Business as usual or meet the lone gunman(UA-66627984-1)

Billy Nolan Lovelady

The Opperman Report

The Opperman Report

  I spoke with Ed Opperman on Sept 25th about Prayer Man.

You can listen to it on Spreaker HERE.

Enjoy!

Howard Roffman to Richard Bernabei 1970

Howard Roffman to Richard Bernabei 1970

 

Howard Roffman wrote extensively with Harold Weisberg, but also with Richard Bernabei. I have managed to gotten hold of quite a bit of material myself after contacting his archive in Kingston and I also know that Denis Morissette went there and he sent me quite a few pages as well. I still have to go through all this. While browsing through the folder I came across this letter from 1970 that I gotten hold off in 2016.

It basically discusses the Couch film and Marrion Baker. Roffman did extensive research in the relation between the Couch film and Marrion Baker’s run almost 50 years ago. He also brings Gloria Calvery, Joe Molina and other T.S.B.D. employees’ statements in the fold and uses his common sense as most of his observations still stand today. Cool read.

Billy Lovelady the Doorway Man

Here is an article from the New York Herald Tribune which has been quoted from many times in various articles, here is the chance to read the whole article and its pix in full. It was published in the NYHT May 24th 1964. Great read actually, and this was pubbed before the Warren Report was issued.

 

Add on Dec 13th:

From Larry Sneed’s No More Silence

In May 1964, while the Warren Report was still being assembled, Don Bonafede, a reporter for the now defunct New York Herald Tribune, called me from here in town and said that he was in Dallas to do a story on a very controversial photograph I had made at the time the President was assassinated. All he wanted to know, he said, was the information I had already given the
authorities, and he would be satisfied with that information. I told him that no authorities had questioned me, including the Warren Commission people. “That’s my story!” he shouted. Of course, he was referring to the picture showing the questionable person, story set the authorities to work, and eventually even the FBI sent two men to visit and interview me. What had happened was that Bonafede’s story was picked up by columnists all across the country who then began asking if other witnesses had been overlooked like the photographer who was only fifteen feet from the limousine when Kennedy was killed.

The Houston Post

Thanks to Denis Morissette who posted 4 editions from Nov 22nd to Nov 24th 1963.

Anything interesting then?

Eh…yeah! :)

Billy Nolan Lovelady did not like Oswald,because he kept too much to himself……Lovelady just tried to distance himself from Oswald the commie no doubt.

What’s even more telling is his description of officer Smith who ran west towards the railroad yards, a telling remark and confirmation that he and Shelley had left those steps almost immediately after the shots had been fired.

Then there is assistant DA Bill Alexander in the same day’s edition who says 6 witnesses can attest to Lee being inside the TSBD up to ten mins after!!!!

Most interesting indeed.

Click pix to enlarge.

Updated Sept 8th 2017 with the close-ups of the text below.

 

 

Billy Lovelady HSCA Interview

In part 1 of  Lovelady’s HSCA interview (originally posted by Richard Gilbride at the ROKC website) we skip to around the 24:50 mark where the talk is about the front steps of the TSBD, its occupants (he names Frazier, Shelley and Stanton and some ladies from the offices inside the building).

His position was the 2nd or 3rd step sitting and eating his lunch and having a coke (which he purchased in the second floor lunchroom).

He is asked whether he saw Oswald on those steps and he answers this with a “No.”.

The follow-up question whether it could have been possible that Oswald could have been on those steps and him not noticing is answered with: “Could have.”

Just after the 29:00 mark he talks about a lady who ran up to them (without any indication as to where “they” were-B.K.) and say that The President had been hit and  he identifies her as Gloria Calvery. He then says after  Gloria Calvery says that The President had been hit they leave for the rail road yard and then make their way back in through one of the side entrances of the TSBD.

Then he describes the situation inside the building after they got back in (31:20) wondering whether they should go back to work. And at 31:40  the  roll call is discussed.

 

In part 2 (better quality audio) Lovelady describes at first that Truly and the police officer (Baker) had run up the steps, and connects this with shots being fired from the 6th floor and those two on their way investigating this. He does declare that he did nit know the reason for their ascend at that time, only later. Then Secret Service and others come in and want to get up to the top floor so Lovelady takes about ten to fifteen of them up in one of the freight elevators.

After taking them the 7th and the 5th floor he takes them to the 6th floor and while he is standing near the freight elevator he states he was present when they found the shells. He did not see them, he also states that he saw the rifle being found from about a distance of 50 feet. It did have a sling attached to it. He times these finds at about 20-25 minutes after his arrival back inside the TSBD.

Around the 08:20 mark he states that the first time he spoke with a law enforcement official and had his primary statement taken was at 13:30, one hour after the assassination. The second time is in the evening and he confirms it’s him in Altgens6 when FBI agents show up at his house at 18:00.

