Prayer Man Poll

ianlloyd wrote:Why isn't "An Unknown Male" listed?

Lee Farley wrote:I see someone voted for "A Stranger from the crowd."

Hmmm.  I wonder who cast that vote?

Anyone but Oswald, eh?  Give me strength.

Robert Harris wrote:But neither he nor anyone else made that claim.

Robert Harris wrote:I would make two points on this issue. The image is not nearly clear enough to determine with certainty who that is.

If it was Oswald then why did he never claim in his interrogation or in televised statements that he was standing outside during the shooting? That would have given him the perfect alibi and undoubtedly, some of his coworkers would have corroborated him.

But neither he nor anyone else made that claim.

• In his same-day statement to reporters, Ochus Campbell said Oswald was seen on the first floor just after the shots.
  
• According to the 11/22 Bookhout-Hosty joint interrogation report, Oswald claimed to be on the first floor.
  
• Both the Dallas Morning News and  the New York Herald Tribune (written on 11/22, published 11/23) reported Oswald being spotted in a (small) storage room on the ground floor immediately after the shooting.
  

 

Stan Dane wrote:

Robert Harris wrote:I would make two points on this issue. The image is not nearly clear enough to determine with certainty who that is.

If it was Oswald then why did he never claim in his interrogation or in televised statements that he was standing outside during the shooting? That would have given him the perfect alibi and undoubtedly, some of his coworkers would have corroborated him.

But neither he nor anyone else made that claim.

If I recall correctly:

• In his same-day statement to reporters, Ochus Campbell said Oswald was seen on the first floor just after the shots.
  
• According to the 11/22 Bookhout-Hosty joint interrogation report, Oswald claimed to be on the first floor.
  
• Both the Dallas Morning News and  the New York Herald Tribune (written on 11/22, published 11/23) reported Oswald being spotted in a (small) storage room on the ground floor immediately after the shooting.
  

Any first day stuff is more reliable than later "adjusted" statements to help "Fritz the case" (cinch). Oswald said he was on the first floor. He was reportedly seen on the first floor.

In the relatively few moments he had before the press, I don't know why he didn't say certain things either. Maybe had he known he was going to be killed while in police custody, he might have blurted out some things out in desperation.
 
As far as his coworkers corroborating him if he said he was standing outside, Buell Wesley Frazier wouldn't even identify himself when shown the Prayer Man picture standing precisely where he testified to be standing!


 
 
There are certain "things" people just don't talk about with this case. 

terlin wrote:

Robert Harris wrote:But neither he nor anyone else made that claim.

Actually, I believe it was in Capt. Fritz' notes that he claimed he "had lunch with Bill Shelley out front".

Fritz notes at Mary Ferrell Foundation
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=29103&relPageId=3

Robert Harris wrote:While I don't agree with everything Pat Spears believes, I think he did a good job analyzing this issue..........

Robert Harris wrote:While I don't agree with everything Pat Spears believes, I think he did a good job analyzing this issue. From his site: (quoting)

According to Captain Will Fritz's handwritten notes on his 11-22 interrogation of Oswald, Oswald claimed that in the hour before the shooting, he'd went "to 1st floor had lunch/out with Bill Shelley in front."  While this might sound like Oswald was claiming to have had lunch out in front of the building with Bill Shelley, Fritz's typed up notes reflect that, at the time of the shooting, Oswald said "he was having his lunch about that time on the first floor." (24H265) This suggests then that Oswald told Fritz he saw Shelley at a different point, presumably when he was leaving the building after the shooting.

Oswald was asked about this a second time, in an interrogation performed the next day. [size=13]This time, however, he was asked if anyone could confirm he'd eaten his lunch on the first floor. According to Fritz's typed-up notes, Oswald said he'd "ate lunch with some of the colored boys who worked with him. One of them was called 'Junior' and the other man was a little short man whose name he did not know." (24H267) The report of Secret Service Inspector Thomas Kelley confirms this account, moreover, stating "He said he ate his lunch with the colored boys who worked with him. He described one of them as 'Junior,' a colored boy, and the other was a little short negro boy." The report of FBI agent James Bookhout (WR622), however, gives a slightly different account of Oswald's statements. Bookhout relates: "Oswald stated that on November 22, 1963, he had eaten lunch in the lunch room of the Texas School Book Depository, alone, but recalled possibly two negro employees walking through the room in this period. He stated possibly one of these employees was called 'Junior' and the other was a short individual whose name he could not recall, but whom he would be able to recognize." Bookhout's version in which Oswald did not eat lunch with these men, but merely saw them walk by, for that matter, receives solid support from an unexpected source: Fritz's origin[size=13]al notes. In his hand-written notes, Fritz reports that Oswald "[/size][/size]saw two negroes come in one Jr. - & short negro" and says nothing about Oswald's claiming to have had lunch with these men.

