Messrs Shelley & Lovelady: The Big Lie

[Alan Ford]

In 2013 Mr Buell Wesley Frazier said this:

"... some of the people Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady they went down to the triple underpass, before they went down there a lady come by, a woman came by and she was crying and said that somebody had shot The President. And so we looked bewildered and  I turned to Sarah and she said she said somebody had shot The President. And I said I thought that was what she said. She said she did say that. So we stood there for a few minutes and I walked down to the first  step to where Billy was standing on the bottom of the steps and I looked around and it was just total chaos there and then from there I started to go down and see if I could find ehm Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady and there was so much chaos down there that I said well I better go back to work ..."

Perhaps Mr Frazier means 'I walked down to the first step to where Billy HAD BEEN standing on the bottom of the steps", but mentioning Mr Lovelady in this way seems kinda odd. Why not just say, "I walked down to the bottom of the steps"? And why no mention of Mr Shelley in this context?

Has Mr Frazier slipped up and described the actual scene he has in his memory?---------> walked down to the first  step to where Billy was standing on the bottom of the steps------------> i.e. Mr Frazier joined Mr Lovelady there

At the time Mr Frazier went down the steps, was Mr Lovelady still in the spot we see him in in Darnell, i.e. at the bottom of the steps?



And does Mr Frazier get himself rather awkwardly back on script by coupling up Messrs Shelley and Lovelady again with "...and see if I could find ehm Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady"?

**

Put the two statements together and the thing reads strangely:

"I walked down to the first step to where Billy was standing on the bottom of the steps and ... then from there I started to go down and see if I could find ehm Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady"

[Alan Ford]

Friends, some folks claim that this is Messrs Shelley & Lovelady in the Couch film:



There are only two problems:

1. That is Mr Danny Arce, not Mr Bill Shelley

2. The much-made claim that what seals the deal on Mr Lovelady is the 'plaid' pattern on his shirt ignores the 'plaid' pattern on the other man's coat:



And look at how the 'plaid' on the 'Lovelady' shirt moves around from frame to frame.

It's just film noise!

 

[Alan Ford]

From Mr Roy Truly's WC testimony:

Mr. TRULY. ... this crowd, when the third shot rang out--there was a large crowd all along this abutment here, this little wall, and there was some around us in front--they began screaming and falling to the ground. And the people in front of myself and Mr. Campbell surged back, either in terror or panic. They must have seen this thing. I became separated from Mr. Campbell. They just practically bore me back to the first step on the entrance of our building.
Mr. BELIN. When you saw the President's car seem to stop, how long did it appear to stop?
Mr. TRULY. It would be hard to say over a second or two or something like that. I didn't see I just saw it stop. I don't know. I didn't see it start up.
Mr. BELIN. Then you stopped looking at it, or you were distracted by something else?
Mr. TRULY. Yes. The crowd in front of me kind of congealed around me and bore me back through weight of numbers, and I lost sight of it.
I think there were a lot of people trying to get out of the way of something. They didn't know what.

Huh? The Darnell film shows the scene as Officer Baker dashes by Mr Truly, just seconds after the events Mr Truly has been describing:



Does it seem realistic that Mr Truly had just before this been 'practically bor(ne) back to the first step' of the entrance 'through weight of numbers'? Hardly! It's fantasy land stuff.

But why would he embellish like this?

Well, it's a neat way for Mr Truly to so put himself in a crush of people as to plausibly distract him from anything else that might have been going on in those first seconds after the shooting. Why, it gives him positively TROY WEST levels of See-No-Evil blindness!

 

[Alan Ford]

From Mr James Jarman's HSCA interview:

"We ran to the front of the building and as we was running out of the building the police stopped us, he told us to come back inside... after we was inside the building after that, I heard that Oswald had come down through the office and come down the front stairs and he was stopped by the officer that had stopped us. And, Oswald was coming out the door and (Billy Lovelady, who had been standing out on the steps - A.F.) said the police had stopped Oswald and sent him back in the building, Billy Lovelady said that Mr. Truly told the policeman that Oswald was alright, that he worked there, so Oswald walked on down the stairs.”

