"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.

[ianlloyd]

I've always found Dougherty's comment rather odd:

Mr. DOUGHERTY - Well, then immediately I heard a loud noise---it sounded like a car backfiring, and I came back down to the first floor, and I asked Eddie Piper, I said, "Piper, what was that?" I says, "Has the President been shot?'. He said, "Yes.

 Why on earth would you ask that?

[beowulf]

When Garners says "storeroom", she may actually mean "bathroom".

If the shooter(s) came down in elevator (East or West), they'd want someone along for the ride as a lookout/human shield, Piper or Dougherty would do nicely.

EDIT:  To Ian's point, of course Jack didn't ask that, you have to factor in he's a  moron. WC Counsel Ball had exactly the same reaction as you, it seemed ponderous to reprint more of Jack's testimony, but since inquiring minds want to know....

Mr. BALL - You didn't say--did you say, 'Has the President been shot?"---you told the FBI agent that you went down to the first floor and you saw a man named Eddie Piper and asked him if he heard a loud noise.
Mr. DOUGHERTY - I asked him that too.
Mr. BALL - And Piper said he had heard three loud noises and told you that somebody had Just shot the President; is that right?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - That's right.
Mr. BALL - Who mentioned the fact that the President had been shot first--- you or Eddie Piper?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - Eddie Piper.
Mr. BALL - Did you say anything to Piper about the President being shot?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - No, sir.
Mr. BALL - When you talked to Eddie Piper, did you know that the President had been shot?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - No, sir; I didn't know that at the time.
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/doughert.htm

[GuestGuest]

Someone at the EF has today brought up Buell Wesley Frazier's testimony where he claimed he did not see Baker run up the TSBD steps and enter the building:

Mr. BALL - Did you see anybody after that come into the Building while you were there?
Mr. FRAZIER - You mean somebody other that didn't work there?
Mr. BALL - A police officer.
Mr. FRAZIER - No, sir; I stood there a few minutes, you know, and some people who worked there; you know normally started to go back into the Building because a lot of us didn't eat our lunch, and so we stared back into the Building and it wasn't but just a few minutes that there were a lot of police officers and so forth all over the Building there.
Mr. BALL - Then you went back into the Building, did you?
Mr. FRAZIER - Right.
Mr. BALL - And before you went back into the Building no police officer came up the steps and into the building?
Mr. FRAZIER - Not that I know. They could walk by the way and I was standing there talking to somebody else and didn't see it.

His final statement above (bolded) shifts from an initial hypothetical frame to a factual frame "they could" changing to "I was" and "I didn't."

I don't think there is any doubt left concerning this for me.  That is Lee Oswald on the steps.  That is Buell Wesley Frazier stood next to him.  Baker asked Lee at the top of the steps if he worked there.  Truly interjected.  Frazier was privy to the whole event and knew from day one that Oswald was innocent of this crime.

That is some burden to carry around with you for 50 years.  To know, and to know categorically, that the person accused of a Presidential assassination was stood next to you during the parade must have been a horrfying place to be and to live your life having to support the official version of events that you categorically know is false must have created a great deal of psychological pain.

For the first time in my life, I actually feel sorry for Frazier.  We have always concentrated on the lies he allegedly told and we have emphasised his unwillingness to open up and be shepherded by Lone-Nut cronies around Dallas.  I understand there are still outstanding problems concerning lots more of his version of events, but now when I think about the short pieces of video footage we have of him saying how much he liked Lee and that he called Lee his friend and watch the animation of his mouth and eyes as if this is the only truth he is allowed to utter and I look at him in a different light. 

I will be reading his full testimony again tonight with this new frame (Lee was beside him in the doorway) and see if it now reads differently. 

What next for Prayer Man?  I am absolutely convinced it is Lee and although we are still trying to make some sense of the shenanigans inside the TSBD surely a professional and scholarly presentation can be put together and forwarded to a selection of people who can try and generate some interest in it.  Rachel Oswald springs to mind as someone who will want to see and read this and if she can begin to bang the drum prior to the 50th we may begin to see some interest develop.

Its a fucking crying shame that Ralph Cinque and his knob head group of utter screwballs have plastered their "Oswald in the doorway" shit all over the internet because it could, although I hope I'm wrong, reflect badly on Sean's breakthrough.  The paranoid part of me believes it was initially put together to counteract a real Oswald in the doorway break.

