It doesn't work

For the Second Floor lunchroom encounter to work as claimed by the Warren Commission, two things need to happen:

1.) Oswald needs to run down the rear stairs from the Sixth Floor and get to the Second Floor lunchroom 90 seconds after firing the shots and hiding the rifle.

2.) Baker and Truly need to enter the TSBD through the front entrance, make their way across the First Floor to the rear stairs in the northwest corner of building, stopping to see if the freight elevators were available first, climb the stairs to the Second Floor to be there as Oswald has already passed through the foyer door on his way into the lunchroom.

Vicki Adams says she and Sandra Styles left almost immediately after the final shot, went to the rear stairs on the Fourth Floor, and made their way down to the First Floor. The trip took about one minute and they saw or heard no one in the process.

The obvious takeaway here is that Oswald could not have come down the stairs per the Warren Commission account. The other, perhaps less obvious conclusion is that Baker and Truly could not have come up the stairs while the two women were going down them.

With the way we've seen the Second Floor story evolve into the final form that suited the Warren Commission's purposes, it's no wonder that anyone with testimony or information that conflicted with the official account would be ignored or told they were mistaken.

That's certainly been the case with Victoria Adams.

No boys on the stairs

For the official story to hold up, Oswald had to be hightailing it down the stairs from the Sixth Floor after the shots to make it to the Second Floor lunchroom in time for his "encounter" with Baker 90 seconds later.

Vicki Adams' insistence that she saw or heard nothing while she and Sandra Styles went down the stairs during this critical time-frame seriously undermines the official account. Since Warren Commission apologists and many conspiracy theorists postulate the Second Floor lunchroom encounter absolutely did happen, they maintain Adams and company are simply mistaken about when they went down the stairs. They understand if Vicki and Sandra were correct, Oswald wasn't on the stairs and therefore couldn't make it to the Second Floor in time for the rendezvous with Baker and Truly. And if people start going down this path, a whole lot of things start to unravel.

But Oswald running down the rear stairs is not the only part of the official story damaged by Adams' statements.

She saw or heard no one

We've established that the Second Floor lunchroom encounter is fraught with problems. One almost needs the help of Google Maps to follow all the places where this story goes. Recently we asked why not just stay with Baker's first statement about seeing a man walking away from the stairway on the Third or Fourth Floor. Victoria Adams was the reason.

Vicki Adams worked on the Fourth Floor of the TSBD and watched the assassination from a south-facing window on that floor in the company of several colleagues. She claimed to have run down the back stairs to the First Floor with her coworker Sandra Styles. She insisted that she and Sandra had left the Fourth Floor window within just seconds of the last shot being fired and had gone downstairs immediately.

In the estimated one minute it took to go down the stairs to the First Floor, Adams didn't see or hear Oswald coming down the stairs. She also didn't see or hear Roy Truly and Marrion Baker coming up the stairs. Adams and Styles statements and recollections are supported by her supervisor Dorothy Garner.

What to make of all this?

Moving on up

We now see what a big mess the Second Floor lunchroom encounter theory is. First-day statements—the most reliable—all point to an Oswald encounter on the First Floor. If Oswald was to be the patsy that he claimed to be, he needs to be "moved" away from the First Floor entrance area so he won't have a rock-solid alibi.

We see this "moving" process begin right away. And if new variations of the moving story introduce new problems, no worries mate—just keep changing the story until something theoretically works. It doesn't have to be pretty or even plausible, just a link in a chain of events that points to Oswald's guilt. And the Second Floor lunchroom encounter is not a pretty link—it's ugly. It's crappy. It's doesn't work, but it's the best they got.

Why not stay with Baker's first statement: "As we reached the third or fourth floor I saw a man walking away from the stairway"? No x-ray vision needed to see Oswald through a Second Floor foyer door/window that he wasn't behind anyway. No sitting, standing, or leaning on a counter. Just move Oswald from the First Floor up to the Third or Fourth Floor, have Truly vouch for him there like he did on the Second Floor, and run with it. Much simpler.

There is one good reason that wasn't an option: Victoria Adams.

We'll talk about her next.

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat

"The burden of the proof lies upon him who affirms, not him who denies"

Lee Harvey Oswald never confessed or admitted guilt. He never went to trial. He never was convicted. By law, he still has the presumption of innocence to this day.

Second floor story evolution

Let's recap where we are with this Second Floor lunchroom business.

We've already seen some serious problems with the Second Floor lunchroom encounter theory. Hours after the assassination, Police Officer Marrion Baker said "As we reached the third or fourth floor I saw a man walking away from the stairway."

Not long after that Roy Truly reported a Second Floor encounter in a "snack bar," then a few days later Baker issued a revised report that referenced the Second Floor lunchroom encounter. In the weeks that followed, the Second Floor lunchroom story continued to evolve, including:

• Oswald in the lunchroom
• Oswald sitting at one of the tables in the lunchroom
• Oswald leaning against a counter in the lunchroom
• Oswald standing at the coke machine sipping a Coca-Cola in the lunchroom
• Oswald moving into the lunchroom

This last bullet was the story Baker told the Warren Commission in March 1964 of how he "caught a glimpse of this man" through a window in a door moving away from him, moving as fast as Baker was moving. After four months, we're glad to see they were able to finally get that all ironed out.

