Oswald's alibi - yet another look

JeremyBojczuk wrote:It's good to have a collection of those witness statements that specifically mentioned not seeing a policeman enter the front of the building with Truly.

AGREED AND "BAKERS RUN" BY STAN MOPS IT UP.


I recall Robert Prudhomme pointing out (here or at the Ed Forum, or both) that Baker seems to be running right past the entrance and towards the Dal-Tex building. Was Prudhomme the first person to spot this? If so, he made a valuable contribution. I remember there was criticism of his gun-related interests; if that's why he's no longer active, it's a shame.

It's probably a few decades too late to look into who might have seen Baker enter the Dal-Tex, if that's where he ended up, or who might have witnessed his presence inside the building, if his encounter with a man on a third or fourth floor took place there rather than in the book depository.

I BELIEVE THERE WAS ENOUGH INTERVIEWS AT THE TIME TO COVER THAT ENTRY BY BAKER.
ONLY ONE AGREES WITH THE TIMING OR ENTRY.

The Dal-Tex building has received remarkably little attention from the authorities and from critics, given that it had more than its fair share of suspicious activity.

VERY TRUE WE NEEDED THE SAME COVERAGE AS THE TSBD GOT BUT WERE NOT GIVEN THIS BY AUTHORITIES AND THE SUSPICION AND FINGER POINTING WAS AT DALTEX,,,ZAPRUDERS BLDG.

We know of three people who were taken into police custody from the building:

1 - William Sharp, "who the officers said had been up in the building across the street from the book depository without a good reason," according to J.B. Leavelle, who took him into custody (WC Hearings and Exhibits, vol.20, p.499: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1137#relPageId=519). No statement seems to have been taken from Sharp.


WE HAVE A THREAD ON SHARPER.
HE WAS THE ELEVATOR OPERATOR.
...LEAVELLE...ha!




2 - Larry Florer was apparently looking for a phone and was directed to the third floor. He was taken into custody by Officer W.H. Denham, made a statement, and was released (see WCHE, vol.19, p.476 [https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1136#relPageId=494] for Florer's statement and p.517 for Denham). Florer's statement is slightly ambiguous, claiming that he was told about a pay phone in the County Records building, but that he was directed instead to "a lot of phones on the third floor of this building that I was standing in front of" by a woman who worked on the third floor of that building. Richard Trask (Pictures of the Pain, p.547) interprets this to mean that Florer went into the County Records building, but the implication (to me, at least) is that Florer went into a different building, which must have been the Dal-Tex.

3 - Eugene Brading, aka Jim Braden, also claimed to have been on the third floor, looking for a phone. After descending to the ground floor, he was taken into custody by Deputy Sheriff C.L. Lewis, but was released after giving a false name and a nothing-to-see-here statement (CE 2003, p.12 [WCHE, vol.24, p.202]: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1140#relPageId=220).

Brading's links to the mafia might have been what brought him to the attention of the HSCA, who questioned him (the transcript has no official designation: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=19906). Brading also made a deposition which covered much of the same ground, but in less detail (NARA Record Number 180-10103-1037: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=19907). Brading claimed that he was nowhere near the Dal-Tex building during the assassination, but his account has inconsistencies and, as far as I'm aware, no corroboration.

He claimed to have watched the motorcade from the opposite side of the road from the Titche-Goettinger department store, which was at 1901 Elm Street.* After the motorcade had passed, he walked a block or two to the Federal Building to meet his probation officer, and spent around 15 minutes there. He then walked down the street, bought a sandwich, and eventually found himself caught up in the commotion outside the TSBD and the Dal-Tex building.

Like Florer, Bradiing apparently went into the Dal-Tex building in search of a phone. If Brading's account is truthful, he took a freight elevator up to the third floor of the Dal-Tex, where he found a woman trying to use a pay phone, which was apparently the only pay phone in the vicinity. The woman told him that the phone was out of order. Brading then got back in the elevator and returned to the ground floor, where the elevator operator pointed him out to a uniformed policeman as a stranger in the building.

He claimed that all of this occurred around half an hour after he had seen the motorcade further along Elm Street, and that he was present when what looked like a rifle was taken out of the book depository. That happened at about 2.30, at least an hour and a half after Brading would have come to the attention of Deputy Sheriff Lewis, who presumably wouldn't have waited an hour and a half before escorting a potential suspect from the scene of the crime. I don't suppose it's possible to reconstruct Lewis's movements to see if they confirm or deny anything in Brading's account (see p.50 onwards of Braden's HSCA interview for his account of being inside the Dal-Tex: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=19906#relPageId=50).

