"Prayer Man" on the Education Forum

[ianlloyd]

First topic message reminder :

As I am not a member of the EF, I cannot post there but there is an interesting discussion going on there at the moment regarding a figure in the TSBD doorway generally referred to as "Prayer Man" due to the apparent position of his hands, seemingly clasped in front of his chest as if in prayer.
 
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=20354
 
I recall this person being discussed somewhere many years ago and was referred to as "Prayer Man" pretty much from the outset but I cannot recall where it originated, maybe on Lancer?
 
Anyway, the reason for this post is that, upon looking closely at the various photographs and movie clips presented as part of the discussion, it struck me that his hands don't seem to move from the "prayer" position for what seems to be quite some time. Was he holding something, I wonder? If so, it seems an odd way to hold whatever it was.

[beowulf]

Mack is now claiming that Prayer Man is Billy Lovelady.
Has he not thought about the slight problem with this? 
Lovelady and Prayer Man are both present in the doorway in the Weigmann film.
http://conspiracycritic7.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/wpid-pdvd_6741.jpeg

Maybe the rabbithole goes deeper than we've thought. Lovelady could have his own secret double and Wiegman's lens just happened to catch them standing (rather unprofessionally, I think) next to each other. In that scenario, yes, Gary might be correct.
)

[Albert Rossi]

I await the publication of the book entitled: Billy and Will   .

[GuestGuest]

Mack is now claiming that Prayer Man is Billy Lovelady.
Has he not thought about the slight problem with this? 
Lovelady and Prayer Man are both present in the doorway in the Weigmann film.
http://conspiracycritic7.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/wpid-pdvd_6741.jpeg

Maybe the rabbithole goes deeper than we've thought. Lovelady could have his own secret double and Wiegman's lens just happened to catch them standing (rather unprofessionally, I think) next to each other. In that scenario, yes, Gary might be correct.
)

 

It beggars belief doesn't it?

Mack is also pulling Prayer Man's height out of his keister.  No real measurements involved mind you.  Just a wave of the hand claim that PM is too short.

Unlucky.  Again.  Prayer man is stood one step down from the top whereas Mack must be working from an assumption that he is stood on the landing area otherwise I don't know what the hell he's rattling on about.

In addition I've just read that Mack says it can't be Oswald in one of the later films because he was on his way to the bus stop.  FFS, the bus story bollocks is dead and buried.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

I await the publication of the book entitled: Billy and Will   .

Definite cult following right there 

[beowulf]

Albert Rossi wrote:I await the publication of the book entitled: Billy and Will   .

Definite cult following right there 
-------------
I like it. By the way, how awesome is that Cinque has already declared the frame showing Prayer Man and Frazier a fake?
If that guy had any sense, he'd run to the front of the parade with "See! Its like I've been saying for years, Oswald's by the front entrance!"

[GuestGuest]

A Gary Mack backtrack:

"Sean's observation is correct, I do not think Prayer Man is Lovelady, for I'm well aware that Lovelady stood to PM's left.  I have no excuse for my temporary lapse in judgment and I apologize.  Sorry.  But I stand by my ID of Darnell in the Cook footage and, while I cannot rule out someone else, the man wearing the hat in Bond 5 is probably Dave Wiegman."


And at the same time, Bill Kelly has got me banging my head against the wall.  He simply will not let go of the outdated and unbelievable lunch room story.  I tried many years ago to shake his beliefs on this and failed, and now Sean's fantastic evidence based explanation is not good enough either.

[beowulf]

And at the same time, Bill Kelly has got me banging my head against the wall.  He simply will not let go of the outdated and unbelievable lunch room story.

Yeah, like I said on the first page of this thread, I'm certain it was by happenstance, but if someone planned on creating blind alleys for researchers to get lost in for 50 years, they couldn't have done better than the 2nd floor lunchroom and  "That's not Lovelady that's Oswald" stories.

[James DiEugenio]

Bill Kelly  has sworn by that story for decades now.

Incredibly, he did not understand that when he posted that frame, he was going to undermine his own theses.

BTW, where is a link to this previous discussion on Lancer Forum?

[beowulf]

Jim, the Lancer website has all the robustness of a Third World power grid. it was down, back up and apparently down again. You can find  Lancer Forum's Prayer Man thread easily enough on Google, but clicking through gets you this.
"This site does not exist within the LDAP database."

[GuestGuest]

I first posted this idea on page 16 of this thread. I'm saying it again in hopes of getting a response from Sean.

I'm making the argument that the 2nd-floor lunchroom incident occurred, but the details were different than what was portrayed in the official story. The details were tailored to fit a generalized Oswald-flight-down-the-stairs story.