Or did they?

On September 23, 1964—THE DAY BEFORE the final Warren Report is to be presented to President Johnson—they bring Marrion Baker back down to once again clarify some things. Below is an image of his handwritten statement.

Notice this account doesn't even resemble what he told the Warren Commission at all! After all this time, he's still has to think about what floor the "encounter" took place on (he lined out and initialed "or third floor"), he says he saw a man "standing in the lunchroom," and he crosses out and initials "drinking a coke." And get this: Baker doesn't even mention Oswald by name in this statement! He just saw "a man."

What the hell is going on here?

See any similarities?

Cropped Darnell frame of Prayer Man with three images of Lee Oswald added for comparison.

Hoover talks about an encounter at the front entrance

In a telephone conversation between President Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on November 29, 1963, 1:40 p.m., Hoover tells the President:

"...at the entrance of the building he [Oswald] was stopped by police officers and some manager in the building told the police officers, 'well he's all right…he works there…you needn't hold him.' They let him go."

This is ONE WEEK after the assassination—ONE WEEK after Police Captain Will Fritz declared the case was "cinched"—and there is NO mention of the Second Floor lunchroom encounter by the Director of the FBI.

Yeah.

More JFK assassination magic

As with the Single Bullet Theory, the Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter (pick your favorite version) is so bad it needs a little magic to make it work too.

Merging stories

In an effort to "showcase 50 years of automotive innovation," Ford and the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum in Alexandria, Virginia recently unveiled a permanent new display: a 1965 and a 2015 Mustang fused together lengthwise.

It might showcase innovation, but it also showcases the fact that the two Mustangs don't fit.  

Marrion Baker testified before the Warren Commission on March 25, 1964 that Lee Oswald was just behind the door with the glass pane when he first glimpsed him:

"Now, through this window you can't see too much but I just caught a glimpse of him through this window going away from me and as I ran to this door and opened it, and looked on down in the lunchroom he was on down there about 20 feet so he was moving about as fast as I was."

Oswald was "moving about as fast" into the lunchroom as Baker was moving from the landing just off the stairway to the door? It's hard to see how. Baker's story is that he "ran" to the door in order to go after a man he had glimpsed "walking away." Yet we are to believe that they covered about the same distance in the same time—i.e., that Baker running did not cover more ground than Oswald walking.

It's a nonsensical scenario, so ridiculous that one wonders why Baker is making such a transparently unrealistic claim. Why doesn't he just say that Oswald was running? Or, alternatively, that Oswald was only a few feet into the lunchroom by the time he himself opened the door and looked into the lunchroom?

The short answer is Baker has to merge two stories that cannot easily be merged:

1. I saw a man walking away (per Baker's original November 22 affidavit).
2. I saw Oswald standing by the coke machine (as per a later draft of the story, as told by Roy Truly).

As with the two Mustangs, Baker's two stories don't fit.

Reenacting a fairy tale

Here's a reenactment sequence that attempts to show what Marrion Baker told the Warren Commission:

1. Baker comes up to the Second Floor via the rear stairs,
2. He catches a glimpse of a man through the window of the vestibule door going into the lunchroom (note the impossible angle from Baker's point of view),
3. He passes through the vestibule door and into the lunchroom to confront the man.

Look believable?

More second floor problems

We have already begun to see problems with the Second Floor lunchroom encounter, a key plank in the official case against Oswald. And it only gets worse.

According to Captain Will Fritz, Lee Oswald claimed to have been on the First Floor at the time of the assassination but that "he was on the second floor drinking a Coca-Cola when the officer came in."

FBI Agent James Bookhout's second report of Oswald's first interrogation makes pretty much the same claim: "[Oswald] was on the second floor of [the TSBD] building, having just purchased a Coca-Cola from the soft-drink machine, at which time a police officer came into the room with pistol drawn and asked him if he worked there."

Police Officer Marrion Baker said something different. He tells the Warren Commission when he first glimpsed Oswald, Oswald was on his way INTO the Second Floor lunchroom, NOT already inside it at or near the Coke machine: "Now, through this window you can't see too much but I just caught a glimpse of him through this window going away from me and as I ran to this door and opened it, and looked on down in the lunchroom he was on down there about 20 feet so he was moving about as fast as I was."

"Moving about as fast as I was" is much different that standing in the lunchroom "drinking a Coca-Cola."

TSBD Superintendent Roy Truly said he was with Officer Marrion Baker as he went up the rear stairs and to the lunchroom. Truly's story evolved over the first ten days or so as follows:

• the officer saw Oswald in the lunchroom
• the officer saw Oswald sitting at one of the tables in the lunchroom
• the officer saw Oswald leaning against a counter in the lunchroom
• the officer saw Oswald standing at the coke machine sipping a Coca-Cola in the lunchroom

Yet Truly's Warren Commission testimony will make it clear that he could not have seen these things. All he said he actually saw was Baker standing at the lunchroom door with his gun up against Oswald, who was standing just inside the lunchroom door.