Regarding a possible encounter between Baker and an employee on the third floor of the Dal-Tex, it's curious that at least two non-employees found themselves on the third floor. Also curious is the fact that one of these non-employees had a criminal record and gave the authorities a false name and a ready-made story that got him released from questioning.

It would be interesting to know if there are any photos or home movies that show identifiable individuals going into or out of the Dal-Tex building after the assassination. I'm not aware of any. There's more than one photo floating around of Larry Florer in the vicinity of the Dal-Tex building, but I don't think it shows much background detail. Photos of Brading in the area might confirm or contradict the timetable he gave.

BRADING WAS IN PICS IN PLAZA AFTER SHOOTING LISTENING TO CHARLES BREHM

It would also be interesting to know whether the Dal-Tex building actually contained any pay phones. A woman who worked there apparently told Florer that there weren't any, but Brading claimed there was one on the third floor. I'd be inclined to believe the woman who actually worked on the third floor of the building, assuming that she did and wasn't referring to the Criminal Courts building.

YES PAY PHONE THIRD FLOOR PER SHARPER

greg_parker wrote:Jeremy, BP was quite possibly the first to call this from eyeballing the film. 

Yes, we were critical of his self-proclaimed gun expertise. It was part of what made him a walking, talking stereotype. Don't you worry about Bob. He kept me busy for quite a while, hitting the complaint button daily. Toward the end though, there was a thaw in relations - maybe because of this Baker observation or maybe because he came to realize there was no real malice in anything said. He may have even began to embrace the banter. So no, I don't think we chased him off. That would be an insult to Bob's fortitude and rugged frontier individualism. 

It was certainly why I started looking at the witness statements.

greg_parker. wrote:
As for Sharp/Sharper

I originally thought that Leavelle confused Braden's name for Sharper's name, just getting it (Sharper's name) slightly wrong... but if Leavelle has Sharper's address when he made his memo, he would also have his name,  so Braden being misremembered as Sharper, but transformed to Sharp with Sharper's address, makes no fricking sense. Just to complicate things even more, there was a letter sent between 2 researchers in the 1990s where one informs the other that there were three arrests in the Dal-Tex - the third being SHARPER - not SHARP as claimed by the WC. Moreover, the letter claims that SHARPER was a FORMER employee of one of the Jaffe brothers on the third floor.

I have let this area float around anong all the other shit the back of my mind for a long while and coming back to it now, I think it has legs.

Leavelle's claim that Sharp/Sharper was arrested may well be true because we have a story of a "janitor" being held in custody by Special Services who witnessed the shooter firing and would appear before the WC as a bombshell witness. 

The story was given to Waldo Thayer by the Hoaward brothers - one a  deputy sheriff, the other in the Secret Service.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=877

The Howard brothers would later claim they just having a bit of fun with Waldo and didn't know he was a reporter, while Citizen Lane claimed they had deliberately planted a false story in the media via Thayer.

Elements of the story point to Eddie Piper. He resembled the "elderly Negro" described by Rowland and was the only janitor in the building.

On the other hand, it sounds like Williams since Williams BELATEDLY claimed to eat lunch on the 6th and also BELATELY claim to hide behiind boxes ON THE 5TH FLOOR.

But Williams was taken in by DPD. We have the photographic proof.

Piper does say he ran at the sound of the first shot up to join Troy West but perhaps tellingly, claims he looked at the clock on the wall and it was 12:25. Funnily enough, this was when the parade was due to pass - NOT when it DID pass. Piper than changed this to 12:27 to 12:30 in his testimony. The original timing brings his story into question - especially when you add in that he claimed to have an interaction with Oswald at the start of the lunch break that makes it sound like they were on an upper floor. There were also early reports of a "porter" escorting" Oswald up to the 6th floor. Why the fuck would Oswald need "escorting" up? He wouldn't. But one or more strangers in the Dal-Tex DID get escorted up by the lift operator, William Sharper.

 In any case, it has been verified that unlike the person allegedly held, Piper had no previous legal issues.

