy come by the building in a motorcade."
Question! Where was the individual who used these words?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
That statement you just quoted above comes from 17-year-old TSBD employee Roy Edward Lewis.
Now let's go ask Mr. Lewis this specific question....
Mr. Lewis, were you inside the TSBD Building or outside the building when you heard those shots fired on November 22, 1963?
What do you suppose Mr. Lewis' answer would be to that question?
And when Lewis used the words "inside of the front entrance", he wasn't implying that he was located INSIDE the actual building. I would say that he was trying to imply that he was inside the little alcove or recessed area of the entryway in front of the Depository.
When I first read Lewis' statement above, I had deduced that Lewis was probably located just inside the front door of the Depository---on the INSIDE of that door, NORTH of the glass, not south of the glass door. That's certainly one way to interpret Lewis' words in that statement anyway, because I did initially interpret them that way, but now I think he probably said "inside" because he meant inside the recessed entranceway.
In any event, in Lewis' March 18, 1964, statement quoted above, he certainly is not implying that he thought he was located INSIDE the actual Depository building itself on November 22nd. (IMHO.)
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
A "Went Outside To Watch P. Parade" Addendum....
JAMES P. HOSTY VS. THOMAS J. KELLEY....
Secret Service Inspector Thomas J. Kelley was present at Dallas City Hall for four of Lee Harvey Oswald's interrogation sessions that took place on the dates of November 23rd and 24th, 1963. Let's have a look at what Inspector Kelley had to say on the specific subject of whether or not Oswald "went outside to watch the Presidential parade" (this information can be found on Page 627 of the Warren Report):
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
And here is some of Captain Fritz' testimony, which many conspiracy theorists must think is nothing but lies:
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
What Inspector Kelley wrote is true, and it doesn't negate what Hosty wrote in his notes. Because Oswald didn't go outside to watch the parade, he went out to see what the commotion was all about. (The parade had already passed!)
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Then Oswald can't possibly be "Prayer Man", and you're admitting that Hosty's
"P. Parade" note is inaccurate.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
Oswald went outside to check out the commotion. Hosty characterized it as Oswald going out to watch the presidential parade.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I somewhat agree with your interpretation here. I don't think the words "Presidential Parade" came out of the mouth of Lee Harvey Oswald. Based on all of the official FINAL reports (from Fritz, Bookhout, Hosty, and Kelley), I think the words "P. Parade" that appear in the "new" Hosty note were probably HOSTY'S words and HOSTY'S interpretation of Oswald's "out with Bill Shelley" statement. Otherwise, we'd have a lot more reports (and notes) that had the word "Parade" in them.
David Von Pein
February 9-24, 2019
February 17-21, 2019
February 18, 2019
February 18, 2019
February 21, 2019
February 21-22, 2019
