"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.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

I'll stop short of calling 
You an Oswald
Accuser

You are most kind! 

I will
reccommemnd you
to the Presi
dent
of the Royal New
York Shakespearean      Haiku

Society

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Thank you, Robert.  It's only been a few weeks but I've missed you guys too.  Hopefully my next meltdown is far off in the future.

At this moment in time the whole "Prayer Man" issue has got me reevaluating the entire TSBD scenario.  I neither agree nor disagree with the overall themes outlined in your post.  Prior to Sean igniting the community (pity someone doesn't ignite Ray Carroll on top of a big bonfire) then conventional wisdom within the research community had Oswald sitting in the lunchroom on his own prior to the assassination and much speculation followed on from that train of thought concerning why he would isolate himself from the parade and his colleagues.

If Prayer Man is Oswald then we have a new paradigm to fit together and many of the smaller pieces will be different.

I cannot work from a supposition that Oswald went back to his rooming house, wherever that may have been, to collect his revolver because I do not believe he owned one.  I also do not take seriously anything the Dallas Police Officers claimed he said upon arrest because to put faith in Oswald shouting "This is it..." would mean I would also have to put faith in him saying "I hear they burn for murder...it only takes a second."

Sean's "Prayer Man" has got my head going left, right, up and down and at this moment in time I can't fully grasp what it all might mean.

It’s little wonder that this may be cause for massive reevaluation.

I have always felt that, to the extent that more than one person present at the interrogations recalled Oswald saying the same thing, it was relatively easy to prove that Oswald’s comments were true.  Where there are divergent recollections of what Oswald said, there is also reason to suspect chicanery on the part of at least one witness’ version.

Difficult to prove, however, were Oswald’s statements about being on the ground floor - though his invocation of Jarman and Norman demonstrate inexplicable prescience were he not there - and his statement in Fritz’s notes about being “out front” with Bill Shelley. 

In the first instance, detractors have said that these two black employees ate in that room every workday, and consequently it required no special knowledge on Oswald’s part to “guess” that they had been there.  True, as far as it goes, which is not far enough.

Oswald said he recalled these two employees, to the exclusion of all others, and they, in turn, claimed that there may have been someone else present in the Domino room, but couldn’t recall who.  Had there been a further half dozen employees - which is NOT what Oswald said - one imagines that Jarman or Norman might have been able to name them, or at least some of them, or at least say there were several person present, which they markedly did not.  As it stands, Oswald was correct in stipulating the ONLY two coworkers who were there when he said he was.  This is no “lucky guess;” it is a man telling the truth, and having it all but verified by those he saw.

In the second instance, detractors have always argued - rightly, I think - that if Oswald had been “out front” with Bill Shelley, he should have been detectable in the extant photos.

Again, Oswald’s knowledge as to Shelley’s location indicates to a reasonable mind that he must have been there, or nearby, in order to know this about Shelley.  The small handful of witnesses who later claimed to have seen a man in the 6th floor window failed to mention that the man leaned OUT the window to see who was gathered below.

If this plays out as I think most of us hope it will, it may yet be possible to prove that Oswald was precisely where he said he’d been, and hence couldn’t possibly have fired a weapon at the President, either as a lone gunman or a cog of the conspiracy.

I am open to persuasion regarding whether or not Oswald lived at the Beckley boarding house, but haven’t yet encountered anything that proves conclusively he lived elsewhere, or even suggests a reason for having fabricated his tenancy there.  

As to his ownership of a handgun, I am relatively ambivalent.  Presumably because he was “caught” in possession of it, authorities thought it unnecessary to dust the weapon or the rounds it contained (or the shells found at the Tippit crime scene) for prints. 

However, one could with - I think - greater plausibility argue the items in evidence were not dusted for prints precisely because authorities already knew they would not find Oswald’s prints on them.  In either case, it is a shocking dereliction of duty not to have dusted for prints.  (I would also include the bus transfer and live rounds purportedly later found on Oswald’s person.  If they bore no LHO prints, they were most obviously and crudely a plant.) 