After that he is shown a still of him on the front steps of the Martin film, with his 5 o’clock shadow and he confirms it is him. A voice in the background (Robert Groden.) says that this was shot between 8-15 minutes after the assassination. Lovelady sees this image for the first time. Lovelady’s wife is present as well and recognises him in that image. This part is interesting due to the interaction of the interviewer and Lovelady. Sean Murphy posts about Billy Lovelady at the Education Forum in 2013 (Prayer Man: Out of the Shadows and Into the Light, Chapter 9):

In the first part of his HSCA interview Billy Lovelady Lovelady is shown an image he has never seen before: a frame from the John Martin film showing him (Lovelady) standing over by the east side of the entrance some 15 minutes post-assassination. Lovelady identifies himself immediately.

`
HSCA: If a movie camera showed you farther in the center of the doorway than that person there [i.e. Lovelady in Altgens, who appears, due to the deceptive angle, to be well over to the left/west of the entrance] would you still identify that person as being yourself?

LOVELADY: Sure would. I would say the other picture was not taken at the split second as the one to the left is.

HSCA: Okay, alright. If it showed two figures in that doorway at the same time, and you could positively identify one as yourself, would that have any bearing on your identification of that other figure?

LOVELADY: No, that’s still me at the left [of the] doorway.

Whether knowingly (i.e., with knowledge of the Prayer Man figure in Wiegman) or unknowingly (i.e., by pure speculation), the HSCA interviewer noticed  Two Lovelady-resembling men caught on film at the time of the assassination, one over on the west (“left”) side of the entrance and the other more towards the center.

The interviewer could have been getting some information from Richard E. Sprague regarding this discovery, since he was already well informed on the sighting of that man on the west side of the TSBD steps in the shadow.

 

From thereon the convo steers into the shirt matter, when the FBI ask him to come so he can be photographed as a comparison to Altgens6. No one tells him to wear the same shirt so he does NOT wear it while his pix are taken.

Lovelady also mentions that Joseph Ball contacted him before he was to testify in front of the Warren Commission (27:10). Ball discusses that he will be interviewing him about the actions around the assassination about him around the building. He is also asked whether he was coached by Ball or if anyone else from any agency tried anything, and to both he replies “No.”

But the biggest revelation is saved to the very last, at 29:20 when he says that it took 20-25 minutes before he got back in the building, so while captured by Martin and Hughes he still had not regained entry back into the building, which makes you wonder how he got back in through the side of the TSBD along with Shelley?

Roy Truly interview 1964

This Roy Truly interview was done by Will Lang for Dolores Kraich and sent to Holland McCombs, who was bureau chief for TIME and LIFE magazine in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Dallas.

It deals with Truly’s recollections of Oswald’s job application, the day of the assassination, the second floor lunch room encounter, but also delves into the whole Doorway man matter.

Any nuggets?

A few:

  • Truly, on page 2 describes Oswald as an ‘undetected paranoiac’
  • Page 3,  he states that Oswald could not have known about the motorcade passing by the TSBD until 72 hrs beforehand. And starts to speculate about and eventually condemns Oswald heavily “But as I suppose we all now realize, he had to shoot somebody or do something big. He probably would have shot anybody who was big enough if he had the chance or could make the chance”.
  • Page 4 digs into the doorway-man Lovelady vs Oswald saga.
  • Page 5, he discusses the day JFK got shot. He mentions Lovelady and being outside on the steps, and himself standing in front of those steps near the curb of Elm.  What is downright rubbish is his description of a wave of people making their way back and that Baker had to push his way though the crowd. The Couch and Darnell films show that Baker had a clear run towards the TSBD building.
  • On page 8 he contradicts himself regarding this wave of people. “there were not so many people out there in front of this building when the President’s car passed here”
  • Page 9 shows that the author(s) forwarded a copy to Hugh Aynesworth in 1967.

 

Overall a well rehearsed interview, a puff piece by the looks of it, but Truly makes the same mistake again like he did with his statements, testimony and newspaper reports, he always adds info that makes one question his claims.

 

 

Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady in the Couch film

In a small section of the Couch film researcher Gerda Duncke found Lovelady and Shelley in the Couch film, which also partially captured Baker’s dash towards the TSBD.

Gerda Dunckel pointed them (Shelley and Lovelady) out in 2012.

Here are videos of her Gifs

 

There have been some doubts about the identity of them but I was sold on it back then and even more now.

This ROKC scan of a Couch print from the archives (Richard E. Sprague collection) at first sight did not offer much detail overall, but all the more with regards the two persons who we thought were Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady.

billy-lovelady-and-bill-shelley-in-malcolm-couch-rokc-scan

Click pic for full size.

Well this shot and especially its close-ups seals it.And is also conform their initial statements. And this visual clincher shows that they both lied about their presence on the steps during their WC testimony.

lovelady-and-shelley-in-couch-okt-2016-bk-rokc

Click pic for full size

lovelady-collage

Click pic for full size

shelley-collage

Click pic for full size.

The Lone Gunman Postcast #104

I have had the pleasure to talk with Rob Clark for the Lone Gunman Podcast.

So far it has been the top listened to show of all 104 eps in the first 24 hours.

It was good fun and in a few months there will be some sort of follow-up with all the progress.