All muddying the waters to cover up who it really was? 

And by one account  at least, the lift operator at the Dal-Tex raced outside to alert police about the stranger in the building. 

Did Sharper have a record for craps? Did he see something inside the Dal-Tex he wasn't supposed to see? Was he held in "protective custody" until they had organized for parts of the story to be shifted to Piper and Williams in the TSBD?

greg_parker wrote:

JeremyBojczuk wrote:It's good to have a collection of those witness statements that specifically mentioned not seeing a policeman enter the front of the building with Truly.

I recall Robert Prudhomme pointing out (here or at the Ed Forum, or both) that Baker seems to be running right past the entrance and towards the Dal-Tex building. Was Prudhomme the first person to spot this? If so, he made a valuable contribution. I remember there was criticism of his gun-related interests; if that's why he's no longer active, it's a shame.

It's probably a few decades too late to look into who might have seen Baker enter the Dal-Tex, if that's where he ended up, or who might have witnessed his presence inside the building, if his encounter with a man on a third or fourth floor took place there rather than in the book depository.

The Dal-Tex building has received remarkably little attention from the authorities and from critics, given that it had more than its fair share of suspicious activity. We know of three people who were taken into police custody from the building:

1 - William Sharp, "who the officers said had been up in the building across the street from the book depository without a good reason," according to J.B. Leavelle, who took him into custody (WC Hearings and Exhibits, vol.20, p.499: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1137#relPageId=519). No statement seems to have been taken from Sharp.

2 - Larry Florer was apparently looking for a phone and was directed to the third floor. He was taken into custody by Officer W.H. Denham, made a statement, and was released (see WCHE, vol.19, p.476 [https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1136#relPageId=494] for Florer's statement and p.517 for Denham). Florer's statement is slightly ambiguous, claiming that he was told about a pay phone in the County Records building, but that he was directed instead to "a lot of phones on the third floor of this building that I was standing in front of" by a woman who worked on the third floor of that building. Richard Trask (Pictures of the Pain, p.547) interprets this to mean that Florer went into the County Records building, but the implication (to me, at least) is that Florer went into a different building, which must have been the Dal-Tex.

3 - Eugene Brading, aka Jim Braden, also claimed to have been on the third floor, looking for a phone. After descending to the ground floor, he was taken into custody by Deputy Sheriff C.L. Lewis, but was released after giving a false name and a nothing-to-see-here statement (CE 2003, p.12 [WCHE, vol.24, p.202]: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1140#relPageId=220).

Brading's links to the mafia might have been what brought him to the attention of the HSCA, who questioned him (the transcript has no official designation: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=19906). Brading also made a deposition which covered much of the same ground, but in less detail (NARA Record Number 180-10103-1037: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=19907). Brading claimed that he was nowhere near the Dal-Tex building during the assassination, but his account has inconsistencies and, as far as I'm aware, no corroboration.

He claimed to have watched the motorcade from the opposite side of the road from the Titche-Goettinger department store, which was at 1901 Elm Street.* After the motorcade had passed, he walked a block or two to the Federal Building to meet his probation officer, and spent around 15 minutes there. He then walked down the street, bought a sandwich, and eventually found himself caught up in the commotion outside the TSBD and the Dal-Tex building.

Like Florer, Bradiing apparently went into the Dal-Tex building in search of a phone. If Brading's account is truthful, he took a freight elevator up to the third floor of the Dal-Tex, where he found a woman trying to use a pay phone, which was apparently the only pay phone in the vicinity. The woman told him that the phone was out of order. Brading then got back in the elevator and returned to the ground floor, where the elevator operator pointed him out to a uniformed policeman as a stranger in the building.

He claimed that all of this occurred around half an hour after he had seen the motorcade further along Elm Street, and that he was present when what looked like a rifle was taken out of the book depository. That happened at about 2.30, at least an hour and a half after Brading would have come to the attention of Deputy Sheriff Lewis, who presumably wouldn't have waited an hour and a half before escorting a potential suspect from the scene of the crime. I don't suppose it's possible to reconstruct Lewis's movements to see if they confirm or deny anything in Brading's account (see p.50 onwards of Braden's HSCA interview for his account of being inside the Dal-Tex: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=19906#relPageId=50).