Oswald was assigned to the lunchroom during the shooting, as a lookout. But he couldn't resist having a look at JFK, and snuck out on the landing at the last possible moment. When Truly came upon him while catching up with Baker, as a co-conspirator, Truly gave Oswald a look that said, "You're supposed to be in the lunchroom."

So Oswald had a solid reason for returning there. He used the 2nd-floor corridor and arrived ahead of Baker & Truly, since they had spent time calling for the elevators.

Oswald looked out through the plate-glass window of the door to the landing, but was horrified when Baker spotted him. Reflexively Oswald darted for a seat, pretending he was ignorant of everything. Baker wigged out and got suspicious of Oswald, put his gun to Oswald's gut, until calmed down by Truly.

I put zero faith in Jeraldean Reid's testimony, and consider it a fabrication meant to help bolster the Oswald-flight-down-the-stairs story, by bolstering the official version of the lunchroom incident. I think she arrived in the 2nd-floor office with several others, as Geneva Hine testified, about 2 minutes after the assassination. And that Oswald would have used the corridor to get downstairs.

When Baker, Truly & Oswald were in the lunchroom, the heavy-duty metal door (to the landing) was closed. And so Vicky Adams & Sandra Styles, in their high heels, crossed the landing without being noticed by Baker, Truly or Oswald. The thick metal door, helped by the intensity of the lunchroom interaction, muffled the noise of the women.

I'd like to see this hypothesis ably rebutted, and it's going to take more than an Ochus Campbell quote in a first-day newspaper story.

No hurry and many thanks in advance.

[ianlloyd]

Mack is now claiming that Prayer Man is Billy Lovelady.
Has he not thought about the slight problem with this? 
Lovelady and Prayer Man are both present in the doorway in the Weigmann film.
http://conspiracycritic7.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/wpid-pdvd_6741.jpeg

Maybe the rabbithole goes deeper than we've thought. Lovelady could have his own secret double and Wiegman's lens just happened to catch them standing (rather unprofessionally, I think) next to each other. In that scenario, yes, Gary might be correct.
)

I suppose it's worth Gary Mack asking his good friend Buell Wesley Frazier who he thinks PM is.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

Bill Kelly  has sworn by that story for decades now.

Incredibly, he did not understand that when he posted that frame, he was going to undermine his own theses.

BTW, where is a link to this previous discussion on Lancer Forum?

Most of us have our blind spots. This seems to be Bill's.

Though I think it's unfortunate, he makes up for it and then some in other areas.

[beowulf]

I'd like to see this hypothesis ably rebutted

Its certainly possible but you make a series of assumptions that we have no way of knowing are actually true ("Truly gave Oswald a look that said, "You're supposed to be in the lunchroom.").

[GuestGuest]

Basically I'm trying to give a plausible reason for Prayer Man/Oswald to go back to the lunchroom, and then have an interaction with Baker & Truly. If there's something in the available evidence that refutes the hypothesis, fine. But if not, maybe we should give the plausible reason some consideration.

I realize the lunchroom story is on shaky ground. At the beginning of this thread I considered it likely that Prayer Man had loitered in the small 1st floor storage room, under the lobby stairs, 1-2 minutes after the assassination. But I've changed my mind.

It's a huge leap to say that Baker invented two scenarios in his first-day affidavit- running into 4th floor man & taking the stairs. Because that leap leads to Baker & Truly ascending in the west elevator, and the assassins descending in the east elevator.

You might say I have a vested interest in disputing this, as I constructed a hypothesis a few years ago that had the assassins descending in the west elevator, with the help of Dougherty. It's in the essays section. There was a long debate about this at Lancer, and Sean posed me 30 poignant questions that were not easy to answer.

The lunchroom story is a very long saga to try to invent out of whole cloth. Truly & Baker spend a good chunk of their testimonies recounting it.

If we agree that Prayer Man is Oswald, and that the lunchroom story is salvageable, then unless a better reason is found for Oswald's return to the lunchroom, it sure looks like evidence that Truly was in on the plot. I do take the view that TSBD employee complicity was extensive.

[Redfern]

On reflection, Sean Murphy may very well be right - the 3rd/4th floor stairway man never existed. There was no mention of him or the second floor lunchroom encounter in Officer E's recollections in the late 70s:

 
The man who said he was the building superintendent was outside and met me at the door and went in with me. Shortly after I entered the building I confronted Oswald. The man who identified himself as the superintendent said that Oswald was all right, that he was employed there. We left Oswald there, and the supervisor showed me the way upstairs. We couldn't get anyone to send the freight elevator down. In giving the place a quick check, I found nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, so I started back to see what had happened. Not knowing for sure what had happened, I was limited in what I could legally do.

 http://www.jfk-online.com/bowles6.html

This version supports the argument that Baker encountered Oswald near the front entrance. But why would Baker be concerned about a man who clearly could not have fired any shots, especially as there were two 'white men' near the elevators?

