If Oswald Was The Assassin, Did He Plan His Escape From The TSBD Very Well?

[Colin Crow]

Note also the positively Williams-esque lie about timeframe!

Thanks Alan, not sure why I don’t have that one in my notes. I might argue that it is not entirely clear. He has an earlier statement in December that claims they all rode up together. Do you have the complete Jan 14 record? I would appreciate a full copy.

AFFIDAVIT
State of Texas
County of Dallas
City of Dallas
I Harold Norman, wish to make the following statement to Special Agents William Carter and Arthur W. Blake, United States Secret Service.
I am 25 years of age, and I live at 4858 Beulah Street, Dallas, Texas. I do not have a telephone at my residence. I have been employed as an order filler at the Texas School Book Depository, 411 Elm Street, Dallas, Texas for about three years.
I was acquainted with Lee Oswald during the time that he was employed at this company, but I never did get to know him well. I have spoken to him briefly to say "Hello" or in connection with my work, but I never carried on any conversations with him. He did not mix with the employees and did not appear to want to make friends with me or any of the others. I never saw him at any time other than in the building at work.
On the 22nd of November, 1963, to the best of my memory, the last time I saw him was about 10:00 A.M. when we were both working on the first floor of the building. I did not speak to him at that time.
About 12:15 P.M. on this same date, after I had eaten my lunch, I went to the fifth floor of the building to watch the parade of the President pass the building. Bonnie Ray Williams and James Jarman, who also worked at this building went with me. We took a position in the south-east corner of the building on the fifth floor and I was looking out the window which is closest to the east end of the building overlooking Elm Street.
Just after the President passed by, I heard a shot and several seconds later I heard two more shots. I knew that the shots had come from directly above me, and I could hear the expended cartridges fall to the floor. I also could hear the bolt action of the rifle. I saw some dust fall from the ceiling of the fifth floor and I felt sure that whoever had fired the shots was directly above me. I saw all of the people down on the street rut towards the west side of the building, so I went to that side with Williams and Jarman, and looked out the west side window. We discussed the shots, and where they had come from and decided we better go down stairs. We walked down the stairs to the first floor and did not see anyone else on the stairway as we went down. From the time of the shots until we started down-stairs was about five minutes.
I have read over the above statement and it is the truth to the best of my knowledge.
/s/Harold Norman
Harold Norman
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 4th day of December, 1963.
/s/William N. Carter

Something similar appears in his SS summary that appears as part of CD87.

[Colin Crow]

Hmmm... Not so sure why this is 'likely', Mr Crow. Mr Rowland gives to understand that he saw two black men (and possibly a white man) at that fifth-floor window much earlier than that:

1. He timestamps his sighting of the man with the rifle at "about 15 or 16 after 12"

2. Mr. ROWLAND - Yes. My wife and I were both looking and making remarks that the people were hanging out the windows I think the majority of them were colored people, some of them were hanging out the windows to their waist, such as this. We made several remarks to this fact, and then she started watching the colored boy, and I continued to look, and then I saw the man with the rifle.

Also--------------how do we know window(s) "B" was/were closed between noon and Messrs Jarman and Norman's arrival?

 

Mr. BALL - What did you do when you got to the fifth floor?
Mr. JARMAN - We got out the elevator and pulled the gate down. That was in case somebody wanted to use it. Then we went to the front of the building, which is on the south side, and raised the windows.
Mr. BALL - Which windows did you raise?
Mr. JARMAN - Well, Harold raised the first window to the east side of the building, and I went to the second rear windows and raised, counting the windows, it would be the fourth one.

I seem to remember a comparison done between Hughes and Bronson images that compared windows. One of them (Bronson?) has the ambulance in the frame.

