JFK: Who was in the Book Depository doorway?
Careful study reveals hints of a complex plot to pick a patsy
(1) hole in windshield; (2) man in doorway; (3) Dal-Tex shooter location; (4) early LBJ response
by Larry Rivera (with Jim Fetzer)
Perhaps no issue in the history of JFK research has generated more heated controversy than the discovery that Lee Oswald, the alleged assassin, had been captured in a famous photo by AP photographer James “Ike” Altgens. In collaboration with Ralph Cinque, Richard Hooke, Larry Rivera, Dennis Cimino and Clare Kuehn, among others, have published study after study on this question, where Judyth Vary Baker has delivered the coup de grace.
The fact of the matter is that Doorman’s height, weight, build, shirt and tee-shirt are strikingly similar to those of Lee Oswald when he was arrested and appears to explain why they had him remove the over-shirt he was wearing when he was arrested, which under ordinary circumstances would be the last thing that law enforcement officials would do because it would make it more difficult to witnesses to identify a man who was wearing his distinctive shirt.
It has surprised and disappointed me that there are serious students of JFK who deny that they can tell this image has been altered, when there is a face that has been obfuscated (right center), Doorman’s left shoulder is missing (left center), the man in the black tie is both in front of and behind him at the same time (center left) and the man with his arms raised to protect his eyes from the Sun has had his face blacked out (right center top). The task that Larry has undertaken here is to identify everyone in the doorway at the time.
Who was in the TSBD Doorway?
by Larry Rivera
The Oswald Innocence Campaign has proven that Lee Harvey Oswald was captured in the famous and iconic Altgens6 photograph. As logic dictates, if Oswald was in the doorway at the time that President John F. Kennedy is seen reacting to bullets that have already struck him, then he could not have been shooting from the southeast window of the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Early research legends Mark Lane, Vincent Salandria, as well as noted authors and scholars Gerald McKnight, David Wrone, Phil Nelson and a host of distinguished men and women, are all in agreement.
This is not a new concept, inasmuch as Harold Weisberg was the very first researcher and author to publish two very important chapters devoted to this issue in his second book, Whitewash II (1966), which still prevail to this day, and where he came up with a study that showed nine points of similarity between the shirt worn by the figure known as doorman and the shirt worn by Oswald the day and night of November 22, 1963. Moreover, Sylvia Meagher had this to say about the doorman dilemma:
More recently, Richard Hooke, using computer techniques and his training in anthropology, has expanded Weisberg’s study to encompass more than 50 points of similarity, which would almost certainly prevail in a judicial setting. The arguments that establish that Oswald was Doorman (which take into account alterations that have been made to his face) have been complemented by other arguments that establish it could not have been any other candidate:
But what about the other figures in the doorway? What can be reconstructed from the few strands of information left over by the flawed and biased pseudo investigations done by the Warren Commission, the HSCA, the FBI and the Dallas Police Department, which appear to have been fashioned to railroad an innocent man? Were there other possible candidates to take the blame for the assassination of John F. Kennedy?
The Dave Weigman (Wiegman) film
There happens to be a film taken by Dave Weigman, which can be considered almost a mirror image of the Altgens6, taken from an angle of perhaps 90 degrees different, as Weigman was passing in front of the depository building in the seventh car, Camera Car Number 1, which was a yellow 1964 Chevy Impala convertible.
This film was quietly suppressed by NBC, just as Life Magazine did with the Zapruder film, which did not surface until the late 1960s and was only shown to the public for the first time in 1975 on “Geraldo Rivera’s AMERICA”.
When it did, the film seemed to have lost some of its sharpness–and what we see today is a fuzzy sequence which looks suspiciously as if it has been altered. As kust one case in point, Roy Schaeffer has noted the edit lines that appear in various frames, revealing a difference between one frame and the other:
Even though the film appears to have been worked on, there is still enough information to help identify the rest of the people who were in the doorway that day. These are the people we believe were in the doorway that day:
Who’s who in the doorway
1. Buell Wesley Frazier: In our article, “Why Buell Wesley Frazier was erased from Altgens6” (2013) and Santa Barbara presentation (2013), we meticulously established the presence of Buell Wesley Frazier on the steps of the doorway at the front entrance of the Book Depository, on the basis of the Weigman film.
Photographs and film taken that same night at City Hall, when Frazier was summoned to take a polygraph test by Captain Will Fritz, show a tall, long-limbed young man, with the same hair style, wearing the same clothing that he had been was wearing that day and night.
