"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.

[GuestGuest]

I hope somebody does finally gets to the bottom of the Shelley-Senkel question.

I have never agreed with the consensus view that Bill Shelley is the guy wearing the black suit and tie who is seen opening the patrol car doors for Bonnie Ray Williams and Danny Arce.  Especially when we have an unidentified male stood behind Williams and Arce.  Now, this guy (below) looks more like somebody who is being taken down to the station for questioning. I've never understood the logic behind the Shelley ID.

The man above is Det. Brown as confirmed by his partner's affidavit describing the activities in the basement when Oswald was shot.I was concerned that when Senkel said that Officer Brown had a car, that Brown might be a uniform cop.

jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/09/0920-002.gif

Det. Brown rode in the ambulance and stayed with Oswald's body until it hit the morgue.

Here's another photo of Det. brown. He's second from your left.
(I can't post links so just back out the spaces between the w's)

w w w.allposters.com/-sp/Dying-Assassin-Lee-Harvey-Oswald-in-Ambulance-after-Shot-by-Jack-Ruby-Dallas-Police-Station-Posters_i9360809_.htm

Page 13 of this thread has Gerda's GIF showing Brown.

educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19178&page=13

Page 12 of the same thread has a link to this vid.

w w w.youtube.com/watch?v=6kaVM2-9f3Q

At 54 seconds, it shows the guy in the black suit in the rear driver side.

If Det. Brown is the guy in the front, and the driver is certainly a patrolman, Senkel is in the back with Williams and Arce.

That's a pretty good summation and if correct it leaves us back where we started - - no Shelley.  It opens up the question again as to when and with whom Shelley rode to the station.

I'm always wary of there being no photographs of key assassination witnesses.  Mary Bledsoe and Jack E. Dougherty being the prime examples.  Bledsoe requested, and received, anonymity up to and way past her Warren Commission testimony.

[ianlloyd]

Looking at the photograph of Arce & BRW getting into the cop car, behind BRW is cop jockey and there's a guy standing behind him - is there another angle showing this guy?

Also, in the same photograph is a guy standing by the tree in the background - could this be the same guy that was standing behind Lovelady (Oswald?) In Altgens where you can see his shirt & tie?

[GuestGuest]

Looking at the photograph of Arce & BRW getting into the cop car, behind BRW is cop jockey and there's a guy standing behind him - is there another angle showing this guy?

Also, in the same photograph is a guy standing by the tree in the background - could this be the same guy that was standing behind Lovelady (Oswald?) In Altgens where you can see his shirt & tie?

Here's a copy of the Allen photo from Robin Unger's site...it has a caption mentioning Arce and Williams being transported but doesn't mention Shelley...

w w w.jfkassassinationgallery.com/displayimage.php?pid=5825&fullsize=1

[GuestGuest]

I hope somebody does finally gets to the bottom of the Shelley-Senkel question.

I have never agreed with the consensus view that Bill Shelley is the guy wearing the black suit and tie who is seen opening the patrol car doors for Bonnie Ray Williams and Danny Arce.  Especially when we have an unidentified male stood behind Williams and Arce.  Now, this guy (below) looks more like somebody who is being taken down to the station for questioning. I've never understood the logic behind the Shelley ID.

The man above is Det. Brown as confirmed by his partner's affidavit describing the activities in the basement when Oswald was shot.I was concerned that when Senkel said that Officer Brown had a car, that Brown might be a uniform cop.

jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/09/0920-002.gif

Det. Brown rode in the ambulance and stayed with Oswald's body until it hit the morgue.

Here's another photo of Det. brown. He's second from your left.
(I can't post links so just back out the spaces between the w's)

w w w.allposters.com/-sp/Dying-Assassin-Lee-Harvey-Oswald-in-Ambulance-after-Shot-by-Jack-Ruby-Dallas-Police-Station-Posters_i9360809_.htm

Page 13 of this thread has Gerda's GIF showing Brown.

educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=19178&page=13

Page 12 of the same thread has a link to this vid.

w w w.youtube.com/watch?v=6kaVM2-9f3Q

At 54 seconds, it shows the guy in the black suit in the rear driver side.

If Det. Brown is the guy in the front, and the driver is certainly a patrolman, Senkel is in the back with Williams and Arce.

That's a pretty good summation and if correct it leaves us back where we started - - no Shelley.  It opens up the question again as to when and with whom Shelley rode to the station.