One might posit such a step was thought unnecessary while Oswald was alive.  But I think it became a compulsory requirement upon his death, for how else - in the absence of a confession he never dictated or signed - could DPD or FBI definitively demonstrate the weapon and other artifacts were in fact Oswald’s?  DPD couldn’t even prove a concrete chain of custody.  If this was not immediately apparent, it should have become so when DPD realized that:

* Gerald Hill’s radio’ed description of shells from the Tippit scene were indicative of “an automatic .38 rather than a pistol;”

* yet Hill then wrote a report stating “When the pistol was given to me, it was fully loaded and one of the shells had a hammer mark on the primer;”

* yet then said in a taped radio interview some time that day that the handgun was “a .38 snub nose that was fired twice (which is impossible to tell from a weapon that was fully loaded when he was given it, my note), and both shots hit the officer in the head;”

* when said weapon had actually been fired no fewer than four times, in order to account for the number of wounds Tippit sustained, and five times or more in order to account for the discrepancies in shells found and bullets extracted from Tippit.

No matter how one tries to square these contradictions with each other, they ALL call into question Gerald Hill’s veracity, and don’t yet include anomalies such as Officer Poe marking his initials onto the shells - the same “automatic” ones given to Hill - which thereafter became revolver shells that bore no Poe marks.

As for comments Oswald may have made upon arrest and during his time in custody - “this is it” and “now everyone will know who I am” - I can neither prove nor disprove they were said, but neither of them necessarily indicate guilt, and are open to an entirely different interpretation.  Roger Craig said Oswald’s tone was one of sad resignation, rather than a boast.  I suspect the “this is it” comment, purportedly made in the Texas Theatre, may have been similar.

Accepting this comment, heard only by Nick McDonald as he was the only officer close enough to be within earshot of Oswald, does not require one to accept other comments allegedly overheard by other officers.  The “I hear they burn for murder” comment was related by Officer Walker, who allegedly heard it after he was one of four or more officers who helped subdue Oswald.  Oddly, no other officer involved in that take-down corroborated Walker’s comment, which I believe is grounds for dismissing it as a fabrication of Walker’s own invention.  Somebody has watched too many Jimmy Cagney movies.

I think it’ll take everyone a while to absorb and interpret the implications stemming from the Prayer Man phenomenon.  If it stands as proof of Oswald’s whereabouts, it is exculpatory to the maximum.  If it does not, we’re back to square one, still looking for proof that Oswald was where he told Fritz he had been.  Must rests upon the outcome.

In the meantime, Lee may be pleased to hear that Ray Carroll has today admitted to being the “class dunce” who cannot keep up unless things are explained to him “slowly.”  And then proceeded to imagine a series of pop star contacts which bear no relevance to anything else in the thread.  Business as usual for the world's least persusaive lawyer.

[Hasan Yusuf]

Without going too far off topic, I think Hill reporting the shells were from an automatic was CYA, because I am convinced he framed Oswald with the revolver. Ray Hawkins testified that he heard someone yell out "this is it", but at the same time, denied that it was Oswald. I think it was McDonald who yelled it out, and that his role was to start the quarrel, allowing Hill to move in for the frame up. I also think it was Hill who put the nick on one of the live rounds. Hill's other statements about how many rounds were fired was simply to muddy the waters.

[GuestGuest]

In the meantime, Lee may be pleased to hear that Ray Carroll has today admitted to being the “class dunce” who cannot keep up unless things are explained to him “slowly.”  And then proceeded to imagine a series of pop star contacts which bear no relevance to anything else in the thread.  Business as usual for the world's least persusaive lawyer.

How the hell he's been allowed to do this for so long beggars belief.  

More importantly, how the hell this guy became a lawyer just gives everyone an idea as to the quality of advice one may receive if you are unlucky enough to hire someone like him.  I can only imagine every client he ever represented sitting behind bars because their lawyer submitted Mick Jagger and Kirsty McColl lyrics as evidence.