However, when we isolate and extrapolate that particular image area from the Weigman to the Altgens6 photograph, we note that Frazier is missing from the photograph and that there is an unusual darkening in front of Agent John Ready’s suit coat. He should be right off the left-shoulder of figure number one (as seen above). All of which supports the inference that Frazier has been removed from the Altgens6, as shown in the following collage:
JFK research legend Vincent Salandria’s Altgens6 reenactment in the summer of 1964 is probably one of the most important photographs ever taken. It reveals areas of the Altgens6 photograph that were blocked by both of the limousines and spectators who were lining the curb of Elm Street in front. It also shows the area of the TSBD doorway and the Live Oak tree in pristine condition, which proves that Frazier could not have been blocked by this tree.
The situation with Frazier is compounded by the many different versions over the years of his location:
Buell Wesley Frazier has yet to come clean as to his true location in the doorway and continues to cling to the story that he was standing in the nonexistent “dark area” of the TSBD entrance. On August 3, 2013, and at our request, Ralph Cinque asked his daughter-in-law Rosie to measure the depth of the entrance of the top landing of the doorway:
They discovered that the entrance had been pushed in from approximately 3 feet to slightly over 9 feet, per this image. When we spoke to architect and JFK author and researcher J. Gary Shaw in October of 2013 to get his opinion, Mr. Shaw stated that the remodeling of the entrance probably occurred in the 1980’s when the county took over the building.
Bugliosi points to “dark area” Frazier insists he is located in the Altgens6 (during the 1986 “Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald” held in London, UK)
2. Joe Molina: Joe Molina held several positions with the TSBD company. When first hired, he worked as an accountant or book keeper in the Credit Department. At the time of the assassination, he had risen to the position of Credit Manager and had held that position for 3 or 4 years: “He handled over 10,000 accounts using an adding machine, making bank deposits, supervisor of the Credit Department, operating a Sensimatic Posting Machine, writing letters of credit and other miscellaneous duties.” He could also type 50 words per minute. These skills provided Joe with a desk job very few Mexicans in Dallas could attain at the time. It also helped that he is Mexican Caucasian. His immediate supervisor was 63 year old Otis Williams. Williams was Supervisor of the Book Keeping and Credit Department and was with Molina at the time of the shooting. According to secretary Virgie Mae Rackley, Williams and Molina were very close friends. She also described Molina as “a very religious man and a very fine man”.
By Texas standards,Molina is a very short and portly man, perhaps barely five feet tall. His work attire as Credit Manager consisted of a dress shirt and tie. Molina “took up a positionon the top step of the entrance of the TSBD for the purpose of watching the Presidential Motorcade” (CE1381, pg 66). He also testified before the Warren Commission on 4/7/64, and 25 years later was interviewed by the Dallas Morning News on 11/20/88 in observance of the 25th anniversary of the assassination. He has never been interviewed or spoken in public since.
So, who else was in the doorway along with Joe Molina and Buell Wesley Frazier? The following statements have been compiled according to witness testimonies, obtained from CE1381 and Dallas Police Department affidavits.
3. Otis N. Williams: Joe Molina’s boss and best friend. “…was standing on the top step against the railing in the east side of the steps in front of the building” (CE1381). This is confirmed by Joe’s own testimony in 6H370:
Mr. Molina: Yes, I was standing on the front steps.
Mr. Ball: With whom?
Mr. Molina: Right next left of me was Mr. Williams and close to there was Mrs. (Pauline) Sanders.
This was also confirmed by Virgie Mae Rackley’s 11/23/63 statement to the DPD: “Molina went outside with a Mr. Williams, of the department.” Otis Williams however, did not reciprocate and, by the time his statement was taken on 3/19/64, Molina had been long gone from his TSBD employment. Mr. Williams then contacted a mysterious case of amnesia regarding who was around him: “I do not recall who was standing at either side of me…” (CE1381) (so much for being best friends!) Regarding his position, in those days the railing was located in the center of the stairs, therefore he was roughly at the center of the entrance at the top step.