Mr Jarman wondered why the officer at the door (-------------->Officer Eric Kaminski?) didn't send Mr Oswald back inside, as he did with them.

On the scenario outlined in this thread, I suggest that Mr Truly could say with certainty of Mr Oswald what he couldn't at this point say of Mr Jarman & Co.: he couldn't have been the shooter, because he was known to have been down at or by the front entrance when the shots were fired.

How would Mr Truly have known this of Mr Oswald?

Either Mr Shelley had told Mr Truly of his own (and Mr Oswald's) immediate post-shots movements,
or (and more simply) Mr Truly himself had noticed Mr Oswald leaving the steps immediately after the shooting--------with Mr Shelley in front (they were going OUT to the street divider; Mr Truly was going in the opposite direction, back towards the entrance)

Mr Oswald could no more be the gunman than Mr Shelley

[Alan Ford]

Still on this scenario

Mr Oswald, in custody, gives a true account of his movements:

-broke for lunch
-second-floor lunchroom to buy a coke
-down to one to eat lunch
-went outside to watch P. Parade
-immediately after hearing shots: out with Bill Shelley in front
-saw all the excitement (on Elm St., in railroad yard)
-returned to building by west door with Bill Shelley
-some time later, based on remarks made by Bill Shelley, decided to leave
-stopped at front door by officer, but let pass after being vouched for by Mr Truly

These honest claims will be viciously distorted from one interrogation report to the next, with all sorts of nonsense being put in Mr Oswald's mouth.

Thus---------for example--------the time outside with Mr Shelley immediately following the shooting (concrete 'island' + railroad yards) will become stood around outside with Bill Shelley for five or ten minutes AFTER encounter with cop & Mr Truly in lunchroom, followed by eating lunch on one, and then going outside for the first time

----------Mr Shelley had the misfortune to have spent quality time with the now-accused immediately after the assassination
----------Mr Lovelady had the misfortune to have the wrong face in the wrong place at the wrong time

Hence these two men's------otherwise inexplicable and seemingly unnecessary-------lies.

[Dan O'meara]

This is, by far, the loneliest thread I've ever seen...which is a pity, as you have raised a massively important issue.
Lovelady's admission that he didn't enter the TSBD building for 20 - 25 minutes (confirmed by the Martin and Hughes films), reveals a series of lies in which Lovelady and Shelley were complicit.
They lie from the very outset.
Why would two, honest working men just going about their daily business lie to the authorities from the get-go about their movements in the immediate aftermath of the assassination?
This is the murder of the most powerful man on the planet at the time and these two normal working men, rather than simply report what they did after the shooting, lie relentlessly.
But what is it, exactly, they are lying about?

I'm glad to see you've abandoned your Oswald-is-Prayer-Man bullsh$t, and not before time.

Note in the Darnell pic you've posted of Gloria talking to Lovelady on the steps, there is a man dressed exactly the same as Shelley stood at the bottom of the steps - precisely where Frazier places him.
It is surely after this brief conversation with Calvary that both men head for the west door (something they both conveniently forget to mention in their affidavits).
In their WC hearings both men get the chance to set the record straight. Instead, they both introduce the lie of seeing Baker and Truly approaching the TSBD building steps at least 3 minutes after the shooting (both men do this). Why are they both telling this lie?
Is it to do with how quickly they got to the west door? What did Lovelady do if he didn't go inside the building?
Both men lie in their WC testimonies about how they both entered the west door at the same time - why?
What's happening at the west door?

[Alan Ford]

This is, by far, the loneliest thread I've ever seen...which is a pity, as you have raised a massively important issue.
Lovelady's admission that he didn't enter the TSBD building for 20 - 25 minutes (confirmed by the Martin and Hughes films), reveals a series of lies in which Lovelady and Shelley were complicit.
They lie from the very outset.
Why would two, honest working men just going about their daily business lie to the authorities from the get-go about their movements in the immediate aftermath of the assassination?
This is the murder of the most powerful man on the planet at the time and these two normal working men, rather than simply report what they did after the shooting, lie relentlessly.
But what is it, exactly, they are lying about?