[ianlloyd]

When Garners says "storeroom", she may actually mean "bathroom".

If the shooter(s) came down in elevator (East or West), they'd want someone along for the ride as a lookout/human shield, Piper or Dougherty would do nicely.

EDIT:  To Ian's point, of course Jack didn't ask that, you have to factor in he's a  moron. WC Counsel Ball had exactly the same reaction as you, it seemed ponderous to reprint more of Jack's testimony, but since inquiring minds want to know....

Mr. BALL - You didn't say--did you say, 'Has the President been shot?"---you told the FBI agent that you went down to the first floor and you saw a man named Eddie Piper and asked him if he heard a loud noise.
Mr. DOUGHERTY - I asked him that too.
Mr. BALL - And Piper said he had heard three loud noises and told you that somebody had Just shot the President; is that right?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - That's right.
Mr. BALL - Who mentioned the fact that the President had been shot first--- you or Eddie Piper?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - Eddie Piper.
Mr. BALL - Did you say anything to Piper about the President being shot?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - No, sir.
Mr. BALL - When you talked to Eddie Piper, did you know that the President had been shot?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - No, sir; I didn't know that at the time.
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/doughert.htm

Hi Beowulf,

I'm not so sure he didn't ask that, when Ball tries to steer him away from that, Jack places his foot firmly in his mouth again:

Mr. DOUGHERTY - I asked him that too.

This seems to me to actually confirm that he asked if the President had been shot...

Jeepers, this must have been one exasperating testimony to take...

[ianlloyd]

Someone at the EF has today brought up Buell Wesley Frazier's testimony where he claimed he did not see Baker run up the TSBD steps and enter the building:

Mr. BALL - Did you see anybody after that come into the Building while you were there?
Mr. FRAZIER - You mean somebody other that didn't work there?
Mr. BALL - A police officer.
Mr. FRAZIER - No, sir; I stood there a few minutes, you know, and some people who worked there; you know normally started to go back into the Building because a lot of us didn't eat our lunch, and so we stared back into the Building and it wasn't but just a few minutes that there were a lot of police officers and so forth all over the Building there.
Mr. BALL - Then you went back into the Building, did you?
Mr. FRAZIER - Right.
Mr. BALL - And before you went back into the Building no police officer came up the steps and into the building?
Mr. FRAZIER - Not that I know. They could walk by the way and I was standing there talking to somebody else and didn't see it.

His final statement above (bolded) shifts from an initial hypothetical frame to a factual frame "they could" changing to "I was" and "I didn't."

I don't think there is any doubt left concerning this for me.  That is Lee Oswald on the steps.  That is Buell Wesley Frazier stood next to him.  Baker asked Lee at the top of the steps if he worked there.  Truly interjected.  Frazier was privy to the whole event and knew from day one that Oswald was innocent of this crime.

That is some burden to carry around with you for 50 years.  To know, and to know categorically, that the person accused of a Presidential assassination was stood next to you during the parade must have been a horrfying place to be and to live your life having to support the official version of events that you categorically know is false must have created a great deal of psychological pain.

For the first time in my life, I actually feel sorry for Frazier.  We have always concentrated on the lies he allegedly told and we have emphasised his unwillingness to open up and be shepherded by Lone-Nut cronies around Dallas.  I understand there are still outstanding problems concerning lots more of his version of events, but now when I think about the short pieces of video footage we have of him saying how much he liked Lee and that he called Lee his friend and watch the animation of his mouth and eyes as if this is the only truth he is allowed to utter and I look at him in a different light. 

I will be reading his full testimony again tonight with this new frame (Lee was beside him in the doorway) and see if it now reads differently. 

What next for Prayer Man?  I am absolutely convinced it is Lee and although we are still trying to make some sense of the shenanigans inside the TSBD surely a professional and scholarly presentation can be put together and forwarded to a selection of people who can try and generate some interest in it.  Rachel Oswald springs to mind as someone who will want to see and read this and if she can begin to bang the drum prior to the 50th we may begin to see some interest develop.

Its a fucking crying shame that Ralph Cinque and his knob head group of utter screwballs have plastered their "Oswald in the doorway" shit all over the internet because it could, although I hope I'm wrong, reflect badly on Sean's breakthrough.  The paranoid part of me believes it was initially put together to counteract a real Oswald in the doorway break.