[beowulf]

More importantly, how the hell this guy became a lawyer just gives everyone an idea as to the quality of advice one may receive if you are unlucky enough to hire someone like him.  I can only imagine every client he ever represented sitting behind bars because their lawyer submitted Mick Jagger and Kirsty McColl lyrics as evidence.

[Goban_Saor]

It seems a lot like Ray Carroll is deliberately filibustering the EF Prayer Man thread. 

I don't know why the moderators haven't deleted his irrelevant posts as Sean Murphy has requested.

[Hasan Yusuf]

I don't know why the moderators haven't deleted his irrelevant posts as Sean Murphy has requested.

Goban,

This comes as absolutely no shock to me. The likes of Lifton, DVP, and Carroll lie and distort evidence constantly, but don't get censored or have their membership deleted. Whereas Jim DiEugenio, for example, had his deleted for no apparent reason. That's the Ed forum for you.

[GuestGuest]

It seems a lot like Ray Carroll is deliberately filibustering the EF Prayer Man thread. 

I don't know why the moderators haven't deleted his irrelevant posts as Sean Murphy has requested.

That's a big job.  The idiot has more that 3,000 posts.

If they start deleting his "irrelevant" posts on Sean's thread they should continue onto all the others he's ruined.  I've never read anything the guy has contributed that was even remotely helpful or interesting.

A complete waste of everybody's time yet he's still there... 

...wiping his arse over incredibly important work.  While the likes of Jim D, Tom, Robert, Greg, Martin and Dan are all gone.

I really hope James Richards joins this forum.  He's been gone for a while but he's reappeared and, my God, he knows his stuff.  What an addition to this group he would be.

[GuestGuest]

Sean has today posted an overview of his theory.  He, IMO, has nailed the first part.

There was no 3rd/4th floor encounter.

Can he now nail the second?  He claims Truly and Baker didnt take the stairs but used a rear elevator.

The second part is going to be more difficult to smooth out methinks

[Hasan Yusuf]

There was no 3rd/4th floor encounter

Lee,

I am curious as to why you think this is the case? My thoughts on this have been expressed elsewhere.

[Hasan Yusuf]

I just read Sean's post on the Ed forum. I think he has made a pretty good argument. However, why would Baker have described the man as different in appearance to Oswald, and better still, not claim that it was in fact Oswald he had encountered walking away from the staircase?
 
Baker's description of the man he allegedly encountered walking away from the staircase was similar to Howard Brennan's description of the shooter -- but I don't think that Brennan was actually in such a position to get a good view of the shooter at all.
 
http://www.giljesus.com/jfk/brennan.htm

[GuestGuest]

There was no 3rd/4th floor encounter

Lee,

I am curious as to why you think this is the case? My thoughts on this have been expressed elsewhere.

I don't think it the case, Hasan, 

...yet.

Sean has outlined one part of his two part theory.  Upon going over what he says I believe he's nailed the first part.  I think getting the second part to fit will be tougher and I await his reasoning.

Sean believes Baker added the 3rd/4th encounter to his affidavit to help bolster and add meat to both the alleged Brennan description from Sawyer and the Tippit suspect.

[GuestGuest]

I just read Sean's post on the Ed forum. I think he has made a pretty good argument. However, why would Baker have described the man as different in appearance to Oswald, and better still, not claiming that it was in fact Oswald he had encountered walking away from the staircase?

Baker's description of the suspect of the man he allegedly encountered walking away from the staircase was similar to Howard Brennan's description of the shooter -- but I don't think that Brennan was actually in such a position to get a good view of the shooter at all.

http://www.giljesus.com/jfk/brennan.htm

Because Baker was leaned on to add the 3rd/4th floor encounter to help the case before he found out the suspect in custody was the guy he saw on the first floor .  I'm guessing he believed he was helping the DPD nail the right suspect until the point of seeing Oswald in cuffs after giving his statement and suddenly realising that he's now part of something very twisted and macabre because he knew Oswald couldn't have done it.