I'm always wary of there being no photographs of key assassination witnesses.  Mary Bledsoe and Jack E. Dougherty being the prime examples.  Bledsoe requested, and received, anonymity up to and way past her Warren Commission testimony.

Lee, trust me.... I am getting pretty good at this....



Supporting observations.:

Fort Worth Star-Telegram: OBITUARIES
‎
$2.95 -
Fort Worth Star-Telegram - May 6, 1991
James Schuyler Shelley Jr., Building contractor MANSFIELD - James Schuyler ... of Greenville; brother, William Hoyt Shelley of Irving; and six grandchildren.

Their father's stone reads "Schuyler," but 1930 and 1940 US census describes them as James S. Shelley and wife Susie. The ages on the findagrave.com entries match the census ages info,
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=shelley&GSiman=1&GScid=175060&GRid=6531140&
and I'm liking the signature comparisons, except for the "S" and the "y". See affadavit signature, "William H. Shelley"
http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/04/0492-001.gif

1930 Census: Home in 1930: Precinct 5, Grayson, Texas

[th]Household Members:[/th][th][/th]

[th]Name[/th][th]Age[/th] James S Shelley 45 Susie M Shelley 38 Clara M Shelley 19 Jimmie G Shelley 18 Alma I Shelley 16 Dorothy L Shelley 14 Jamie L Shelley 12 J S Shelley 5 William H Shelley 3 Mary D Shelley 2 [2 1/12]

View
Original
Record



View original image


1940 Census: Home in 1940: Grayson, Texas
Household Members:
[th]Name[/th][th]Age[/th]

J S Shelley	55
Susie M Shelley	49
J S Shelley	15
Hoyt Shelley	13
Mary Dell Shelley	12
Samuel Bozarth	74

My confidence level is above 90 percent, or I would have waited until I had more before I posted.

[Mark A. O'Blazney]

Best 'googler' this side of the Kuiper Belt.  Results to see !  Thank you, Tom.

[GuestGuest]

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

If the Shelley whom Tom has located is identical (and I think he is, bravo Tom) to the TSBD enigma, how could he have worked in a US defense plant during the war (December '41 to '45 for the Yanks) if he was 13 - per the census - in 1940?  At war's end, he's 18 and recruited into CIA at 20?

All seems rather unlikely, if the census data are accurate.   

Also puzzling to me is the cragginess of his face in '63, when he would only have been 36 years old.  I assume some heavy smoking and drinking in the interim to explain how the bright-eyed young cherub on the left above turned into the grizzled end product on the right.

Finally, one notes in the 1930 census results, the children are listed in descending chronological order, yet beneath William at age two is Mary, age 2 1/2.  How do the same parents have two children six months apart?

Was William adopted?

[GuestGuest]

Excellent find Tom !

So this mean we can certainly cross Shelley off this list for potential PM.
It also means that Shelley is a good candidate for the gentleman in the black tie seen behind Lovelady in Altgens 6.

Now I question why Williams would say the following in his testimony:"Well, at the time I don't think Norman and Jarman came down right then. They brought Bill Shelley and Bill Lovelady, a fellow by the name of Jack Dougherty, and Charles Givens later on, they brought them right behind us."...especially considering (based on the video) he was sitting right next to who we now think is Shelley.

There's something squirrely about Shelley. There's something squirrely about the whole "down to the tracks" story. There's something squirrely about having to get him away from the front door and yet having to slow down his arrival at the rear area which conflicts with Victoria Adams testimony.
And if Oswald was PM, Shelley wasn't much more than an arms length away from him and yet...never said a word.

[GuestGuest]

Can someone tell Richard Hocking at EF that Det. Levelle took Lovelady's and Given's statements.

[GuestGuest]

.......Social Security Admin. Record from Ancestry.etc

Name:	William H. Shelley
Birth:	12 Apr 1926
Death:	6 Sep 1996 - Irving, Dallas, Texas, USA
Civil:	Texas

(1940 Census page displaying JS Shelley Family, Grayson County, TX was enumerated on April 2 through 3, 1940. Hoyt Shelley's age
is accurately recorded as 13 years, nine days before his 14th birthday.)

Shelley told the WC he worked at defense plants before October, 1945 employment at TSBD. Roy Milton Jones graduated from Crozier Tech. in 1964 and there was background of Jones attending morning classes and working at a grocery store in the afternoon. Shelley may have worked at a defense plant while still attending Crozier, or he may have only worked full time after graduating in late May until the surrender of Japan triggered production halts in defense plants starting no later than September, 1945.

