Prayer Man is NOT Doorman

Photojournalist Ike Altgens faced the approaching limousine when he took the famous picture below of President Kennedy as he was being shot. The TSBD entrance can be seen in the background. The inset zooms in on this area. Billy Lovelady, a co-worker of Lee Oswald, is shown. It appears that he's peeking around the edge of the west wall, but this is due to the camera angle. (He can be seen in the Wiegman frame, taken within seconds of the Altgens photo, toward the middle of the steps.)

Due to his superficial resemblance to Lee Oswald, some people believed Lovelady was Oswald in the Altgens photo. Lovelady is often referred to as "Doorman" in this picture.

On the evening of November 22, the FBI went to visit Lovelady and showed him the Altgens photo blown-up and Lovelady immediately identified himself in the image. The FBI agents seemed relieved. Lovelady said one agent "had a big smile on his face because it wasn't Oswald."

Why would the FBI be relieved? After all, Oswald was up on the Sixth Floor, wasn't he?

Prayer Man cannot be seen in the Altgens photo. He's standing back in the corner to the right of Billy Lovelady (left in the picture below).

Vantage points and angles

To better understand the photographic evidence involving Prayer Man, let's look at the layout of Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 to see the various vantage points and angles.

In this aerial view, we see the motorcade route in blue. The red Xs are the approximate locations of the limousine when the shots hit. The locations of Darnell and Wiegman are shown when they took the images we saw earlier showing Prayer Man on front entrance steps of the TSBD.

As you can see, Darnell and Wiegman were facing almost directly towards the front of the TSBD when they captured Prayer Man standing up near the back corner in the entryway.

Notice the location of Ike Altgens when he took his historic photo of the assassination. We'll discuss the photo and its significance next.

Did he even have a prayer?

In a police station with over 70 police officers and law enforcement personnel…and someone with a gun just happens to penetrate the phalanx of protection surrounding Lee Oswald.

Was it just a tragic mistake? Or was something else going on?

Who was he?

The image above is from a different film (photographer Dave Wiegman) taken approximately 15-20 seconds prior to the Darnell image in the previous post. It shows Prayer Man standing in the same spot.

Some speculate Prayer Man is one of the employees of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD). Others think he may have been a stranger who came up off the street and worked his way through the people standing on the steps toward the back corner to watch the presidential motorcade.

But all of the TSBD employees who testified being on the front steps during the assassination are accounted for. And all TSBD employees testified that there were no strangers in the TSBD that day.

Who was he?

Oswald leaving TSBD?

The book is about a thread in a JFK research forum. It began with a question: "Is this a photo of Oswald leaving the Texas School Book Depository building?"

This picture was a low-quality image from a news film clip (photographer James Darnell) taken seconds after the shots that killed President Kennedy. Nobody knew the identity of the person circled. One researcher, Sean Murphy from Ireland, had studied this figure for a number of years and dubbed him "Prayer Man," due to the posture of his arms.

Who was he?

Greetings!

When Lee Harvey Oswald is mentioned, many people think of him as the sniper who assassinated President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. They are undoubtedly influenced by the Warren Commission and other US government investigations that conclude Oswald shot and killed Kennedy as he traveled by motorcade in Dallas, Texas. This is reinforced by the mainstream media. He was declared guilty without the benefit of a trial.

But did Oswald really kill Kennedy? What are the facts?

Lee Harvey Oswald said that he didn't kill anybody. He claimed he was a patsy. No one can place him on the Sixth Floor of the Texas School Book Depository building at the time of the assassination—the place where he is said to have fired the fatal shots.

According to the official investigations, Oswald ran down to the Second Floor lunchroom after the shooting and was then spotted by a police officer. But Oswald said he was on the First Floor, and went out the front door to see what the excitement was about. Was Oswald telling the truth?

Prayer Man: Out of the Shadows and Into the Light answers that question. I'll discuss the evidence here in the weeks to come.