[beowulf]

Sean has outlined one part of his two part theory. Upon going over what he says I believe he's nailed the first part.

Technically, its a four part theory (so far, he may yet tie in Kelly's College Boy, but I doubt it). )
1. Oswald is Prayer Man and Baker said some innocuous words to him in lobby (asking for directions to roof, presumably) before Truly stepped in.
2. Baker & Truly did not run into Oswald on 2nd floor.
3. Baker & Truly did not see a tan jacket man on 3rd or 4th floor.
4. Baker & Truly (presumably together, though perhaps Baker alone, we'll see how Sean fleshes this part out) did not take the stairs, they took the elevator.

EDIT: Come to think of it, if Baker took elevator up alone, that would allow Truly to be on the ground floor vouching for Oswald to a cop (whether Barnett or Sawyer) by the front door.

[GuestGuest]

Sean has outlined one part of his two part theory. Upon going over what he says I believe he's nailed the first part.

Technically, its a four part theory (so far, he may yet tie in Kelly's College Boy, but I doubt it). )
1. Oswald is Prayer Man and Baker said some innocuous words to him in lobby (asking for directions to roof, presumably) before Truly stepped in.
2. Baker & Truly did not run into Oswald on 2nd floor.
3. Baker & Truly did not see a tan jacket man on 3rd or 4th floor.
4. Baker & Truly (presumably together, though perhaps Baker alone, we'll see how Sean fleshes this part out) did not take the stairs, they took the elevator.

EDIT: Come to think of it, if Baker took elevator up alone, that would would allow Truly  to be on the ground floor vouching for Oswald to a cop (whether Barnett or Sawyer) by the front door.

And there are going to be some obstacles for Sean.  I'm interested if he does anything with the testimony of Jarman, Norman and Williams who claimed to have seen Baker ascending thought the fifth floor stairway doors.  There are many problems already with the stories the three lads told and I'm wondering if Sean's theory alleviates some of the issues or creates more.

For example: Sean's take would answer the question as to why Jack Dougherty was not see by Truly or Baker on the 5th or heard by Truly and Baker operating the lift.  However, it won't answer why Williams claimed he saw Truly and Baker.

Your EDIT about Baker taking the elevator alone would certainly put to bed those questions many of have had regarding why the hell an unarmed civilian would be allowed to run up ahead of a cop toward a potential Presidential assassin but once again we have to reevaluate the testimony and statements of Norman, Jarman and Williams to see what we are faced with.

[Redfern]

Sean Murphy is producing some very interesting ideas on the Education Forum. I previously thought Baker’s affidavit was the only ‘awkward’ statement from a DPD officer to slip through the net – mainly because it was recorded so soon after the assassination and on the basis that he seemed an honest cop.

I was unaware that both Truly and Mrs. Reid added seemingly irrelevant comments regarding seeing ‘no-one’ near the front vestibule area. This is clearly highly significant.

As for the supposed discrepancies between Victoria Adams’ version of events and those described by others, wouldn’t everything be explained  if Baker had spent much longer than he claimed talking with Truly before he went through the inner doors and if the two men he saw (one sitting near the elevator, another ’20 or 30 feet away’) were Shelley and Lovelady? These two can be seen on film walking very briskly westwards in front of the TSBD and were well clear of the entrance before Baker approached.

It looks as if they ran around the TSBD and entered through the rear.

Regardless of whether he was ‘Prayer Man’ (it certainly ties in with much of what he supposedly said), Oswald was probably seen by several of those running into the TSBD near the storage room.

[GuestGuest]

Sean has outlined one part of his two part theory. Upon going over what he says I believe he's nailed the first part.

Technically, its a four part theory (so far, he may yet tie in Kelly's College Boy, but I doubt it). )
1. Oswald is Prayer Man and Baker said some innocuous words to him in lobby (asking for directions to roof, presumably) before Truly stepped in.
2. Baker & Truly did not run into Oswald on 2nd floor.
3. Baker & Truly did not see a tan jacket man on 3rd or 4th floor.
4. Baker & Truly (presumably together, though perhaps Baker alone, we'll see how Sean fleshes this part out) did not take the stairs, they took the elevator.