What the hell is going on here?

Who is he?

Good question…

Have You Seen Lee Oswald, Baby, er...Frazier

An unconfirmed story has it that this was the very short-lived first version of what would later become the well-known 1966 hit single "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" by The Rolling Stones.*

As we have noted previously, Buell Wesley Frazier is the tall guy seen standing up top in the middle of the stairs looking in the direction of Prayer Man, standing a few feet away in the corner.

*I think I may have dated myself with this tongue-in-cheek "unconfirmed story" showing a 45 rpm record. Anyone remember those?

Warren Commission awards second floor first place

Before we proceed further, let's review the Second Floor lunchroom encounter and see why the official conclusions absolutely depend on this event having occurred.

To claim Oswald fired the shots from the Sixth Floor "sniper's nest," there has to be a sequence of events that gets him off of the Sixth Floor and eventually out of the building in a few minutes. This sequence of events doesn't have to be plausible—most things associated with the JFK assassination are not. No, the sequence of events only has to be theoretically possible. And this sequence must have some degree of support via witness statements and testimony. And if those statements must be revised over time to achieve the desired results, then so be it.

So what is this basic, "official" sequence?

1.) Using a rifle (carbine), Lee Oswald fired three shots in about 7 seconds from the southeast window on the Sixth Floor at 12:30 p.m.

2.) He then ran over to an area on the opposite side of the Sixth Floor to hide the rifle. After this he proceeded to the rear stairs in the northwest corner of the building and ran down to the Fifth Floor.

3.) He came out onto the Fifth Floor and then entered the door leading to the stairs to the Fourth Floor. He continued doing this, i.e., coming down each flight of stairs to the next floor landing, then reentering a door leading further down, until he reached the Second Floor (see diagram above).

4.) Oswald then walked 20 feet over to a door leading to a small foyer with a door leading south to an office area and east to the Second Floor lunchroom.

5.) A second or two after having passed through the door to this foyer, Police Officer Marrion Baker, who was coming up the rear stairs from the First Floor with TSBD Superintendent Roy Truly, "caught a glimpse" of a man going away from him into the lunchroom as Baker came out onto the Second Floor landing.

6.) Baker then stopped his ascent, went through the door into the foyer and with gun drawn, commanded the man (Oswald) to "come here." At that time, Oswald had nothing in his hands.

7.) Baker asked Truly if he knew this man and Truly said yes. Both Baker and Truly noted Oswald was calm and not out of breath.

8.) Baker and Truly then continued up to the higher floors.

9.) Oswald bought a coke from the Second Floor lunchroom Coke machine, went through the office area and down to the front of the building where he left at 12:33 p.m.

Later time trials showed that items 1-5 occurred in just 90 seconds.

As we continue our review of the book, we'll see how the Second Floor lunchroom encounter is the only scenario that even remotely works to make Lee Oswald appear guilty. We'll also see how the witness statements and testimony evolved to support this as well. In short, we'll show how the Second Floor lunchroom encounter never happened.

Coming to a theater near you. Maybe

If I were to make a film involving the JFK assassination, one possibility might be a dark comedy called Roboclod. As we look at how Officer Marrion Baker's story evolved from his first affidavit on November 22 1963 to his Warren Commission testimony in March 1964 to his final clarification statement the day before the Warren Report was presented in September, 1964, you'll understand why I think this way.

Small storage room close to entrance

Earlier, we saw two first-day news accounts refer to an Oswald sighting in a small storage room on the First Floor immediately following the assassination. We noted the Second Floor lunchroom—a key part of the official Warren Commission report—was not even mentioned.

This image shows how close the small storage room was to the TSBD entrance and to the position where Prayer Man is seen standing:

Frazier identifies himself in Darnell

Buell Wesley Frazier testified that he stood in the center at the top of the steps of the entrance of the TSBD during the assassination. He was shown this Darnell image in 2014:

He was asked "'By the way, Mr. Frazier, is that you?' To that he responded, 'very probably ... look at the hairline.'" *

More than "very probably." There's no other possible response. The circled figure is standing exactly where Frazier he said he was standing and the resemblance is striking.

* http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t388p825-prayer-man-on-the-education-forum

No one on second

Two news accounts written on the evening of the assassination refer to an Oswald sighting.

1. From the November 23, 1963 issue of The Dallas Morning News: "He [Ochus V.Campbell] said Truly and an officer ran into the building. In a storage room on the first floor, the officer, gun drawn, spotted Oswald. 'Does this man work here?' the officer reportedly asked Truly."

2. From the November 23, 1963 issue of the New York Herald Tribune: "Mr. [Ochus V.] Campbell [vice-president of the TSBD] said, 'Shortly after the shooting we raced back into the building. We had been outside watching the parade. We saw him (Oswald) in a small storage room on the ground floor. Then we noticed he was gone.' Mr. Campbell added: 'Of course he and the others were on their lunch hour but he did not have permission to leave the building and we haven't seen him since.'"

No mention of the Second Floor.