Hi Dan, No, in your evidence you are saying that Bill Did Not meet Gloria on the steps!!!"...I heard what sounded like three shots...I ran across the street to the corner of the park and ran into a girl crying and she said the President had been shot. This girls name is Gloria Calvery...I went back to the building and went inside and called my wife..."
Thank you for everything! Sincerely yours, Michael
At his W.C. testimony Joe Molina says he sees Gloria Calvery arrive in the lobby and discusses the shooting. So did Gloria twice say the same story, first with Bill Shelley and then in the lobby? Or was there a little pow wow afterwards? This would also indicate that Calvery’s appearance inside the T.S.B.D. would be several minutes after the assassination and not on the TSBD steps!!!
Mr. BALL. Do you know a girl named Gloria Calvary[sic]?
Mr. MOLINA. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Did Gloria come up?
Ms.. MOLINA. Yes, she came. I was in the lobby standing there and she came in with this other girl.
Mr. BALL. What did she say?
Mr. MOLINA. She said “Oh, my God, Joe, he’s been shot.” They were both horrified. I said “Are you sure he was shot?” She said “Oh, Joe ,I’m sure. I saw his hair fly up and I’m sure he was shot” something to that extent.
Hi Dan, No, in your evidence you are saying that Bill Did Not meet Gloria on the steps!!!Hi Michael, when you say "No" in the quote above, I'm not sure what you're referring to.
No, what?
And just to be clear, I am saying, according to his affidavit, that Shelley first met Gloria after he had run across the street from the steps to the "corner of the park". He then followed her back to the steps where she was telling everyone that JFK had been shot.
For the benefit of clarity I will outline my own understanding of this aspect of the case. What follows is my own, personal interpretation of the evidence as I understand it.
It's my own opinion.Gloria is stood with her work colleagues when she sees JFK's head explode. She gets a good view of it and in the pandemonium that breaks out after the head-shot she races back to the TSBD with Karan Hicks (the woman in white). At around the same moment Shelley runs across the street from the TSBD building and encounters Gloria as she is running back to the building. The respective routes are shown in a version of the Roberdeau map below (which I've cleaned up for my own purposes):
According to the scale Roberdeau uses, the distance from Gloria's marked position on Elm Street to the base of the TSBD steps is approximately 150 feet. Jogging around 6mph will cover this distance in around 17 seconds. Running at a modest 8mph will cover this distance in just under 13 seconds.
After running into Shelley (at position "A"), Gloria continues towards the steps but hasn't gone far when she encounters officer Joe Marshall Smith, who had been at the intersection of Elm and Houston, holding up traffic on Elm, but who immediately made his way towards the TSBD building after hearing the shots:
"...and this woman came up to me and she was just in hysterics. She told me, "They are shooting the President from the bushes." So I immediately proceeded up here."The bushes being referred to are those behind Gloria's position on Elm Street. Smith can be seen making his way up the Elm Street extension in Darnell.
Gloria then runs on to the TSBD steps where she tells those stood on the steps what has happened. Buell Frazier, the figure stood at the top of the steps, describes talking to Sarah [Stanton] when Gloria approaches the steps:
"...right before I went back, some girl who had walked down a little bit further where I was standing on the steps, and somebody come back and said somebody had shot President Kennedy...She didn't tell me right directly but she just came back and more or less in a low kind of hollering she just told several people."Even though she is telling everyone in general it is Billy Lovelady who interacts with her. Lovelady is stood on the steps when Gloria comes running up:
"...I asked who told her. She said he had been shot so we asked her was she for certain or just had she seen the shot hit him or--she said yes, she had been right close to it to see and she had saw the blood and knew he had been hit but didn't know how serious it was..."Molina, who is stood directly outside the lobby, steps inside and is there when Gloria and Karan make their way up the steps and enter the building:
"...I was in the lobby standing there and she [Gloria] came in with this other girl...She said "Oh, my God, Joe, he's been shot." They were both horrified. I said "Are you sure he was shot?" She said "Oh, Joe, I'm sure. I saw his hair fly up and I'm sure he was shot" something to that extent."It is important to note that Molina notices Gloria is with someone else.
As Baker approaches the steps he notices a woman in great distress:
"...there was a woman screaming, "Oh, they have shot that man, they have shot that man."It is my opinion that the Darnell clip of the TSBD step fits the general story outlined above.
In the clip below we see Gloria near the base of the steps wearing a black headscarf. It is the moment she is telling everyone there about the shooting. The bald man facing her can only be Lovelady who is questioning her about the shooting. Frazier looks on from his position at the top of the steps. Baker is approaching the scene as the highly upset Gloria recounts what has happened. Directly behind Gloria is Shelley, the man in the baggy, dark suit who appears to be moving towards the steps [presumably after returning from the other side of the street] then turns to his left.
I'm sure there is a better copy of this moment out there somewhere.
Below is a (very poor) still on which I've labelled the main players in case there's any confusion:
As I say,it's just my opinion but, if accepted, it does have a very interesting knock-on effect in that it reveals both Shelley and Lovelady lied to the WC about how long it took them to re-enter the TSBD building by the little known (at the time) west door.