EDIT: Come to think of it, if Baker took elevator up alone, that would would allow Truly  to be on the ground floor vouching for Oswald to a cop (whether Barnett or Sawyer) by the front door.

And there are going to be some obstacles for Sean. .......

Amen. The focus du jour of the broad community is almost never where the meat is to be found. What is the reasonable potential of such an exercise? Compared to studies of choke points such as Bledsoe, McWatters and Bus 1213, William Whalley's important testimony vs. his not using his actual year of birth and there being no record supporting his quoted assertion to at least one newsman that he was a recipient of the Navy Cross in WWII, and Gladys's husband relating that the FBI was all over his North Beckley house just after 1:30 and somehow being able to confirm that boarder regisitered as OH Lee was "their man," how is one to proceed after Sean's study?

Intending in advance to keep Oswald in the vestibule but just out of sight is the proposal, bumping up against the contradicting observation that coworker Bill is on full display for the camera lense but is still not universally identified as Bill to this day. A pity that such a massive chunk of "the community" has not other place to focus on in the run up to the 50th and seemingly such scant ability to figure out how best to expend their research efforts. I am guilty of wasting the time it took to compose and post this. I let myself be a slight victim of it.

The other studies I described have influenced me to suspect Oswald was never on the bus or in the taxi or in residence at Beldsoe's or at N. Beckley. All of those tales were fabricated after the fact. Keeping the face of Oswald from being captured by a camera lense is quite a leap. Why propose it?

[Hasan Yusuf]

I don't think it the case, Hasan, 

...yet.

My bad, Lee. Sorry.
 

Because Baker was leaned on to add the 3rd/4th floor encounter to help the case before he found out the suspect in custody was the guy he saw on the first floor .  I'm guessing he believed he was helping the DPD nail the right suspect until the point of seeing Oswald in cuffs after giving his statement and suddenly realising that he's now part of something very twisted and macabre because he knew Oswald couldn't have done it.

That could very well be the case.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

Sean may be right about no 4th floor encounter, but I'm not yet convinced. Comments by me in this shade

Marrion Baker's 11/22/63 affidavit describes the man caught walking away from the rear stairway on third or fourth floor as follows:
 
a white man approximately 30 years old, 5’9”, 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket
 
Now compare the description of the suspect which Herbert Sawyer had broadcast a quarter of an hour after the shooting:
 
About 30, 5'10", 165 pounds.
 
The similarities are just too good to be true. It stretches credulity to believe that Baker and Howard Brennan (the supposed source of Sawyer's description) should get the man's age and weight wrong in exactly the same way. And for their height estimates to be within a measly inch of one another given that Brennan had no idea that the floor on the sixth floor was a very short distance below the window is improbably impressive also.

It only stretches credulity if it was supposed to be Oswald, not just a description of a then unknown suspect. Sean, imo, is using hindsight to dispose of the encounter. On the face of it, what it appears to be is mutually corroborating evidence that this was an accurate description of the shooter, and one that tends to rule Oswald out. You can also add Rowland's man who meets that description.
 
**
 
Here's what I believe happened.
Marrion Baker came back to DPD HQ from Parkland Hospital and told of his movements in the TSBD. He had run into the building and, escorted by the building manager, gone upstairs. En route he had seen--no-one at all.
 
This sequence of non-events was very bad news indeed for Fritz and co., who urgently needed evidence pointing to Oswald's having come down that escape route immediately after the shooting.
 
The solution kicked in with Dallas, TX '63 alacrity.
Baker was told to give an affidavit telling of his having encountered a man--an 'employee'--fleeing down the rear stairway.
He was fed the APB suspect description and told to add in "light brown jacket" for extra effect (reports were already coming in from Tippit witnesses that the man seen shooting Tippit and fleeing the scene had been wearing a light brown [or "tan"] jacket--a nice opportunity to seal the deal against this double murderer).
Baker complied, hedging his bets as to location by offering "third or fourth floor" (you never know who else might turn up claiming to have been near the rear of one of those floors at the time in question...).
The man's height was chopped an inch for verisimilitude--so as not to make the copy and paste from the APB description too blatant.

