"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.

[barto]

Ain't that the truth Jake.

Where are Sarah Stanton's tits????

Doyle if you have won the debate then this would be a cakewalk to point out!

Who is running now you lying bitch.

[barto]

This stupid crap really takes the biscuit, a bunch of Doyleisms and they expect to be taken seriously....

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28136-prayerperson/page/21/#comments

[barto]

Malcolm and I can only tolerate THAT much when it comes to the BS uttered by a handful at the Speculaton Forum!


I make mention of a few bits in my book, when it comes to the Lovelady & Shelly encounter and Adams & Styles that are significant to the debate about my book at EF. A debate by the way were certain individuals and their inflated egos insert themselves with their ill-informed take on things only supported by their own speculations. Like they did in Sept 2022. Sad really.

Sanrda Styles stated in Ernest's book, on page 260

“A few people were milling around on the first floor,” she said. “One was a black man.” That was apparently the same man Ms Adams had mentioned. I casually asked her if William Shelley or Billy Lovelady were there. “No,” she said, emphasizing she would have recognized them, since she knew both men well.

At a later date when Ernest asked her again whether she saw Shelley and Lovelady on the first floor she answered “No, I didn’t. I believe they were at the front entrance, and we went out the back door and around to the front of the building. I believe most of the Depository employees were watching from the front entrance. I have seen at least one picture in which Billy is with that group.” When Ernest tells her that Victoria Adams’ testimony refers to Shelley and Lovelady being there when both women arrived there, she said “I can’t imagine why Vicki would have said that-if she did. They definitely weren’t there.” And when asked for her opinion about a possible insertion of said incident into Adams’ WC testimony she replied “All I can say, is that Shelley and Lovelady definitely were not on the first floor when we got there.” (page 261).


Then, thanks to Malcolm Blunt, something needs to be straightened out about the stenographic notes. I quote from an email sent to me a day ago.

"The comments on the stenotypes are nonsense ...they exist and can be requested but are useless because you have to be a court reporter to understand them plus they are artifacts so you cannot unpack them from their brown paper wrapping".

So what is keeping you lot: go and chase that instead, post a little less and investigate some more.....
NAHHHHHHHH.

[Vinny]

Pat Speer never misses a chance to downplay Prayer Man.

[Roger Odisio]

Bart,
 
Have either you or Malcolm talked to Barry Ernest?  He sought the stenographer's tapes in 2012 to try to show that the part of Vicki Adams' testimony in which she was supposed to have said she saw Shelley and Lovelady when she got to the first floor--the part that was used to discredit her--was added later to the typewritten testimony by Ball/Belin.  Ernest filed a FOIA with NARA to ask for the tape and was told it, along with the tapes of Shelley and Lovelady, done the same day, were missing.
 
What Ernest should have done is requested the tapes as JFKA records under the JFK Act. That's what Bill and Larry are considering doing in MFF lawsuit, if they can get that far in the case.
 
Couldn't a court reporter be gotten to interpret the tapes?
 
As to the description of them as artifacts that can't be unpacked, that would violate the purpose of having them in the JFK Collection in the first place:  so that the public can have access to them to determine for themselves what happened that day,  That was spelled out in the ARRB final report.

[barto]

From MB

stenotypes they are all on one cart,16 boxes as I remember with some packages open and the stenotype tapes spilling out of their packages.....when I was looking at one of the packages a NARA staffer stood behind me and said "do not open any of these packages Mr Blunt"..


Add on, this must have been at least 5 or more years ago so NARA mentality may have changed a bit as Ed and I tried to get access to Roy Truly's "WC deleted" testimony which a year later surfaced through D Morrisette with a voice (not Truly) racing through his testimony. So much for deleted....

Best of luck Roger, nobody else will do it.

[Roger Odisio]

No question the answers you get from NARA change overtime and depending on whom you ask. When Greg asked them to add Darnell and Wiegman--I think it was about 6 years ago--as obvious JFKA records, he was told they didn't have the authority to do that.
 
But last year when I referenced the JFK Act and asked staff whether they accepted recommendations to add to the Collection, I was told, yes, they do. I was told to send my request to NARA's general counsel. Where it has died of course, but that may have something to do the the MFF lawsuit. That staffer, btw, was Gene Morris, about whom Malcolm has commented favorably in the past.
 
In the lawsuit, NARA has been explaining its having done virtually nothing to update the Collection in the last 25 years, by claiming it is not the functional followup agency to the ARRB. That's ridiculous but the judge bought it, among other nonsense he has claimed.
 
That staffer who told Malcolm not to open a package was violating the clear intent of the law.  The whole point of having something in the Collection is so people can examine it and decide for themselves what happened that day.  There is no point in having something in the Collection if the public can't look at it.  The Collection isn't supposed to be a don't touch museum, but a living research center. 
 
It's true, you should never trust the "deleted" or "missing" explanation you are given for an item.
 

The MFF lawsuit is an indispensable ally but Bill and Larry face a long uphill slog.

[barto]

[Vinny]

Now more bs from the deniers.

https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,3773.0.html

[Jake_Sykes]

Duncan prostitutes his intellectual integrity to support his click addiction.

[barto]

That gif is a brilliant piss take, the touch of the cup of tea add-on is priceless.
Full marks on that fakery!

[cavalier973]

Huh. The person in the gif is either wearing pants (signifying a man) or a full length skirt (if a woman). I doubt it is a full length skirt.

I am guessing that the photograph was taken some minutes after the shooting.

Someone in the comments mentions “Willis”. Who is “Willis”, and what evidence is there that “Willis” was near the entrance at the time of the assassination?

The assumption that some make, from what I can tell, is that other people assume that “Prayer Man” is Oswald simply because “it kind of looks like him”, but that isn’t the only reason. It’s been a while since I read the thread in Education Forums, but the reasons for thinking it may be Oswald is that *every other possible person is eliminated by going through their testimonies about where they were at the time of the assassination*.

So, without going through the EF thread again, I am going to assume that Willis testified that she (or he) was somewhere else other than the front steps.

Plus, it can be inferred that Oswald testified that he was out front. His statement (written down, not recorded) is vague. We can’t be sure exactly what he told police, since they didn’t record the interrogation, and the police notes are sparse, as I recall.

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