.........I was spared by an accident of birth from living in the southern USA and attending a militarized high school. I was unfamiliar with this form of youth indoctrination until becoming involved in JFK assassination research. Even in May, 1970, there was strong, irrational support for the Ohio national guardsmen shooting unarmed students on their own Kent State Univ. campus in Ohio.: http://www.may4archive.org/aftermath.shtml 


Cropped "Company B" photo. Lt. Hoyt Shelley Crozier Technical High School 1945 Yearbook:

[greg_parkerAdmin]

If the Shelley whom Tom has located is identical (and I think he is, bravo Tom) to the TSBD enigma, how could he have worked in a US defense plant during the war (December '41 to '45 for the Yanks) if he was 13 - per the census - in 1940?  At war's end, he's 18 and recruited into CIA at 20?

All seems rather unlikely, if the census data are accurate.   

Also puzzling to me is the cragginess of his face in '63, when he would only have been 36 years old.  I assume some heavy smoking and drinking in the interim to explain how the bright-eyed young cherub on the left above turned into the grizzled end product on the right.

Finally, one notes in the 1930 census results, the children are listed in descending chronological order, yet beneath William at age two is Mary, age 2 1/2.  How do the same parents have two children six months apart?

Was William adopted?

He was born in April '36 which makes him 14 in April 1940, but in all likelihood he didn't start work until the US entered the war in Dec 1941 making him 15. I was in the workforce at 14 - in peacetime  during last years of Vietnam War - and full-time.

Roy Truly worked at a defense plant at night - still keeping his day job - and I think that's what Shelley did - worked at the plant after school.

Teenagers[edit]
With the war’s ever increasing need for able bodied men consuming America’s labor force in the early 1940s, industry turned to teen-aged boys and girls to fill in as replacements.[17] Consequently, many states had to change their child-labor laws to allow these teenagers to work. The lures of patriotism, adulthood and money led many youth to drop out of school and take a defense job. Between 1940 and 1944, the number of teenage workers increased by 1.9 million, and the number of students in public high schools dropped from 6.6 million in 1940 to 5.6 million in 1944, as a million students—and many teachers—took jobs.[18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_home_front_during_World_War_II

[Goban_Saor]

Superlative sleuthing by Tom Scully.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

At war's end, he's 18 and recruited into CIA at 20?

See my previous response to this. He also claimed to be an intelligence officer during the war. At best, he is an exaggerator, at worst, an outright confabulator.  I'll go with the former. The army, navy and FBI all had informants working in defense plants. He could easily have been such an informant. CIA after the war? Total BS. Continuing informant role at TSBD? Why not? If he was an informant, it's just a matter of who for... army, navy, FBI...

Finally, one notes in the 1930 census results, the children are listed in descending chronological order, yet beneath William at age two is Mary, age 2 1/2.  How do the same parents have two children six months apart?

Was William adopted?

Possibly, but why couldn't Mary be adopted? For that matter, why couldn't a bracketed 2 1/2 actually indicate months instead of years?

[GuestGuest]

This is a real gem, Tom- congratulations   A significant piece of information is that Shelley was a lieutenant in the ROTC while at Crozier Tech in 1945. Had to be just about the highest ranking member of his class. I don't think they gave out ranks higher than that, other than captain on a very rare occasion. Seems to me that would streamline his entry into intelligence work at the tail end of WWII- perhaps he even did this in a military capacity, as a member or reservist in the US Army during approx. 1944-5.

And he starts work at the TSBD at age 19. By the time he's 23 (1949) he's approached for CIA work. Quite plausible, given his track record.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

This is a real gem, Tom- congratulations   A significant piece of information is that Shelley was a lieutenant in the ROTC while at Crozier Tech in 1945. Had to be just about the highest ranking member of his class. I don't think they gave out ranks higher than that, other than captain on a very rare occasion. Seems to me that would streamline his entry into intelligence work at the tail end of WWII- perhaps he even did this in a military capacity, as a member or reservist in the US Army during approx. 1944-5.

And he starts work at the TSBD at age 19. By the time he's 23 (1949) he's approached for CIA work. Quite plausible, given his track record.

Richard, CIA does not place officers/agents in a domestic schoolbook warehouse. Nor do real CIA officers/agents "out" themselves to amateur conspiracy sleuths or nosey reporters. If he was anything, he was an informant. I do grant that if he was a reservist in the army as you suggest, it may also be possible he was in MI.