Though I could see Fritz doing just as Sean says. it is passing strange that the story gets changed that very night and many days later, he still doesn't know about that change. What I'm getting at is that Fritz should have been in the loop on any such change if he himself ordered the first one, surely?

But the main problem as I see it is that Sean has invested Baker with a high degree of finesse and nuance which he clearly did not possess. Sean himself went to some length to point out earlier in the thread that other cops thought Baker was something of a dullard.


SM post #330 from Oswald Leaving TSBD? thread:
------------
"Marrion Baker's fellow motorcycle officer Stavis Ellis told Larry Sneed that Baker was known to be not "real bright". In fact, he was thought to be "slow" and was nicknamed "Momma Son". Harold Weisberg, years earlier, remarked that Baker was thought by his colleagues to be a "dope". 

Put the case that this verdict, however unkind, had at least a grain of truth in it."


And put the case that Baker, at some point after the assassination, was fed the first draft of the lunchroom story as follows:


You saw a man standing in the second-floor lunchroom drinking a coke. Got that? A man. Standing in the lunchroom. Second floor. Drinking a coke.
---------------
In context, Sean was using the "dope" line to show Baker being easily led. That does not square well with someone capable of thinking to "hedge bets" and add "verisimilitude" by slightly altering something. 


**
 
And then, just as Baker is giving his affidavit, something dramatic happens: Lee Oswald is brought into the Homicide Office in front of his very eyes.
 
Baker is stunned, for he recognises Oswald as the man he had seen and briefly spoken with at the front entrance.
 
Up to this he has genuinely believed he is just helping his boss nail a Presidential assassin and cop-killer. But now he realises that he has just invented a story about man he knows to be innocent--and who knows he knows! If not for Oswald's sake then for his own, Baker is deeply disturbed. He has just risked exposure of having given a false report.
 
His affidavit reflects this fact, for it makes no mention of the all-important fact that the man Baker has just described is the man currently in custody. If Baker is asked subsequently to identify Oswald in a lineup, then he refuses.
 
Officer after officer, even those with pretty tangential roles, will in the days and weeks ahead give detailed reports on their post-assassination movements inside the TSBD. But not Baker. He closes up. Not a word from him for months in clear confirmation of any story putting Oswald by the rear stairs. It will not be until he takes part in the WC 'reconstructions' at the TSBD months later, in March 64, that he will jump on board the final draft of the Relocated Oswald Encounter.

That is a very good and valid point. 
 
**
 
Speaking of which:
By the evening or night of the assassination, a second alternative venue for the relocated Oswald encounter is being put together by or with the cooperation of Roy Truly: the second-floor lunchroom.
With judicious tweaks, it will become the story people stick to.
Baker's affidavit story is buried as an unworkable first draft. 

Or buried because it was a fact that Baker stopped someone other than Oswald? 

[GuestGuest]

Sean's theory is quite compelling. Exciting to follow. I like his intuition about the description of the 4th floor man meshing with the Tippit suspect's light brown jacket. I have to agree on his take on 4th floor man- I've felt similarly that he was a phantom. Sean certainly has enough at this point to put together a cohesive article, which if done relaxedly, will be an instant classic. It's really just a matter of tying together his best posts from the Prayer Man thread.

I have to say that I don't think Oswald went very far after the shooting. I give Mrs. Reid & Ochus Campbell a timeframe of about 1 1/2 minutes to re-enter the building and pass that small storage room on their way back upstairs. Mrs. Reid underwent at least 2 time trials for her testimony and said it took 2 minutes to get back to her 2nd-floor central office. And it's quite doubtful she went in alone as she claimed, because Geneva Hine saw her come in with a group of people that included Campbell.