Seems to me that, yes, BWF has just admitted he was in the entrance way at the time when Baker would have run into the TSBD - I can't see that it's that big an area that he wouldn't have noticed a cop barging through all the people there - I'm sure people would have been trying to get out of his way, particularly if he's steaming up there with gun drawn!?!? I also suspect that Baker probably would have shouted something like "Get out of my way!!" as he ran up those steps trying to get through all the people there...

[Hasan Yusuf]

Mr. BALL - And before you went back into the Building no police officer came up the steps and into the building?

Mr. FRAZIER - Not that I know. They could walk by the way and I was standing there talking to somebody else and didn't see it.

His final statement above (bolded) shifts from an initial hypothetical frame to a factual frame "they could" changing to "I was" and "I didn't."

Nice catch, Lee. I agree.

[GuestGuest]

First of all I want to say that Sean has done some brilliant work in demonstrating that Prayer Man is Lee Oswald. It's unequivocal, in my opinion. It's probably the most remarkable development in this case since November 24, 1963. Sean has done all the footwork, painstakingly eliminated every other possible candidate from consideration, poring over every available early newspaper clipping, and sifting yet again through the interrogation reports (and their origins) to produce a fresh interpretation. That's years and years of tedious, hard-nosed and devoted work. The research community will always associate Prayer Man with Sean Murphy's keen analytical insights, and owes him a debt of gratitude- which can never be repaid, by the way.

That is the most important part of his recent thesis and it's necessary that those praises be sung.

To move on to an examination of his hypothesis- that the assassins actually escaped using the east freight elevator, and that Truly & Baker actually ascended via the west elevator- this is a fresh and penetrating idea that will, in all likelihood, engage the research community for many more months.

As a start, the genesis of this idea seems to me to rely upon Baker- just in from Parkland- reporting to Fritz that nothing turned up in his search of the TSBD- i.e. "We took the elevator and searched each floor and the roof, but saw nothing incriminating." And so Fritz coaxes Baker into writing up a false affidavit that talks about encountering "4th floor man" AND taking the stairs.

I'm skeptical that Baker- acknowledged as somewhat of a dope and "Momma Son"- could keep TWO fables straight. It seems to me that ONE falsehood is tough enough to keep together, when composing a statement like that. With TWO, I think the chances are that a Pinnochio would get his signals crossed, and mess up one or the other intended falsehood.

One post to follow.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

First of all I want to say that Sean has done some brilliant work in demonstrating that Prayer Man is Lee Oswald. It's unequivocal, in my opinion. It's probably the most remarkable development in this case since November 24, 1963. 

Even more than shooters in fake trees and midget Billy Lovelady stand-ins? 

That's only part of what deserves admiration. The masterly way he has laid it out and handled the naysayers, detractors and attempted distractions along the way has been a pleasure to watch. 

I do not have a tenth of Sean's patience.

[GuestGuest]

Imagine that Oswald and Truly are co-conspirators. Oswald knows that Truly knows that he (Oswald) is involved in the plot. And likewise for Truly. Oswald's complicity, for instance, is supported by his midnight press conference statement- "I really don't know what this situation is about". George O'Toole, with his Voice Stress Analyser in The Assassination Tapes found indications that Oswald was lying on this occasion.

And imagine that Oswald's assignment was to be stationed in the 2nd-floor lunchroom during the shooting, as insurance against any stragglers coming up the NW stairway. Both elevators are locked on the 5th floor.

But Oswald decides to sneak downstairs for a peek at JFK. It's irresistible. And he knows full well the President is about to get shot. So he sidles out to the front landing at the last possible moment. When Truly catches up with Baker on the front landing, he says nothing to Oswald. But he looks him in the eye, with a look that says, "You're supposed to be in the lunchroom."

Once Truly & Baker depart across the 1st floor, Oswald heads back to his assigned area. He takes the 2nd-floor corridor. He beats them to the lunchroom because they were hung up calling for the elevators. He watches through the plate-glass window and sees Truly, and then Baker, cross the 2nd-floor landing. But he's horrified when he's spotted by Baker. Oswald tries to "act cool" and quickly darts to a seat, pretending he's been sitting in a chair all along, as Baker bursts in.

It's rightful to dismiss as ludicrous the notion that Oswald returned to the lunchroom for a Coca-Cola. But perhaps he returned for more compelling reasons. And he hasn't yet purchased a (2nd) Coca-Cola.