4. Pauline Sanders: “I took up a position at the top of the front steps of the Depository building facing Elm Street. To the best of my recollection I was standing on the top step at the east end of the entrance…..I noticed Mrs. Sarah Stanton standing next to me, but I am unsure as to the others” (CE1381)
5. Sarah Stanton: “I was standing on the front steps of the TSBD with Mr. William Shelley, Mr. Otis Williams, Mrs. R.E. Sanders and Billy Lovelady” She did not even mention Molina who was standing right next to her! (CE1381)
6. Madie Belle Reese: “…took up a position on the second step from the bottom to the right or west side of the main entrance of the Depository building. Mrs. Dean was standing directly to my left at the time of the assassination….” (CE1381)
Here is a height analysis and comparison of figures on the top step or landing of the entrance of the TSBD
This collage shows what is commonly known as “obfuscated man” in the Altgens6 photograph. This man is wearing a light solid colored, long sleeved dress shirt and tie, the same attire worn day in and day out by Joe Molina. In the Altgens6, this figure appears to have been retouched.
7. Billy Lovelady:
Mr. Ball: You were standing on which step?
Mr. Lovelady: It would be your top step.
Mr. Ball: The top step you were standing there?
Mr. Lovelady: Right. (WC6H336)
In April 1961, while in the process of being court-martialed out of the Air Force, Lovelady was known to have the following physical characteristics:
Two years later, and as a civilian, it can be safely assumed that he would have probably gained at least 10 pounds, weighing in at 170 to 175 pounds, possibly even more. This is confirmed by the statements of Roy Lewis below, where it contrasts sharply with Lee Oswald’s weight of 145 pounds. This image shows the position of Billy Lovelady in the Altgens6 photograph:
Several alterations need to be pointed out. The shirt has been whited out to hide the vertical striped red and white short sleeved shirt he was wearing that day. The face has also been darkened to hide the identity of Lovelady. The image at left has been processed and brightened to enhance the face of the one we call “Black Hole Man” (Billy Lovelady).
8. Bill Shelley: “I recall that as the presidential motorcade passed by I was standing just outside of the glass doors of the entrance. At the time President John F. Kennedy was shot I was standing at this same place.” (CE1381)
WC6H328
Mr. BALL: You were standing where?
Mr. SHELLEY: Just outside the glass doors there.
Mr. BALL: That would be on the top landing of the entrance?
Mr. SHELLEY: Yes.
9. Roy Lewis: Seventeen year old Roy Lewis had obtained employment at the TSBD the year before, as he married very young, and at the time of the assassination his wife was expecting a baby and was due the following February. He later named this baby daughter Jacqueline, apparently in honor of the First Lady.
“Due to my lack of excitement, I was one of the last ones out of the building before the motorcade arrived. That’s why I wasn’t outside near the street like most everybody else. Instead, when I came out, I was standing with some ladies from up in the offices right in the middle of the steps in front of the building that led to the sidewalk beyond the glass door.” (Larry Snead, No More Silence: An oral history of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy pg 84-88)
“I’ve been told that some people confused Billy Lovelady with Oswald, but Lovelady was much heavier and, even though Oswald’s hair was thinning, Billy’s was about all gone up there.” Roy Lewis (Larry Snead, No More Silence: An oral history of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy pg 84-88)
Besides Lee Oswald, Roy Lewis is the only figure in the Altgens6 who is recognizable beyond any shadow of doubt. Many researchers have puzzled over Roy’s profile being in the position that it is.
The answer to that question is that Roy’s attention has been drawn in the direction of what is known as the “Towner vans”. These are two vans that were parked on the North curb of Elm Street, East of Houston, which can be seen briefly in Tina Towner’s film:
The Altgens6 photograph corresponds to Zapruder frame 255. By then at least four to five shots have already been fired at Kennedy’s limousine. Whatever it is that attracted Roy’s attention that day seems to have impacted him in a special way, because while everyone else is running and storming the grassy knoll, Roy is still looking in that direction, even several minutes later, as seen in Willis Slide Number 8. Another strange thing about this Willis slide is that Roy has wrapped his arm around the center rail of the stairway as if worried that he might be tied into the crime and he needs to stay put and stay visible.
Roy’s personal thoughts about Lee Oswald were recorded by Larry Snead in this manner:
“Two days after the assassination when Oswald was shot, though I know they didn’t let it happen intentionally, I still wondered how that could happen in the police department. I was mad at Oswald at the time, but I’m a sympathetic person, and I hate to see anything bad happen to anybody. But I’m still not convinced that he did it, and because of his murder, it’s for certain we’re never going to get to the bottom of it. I’ll never be convinced that Oswald did it or that he acted alone. ” Roy Edward Lewis (Larry Snead, No More Silence: An oral history of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy pg 84-88)
If Roy was “never convinced that Oswald did it or that he acted alone”, it may be because he knows that Lee Oswald was standing right above him in the doorway at the time of the shooting. Furthermore, Roy appears to know by personal experience that Billy Lovelady could never pass as Doorman.