Exactly! 

I'm glad to see you've abandoned your Oswald-is-Prayer-Man bullsh$t, and not before time.

I have NOT abandoned LHO=PM, Mr O'Meara. It is still--------pending release of clearer Darnell frames-------a live theory.

What I have been outlining in this thread is an alternative scenario (I always use that word when making a suggestion rather than an emphatic claim)

Note in the Darnell pic you've posted of Gloria talking to Lovelady on the steps, there is a man dressed exactly the same as Shelley stood at the bottom of the steps - precisely where Frazier places him.

Do you mean the broad man out on the sidewalk who walks over to the woman?

[Dan O'meara]

In the light of Lovelady's admission that he didn't go inside the TSBD building for 20 - 25 minutes after the assassination, it is informative to examine his WC testimony to get an idea of how brazen his lies are. It must also be noted that Lovelady's lies are not in isolation, he is coordinating his lies with Bill Shelley and very often, during the testimonies of both men, they use the plural "us" and "we", even when asked questions specifically about their own experience.
Lovelady explains that, at the time of the assassination he was stood on the front steps with Bill Shelley and Sarah Stanton. He hears the shots...:

"I thought it was firecrackers or somebody celebrating the arrival of the President. It didn't occur to me at first what had happened until this Gloria came running up to us and told us the President had been shot."

This statement gives the impression Gloria arrived on the scene very quickly. We see this moment in Darnell and it occurs seconds after the shooting.
After Gloria tells him JFK was shot...

"...we run towards that little, old island and kind of down there in that little street. We went as far as the first tracks and everybody was hollering and crying and policemen started running out that way and we said we better get back into the building, so we went back into the west entrance on the back dock had that low ramp and went into the back dock back inside the building."

He couldn't be more clear - both men run towards "that little. old island" and down the Elm Street extension, towards the railroad tracks and then back into the TSBD building by the west door. This is an out-and-out lie being told to the WC. It's quite unbelievable.
Shelley reiterates this lie in his own WC testimony:

Mr. Ball: Then what happened?
Mr. SHELLEY. Gloria Calvary from South-Western Publishing Co. ran back up there crying and said "The President has been shot" and Billy Lovelady and myself took off across the street to that little, old island and we stopped there for a minute.

...

Mr. Ball: What did you and Billy Lovelady do?
Mr. SHELLEY: We walked on down to the first railroad track there on the dead-end street and stood there and watched them searching cars down there in the parking lots for a little while and then we came in through our parking lot at the west end.
Mr. Ball: At the west end?
Mr. Shelley: Yes; and then in the side door into the shipping room.

Once again, the same story, with the same lie - after Gloria, both men go out to "that little, old island", down the Elm Street extension and enter the TSBD building through the west door. Shelley continues this lie once inside the building:

Mr. Ball: When you came into the shipping room did you see anybody?
Mr. Shelley: I saw Eddie Piper.
Mr. Ball: What was he doing?
Mr. Shelley: He was coming back from where he was watching the motorcade in the southwest corner of the shipping room.
Mr. Ball: Of the first floor of the building?
Mr. Shelley: Yes.
Mr. Ball: Who else did you see?
Mr. Shelley: That's all we saw immediately.

"That's all we saw immediately". It's impressive that Shelley feels he can talk for Lovelady as to what he saw.

Why would these two men lie to the WC on this matter, and make no mistake -the are lying.
Why would they both then lie about how long it took for Baker and Truly to approach the steps - at least three minutes. This lie could easily be exposed by Ball ( he interviews both men), but he let's it go.

I believe the point of the lies is to disguise:

a) That they went to the west door at all (their affidavits)
b) That they went to the west door immediately. (the addition of at least 3 minutes)

Once it is established both men are lying and that both men are telling the same lies, it is imperative to get to the bottom of it. It is a fascinating fact that, other than Danny Arce, every single man who was on the 6th floor that morning lies to the authorities in their various statements and testimonies:

Shelley
Lovelady
Dougherty
Williams
Norman