I believe that the lunchroom encounter was NOT told as it actually occurred. Details were obscured, for the convenience of a generalized Oswald-escape-via-the-stairs story. I am in fact open for the interpretation that it did not occur at all, or that it did occur.

From this co-conspirator perspective, the Ochus Campbell quote in the NY Herald Tribune about seeing Oswald in a "small storage room" on the 1st floor necessarily has to be discounted, as a 1st-day garbled and rushed rumor.

It's important to keep an open mind.

[Hasan Yusuf]

The fact that voice stress analysis showed Oswald was lying when he said "I really don't know what this situation is about", doesn't necessarily mean he was privy to the plot. It could be that Oswald realised before being told by the reporter that he had been charged for the President's murder, that the cops already suspected him of being the assassin, IMO. After realising this, he then possibly lied to try and make himself look innocent before the press.
 
As for Sean, I think the man is a bloody legend who should have a statue built in his honour.

[GuestGuest]

Redfern,

You're correct- WC Exhibit 496, that Belin trumpets in Adams' testimony, as a 1st-floor diagram describing her encounter with Shelley & Lovelady, is nowhere to be found in the Volumes. It's been replaced by "Copy of application blank filled out by Lee Harvey Oswald for employment at Texas School Book Depository"- and that's a duplicate of WC Exhibit 1949. Maybe the original 496 is in the National Archives somewhere.

I can't offhand recall many others who claimed their testimony was altered, but have an impression there were several. Roger Craig claimed his was altered 14 times. James Martin told the HSCA that Earl Warren struck from the record part of what he'd said and ordered the transcipt to be torn into small pieces.

Getting back to the lunchroom, the door facing the 2nd-floor landing was a heavy-duty type metal door, equipped with an automatic anti-slam closing device. It took several seconds to close. Baker claimed in his testimony that the lunchrooom encounter lasted 30 seconds. I'd have to figure at least 20 of those seconds Baker, Truly and Oswald were intensely engaged with each other. That is the window of time for Victoria Adams and her co-worker Sandra Styles to pass by, in their 3-inch high heels, outside the door across the 10 feet of 2nd-floor landing. Having traveled down 2 flights already, they may have slowed their rate of walking a bit by then. So they weren't as noisy as when they started. And I consider it quite possible that they passed by the lunchroom without being heard by those inside.

That's how they missed Truly & Baker; it wasn't necessarily due to them being in the west elevator.

[beowulf]

That's how they missed Truly & Baker; it wasn't necessarily due to them being in the west elevator.

Or Truly took Baker up the front stairs to the 2nd floor, through the office, past the lunchroom (insert Oswald here) to reach back stairs to go up. Its not impossible Oswald went up the front stairs with them. )
“The two men scrambled up the stairs to the second floor. As they made their way to the back stairway, the policeman saw Oswald standing beside a soft-drink machine, sipping from a coke bottle” (Washington Post, December 1 1963).

[Albert Rossi]

I have finally gotten around to reading through the EF thread on this topic.  I'm on page 22/47, but I wanted to ask this question here (if it is addressed later in the thread, I suppose I will find out as I continue reading).

The handwritten protocol for Jearaldine (Geraldine) Reid's 11/23/1963 affidavit:

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/01/0136-002.gif

reveals something curious.  The second page shows that she added the detail of Oswald carrying a coke after she had written the last paragraph.  

I'm not sure how significant this is.  Anyone know if this has ever been noticed before?

[greg_parkerAdmin]

I have finally gotten around to reading through the EF thread on this topic.  I'm on page 22/47, but I wanted to ask this question here (if it is addressed later in the thread, I suppose I will find out as I continue reading).

The handwritten protocol for Jearaldine (Geraldine) Reid's 11/23/1963 affidavit:

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/01/0136-002.gif

reveals something curious.  The second page shows that she added the detail of Oswald carrying a coke after she had written the last paragraph.  

I'm not sure how significant this is.  Anyone know if this has ever been noticed before?

Not sure if it has or not, Albert. A lot of water has flowed under JFK forums over the years. Don't think it's been brought up in the PM thread, though.

If you go back to the first page of the statement, she has also inserted the TSBD address as an afterthought. http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/01/0136-001.gif

FWIW, Sean has pretty well convinced me that Baker brushed passed Oswald on his way in. I think he may have asked anyone within earshot (including Oswald) where the stairs or elevators were and that's where Truly stepped in.