Identities of those in the doorway
The identification of the people in the doorway shapes up in this manner:
The alternate patsies are all in the doorway
The uncertainty and difficulty involved in setting up a person to take the blame for any crime is an extremely complex undertaking. Even more so for an event that is filmed and photographed, such a Presidential motorcade. A whole set of circumstances and requirements need to be just right. In the event that any of these cannot be fulfilled, redundancy must be built into the operation because of contingencies that may arise that cannot be controlled.
The “patsification” of Lee Oswald was no exception. The conspirators could not have possibly known if Lee Oswald would remain in the doorway during the assassination. Had he been caught in more photographs that could not be controlled and intercepted by the FBI, secondary scenarios would have been necessary. Let’s review some of these:
1. Billy Lovelady: Lovelady was kicked out of the Air Force for the illegal theft and trafficking of guns at Andrews Air Force Base in 1960-61. He and two others were prosecuted by the OSI and later removed from the Air Force via court martial. When Lovelady failed to pay his $200.00 fine, he fled the Maryland jurisdiction and ended up working for the TSBD company in December, 1961.
In January 1963, the FBI finally caught up with him and he was arrested and incarcerated as a fugitive in Dallas. Ochus Campbell, Vice President of the TSBD company paid the remaining $75.00 of his fine. He was released on a $1000 personal recognizance bond. This would have been the perfect background to set him up as a patsy, and as a member of the work crew that was supposedly laying down plywood on the 6th floor, he could have been easily placed in the snipers nest.
2. Buell Wesley Frazier: Frazier’s case is even more intriguing because the DPD confiscated an Enfield .3030 rifle with ammunition at his sister Linnie Mae Randall’s house. Frazier was unaccounted for five hours after the assassination and was finally arrested at 6:30PM in
Irving. The removal of Frazier from the Altgens6 in itself is very suspicious, especially when viewed in the context of what happened to him the night of the 22nd. This is how Frazier recently described his encounter with Captain Will Fritz:
“We went another round of questioning for quite some time. They had talked to Captain Will Fritz, he was head of ah, he was head of homicide, and ah, – they had explained to me after that – this kid is telling us everything he knows. So, ah, but Captain Will Fritz would not buy that, he would not accept that. So they go out of the room, and In comes Captain Will Fritz, never seen him in my life, never talked to him, he brought in a typed statement he had a pen, he says – “here, sign this” he gave me a pen and I started reading it – well – they wanted me to confess to be a part of, or having knowledge of – the assassination of John F Kennedy. I read about two sentences of that and I looked at him and I says, that’s ludicrous, I said, “I’m not signing that!” So he drew his hand back to hit me and I did my arm up like this, he’s about where you are sitting, and I told him, I said, – he got very red-faced, he wasn’t a real big man, of course physical, I hear he got a temper, anyway – I told him, I says, you know “I know there’s a policeman outside the door but I said, “before they get in you and I are going to have a hell of a fight and I said I’ll get a good lick or two and you’ll remember me” – well, he snatched up the paper and the pen and walked out the room – never did see him again ever….The way he treated me, the way he tried to make me sign that statement – we could never be friends.”
Frazier is probably aware how close he came to being in Lee Oswald’s shoes. In a short interview in the days that followed with CBS, that was analyzed for Voice Stress Analysis, George O’Toole determined that Frazier was scared out of his wits: “Judging from the PSE charts, when Buell Wesley Frazier made that statement, he was in a condition of sheer terror.” (The Assassination Tapes, O’Toole pg 172)
And with good reason. The first reports coming out of WBAP in Dallas that day identified a British Enfield rifle as the weapon used to assassinate the President. The empty shells that were planted in the sniper’s lair could have easily turned into .3030 ammunition. Frazier was soon drafted into the Army as a cook and remained unavailable for years. When Frazier refused to sign his confession around midnight, the conspirators shifted into high gear and went and paid Joe Molina a visit.
