Mooneyham Saw Dougherty

Law clerk Lillian Mooneyham watched the motorcade from the 2nd floor of the Dallas County Criminal Courts Building, just upstairs above the Sheriff's Office, along the corner of Main & Houston. She watched it with work companions Rose Clark and Jeanette Hooker. (WCH XXIV pp. 531-533)

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/html/WH_Vol24_0275a.htm

As the motorcade turned the Main/Houston corner, the women ran to the other side of the building, the NW corner, to a window overlooking Dealey Plaza in Judge Henry King's courtroom. They arrived in time to see the limousine turn the hairpin corner on Elm.

Upon witnessing the shooting sequence, Mooneyham and Clark went up to the 3rd floor to Judge Julien Hyer's office, for an elevated view of the drama unfolding below. Since the 2nd floor of the Criminal Courts Building was 20 feet high, to accomodate courtrooms, the 3rd floor gave them the equivalent of a 4th floor view.

On January 10 Clark told the FBI "that it was her impression that less than 5 minutes following the shots, she observed a crowd of people and policemen gathered around the entrance to the TSBD". Her impression receives excellent corroboration from the testimony of DPD Inspector Herbert Sawyer, who arrived very close to 12:35 and spoke with some officers on the front steps (WCH VI p. 319).

Mooneyham was also looking in that direction at this juncture in time. She was approximately 200 feet from the sniper's nest. She "estimated that it was about 4 1/2 to 5 minutes following the shots fired by the assassin, that she looked up towards the 6th floor of the TSBD and observed the figure of a man standing in a 6th floor window behind some cardboard boxes.

This man appeared to Mrs. MOONEYHAM to be looking out the window, however, the man was not close up to the window but was standing slightly back from it, so that Mrs. MOONEYHAM could not make out his features. She stated that she could give no description of this individual except to say that she is sure it was a man she observed, because the figure had on trousers. She could not recall the color of the trousers."


Mooneyham's time estimate is no colloquial expression, such as "5 or 10 minutes", but appears instead to be an attempt to accurately gauge when she saw this man up in the sniper's nest. She could see his trousers, so we know he was not standing behind the 4-carton-high barricade. He was inside the sniper's nest and standing behind the gun-rest boxes.

Who was this man?

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It seems to me extremely unlikely that a sniper- a stranger in the building- would have lingered at the sniper's nest 4 1/2 minutes after the assassination. He'd have no hope of escape.

Among warehouse employees, Harold Norman, James Jarman & Bonnie Ray Williams are known to have been upstairs during this timeframe. But they each acknowledge that they'd run downstairs about 5 minutes after the shooting (WCD 87 pp. 783-785).

Roy Truly & Marrion Baker were up on the roof. In a couple more minutes, at 12:38/39, they descended in the east elevator. They stopped at the 6th floor briefly and Baker "glanced over the 6th floor quickly." So whoever Mooneyham had seen in the sniper's nest had left by this juncture.

When they stopped at the 4th floor, they noticed Inspector Sawyer, who had just gone up the passenger elevator to search the 4th, and had a brief conversation with him.

Truly & Baker also stopped on the 5th, although they did not explicitly state this in their testimonies. Because Truly stated that "When coming down I am sure I saw Jack Dougherty getting some books off the 5th floor." (WCH III p. 229)

Dougherty flat-out admitted in his DPD affidavit that he returned to the 6th floor, after taking the elevator down from the 5th and speaking with Eddie Piper on the 1st.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/html/WH_Vol24_0112b.htm

He repeated this in an FBI interview on December 19 (WCH XIX p. 615).

There is simply no other candidate for the man seen in the sniper's nest 4 1/2 minutes after the assassination. Lillian Mooneyham saw Jack Dougherty.

But when he testified, Dougherty was not asked whether he went over to the sniper's nest, so soon after the assassination. He was not even asked about his return trip to the 6th floor.

What was Dougherty doing there?

Great post, Richard. Nice to see you posting again. I think Dougherty was checking to make sure everything was in place for the DPD to discover. If he was innocent, then surely he would have yelled out that he found the shells.

Exactly what was he checking on? (I have something in mind)

Dougherty doesn't specifically say in that statement he was part of the floor laying crew, but it sure sounds like that was what he was saying. But then starts talking about getting stock.

"I worked on the 6th floor today. There was six of us working on the floor. The others were [...] I worked until 12 noon and went down on the first floor [...] I had already gone back to work and gone down to the fifth floor to get some stock when I heard a shot."