I now think that Oswald was over near the little store-room when Campbell and Reid came in. Was he still drinking his coke he seems to have in the frames under scrutiny? Who knows. He had one - and they knew he had one. It just seems to have confounded them as to how they should fit it in to their own narrative.

The witnesses with potentially important information were supposed to be interviewed as first priority. How is then that neither Reid nor Truly were interviewed until the next day - and both gave substantially different stories to the people they were with (Campbell story to New York Herald Tribune on day of assassination and Baker affidavit on day of assassination)?     
Truly btw had written Reid's name in the space underneath his own statement. Was he giving them the name of someone who would corroborate his version of events? She did work for the man...

[James DiEugenio]

I don't recall that being noted before.

I am sure I would have recalled it Albert.

That is interesting I think.

[Albert Rossi]

Not sure if it has or not, Albert. A lot of water has flowed under JFK forums over the years. Don't think it's been brought up in the PM thread, though.

If you go back to the first page of the statement, she has also inserted the TSBD address as an afterthought. http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/01/0136-001.gif




Greg,

I noticed that as well, but that particular insertion seems to be of a different order:

1.  It is just a clarification of the address of the building (sort of like an annotation);
2.  You cannot really make a deduction concerning when it was added in the process of writing out the statement.

The second page insertion seems a bit different from this.  When you read the passage, it almost seems like a non sequitur where she inserted it.  It gives me the impression of someone who is not recalling the event from memory (visualizing the scene), but who knows there are certain details that must be included, and realizing she left one out, tries to find an appropriate place to add it.

Of course, this deduction is highly conjectural.  But it's the kind of thing a codicologist might try to do (something within my domain of past experience, at least for the medieval period).

[GuestGuest]

If the motorcade security had been in full force, two men in suits would have in all likelihood walked in to the building, flashed their credentials and made their way to the 6th floor to see that the windows were closed, as per Prouty. I have often wondered if the shooting team encountered Bonnie Rae Williams eating his lunch there, and using the SS crentials ordered him of the floor, warning him to keep his mouth shut or he would be in deep trouble because his being up there was in violation of some made up regulation. Williams story seems to change over time as to how long he was present and he seems vague as to what he may have seen, As a black man in Jim Crow Dallas 1963, it wouldn't have taken him too long to suss out what the authorities wanted to hear. Same goes for Givens, Norman, and Jarmon, IMO.

[beowulf]

Gordon, I suspect it was Piper on the 6th floor and not Williams because of his resemblance  to Arnold's description of the elderly black man on 6th floor.
To switch gears, its interesting to compare Sean's theory of the case to what Baker told Jim Bowles in 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


Hmm, meets Oswald near entrance, Truly steps in to show Baker the way upstairs and no 3rd/4th floor suspect. The one part where Baker appears to differ from Sean is going up by stairs instead of by elevator because "we couldn't get anyone to send the freight elevator down".

Of course taking the stairway is only implied (even when we take an elevator, we'll still say we're going upstairs or downstairs). There is one interpretation by which Baker and Sean are on same page, remember, TSBD had freight elevators, plural. If West elevator was already on ground floor it wouldn't have to be sent down, however Baker may still have wanted East freight elevator called down (requiring someone aboard to operate) to lock it on ground floor while he searched building. Two elevators is the trick by which Baker could cheat laws of space and time and take a freight elevator up despite waiting in vain for someone to send a freight elevator down.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

It gives me the impression of someone who is not recalling the event from memory (visualizing the scene), but who knows there are certain details that must be included, and realizing she left one out, tries to find an appropriate place to add it.

Albert,

I think you're pretty much in unison with what I said before "It [the coke] just seems to have confounded them as to how they should fit it in to their own narrative."

[Albert Rossi]

It gives me the impression of someone who is not recalling the event from memory (visualizing the scene), but who knows there are certain details that must be included, and realizing she left one out, tries to find an appropriate place to add it.

Albert,

I think you're pretty much in unison with what I said before "It [the coke] just seems to have confounded them as to how they should fit it in to their own narrative."

Thanks, Greg ... yes, if my reading has any merit, it would tend to support one of the versions of an invented 2nd floor encounter.**   However, it was certainly not my intention to make this into something more than it isn't.  I just found the possibility it suggests interesting.

** I can hear J.R. Carroll paraphrasing William Carlos Williams:  "which floor, which floor?"  (but are there any petals on his appletree?)