3. Joe Molina: The night of November 22, early morning of November 23, 1963 would be one Joe Molina and his family would never forget. There are two conflicting versions of these events. According to the Dallas Police Department, Joe and his family had not yet gone to bed at 1:30 in the morning, (DL100-9847 pg1 7/16/64) presumably still watching the TV reports and talking about the events that had taken place earlier during the day. However, Joe’s WC6H368 testimony states quite the opposite:
“That’s right, woke up my wife and children; scared my wife half to death” (WC6H368)
His testimony reveals that his family was woken up by a large group of policemen at 1:30AM, an act that terrified his wife, Soledad. It turned out Joe received a visit from the cream of the Dallas Police Department, among them Captain William Gannaway, Lieutenant Jack Revill, and if that were not enough, the notorious Assistant D.A. Bill Alexander. (FBI DL100-9847 pg 22 7/15/64) Alexander was a “self avowed right wing extremist” (Cover Up pg 100-101), and was infamous (and proud of it) for sending many convicted murderers to the gallows.
Once, he threatened a witness at gunpoint in the courthouse (ibid). On 11/22/63 Alexander was around Dealey Plaza and the TSBD right after the assassination. (CU pg 101) Around 1:00 PM he drove out to Oak Cliff with Detective Gerald Hill in time to see a dead Officer Tippit, then swung over to the Texas Theater and was seen in the alley with his gun drawn, waiting to shoot down the “communist-assassin”. (VII H 46,54 57 XVII H 442, XXI H 397 XXIII H 875, 877 these references borrowed from CU-Shaw)
When they confronted Joe that morning, they had a search warrant issued by Judge David Johnson (DL100-9847 pg 28a), but when Joe politely asked them in and gave them permission to search the house, it was not executed. “Sure, I don’t have anything to hide, look around” was Joe’s response to their arrival (6H369). Captain Gannaway later reported to the FBI:
“Molina made a remark stating that he had been expecting us.” (DL100-9847 pg 28b 8/19/64)
Unknown to Joe at the time (FBI DL100-9847 pg 12 7/16/64), (and probably still is, if he has not had access to the FBI reports) they were looking for “anything that might connect Mr. Molina with Lee Harvey Oswald.” (FBI DL100-9847 pg 22 7/15/64) Captain Gannaway was a little bit more specific:
“He (Gannaway) said that the officers searched Molina’s premises for weapons, ammunition, explosives, or anything else to connect Molina with Lee Harvey Oswald” (FBI DL100-9847 pg 2 7/16/64 by SA Joseph E. Jones).
J. Gary Shaw has pointed out how odd it seemed that the Assistant DA “would be playing cop at such a time” (CU 101). Apparently he was putting in a lot of overtime and his day had not yet ended when he went to see Molina. At one point during the search, they met in the kitchen and spoke in lowered voices so Molina could not hear what they were saying (FBI DL100-9847 pg 12 7/16/64). Were they debating whether to plant evidence at Joe’s house? Did the fact it was a small 2 bedroom house with 6 occupants and three very inquisitive teenagers (Joe Jr. 16, Linda Molina 14, and adopted daughter Sylvia 14) dissuade them from doing this? Why was the top brass of the DPD summoned to serve a search warrant at 1:30AM?
Why was “taking care” of Joe Molina of such importance? Why were the top cops of the DPD and the assistant D.A. trying to find and link confederates to LHO in the early hours of 11/23? This would suggest the conspirators had not made up their minds yet to pin this entirely on the one patsy. Molina would spend most of the next day at the DPD answering all kinds of questions about his possible relationship with Oswald and with the Communist party. Consider this passage from an FBI document dated 11/27/63, after the fact, in which Molina has allegedly been placed in New Orleans earlier that summer passing out leaflets with Lee Oswald:
This document is full of innuendo and third hand, uncorroborated hearsay information. (John Armstrong Collection Box 16 Notebook 3 Box 27 file number 33158 pg 7) Despite later being exonerated from any connection to Oswald, news about Molina was released from coast to coast and he was never able to get a retraction from Chief Jesse Curry. By Christmas he had been “let go” from his employment at the TSBD.
And where were these four patsies located that day? The improbability of these four men being together in the same restricted space of the doorway, practically touching each other, is infinitesimal. Moreover, all four figures seem to have been subjected to some form of alteration in the Altgens6 photograph! The four patsies in the entrance stairway identified as Doorman, Obfuscated Man, Black Hole Man, and Frazier (who was removed from the photograph) are strong indications that a very sophisticated operation was indeed executed in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Larry Rivera has become the leading expert on Buell Wesley Frazier and other subtle aspects of the events in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
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