It strikes me that the third and last account is closest to the truth - Baker vaguely recalled Oswald (perhaps due to his nonchalance in drinking from a bottle of coke), knew that he had to mention him but for some reason forgot to place him on the 'correct' floor in the 'correct' place. But did he really forget? His last comment may reflect resentment at being party to a charade.

The investigator from Washington contacted me for my recollection of what happened, but I guess they weren't interested in what I said.

The description given by Baker in his first affidavit matches that broadcast at 12.45 far too closely to be written off as a coincidence. However, I cannot envisage Baker giving Sawyer this description for two reasons. First, there seems to have been too much of a delay between Sawyer leaving the building and the broadcast of the suspect's description. Perhaps more significantly, Baker would be tacitly admitting that he had just released a/the assassin on the advice of the 'building superintendent', who would immediately be suspected as an accomplice and presumably arrested. Baker would also be confessing to incompetence in not realising the situation immediately and surely kept at Dealey Plaza or brought to DPD HQ in order to identify the suspect if possible instead of being allowed to drive off to Love Field.

On the face of it, Baker's first affidavit could be viewed as accusing Truly but I don't believe he was thinking along these lines. Although he was in the same small room, he failed to identify Oswald. Given the pandemonium in City Hall that afternoon, could Baker simply have misunderstood that Oswald was the man he was supposed to pick out? Alternatively, was Baker prepared to go along with the description of the non-existent suspect (with the addition of a 'light brown jacket') but refused to single out Oswald?

It is hard not to be sceptical of Sawyer's Warren testimony of how the 12.45 description came about. Why place such significance on the description given by one unidentified man which could easily be wrong? No such description could realistically have been given by anyone outside the TSBD at the time of the shots. If it arose from the station wagon getaway on Elm Street, then there would surely be some accompanying description of the vehicle.

Sawyer's announcement on Channel 2 that 'it is not known if he was there (the TSBD) in the first place' is ominous. What weight could he then give the description reported to him?

[Redfern]

Basically I'm trying to give a plausible reason for Prayer Man/Oswald to go back to the lunchroom, and then have an interaction with Baker & Truly. If there's something in the available evidence that refutes the hypothesis, fine. But if not, maybe we should give the plausible reason some consideration.

I realize the lunchroom story is on shaky ground. At the beginning of this thread I considered it likely that Prayer Man had loitered in the small 1st floor storage room, under the lobby stairs, 1-2 minutes after the assassination. But I've changed my mind.

It's a huge leap to say that Baker invented two scenarios in his first-day affidavit- running into 4th floor man & taking the stairs. Because that leap leads to Baker & Truly ascending in the west elevator, and the assassins descending in the east elevator.

You might say I have a vested interest in disputing this, as I constructed a hypothesis a few years ago that had the assassins descending in the west elevator, with the help of Dougherty. It's in the essays section. There was a long debate about this at Lancer, and Sean posed me 30 poignant questions that were not easy to answer.

The lunchroom story is a very long saga to try to invent out of whole cloth. Truly & Baker spend a good chunk of their testimonies recounting it.

If we agree that Prayer Man is Oswald, and that the lunchroom story is salvageable, then unless a better reason is found for Oswald's return to the lunchroom, it sure looks like evidence that Truly was in on the plot. I do take the view that TSBD employee complicity was extensive.

Richard,

I don't think the argument that Oswald was a participant in a conspiracy who disobeyed instructions holds much water. His background in the USMC and intelligence would strongly militate against any such behaviour.

If Oswald was Prayer Man then he'd have to have overtaken Baker and Truly to appear in the second floor lunchroom before they arrived. Both would have seen him only a minute or so beforehand.

If Oswald went across the first floor to ascend by the stairs at the NW corner of the TSBD while Baker and Truly took the stairs near the entrance then they'd have to have crossed the second floor office space without Geneva Hine seeing or hearing them. Likewise Oswald, if the routes were reversed.

The 'no stragglers' line as a means of explaining why Oswald would be on the second-floor suffers from Williams, Norman and Jarman already being on the fifth floor and nearly everyone else outside. Who would head for the upper floors other than the warehouse workers, some of whom were probably accomplices anyway?

Other than Truly and Baker's word, there is no evidence that the second floor lunchroom encounter ever took place. The latter seems to have backtracked in any case.

