Lovelady in front of TSBD

[David Josephs]

Hi Dave

Everything about Lovelady would have worked like clock work, if only he and Shelley had not testified to remaining on the steps for 3-4 minutes following the last shot. In fact, if we read this excerpt from Officer Marion Baker's affidavit of August 11, 1964, we begin to have even worse problems with Lovelady (and Shelley):

"3. On March 20, 1964, counsel from the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy timed a re-enactment of my actions after hearing the shots on November 22, 1963. During this re-enactment, I reached the recessed door of the Texas School Book Depository Building fifteen seconds after the time of the simulated shot."

Fifteen seconds for Baker to reach the door at the top of the steps to the TSBD. Hmmmm, so, for Lovelady and Shelley to be seen strolling casually down Elm St., following the last shot, they had, at the most, 5 seconds to get from the steps to their position where they could look back and see Baker and Truly entering the TSBD.

Anyone else see a problem here? Or two?

Hi Bob....

I'm not a real fan of using people's timing extimates for reality. 3 minutes is an eternity at this point.

Mr. BALL - By the time you left the steps had Mr. Truly entered the building?
Mr. LOVELADY - As we left the steps I would say we were at least 15. maybe 25. steps away from the building. I looked back and I saw him and the policeman running into the building.

This matches the two frames with the cirlce posted above... we see these two men walking east as Baker and some other woman are running west.

I'd have to believe that Lovelady and Shelley did not wait at all and the "3 minutes" is a woefully bad estimation of a few seconds.

Everything else about the story works... right?

[Bob Prudhomme]

Hi Dave

Everything about Lovelady would have worked like clock work, if only he and Shelley had not testified to remaining on the steps for 3-4 minutes following the last shot. In fact, if we read this excerpt from Officer Marion Baker's affidavit of August 11, 1964, we begin to have even worse problems with Lovelady (and Shelley):

"3. On March 20, 1964, counsel from the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy timed a re-enactment of my actions after hearing the shots on November 22, 1963. During this re-enactment, I reached the recessed door of the Texas School Book Depository Building fifteen seconds after the time of the simulated shot."

Fifteen seconds for Baker to reach the door at the top of the steps to the TSBD. Hmmmm, so, for Lovelady and Shelley to be seen strolling casually down Elm St., following the last shot, they had, at the most, 5 seconds to get from the steps to their position where they could look back and see Baker and Truly entering the TSBD.

Anyone else see a problem here? Or two?

Hi Bob....

I'm not a real fan of using people's timing extimates for reality. 3 minutes is an eternity at this point.

Mr. BALL - By the time you left the steps had Mr. Truly entered the building?
Mr. LOVELADY - As we left the steps I would say we were at least 15. maybe 25. steps away from the building. I looked back and I saw him and the policeman running into the building.

This matches the two frames with the cirlce posted above... we see these two men walking east as Baker and some other woman are running west.

I'd have to believe that Lovelady and Shelley did not wait at all and the "3 minutes" is a woefully bad estimation of a few seconds.

Everything else about the story works... right?

Nope, I don't buy it at all, Dave, and you know exactly what I'm talking about, so let's not play the fool for each other.

Both Lovelady and Shelley testified to remaining on the TSBD steps for 3-4 minutes following the last shot. It is extremely difficult for a witness to confuse 3-4 minutes with a couple of seconds but, you just keep right on flogging that dead horse. It looks good on you.

BUT, the real fly in the ointment is that both Shelley and Lovelady also testified to NOT leaving the steps until Gloria Calvary returned to the steps and told them JFK had been shot. Let's take a look at Gloria Calvary.



The inset photo shows her standing within a few feet of the Stemmons Freeway sign, from which vantage point she witnessed the assassination. The larger picture shows her post-assassination, not far from the pergola Zapruder filmed from.

She's not exactly doing the 100 yard dash back up to the TSBD steps, and yet, she has less than 5 seconds, from the time of the last shot, to run up to the steps and tell Lovelady and Shelley the news, in order that they can be 25 steps down Elm St. and look back to see Baker and Truly entering the TSBD. Remember, Baker swore an affadavit that he was at the TSBD front door 15 seconds after the last shot was fired, and backed this up with a re-enactment conducted for the WC.

Can you honestly tell me, with a straight face, that you see nothing wrong here??

[Bob Prudhomme]

These boys don't exactly appear to be doing the 100 yard dash, either, yet, somehow, they were this far down the street after the third shot as Baker was running up the steps.

Assuming they were lying about remaining on the steps until Ms. Calvary returned with the news, and they left the steps immediately after the third shot, they still seem to be a long ways down Elm St. before Baker made it to the TSBD front door, considering the leisurely pace they are doing. I think we've been had about Baker's time, as well.

[David Josephs]

Lighten up Bob....

I just said that witnesses and their timing is not always reliable.

These two men are already walking away as Baker is running up... and when he gets to the steps we simply do not see Lovelady... not saying he's not in there somewhere...
but he's not readily identifyable on those steps.

We'd also have to do a better job at fixing the time from the shots to these images.

I don't have the time now to try and work it out but I'm pretty sure we agree that Prayerman is there the entire time with and without Lovelady in the image...

If Lovelady did indeed stay up to 3 minutes then Baker would have run past him, not Lovelady looking back and seeing him climb the steps...