So Oswald passed some time in the small storage room before returning to the front landing. To be met by Pierce Allman, a returning Bill Shelley, a returning Billy Lovelady, and Welcome Barnett. Allman's broadcast was at 12:34 and I believe that's when Oswald left the front landing. I further believe that he hung out somewhere near the pergola east alcove for 5-7 minutes awaiting a white Rambler with a luggage rack on top. Which to me is a planned getaway, and evident foreknowledge of the assassination. With a participatory role in assisting the kill team, in my opinion.

[beowulf]

Still in an open question in my mind if we live in Greg's universe (Baker encountered suspect on 3rd or 4th floor) or Sean's universe (there was no such encounter). One advantage of Sean's theory is it doesn't require Truly to stick his neck way out by falsely identifying someone on 3rd/4th floor-- very likely a conspirator-- as an employee. In practical terms, there's a big difference between lying TO the cops and lying FOR the cops, falsely averring to meeting Oswald on 2nd floor is not even a parking ticket by comparison. 

What's interesting about the Christmas memo from Captain Fritz to Chief Curry is they both know anything in a criminal investigation written down is not going to stay secret from outsiders. Ordinarily, its the District Attorneys who go through file (In fact, earlier that year, Supreme Court's Brady v. Maryland decision put on DAs  a legal duty to share exculpatory evidence with defense counsel--you'll recall who the Chief Justice was at this time). In this particular matter, Congress had given the Warren Commission subpoena power so Fritz and Curry knew whatever they wrote down would not stay secret from Earl Warren's crew (at the same time, it would look even fishier if the WC found that nothing was written down). Fritz's comments to the Chief were no doubt annotated by offline conversations.

Fritz knew damn well what Truly had averred to (2nd floor lunchroom meeting) but Baker was not yet on board. So on the record, he didn't mention Truly lunchroom statement and kept the theory of the case in line with Baker's original affidavit since that might be what he'd end up testifying to (which would have gone pretty much like Greg's One Act play).
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t25-if-marion-baker-had-stuck-to-his-original-statement

Fortunately, of course, sometime between December and March, Baker finally listened to the voice of sweet reason.  If they had Powerpoint back then, the presso would have gone something like this:
1. He's already dead so its not like your words are putting an innocent man in the chair;
2. If you stick with  3rd/4th floor story, people will think you're a horrible cop whose stupidity led to another cop's murder, the 2nd floor story puts the blame on Truly; &
3. If you want to continuing working as a lawman in this or any other police department, you will do and say exactly what we tell you.

[Goban_Saor]

Amen. The focus du jour of the broad community is almost never where the meat is to be found. What is the reasonable potential of such an exercise? Compared to studies of choke points such as Bledsoe, McWatters and Bus 1213, William Whalley's important testimony vs. his not using his actual year of birth and there being no record supporting his quoted assertion to at least one newsman that he was a recipient of the Navy Cross in WWII, and Gladys's husband relating that the FBI was all over his North Beckley house just after 1:30 and somehow being able to confirm that boarder regisitered as OH Lee was "their man," how is one to proceed after Sean's study?

Intending in advance to keep Oswald in the vestibule but just out of sight is the proposal, bumping up against the contradicting observation that coworker Bill is on full display for the camera lense but is still not universally identified as Bill to this day. A pity that such a massive chunk of "the community" has not other place to focus on in the run up to the 50th and seemingly such scant ability to figure out how best to expend their research efforts. I am guilty of wasting the time it took to compose and post this. I let myself be a slight victim of it.

The other studies I described have influenced me to suspect Oswald was never on the bus or in the taxi or in residence at Beldsoe's or at N. Beckley. All of those tales were fabricated after the fact. Keeping the face of Oswald from being captured by a camera lense is quite a leap. Why propose it?

I don’t fully understand all of your post, Tom, which failure is probably due to my relative ignorance about many aspects of the JFK assassination.

However, there is one point you make that seems to refer to a post by me earlier on this thread. In that post I commented on the possibility that Prayer Man was Oswald holding a camera and that his staying in the shadows of the vestibule was in accordance with orders given on a ‘need to know’ basis.