Was Jack a bit confused about his story?

By the time of the WC, he was certain he was not part of the floor laying. I don't recall off-hand if any of the others included him in the floor-laying, but I know there is some confusion in the records about it - possibly as a result of this affidavit.

In any case, I think you've nailed the most likely candidate and moreover, in the course of typing this, the thought has crept into my head that Jack was also the one who asked for the elevator to be sent back up.

Richard Gilbride wrote:Exactly what was he checking on? (I have something in mind)

I think he was just curious whether the rifle and the spent shell casings were in place. Of course, I could be wrong.

Dougherty admitted in his DPD affidavit that he went to the 6th floor on two different occasions, shortly before and shortly after the assassination. He took a shortened lunchbreak and "had already gone back to work and gone down to the 5th floor." So he acknowledges having gone to the 6th during the timeframe that one would expect assassins were making their preparations.

And a few minutes later, after the shooting, and after speaking with Piper, he adds that he "then went back to work on the 6th floor." Granting him a visit to the sniper's nest defuses any idea that he was innocent. For one thing, if he supposedly was 10 feet from the west freight elevator on the 5th floor when the shots were fired (and I doubt this), he's at least figured out the location of the shooting spot. The shells on the floor would have been staring him in the face, as Hasan points out. It would be another half-hour before Luke Mooney discovers the sniper's nest, and Dougherty stated he talked to officers while he was mucking around with stock on the 5th (soon after Truly saw him). And Dougherty didn't tell them where the nest was.

There is additionally the possibility of evidence tampering. The top carton of the gun-rest, and a single carton on the floor at the back part of the nest, had Oswald's fingerprints/palmprints on them. Were these cartons substituted by Dougherty? There was funny business going on with the cartons within circa 20 seconds of the shooting, as the HSCA determined that cartons had been moved between the time of the Dillard & Powell photos. Were the shooter & spotter setting the substitute cartons in place for Dougherty to soon switch, while they made a quick getaway?

"Don't believe the so-called evidence" - Lee Harvey Oswald

The lower level WC lawyers expected more of the investigation of Dougherty. Both they, and us, were thoroughly short changed. Dougherty was protected for some reason best known to the WC higher ups.

Lee David Farley wrote:The lower level WC lawyers expected more of the investigation of Dougherty. Both they, and us, were thoroughly short changed. Dougherty was protected for some reason best known to the WC higher ups.

The thing that concerns me is that Dougherty (and this may apply to others in that building who are under suspicion) was no "spook" or, as far as we know, part of any criminal network. So the question becomes, not only how does he get roped into whatever part he played, but also - just as importantly - how does he keep from cracking? How does he keep his poker face?

The only answer I can come up with is that people like Dougherty were given very strong assurances from people they knew could make it so, that they would be protected and never be prosecuted, so long as they kept their mouths shut and kept to whatever script they were given at any point in time.

And that in turn, should narrow down those behind this....

The 5-10 lb Rolling Reader cartons, which comprised the 3 gun-rest cartons, usually were stocked "at least 3 aisles away" (Shelley, VII p. 391) or "40 or so feet away" (Truly, III p. 232). Oswald's left palmprint and right index fingerprint were found at opposite corners along the long side of the top gun-rest carton- a positioning consistent with having hoisted the carton in his left hand, while simply moving it from the 3rd to 4th aisle-stack while searching for a book. Say, at 10:00 AM that morning.

We don't know whether Dougherty eyeballed which carton Oswald had touched, and moved it over to the sniper's nest shortly before the shooting. It seems that the sniper's nest team (which I think consisted of a shooter & spotter) lifted a carton up onto the barricade, within about 20 seconds of the shots, before making a quick escape. That idea derives from the Dillard/Powell photo comparison.

Then Dougherty may have actually switched the top gun-rest carton, a few minutes later. We can't say that he didn't. And we can't say that he didn't just plop down a carton with Oswald's palmprint on it, in the back of the nest.

So this scenario adds one more item to the dozen or so, that should have had this case tossed out of court. It dissolves the "proof" that Oswald was ever in the sniper's nest.

As far as the protectors of Dougherty, the immediate ring around him is Truly and Shelley. "Lifers" in the company, the latter an admitted CIA operative. I would have to add Jack Cason (who gave two different times for when he left the building that day) and David Harold Byrd, founder of the Civil Air Patrol, affiliate of the Suite 8F Group, and probable CIA asset.