Lee Bowers was working in a railroad tower behind the picket fence atop the "Grassy Knoll".
Bowers will testify to the Warren Commission that at the time of the shooting he saw a "flash of light" at the fence.
Just after the last shot, Dallas policeman Marion Baker, riding on his motorcycle on Houston Street, sees pigeons fly off the roof of the Texas School Book Depository.
He rushes in the front door & asks Roy Truly, TSBD superintendent, how to get upstairs. Since the elevator is unavailable, they take the stairs.
On the 2nd floor landing, Baker sees a man moving away from the door through a window. He opens the door & confronts the man.
2nd Floor Doorway to Stairs
Texas School Book Depository
JFK/Dallas Police Dept Records
Dallas Municipal Archives
Baker asks Truly if he knows him. Truly says: "Yes, he works here." The man is Lee Harvey Oswald. It is just 90 seconds since the last shot was fired.
Baker continues up the stairs.
Since Baker nor Oswald used the elevator, the "suspect" would have had to come down the stairs which were located on the opposite side of the building from where a "sniper's nest" will be found on the 6th floor.
This is where I get off the bus.
ReplyDeleteIf someone could clarify the exact sequence of events here it would be helpful.
I first started having a problem with the Oswald Did It theory when I found out that he could have bought his rifle at any hardware store in Dallas at the time for cash without even showing ID.
Instead, he buys it through a mail order house using an alias he had used while in the military.
Perhaps we can assume here that he had no intention of shooting it at anyone at the time so was not concerned about anonymity.
However, very shortly thereafter, he uses it to shoot at Col. Walker, and MISSES, even though it was a stationary target that he had literally all night to line up in his sights.
Then he has his picture taken with the rifle.
Now he takes that same rifle with him to work for the purpose of shooting at the POTUS. Not only that but he CARRIES THE FAKE ID THAT LINKS HIM TO THE RIFLE IN HIS WALLET, you know, just to make it easy.
However, ;having shot the President, he then decides to try to hide the rifle in the opposite corner of the sixth floor, because, of course, no one will think to look for it there.
This also wastes valuable time if he is going to try to establish an alibi of being on the second floor. He just barely makes it down there. (Also, the time re-creations on this do not include moving heavy boxes containing books all around and on top of the rifle).
He also has to bank on no one seeing him on the stairs on the way down. (There were, in fact, two women who were in the stairwell I believe at this approximate time and didn't see him).
Having gotten to the second floor, he is now cool as a cucumber when having a gun pointed at him by Officer Baker.
He follows that up by buying a Coke and starting to drink it.
Then he gives directions to a phone when asked by a reporter.
He is no hurry.
It is at this point, I believe, that someone tells him for the first time that the President has been shot.
What follows in an increasingly panicked attempt to escape, using only public transportation as he did not drive.
Who tries to shoot the President and then figure on escaping without being able to drive a car?
Any holes in this so far?
I'm right with you on this, except to note it may not have been necessary to "move the heavy boxes all around" to hide the rifle. If I'm not mistaken it was found wedged between boxes on the floor...someone could have simply shoved it in there without having to move the boxes....that is just a possibility!
DeleteOswald had all morning to arrange boxes to stash the rifle before the assassination. The place where he stashed the rifle was on the left side of his travel toward the STEPS at the North West corner of the building. So he hid the rifle on his way off the 6th floor to make his escape. Officer Baker, who was the first cop to enter the building after the shots were fired, testified before the Warren Commission that as he was rounding the steps and on the landing of the second floor he saw a man through the window in the lunch room walking away from him in the lunch room. So, if Oswald was the assassin, he made it to the lunch room just before Officer Baker started up the steps at the rear of the building. Baker and a Secret Service agent later timed the time it would take for Oswald to go from the snipers nest on the 6th floor to the lunch room and walking at a normal walking pace it took them a minute and a half. Baker also testified that Oswald was "moving as fast as I was" which Baker had said it was like a "Trot" to get up the steps. So it certainly was doable.
ReplyDeleteVickie Adams and her friend that were on the 4th floor watching the motorcade and waited anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds before they started walking to the Northwest back of the floor to take the steps down to get out of the building. She said that she did not see a Police officer when they got to the First Floor. So, they did not pass each other on the steps. I'd say it was tight timing but I doubt that anyone was actually running a stop watch when that was going on. They were using a stop watch when they re-enacted what happened. Another employee of the SBD said she saw Oswald leave the building about 2 minutes after the shots were fired. All the above statements were from their Testimonies before the Warren Commission.