That post by me was badly timed because shortly after I made it Sean Murphy posted pictorial evidence in the EF suggesting that Prayer Man was holding a sandwich and a coke rather than a camera, which seems to be both more credible and useful for the purpose of making sense of the available evidence.

On a general note, I don’t see why pursuing the topic of Prayer Man should preclude the pursuit of the other topics you mention.

[Hasan Yusuf]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with pursuing new ideas leading up to the 50th anniversary of the President's death. I for one am sick and tired of hearing the same ideas repeated over and over again. I commend Sean for his research, even though I don't yet agree with everything he writes. But nobody has a right to tell him he is wasting his time. Just saying.

[GuestGuest]

That post by me was badly timed because shortly after I made it Sean Murphy posted pictorial evidence in the EF suggesting that Prayer Man was holding a sandwich and a coke rather than a camera, which seems to be both more credible and useful for the purpose of making sense of the available evidence.

Goban,

Don't be so hard on yourself.  At the end of the day each of us is simply guessing as to what is in "Prayer Man's" hands.  Sandwich, coke, camera, dildo...the fact is we won't ever know.  If it's his sandwich then some explanation as to what he did between 12:00 and 12:30pm is in order.  If it's a coke then some explaining as to why he had it for so long is in order.  If it's a camera then some explanation as to where it went is in order.

Let's face some facts.  What we are dealing with here is a nondescript bunch of pixels in an already poor quality still from a poor quality film.  We now have researchers debating whether this figure is on the top step, the second from top step, whether he's actually facing forward, Pat Speer (who just annoys the living shit out of me the more I read his utter bullshit) actually claimed it was a woman holding a purse FFS!  This is where this research community generally begins to fall apart.  Someone proposes something exciting, everyone gets involved, then 42 people throw out 42 solutions and then begin to bicker over which of them is right.  

That being said, and you touched upon it in your post, "solutions" or "ideas" cannot exist in vacuum.  Other evidence or events have to be taken into consideration.  The reason I think "Prayer Man" could possibly be holding a camera is because firstly we have a round blast of light reflecting back, he is stood in a very peculiar pose for a period of time almost like both of his hands are resting upon something, the Imperial Reflex camera that allegedly belonged to Oswald was a camera that you held with both hands at your stomach or chest area and the person then looked down into the viewfinder situated on top and finally I have always wanted a sensible answer as to why Oswald returned to Irving on the Thursday night.  Also, within the context of Oswald's interests I have always wanted an answer as to why he didn't view the motorcade and Sean's theory answers that because according to the theory Oswald did watch.  I don't think it too much of a stretch, once you build from an assertion that he watched the motorcade, to also believing he photographed it.  Additionally, the camera in question, the Imperial Reflex, has a checkered history and a strange chain of custody.  

Don't let anybody stop you or influence following the parts of this case that truly interest you.  What Tom really meant in his post I'll let him explain but from knowing him for quite a few years now I think he gets frustrated that the pieces of the case that we believe we have established aren't built into a bigger picture that he believes explains the historical importance of the JFK assassination not only from the time it happened but also up to and including today's political landscape.  

I hope he'll forgive me for saying this, and we once had a major falling out over it, I don't think Tom sometimes appreciates that some of us have brains that operate very differently from his.  From my own personal perspective my brain can only hold so much at once and can only cope with a finite number of connections.  Once I'm asked to jump from A to X I have to start filling in B, C, D, E, F, etc and my brain suddenly becomes paralysed and gives up.

FWIW.

So, in summary, no one has a better idea as to what is in Prayer Man's hands than anybody else at this moment in time.

Below: Imperial Reflex with viewfinder open.

[Goban_Saor]

Thanks for those thoughtful replies, Hasan and Lee.

You’re right, Lee, to suggest that the Prayer Man/Oswald-holding-a-camera hypothesis should not be dismissed.


It’s just that my attempt to build on that hypothesis with the notion of his being ordered to stand in the vestibule may be a bit wobbly.

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