I'll do some thinking on the subject and get back to you
DJ

[Drew Phipps]

Maybe Baker is wrong about the timing. I've always wondered why Baker stuck to the 90 second story (if the official story was being changed around) even when giving Oswald an extra 60 seconds would have been a far more reasonable travel time from nest to Coke machine.

[Bob Prudhomme]

Maybe Baker is wrong about the timing. I've always wondered why Baker stuck to the 90 second story (if the official story was being changed around) even when giving Oswald an extra 60 seconds would have been a far more reasonable travel time from nest to Coke machine.

I know, Drew, it doesn't make any sense. The more I get into this, the more it seems I'm stretching Baker's time out, and giving Oswald more time to get down the stairs.

One possibility may be the person he stopped on the 4th floor, in his original story. It would make no sense for Oswald to hang around on the 6th floor any longer than he had to, and it might have seemed a bit of a stretch for Baker and Truly to ascend four floors (after Baker racing 180-200 feet on a motorcycle and parking it, running through a crowd, meeting Truly, crossing the main floor of the TSBD and hollering up an elevator shaft) in the time Oswald was only able to descend two floors.

[Bob Prudhomme]

David

I really don't believe Shelley and Lovelady stayed on the steps 3-4 minutes, or even believed they stayed that long. I also don't believe they spoke to Gloria Calvary while on the steps, either. From the looks of the post-assassination photo of Ms. Calvary and the other ladies, it's going to take them a few minutes, down by the pergola, to absorb everything they've just seen.

In fact, if you think about everything presented to us thus far, there is a very good chance Lovelady and Shelley didn't speak to Ms. Calvary at all, at least not on their way to the rail yard. The only way to make the Baker story of "15 seconds from the last shot til Baker is at the front door of the TSBD" work is to have Shelley and Lovelady on the steps, in the starting blocks, waiting for the third shot before they sprint off down the Elm St. extension, in time to have themselves filmed strolling at a leisurely pace while Baker runs past them.

But, are they walking down the Elm St. sidewalk to where Ms. Calvary and her friends are standing around in stunned silence? No, they are walking down the extension on the other side of the pergola and, from the looks of things, will be at the rail yard long before Ms. Calvary heads back up to the TSBD steps.

Now, from the pace these guys are moving, and considering they testified they only stayed at the rail yard a minute before a cop ordered them away, how much time elapsed from them leaving the steps until they were entering the loading dock door at the rear of the TSBD? Could it perhaps be almost the same amount of time it would take two young ladies to dash down the stairs from the 4th floor to the main floor in three-inch heels?

[David Josephs]

Cut to the chase Bob...

What's the point of this discrepency -


Witnesses are often wrong and we have little real corroboration. Here is the path they took and what Shelley said. Let's assume their timing is off.

Let's also assume that what they said on Nov 22 has more weight than months later...

Shelley says they ran into Gloria AFTER they ran down the street and then went back to the TSBD...

Lovelady tells a completely different story than his testimony - no walk, no Gloria, no railroad track... Just helping policeman in the TSBD...


Seems these statements corroborate each other...
Now what are we supposed to believe?
DJ

[Bob Prudhomme]

Cut to the chase Bob...

What's the point of this discrepency -


Witnesses are often wrong and we have little real corroboration. Here is the path they took and what Shelley said. Let's assume their timing is off.

Let's also assume that what they said on Nov 22 has more weight than months later...

Shelley says they ran into Gloria AFTER they ran down the street and then went back to the TSBD...

Lovelady tells a completely different story than his testimony - no walk, no Gloria, no railroad track... Just helping policeman in the TSBD...


Seems these statements corroborate each other...
Now what are we supposed to believe?
DJ

David

Don't you get it? Their original affidavits would put them inside the building too quickly. I really hope you're not trying to say the world of difference between their affidavits and their testimony months later is just a bad case of "misremembering". Isn't it funny the two of them would "misremember" the same story for the Warren Commission?

And, according to Shelley's affidavit, they didn't run "down" the street to Gloria Calvary, they ran ACROSS the street to the CORNER and Gloria Calvary came running up to them with the news. BIG difference, Dave, and another lie. AND, even if they had run down the street, they are seen, in the film, walking down the Elm St. extension, while Gloria Calvary was on Elm St. In other words, they were on two different streets, with the pergola between them. They never would have seen Gloria Calvary, even if she had been walking up to the TSBD.

And, once again, how could Gloria Calvary be across the street, at the street corner, or anywhere near the TSBD steps, when photos clearly show her standing down by the pergola, long after the assassination? She clearly did not have time to run back up to the island, as Shelley and Lovelady are filmed walking down the Elm St. extension, away from the island, as Baker is running to the TSBD, and doing his run in 15 seconds after the third shot.

You want proof of a conspiracy? Look no further than Shelley and Lovelady.

P.S.

To anyone reading this, the Elm St. extension, which Shelley and Lovelady walked down at some point, is where the red line is in Dave's photo. Way over to the right, and under the floor plan Dave posted, is where Gloria Calvary was standing on the Elm St. sidewalk. If they followed the course Dave laid out in red from the TSBD entrance, they would, in less than 5 seconds following the last shot, be completely removed from the Elm St. sidewalk by trees and bushes, and would have no more chance of running into Gloria Calvary returning to the TSBD front entrance than they would of meeting Frosty the Snowman.

[Tracy Riddle]

A mostly-readable scan of Craig Ciccone's Dealey Plaza map. Click to enlarge.