[GuestGuest]

I am sorry I did not spend the time to extract more from Shelley's brother's obit.:
The younger sister in the census listing was born 2 March, 1928, nearly 23 months after William Hoyt.....

https://www.google.com/search?q=james+schuyler+shelley+sister+irving&tbs=nws:1,ar:1&source=newspapers#q=james+schuyler+shelley+sister+garner+brother&tbm=nws&tbs=ar:1
Fort Worth Star-Telegram: OBITUARIES
‎
Fort Worth Star-Telegram - May 6, 1991
Survivors: Parents, John and Paula Meharg of Keller; two sisters, Amber Meharg and ... James Schuyler Shelley Jr., Building contractor MANSFIELD - James ... and Mary Dell Garner of Greenville; brother, William Hoyt Shelley of Irving; and six ..

I found this in the same cemetery as their parents are buried in, along with at least one other, older sibling. Evidently sister Mary is or was alive quite recently.:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6526827

At least during WWII, the high school ROTC was an elaborate pre-enlistment/draft, training scheme and a needless home guard, considering the two ocean buffer that the U.S. enjoyed as a natural defense against any invading army.

I left out one page from the 1945 Crozier year book covering ROTC. Consider also that there was a smaller, January, 1945 graduating class and year book.:Hoyt Shelley was a Lt. in "Company B":

[GuestGuest]

Excellent, Tom.  Great work and we can finally put the ID to bed.

Sean nailed this ID months ago even if he couldn't prove it his intuition on this issue was much better than my own.  The reason I couldn't accept that the grizzled looking black suited guy was Shelley was a very simple one but one that severely blindsided me nonetheless.

In the photos and especially the film of Williams and Arce being placed into the patrol car Shelley looks like he is coordinating the detainment of his co-workers.  He's pointing to seats, whipping open doors and is actually acting like he is cop.  

Maybe he was coordinating matters given what we know today.  

Just to weave some of the other threads into this one I am still extremely puzzled over who was detained and why during the course of that afternoon.  If three black men were seen on the third floor then why was it only Bonnie Ray Williams out of the three that was bundled into a patrol car that day and why was Danny Arce taken in alongside him given that this was very shortly after the assassination?  Makes no sense to me.

As the full web of subterfuge and intrigue regarding the TSBD and its spooky employees develops further nothing would surprise me any longer concerning this.  Which is why I believe we have to spend more time on the Jack Dougherty issue because I believe you have opened up a scab when you posted the pictures of Jack Daugherty last week.  Something spooky exists in this part of the story.



It's interesting to me that Walter Potts, Dallas Police Department Detective and partner of Bill Senkel was asked fot his background during his Warren Commission testimony and 
said the following:


Mr. POTTS. I was born at Sherman, Tex., April 28, 1922, and I came to Dallas in 1924 and was raised here in Dallas, attended public schools in Dallas, graduated from this Dallas--it's Crozier Tech now, but it was Dallas Technical High School right here on Bryan Street in 1941, and when I graduated I went to work for Southwest Airmotive at Love Field, and I worked for Taycee Badgett Aviation in 1942 and 1943, in Shreveport, La., and I took an aviation cadet mental and physical down there and came back to Dallas to be inducted into the service, and I worked for Lockheed at Love Field before I went in the service, and I went in the service in July 1945. I was discharged in January 1947. I was in the 796th Military Police Battalion in Vienna, Austria, and also the 505th there. 
I came back and went to work for the Taylor Publishing Co. just before I went to work for the police department. My mother and father, they still live here out on Brookfield and my sister lives here. I am one of the very few native boys in this police department down here--that's raised right here. 

Potts was responsible for interviewing the TSBD crowd after the assassination and it raises suspicions that he had a Crozier Tech background, along with a military background, worked in the aviation industry, lived in Louisiana and to cap it off (no pun intended) he worked for a publishing company before becoming a Dallas Police detective.

Crozier Tech is becoming very interesting.  Is it not?

[ianlloyd]

I wonder if Gary Mack would ask BWF if this is Shelley?

[beowulf]

At least during WWII, the high school ROTC was an elaborate pre-enlistment/draft, training scheme and a needless home guard, considering the two ocean buffer that the U.S. enjoyed as a natural defense against any invading army.