I reckon Oswald planned on leaving the TSBD as soon as possible without raising immediate suspicion and would have avoided any situation where he could be trapped or arrested.

[GuestGuest]

I'll apologise upfront if I come across a little grumpy in this post but I've just woken up and the self-awareness chemicals have not yet kicked in.

I don't get this.

The more evidence that appears that suggests Lee Oswald knew absolutely nothing and was not involved in the assassination whatsoever and the more some people want to continue putting together stories that involve him in some capacity.

The guy is innocent until proven guilty is he not?  He was not proven guilty so he is therefore innocent.  What Sean Murphy has provided to this community, and to Lee Oswald and his daughters and grandchildren, is more potential proof of his COMPLETE innocence.  Yet, here we all, still wrapping him into some sort of assassination plot by trying harder and harder to push square pegs into round holes.

Virtually everything we have been told about Lee Oswald's movements and behaviours during his last few weeks of his life in the official narrative are lies; so I'm sorry but the second floor encounter is a lie too and until someone can prove it is a fact by providing something other than things invented in their head; then I'm going to be treating it as a lie.

[GuestGuest]

Oswald was out of sight from circa 12:00 - 12:30, except for a Carolyn Arnold sighting. We know that shots were fired from the TSBD, so that whoever fired them needed some preparation time. We can't say that Oswald was not privy to this preparation.

He left the premises by 12:34. And very probably by a Rambler, in a prearranged getaway. That in itself is highly suspicious behavior, indicating knowledge of a plot.

I can accept that the testimony of a single person can be a fabrication, be it Jeraldean Reid or Charles Givens. But for two people some synchronization is required. Sean is asking us to believe that the time Truly & Baker spent at the freight elevators downstairs AND the time in the lunchroom, is a fabrication. That runs approximately pp. 223- 227 in Truly's testimony and 249- 258 in Baker's testimony in Volume III.

I especially find it hard to swallow that their time at the freight elevators is a fabrication. There's a heck of a lot of details that both men had to get synchronized on in order to perpetuate a falsehood. That to me is most unlikely.

[GuestGuest]

Redfern,

My understanding of Oswald is that he was a CIA agent/asset who had run off the rails of his training. I get this mainly from James Douglass' book. Oswald had a strong independent streak.

And I believe he was the designated patsy, long in advance, once the plot against Kennedy gelled. So it was important to contain Oswald, if possible- to keep his movements monitored. So that he didn't, for example, watch the motorcade from the middle of the front steps. He had to be kept essentially out of sight.

It was an overkill precaution to take, having a lookout in the lunchroom. But as far as I know only Troy West was down on the 1st floor. Military ops are full of overkill measures. The hit on JFK was too important an op to take the slightest chance- wind of the plot might have leaked out, and an abort team potentially could penetrate the building. Harkness said he encountered some heavily-armed "Secret Service" men in back of the TSBD a few minutes after the assassination. Oswald, I posit, served as the next layer of defense, being much quicker-thinking and assertive than West, and so would make an appropriate backup lookout. At least from the plotters' perspective, intending to use him as the patsy.

[GuestGuest]

A non TSBD person would have had to make their way through a group of TSBD employees, up the steps at some time prior to the motorcades appearance, without being noticed. Were a TSBD employee to slip out to the top steps at the time of the motorcade's passing, it is entirely credible that no one would notice him behind them, their attention being fixed on the motorcade. Since we can eliminate all other TSBD employees, the PM must be Oswald. If we start with this assumption, then it remains to explain Baker's and Truly's various accounts. The substance of their accounts is the same if it were to have taken place in the doorway. All that was needed to avoid giving Oswald an air tight alibi, was to change the floor, to make it more credible that he was the shooter. It is possible that once Fritz heard from Baker that he saw Oswald on the first floor, he convinced him to change the floor, saying that as long as he didn't name the suspect, he wasn't falsely accusing Oswald. After that they had to keep modifying their story until it morphed in to the lunch room encounter. The lunch room encounter is based on the testimony of 3 people: Baker Truly and Reid. I don't think it difficult to believe that their testimony could have been compromised. There is plenty of evidence of this happening with other witnesses.

[beowulf]

On reflection, Sean Murphy may very well be right - the 3rd/4th floor stairway man never existed. There was no mention of him or the second floor lunchroom encounter in Officer E's recollections in the late 70s:


The first thing I ever posted online about the JFK case was last spring at Hasan's website, quoting  "Officer E" and adding the comment,  "It does sound like Baker was a supporter of Sean Murphy's theory that Oswald was really on the first floor."