[Martin Weidmann]

Mr. BALL - What did you do when you got to the fifth floor?
Mr. JARMAN - We got out the elevator and pulled the gate down. That was in case somebody wanted to use it. Then we went to the front of the building, which is on the south side, and raised the windows.
Mr. BALL - Which windows did you raise?
Mr. JARMAN - Well, Harold raised the first window to the east side of the building, and I went to the second rear windows and raised, counting the windows, it would be the fourth one.

I seem to remember a comparison done between Hughes and Bronson images that compared windows. One of them (Bronson?) has the ambulance in the frame.

It seems to me that if Norman and Jarman closed the door of the elevator, and Truly and Baker couldn't use the elevator (which means the door was open on the 5th floor), somebody else must have used that elevator between the two events. Could have been Williams, calling the elevator up to the 6th floor, going back down to the 5th and leaving the door open?

[Alan Ford]

Mr. BALL - What did you do when you got to the fifth floor?
Mr. JARMAN - We got out the elevator and pulled the gate down. That was in case somebody wanted to use it. Then we went to the front of the building, which is on the south side, and raised the windows.
Mr. BALL - Which windows did you raise?
Mr. JARMAN - Well, Harold raised the first window to the east side of the building, and I went to the second rear windows and raised, counting the windows, it would be the fourth one.

I seem to remember a comparison done between Hughes and Bronson images that compared windows. One of them (Bronson?) has the ambulance in the frame.

Yes, Mr Jarman claims this, but this doesn't mean we know it to be true. It could be------------like so much else with these guys--------------coached testimony or faulty memory. (They also claimed the southwest window was down after the assassination and had to be raised, whereas we know----from Ms Moorman's pre-assassination polaroid----that it was already open before the motorcade.)

The Bronson frames seem to me to show one of the windows in that southeast end pair already open. That would be the window that Mr Jarman is saying he didn't open. If Bronson is showing what I'm seeing, why on earth would Mr Norman go to an unopened window rather than the open one beside it? For that matter---------------why would Messrs Norman and Jarman put such distance between one another?

I am suggesting that the answer to both questions may be that Mr Williams was already at that open window------------and that Messrs Jarman & Norman's prior sighting of him up there explains their otherwise unaccountable decision to go to five rather than six (which was where people had talked about going to beforehand----and which offered an even better vantage point).

If this is what happened, then Mr Williams (after the assassination, realizing the true sinister role of whoever had kept him off the sixth floor) asked Messrs Norman & Jarman to pretend the three had come up to the fifth floor together. They did so, offering cover for their friend for as long as they could.

 

[Dan O'meara]

It seems to me that if Norman and Jarman closed the door of the elevator, and Truly and Baker couldn't use the elevator (which means the door was open on the 5th floor), somebody else must have used that elevator between the two events. Could have been Williams, calling the elevator up to the 6th floor, going back down to the 5th and leaving the door open?

Who is the black male Rowland sees in the snipers nest about 12:15 and who disappears when the motorcade is a few blocks away on Main (Main and Elvary)?

[Martin Weidmann]

Who is the black male Rowland sees in the snipers nest about 12:15 and who disappears when the motorcade is a few blocks away on Main (Main and Elvary)?

My guess would be Williams

[Dan O'meara]

My guess would be Williams

Mine too. I can see no other candidate who specifically places themselves in that area at that time. If anyone else has a better suggestion I'd like to hear it. If it is Williams a few things follow:
Williams was untruthful in his next-day affidavit
In his various statements he downplays how long he spent on the 6th floor
He is in the snipers nest
He is on the same floor as a white male with a rifle
He disappears from Rowland's view when the motorcade is on Main Street

This last point ties in nicely with Norman and Jarman's late arrival on the fifth floor (after hearing the motorcade was on Main Street). I would go as far to say the only reason Williams went down to the 5th is because he heard Norman and Jarman down there. He doesn't go down to the 5th floor until just before the arrival of the motorcade on Houston, approximately !2:29.
I cannot imagine how Williams is not directly involved in the assassination.

None of this holds water if the black male Rowland spots in the snipers nest window isn't Williams.