Pat Speer wrote:First, we look into the question of whether or not Oswald was on the sixth floor in the moments leading up to the shooting. 

Sean Murphy wrote:If you had a suspect for the shooting of President Kennedy in front of you and had just one question to ask him, that question would surely be: Where exactly were you at the time of the shooting?
 
Yet, as we have already seen, there is a remarkable silence in the interrogation reports when it comes to telling us how Oswald actually answered this question. All we are told is that he claimed to have been on the first floor when the President passed the building. That's it. "On the first floor." Could be anywhere on the first floor.
 
I submit that this striking vagueness is indicative not of Oswald's refusal to give specifics but of the 'investigating' authorities' wise refusal to allow his all too specific answer be entered into the official record. For that answer was a disastrous one: I was out front having my lunch at that time.
 
**
 
There is, curiously, only one interrogation report that actually goes so far as to claim that Oswald explicitly admitted to not having watched the motorcade. That report is titled "First Interview of Lee Harvey Oswald". It is written by Secret Service Inspector Thomas J. Kelley.
 
Here's the sentence that is meant to break the hearts of anyone daring to claim that Oswald was indeed out front:
 
I asked him if he viewed the parade and he said he had not.
 
Game over for those longing to cry, Stop the lies, Oswald outside!
Right?
Wrong.
 
Here's that devastating sentence in context in Kelley's report:
 
At this time Captain Fritz showed a Selective Service Card that was taken out of his wallet which bore the name of Alex Hidell. Oswald refused to discuss this after being asked for an explanation of it, both by Fritz and by James Bookhout, the FBI Agent. I asked him if he viewed the parade and he said he had not. I then asked him if he had shot the President and he said he had not. I asked him if he has shot governor Connally and he said he had not.
 
The content of the sentence in green is clearly reflected in rough notes jotted down during the interrogation.
The content of the sentence in blue is clearly reflected in rough notes jotted down during the interrogation.
The content of the sentence in purple is clearly reflected in rough notes jotted down during the interrogation.
The sentence in red is not however reflected in any way in rough notes jotted down during the interrogation.
 
How do we know this? Kelley's notes have never seen the light of day, have they? Didn't he destroy them after using them to write up his report?
 
Correct.
 
And yet... even though we don't have Kelley's notes anymore, we do have access to the notes of someone else who was listening closely to Oswald's answers during the exact same moments of that interrogation session.
 
Who was that someone else?
 
Does this look familiar to anyone?
 


That's right--it's Captain Fritz's handwriting.
But these are not, contrary to myth, Captain Fritz's contemporaneous interrogation notes.
 
They are, like all five pages of the much-ballyhooed 'Fritz notes', in reality a transcription of the contemporaneous interrogation notes of FBI Special Agent James W. Bookhout.

greg parker wrote:

Stan Dane wrote:

Robert Harris wrote:I would make two points on this issue. The image is not nearly clear enough to determine with certainty who that is.

If it was Oswald then why did he never claim in his interrogation or in televised statements that he was standing outside during the shooting? That would have given him the perfect alibi and undoubtedly, some of his coworkers would have corroborated him.

But neither he nor anyone else made that claim.

If I recall correctly:

• In his same-day statement to reporters, Ochus Campbell said Oswald was seen on the first floor just after the shots.
  
• According to the 11/22 Bookhout-Hosty joint interrogation report, Oswald claimed to be on the first floor.
  
• Both the Dallas Morning News and  the New York Herald Tribune (written on 11/22, published 11/23) reported Oswald being spotted in a (small) storage room on the ground floor immediately after the shooting.
  