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/wcw-portrait.html

[GuestGuest]

What evidence? is there that OPiper was on the 6th floor at that time Pretty sure it was Williams. Roland could easily be mistaken about the age at that distance, and wasn't Williams balding? Willaims admitted being there and eating his lunch, and his chicken bones and Dr. Pepper were found near the SN. His story about how long he was up there evolved from about 3 minutes to 15 or more. He said he never saw anyone including Piper,IIRC.

[Hasan Yusuf]

Gordon, there's a thread on the forum called "Was Eddie Piper on the 6th floor". You might want to check it out.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

Hmm, meets Oswald near entrance, Truly steps in to show Baker the way upstairs and no 3rd/4th floor suspect.

A further thought on this:

If making up this suspect to fit the descriptions given by witnesses in order to place Oswald up closer to the action and away from his 1st floor alibi position, then it failed at a very basic level when Baker forgot to include in his affidavit that the suspect was indeed, Oswald. 

I cannot see Fritz giving the order for Baker to place Oswald further up the building without mentioning that the affidavit should include that the person was Oswald. Pretty self-defeating otherwise. Baker wasn't a complete dunce.

And just how did Rowland's man get out, if not encountered by Baker and Truly?

[GuestGuest]

I think the key to understanding Baker's affidavit is when he made it in relation to when Fritz decided that Oswald was his man and he needed to adjust the evidence to make sure he had him framed. Unless he had prior knowledge of the plot that wouldn't have happened until sometime after he began questioning Oswald. Perhaps he received a phone call from the SOG sometime that afternoon? But by that time had Baker already made his affidavit? If so then what he initially said in it would have been true. But since he didn't ID Oswald as the man he stopped, and he said Truly vouched for the man, it is unlikely that it was true. So Fritz would have had to have gotten to Baker before he made his affidavit. Anyone know the time line here?

[GuestGuest]

According to the timeline presented in Harvey and Lee, Oswald was taken down for his first lineup at 4:00 before Baker retturned to DPD HQ. Forrest Sorrels joined Inspector Thomas Kelley for the interrogation when Oswald was brought back up to the Homicide Office, and I think they went into the back interrogation room with Oswald then, while Baker was filling out his affidavit. Around 4:45 PM

Sean Murphy uses Bonnie Ray Williams as a corroborating witness to Baker & Truly using the west elevator, from statements Williams made to the FBI on 11/23 and 3/19: "While were standing at the west end of the building on the 5th floor, a police officer came up on the elevator and looked all around the 5th floor and left the 5th floor"

But I have problems with Williams- he's a proven liar. And a compulsive one at that. The 11/23 FBI statement is where he begins to recount his trip to the 6th floor: 3 minutes. By his March testimony it became "5, 10, maybe 12 minutes".

I don't believe he went to the 6th floor. Williams said otherwise in his 11/22 DPD affidavit: "We rode the elevator to the 1st floor and got our lunches. I went back on the 5th floor with a fellow called Hank and Junior, I don't know his last name. After we got on the 5th floor we saw the President coming around the corner on Houston from Main Street"

And Harold Norman, in his 1977 HSCA interview, said that Williams got his chicken lunch off of the catering truck and went up on the elevator to the 5th with himself (Norman) and Jarman. See Greg Parker's "Norman's HSCA Interview: Williams Did Not Go To the 6th Floor" on p. 12 of the JFK topics.

So, why did he say this? Cameraman Tom Alyea stated firmly in 1994 that "There were definitely no chicken bones on or near the barricade of boxes at the window. I shot close-ups of the entire area."

Yet lawmen Haygood, Brewer, Craig, McCurley, Weatherford, Mooney, Hill & Montgomery all claimed to have seen chicken bones at the sniper's nest.

Somebody, with Fritz's knowledge, removed Williams' discarded chicken bones from the 5th floor and brought them up to the 6th. This was done to suggest for the press that the sniper was a cold and calculating chicken-eatin' killer, and with the same cavalier confidence that Fritz exhibited when he picked up the 3 sniper's nest cartridges for Alyea to film. And that somebody was one of Fritz's traveling cohorts, Richard Sims or Elmer Boyd.

And Williams was coerced into taking the heat for Fritz & co., for bringing the chicken up to the 6th floor.

Moral: when Bonnie Ray Williams tells you something, caveat emptor.

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