Actually the Home Guard (or State Guard as some states call these units to this day) made sense during WWII.  FDR did something dumb, he federalized the entire National Guard. It would have made sense to leave NG regiments at home with their HQ, training cadre and new recruits and just federalize battalions as needed to deploy with regular Army brigades (which actually is what the Pentagon does now). 

The National Guard serves two masters, the governor when units are on on state duty and the president when he calls up units to federal duty.  FDR left state governors without any reservists to respond to natural disasters (hurricanes in the East, earthquakes in the West, tornadoes and flooding in between), that's why Home Guard units were created, they're state militia units that can't be federalized into the US Army. It really was a waste of resources that states were driven (by FDR's action) to set up junior varsity National Guard systems. Its kind of silly that some states still have them around. 
http://www.tnmilitary.org/stateguard.html

Since the Home Guard/State Guard is so easily confused with the National Guard (they wear the same uniform but only the latter gets federal funding and federal reserve commissions for its officers), it would have been smarter for governors to instead create units of State Police reserve troopers. The State Police is never confused with the National Guard.

[Hasan Yusuf]

That's some terrific work by Tom.

[GuestGuest]

Shelley, as a lieutenant in the ROTC, had demonstrable supervisory and leadership skills. He was head or co-head of 50 or so cadets at Crozier Tech. His likeliest route into intelligence work was through the US Army.

When he told Elzie Glaze that he worked as an intelligence officer during WWII, that sounds rather circumspect- not bragging- given his ROTC training. He could have stated, more pompously, that he worked in Army Intelligence.

Granted, he may have been simply an informant at a defense plant while he was 18 or 19, but his ROTC background leads me to think he was more than your run-of-the-mill informant. That he had managerial duties as well, related to Intel work.

I have no reason to suspect he was BSing Glaze about being CIA. What would Shelley gain- except a lot of trouble- from a flippant remark like that? I'd be more inclined to think his conscience was bothering him. He did refuse permission to have his name used in Glaze's proposed article. Glaze assuredly believed him, because when he wrote the HSCA two years later, he closed with "I must admit that my own fear of getting involved in the investigation has prevented me from writing you earlier. I apologize."

Glaze's information could have been a case -breaker, but the HSCA didn't pursue it. All Blakey ever sent back was a form letter acknowledging receipt.

[StanDane]

Shelleyesque image from a gif by Gerda Dunckel over at Duncan's forum:

[beowulf]

When he told Elzie Glaze that he worked as an intelligence officer during WWII, that sounds rather circumspect- not bragging- given his ROTC training. He could have stated, more pompously, that he worked in Army Intelligence. 

Yet why but why would he say he worked in a defense plant when he was in the Army? That's a fact no one would have any reason to hide.  He very well could have been an FBI or Army Counterintelligence Corps informant in the defense plant, but so what, lots of people are FBI confidential informants (I actually know a couple personally), that doesn't make them FBI agents or "intelligence officers".

[ianlloyd]

Shelleyesque image from a gif by Gerda Dunckel over at Duncan's forum:

Michael Lynagh? Just kidding  (for those of you who are into rugby union)

[Goban_Saor]

At the risk of trying the patience of more knowledgeable members here, I’d like to try to tie up a loose end. It arises from my long post on this thread on 30^th October in which I was arguing that Prayer Man was not Bill Shelley.
 
In support of my argument I quoted the much debated extract from Fritz’s notes, ‘out with Bill Shelley in front’. Some members downplayed the significance of that quote on the basis that it’s uncontextualised and could be a reply to any number of questions.
 
However, when I was trawling the internet preparing the post I had come across a report of somebody in the DPD I think (Fritz or Curry presumably) telling a reporter that Oswald had said during interrogation that he had been down in front with fellow workers (Shelley wasn’t specified) at the time of the assassination. This would seem to place the ‘out with Bill Shelley in front’ note in the context I was referring to.
 
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find that report again without success. I wonder does anyone know about the report in question. Among other places, I searched a compilation video of TV interviews given by Curry while Oswald was in DPD custody but it’s not there. (OK, the video was compiled by David von Pein but we don’t want to be too paranoid.)
 
The other thing about the ‘out with Bill Shelley in front’ quote that has since struck me is that the full quote is ‘had lunch out with Bill Shelley in front’. The ‘had lunch’ bit might explain the hand movements of Prayer Man and the related light reflections in the Wiegman film. However, as I think this was comprehensively discussed and illustrated by Sean Murphy in the EF there’s no need to belabour it here.

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