Regarding a possible encounter between Baker and an employee on the third floor of the Dal-Tex, it's curious that at least two non-employees found themselves on the third floor. Also curious is the fact that one of these non-employees had a criminal record and gave the authorities a false name and a ready-made story that got him released from questioning.

It would be interesting to know if there are any photos or home movies that show identifiable individuals going into or out of the Dal-Tex building after the assassination. I'm not aware of any. There's more than one photo floating around of Larry Florer in the vicinity of the Dal-Tex building, but I don't think it shows much background detail. Photos of Brading in the area might confirm or contradict the timetable he gave.

It would also be interesting to know whether the Dal-Tex building actually contained any pay phones. A woman who worked there apparently told Florer that there weren't any, but Brading claimed there was one on the third floor. I'd be inclined to believe the woman who actually worked on the third floor of the building, assuming that she did and wasn't referring to the Criminal Courts building.

--

* When looking up the address of the department store (http://www.thedepartmentstoremuseum.org/2010/06/titche-goettinger-co-dallas.html), I discovered that there is or was a W.C. Stripling department store in Fort Worth. Two Striplings! Both of them in Fort Worth! That means they're doppelgangers!

Jeremy, BP was quite possibly the first to call this from eyeballing the film. 

Yes, we were critical of his self-proclaimed gun expertise. It was part of what made him a walking, talking stereotype. Don't you worry about Bob. He kept me busy for quite a while, hitting the complaint button daily. Toward the end though, there was a thaw in relations - maybe because of this Baker observation or maybe because he came to realize there was no real malice in anything said. He may have even began to embrace the banter. So no, I don't think we chased him off. That would be an insult to Bob's fortitude and rugged frontier individualism. 

It was certainly why I started looking at the witness statements.

As for Sharp/Sharper

I originally thought that Leavelle confused Braden's name for Sharper's name, just getting it (Sharper's name) slightly wrong... but if Leavelle has Sharper's address when he made his memo, he would also have his name,  so Braden being misremembered as Sharper, but transformed to Sharp with Sharper's address, makes no fricking sense. Just to complicate things even more, there was a letter sent between 2 researchers in the 1990s where one informs the other that there were three arrests in the Dal-Tex - the third being SHARPER - not SHARP as claimed by the WC. Moreover, the letter claims that SHARPER was a FORMER employee of one of the Jaffe brothers on the third floor.

I have let this area float around anong all the other shit the back of my mind for a long while and coming back to it now, I think it has legs.

Leavelle's claim that Sharp/Sharper was arrested may well be true because we have a story of a "janitor" being held in custody by Special Services who witnessed the shooter firing and would appear before the WC as a bombshell witness. 

The story was given to Waldo Thayer by the Hoaward brothers - one a  deputy sheriff, the other in the Secret Service.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=877

The Howard brothers would later claim they just having a bit of fun with Waldo and didn't know he was a reporter, while Citizen Lane claimed they had deliberately planted a false story in the media via Thayer.

Elements of the story point to Eddie Piper. He resembled the "elderly Negro" described by Rowland and was the only janitor in the building.

On the other hand, it sounds like Williams since Williams BELATEDLY claimed to eat lunch on the 6th and also BELATELY claim to hide behiind boxes ON THE 5TH FLOOR.

But Williams was taken in by DPD. We have the photographic proof.

Piper does say he ran at the sound of the first shot up to join Troy West but perhaps tellingly, claims he looked at the clock on the wall and it was 12:25. Funnily enough, this was when the parade was due to pass - NOT when it DID pass. Piper than changed this to 12:27 to 12:30 in his testimony. The original timing brings his story into question - especially when you add in that he claimed to have an interaction with Oswald at the start of the lunch break that makes it sound like they were on an upper floor. There were also early reports of a "porter" escorting" Oswald up to the 6th floor. Why the fuck would Oswald need "escorting" up? He wouldn't. But one or more strangers in the Dal-Tex DID get escorted up by the lift operator, William Sharper.

 In any case, it has been verified that unlike the person allegedly held, Piper had no previous legal issues.

All muddying the waters to cover up who it really was? 

And by one account  at least, the lift operator at the Dal-Tex raced outside to alert police about the stranger in the building. 

Did Sharper have a record for craps? Did he see something inside the Dal-Tex he wasn't supposed to see? Was he held in "protective custody" until they had organized for parts of the story to be shifted to Piper and Williams in the TSBD?