Any first day stuff is more reliable than later "adjusted" statements to help "Fritz the case" (cinch). Oswald said he was on the first floor. He was reportedly seen on the first floor.

In the relatively few moments he had before the press, I don't know why he didn't say certain things either. Maybe had he known he was going to be killed while in police custody, he might have blurted out some things out in desperation.
 
As far as his coworkers corroborating him if he said he was standing outside, Buell Wesley Frazier wouldn't even identify himself when shown the Prayer Man picture standing precisely where he testified to be standing!


 
 
There are certain "things" people just don't talk about with this case. 

Oswald didn't initially claim any knowledge he was being charged with JFK. If true, he had no need to give the world his alibi. I don't think he was afforded too many chances after being arraigned - except in the interrogations where his words were not uniformly recorded with any accuracy.

From "the Last Words..."

Midnight Press Conference
When asked, "Did you kill the President?" Oswald replied, "No. I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question. . . . I did not do it. I did not do it. . . . I did not shoot anyone."


He was (allegedly) arraigned a couple of hours later... ("allegedly" because it was not done according to Texas law).

Robert, your argument here is what I would expect from McAdams or DVP.

Robert Harris wrote:Mr. Parker, I am disappointed that as an admin you would post such an ugly, personal insult. By equating me with McAdams and Von Pein, you are obviously suggesting that I am dishonest.

You are wrong.

Robert Harris wrote:I go with the evidence. I don't base my conclusions on what I want to have happened. And the simple fact is that you have no evidence at all, that Oswald was outside during the shooting. He said he was in the lunch room during the attack and in a televised statement, was crystal clear that he was inside the building then.
 
LEE HARVEY OSWALD: I don’t know what this is all about.
1st REPORTER: Did you kill the president?
LEE HARVEY OSWALD: No, sir, I didn’t. People keep— [crosstalk ] Sir?
1st REPORTER: Did you shoot the president?
LEE HARVEY OSWALD: I work in that building.
1st REPORTER: Were you in the building at the time?
LEE HARVEY OSWALD: Naturally, if I work in that building, yes, sir.

Sean Murphy wrote:I think it is reasonable to allow for Oswald's having considered that front entrance area as part of the building. It's not as if the front door gave out immediately on to the street: there were steps, and those steps were roofed as well as enclosed on both sides. Very much part of the building.
 
Only when one had stepped down off the last step on to the street pavement could one be said to have properly left the building.
 
Two further things to bear in mind here.
 
First, Oswald doesn't say "I was in the building" in response to the question, "Where were you at the time of the shooting?".
He is instead asked a very different question: "Were you in the building at the time?".
And delivers a sharp rebuttal to the reporter's clear insinuation that his being there was somehow suspicious in itself: "Naturally if I work in that building, yes sir."
 
Second, intonation is important.
The reporter doesn't ask, "Were you IN the building at the time?".
He asks, "Were you in the BUILDING at the TIME?"
Oswald, who is having questions shouted at him left, right and centre, understands the question to relate to his basic LOCATION at the TIME of the shooting.
And he confirms that, yes, the TSBD was his location at the time.
He wasn't on the sidewalk on Houston St. He wasn't on the overpass. He wasn't in his rooming house. He wasn't at the movies.
He was at his place of work.
Hence the exasperated emphases: "NATURALLY, if I WORK in that BUILDING, YES, sir."

Robert Harris wrote:Should you at some point, choose to apologize for equating me with this scum, I will be happy to continue this discussion. But it's a waste of my time to discuss the crime with people who are this narrow minded.

Richard Gilbride wrote:I personally liked Robert Harris' reply, and thought like he that it was an insult to be lumped in with McAdams & Von Pein simply because he had reservations about accepting Prayer Man as Oswald. It may have been an offhand remark, but remarks like that abound around here, where there is a tendency to gang-think behavior, discouraging independent thought & opinions.

Robert got me thinking that the Prayer Man ID is nothing you could take to the bank, so to speak. A case could be made that PM is actually the Oswald lookalike captured in a tramps photo about 2:15.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/3tramps.htm

Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever come up with a satisfactory hypothesis as to who that fellow is.