Small digression, my suspicion is Marrion Baker felt he could speak freely because Bowles told him he wouldn't be identified by name, not thinking that it would be obvious to everyone who "Officer E" was.

One thing I've changed my mind about since then is the meaning of that last sentence, "The investigator from Washington contacted me for my recollection of what happened, but I guess they weren't interested in what I said."

He's not talking about the Warren Commission, it relied on the FBI for its investigators and of course the FBI has a field office in Dallas, they wouldn't have sent somebody from Washington. He's talking about an investigator from the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the HSCA did indeed interview him in 1977.  The interview notes (thanks to Richard Gilbride) are available on this website.

[Redfern]

On reflection, Sean Murphy may very well be right - the 3rd/4th floor stairway man never existed. There was no mention of him or the second floor lunchroom encounter in Officer E's recollections in the late 70s:


The first thing I ever posted online about the JFK case was last spring at Hasan's website, quoting  "Officer E" and adding the comment,  "It does sound like Baker was a supporter of Sean Murphy's theory that Oswald was really on the first floor."


Small digression, my suspicion is Marrion Baker felt he could speak freely because Bowles told him he wouldn't be identified by name, not thinking that it would be obvious to everyone who "Officer E" was.

One thing I've changed my mind about since then is the meaning of that last sentence, "The investigator from Washington contacted me for my recollection of what happened, but I guess they weren't interested in what I said."

He's not talking about the Warren Commission, it relied on the FBI for its investigators and of course the FBI has a field office in Dallas, they wouldn't have sent somebody from Washington. He's talking about an investigator from the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the HSCA did indeed interview him in 1977.  The interview notes (thanks to Richard Gilbride) are available on this website.

That's something I didn't realise.

Baker retired in 1977 according to McAdams. Did he think he could speak more freely for that reason too?

[GuestGuest]

James Jarman HSCA testimony excerpts:

"...as we was running out of the building the police stopped us, he told us to come back inside the building, so we proceeded back inside the building. And, after we was inside the building after that, I heard that Oswald had come down through the office and came down the front stairs and he was stopped by the officer that had stopped us and sent us back in the building and Mr. Truly told them that that was alright, that he worked there, so then, he proceeded own (sic) out the building and we wondered why he stopped us."

"Well, there was a Billy Lovelady standing out there, he was on the steps, see... And, Oswald was coming out the door and he (Lovelady) said the police had stopped Oswald and sent him back in the building, Billy Lovelady said that Mr. Trudy (sic) told the policeman that Oswald was alright, that he worked there, so Oswald walked on down the stairs."

[greg_parkerAdmin]

So much for easing outta here to get other stuff done...

stopped by the officer that had stopped us and sent us back inside...

= Not Baker. 

Reinforcing my belief that Baker had no direct interaction with Oswald at the entrance or anywhere else. He may have directed a question about where to find the stairs and/or elevator to Oswald AND anyone else in the vicinity. But it was Truly who responded.

Oswald's interaction with a cop at the entrance had to be with Welcome Barnett, or some other cop quick enough on the scene. 
 
He gave his name and address (which appears on Revill's list slightly askew with both as was his want at times) and was allowed to go, or simply didn't hang around as instructed (Holmes stated that Oswald said he was "told to stand aside").  After he left Truly arrived back downstairs... and set the dogs after the rabbit.

[Goban_Saor]

The current state of play in the Prayer Man debate is that Sean Murphy has presented a solid case that Prayer Man is Oswald.

The only argument offered by those opposed to that case is: Prayer Man couldn’t be Oswald because if he was that would mean a number of people including one or more police officers lied or withheld evidence.

This argument is spurious. Technically,it is the logical fallacy known as ‘appeal to consequences' (argumentum ad consequentiam).

It is the ‘appalling vista’ argument used by British judge Lord Denning in 1980 when denying the right of appeal to the Birmingham Six (who were later acquitted of the pub bombing of which they were accused.) The following is an extract from Denning’s judgment:

'If they won [the appeal], it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted in evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous. ... That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, "It cannot be right that these actions should go any further."'

Logical fallacies are, by definition, nonsense. And this is all those denying that Prayer Man is Oswald have come up with. Nonsense.

Police and people everywhere lie and perjure themselves. You don’t have to go to Texas in the 1960’s for that. In my own little country, the Republic of Ireland, there have been numerous scandals involving the police (gardai). There is one ongoing at the moment involving a cover up in a murder case that goes all the way up to government level. In the UK there is a massive investigation into apparent widespread police misconduct and collusion relating to the Hillsborough soccer stadium disaster.

Those who deny the possibility that law enforcement officers and others misbehaved in the JFK case are not only ignoring the rules of logic. They are ignoring reality.

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