Sarah Stanton told her family that she saw Oswald at the front TSBD entrance when she went down from the second floor to see the motorcade. Greg Doudna:
For according to Sarah Stanton's family, Sarah Stanton met Oswald on "the stairs", where she had "went down" from the second floor, to see the President "on the stairs".
Rosa: "That, uh--she [Sarah] said, 'I went down because they said that, uh, the--that the President was going--they were already coming, but not--not there yet.' So she wanted to prepare herself and be on the stairs--where--where she met Oswald."
Anyone can read the Gilbride article to get more of the interview. Rosa tells of what Sarah Stanton always said, how she had met Oswald that day "on the stairs".
How she had gone down "to prepare herself and be on the stairs" to see the president (front steps of the TSBD entrance?).
How she told of Oswald having a Coke when she saw him "on the stairs" (Prayer Man with a coke on the front steps?).
How she spoke to Oswald there "on the stairs" (steps?). How Oswald told her he was going to return to "his room" (the domino room?). (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/29481-prayer-man-more-than-a-fuzzy-picture/page/17/#findComment-515283)You can bet good money that Stanton told the interviewing FBI agents the same thing. You can also bet good money that when she told them this, they either pressured her to change her story or they simply produced a phony account of what she told them, which could explain why her FBI statement was unsigned. We know this happened with many other witnesses.
A notable example of witness manipulation is the case of JFK’s aide and close friend Kenny O’Donnell. O’Donnell rode with fellow presidential aide Dave Powers and others in the follow-up car during the motorcade.
When O’Donnell was interviewed by the FBI, he told the agents he was certain he had heard two shots fired from behind the fence on the grassy knoll. The agents responded by telling him that that could not have happened and that he must have been imagining things. Thus, O’Donnell decided to testify “the way they wanted me to.” O’Donnell revealed this to former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill at a private dinner in Boston in 1968, and Powers confirmed O’Donnell’s account to O’Neill at the dinner and later. Powers, like O’Neill, heard shots fired from the fence but told the WC a different story. O’Neill discussed O’Donnell’s revealing disclosure in his 1987 memoir:
I was never one of those people how had doubts or suspicions about the Warren Commission’s report on the president’s death. But five years after Jack died, I was having dinner with Kenny O’Donnell and a few other people at Jimmy’s Harborside Restaurant in Boston, and we got to talking about the assassination.
I was surprised to hear O’Donnell say that he was sure he had heard two shots that came from behind the fence.
“That’s not what you told the Warren Commission,” I said.
“You’re right,” he replied. “I told the FBI what I had heard, but they said it couldn’t have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things. So I testified the way they wanted me to”. . . .
Dave Powers was with us at dinner that night, and his recollection of the shots was the same as O’Donnell’s. Kenny O’Donnell is no longer alive, but during the writing of this book I checked with Dave Powers. As they say in the news business, he stands by his story. (Tip O'Neill, Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O'Neill, Random House edition, 1987, p. 178). Now, if the FBI could pressure two presidential aides into changing their stories, imagine how many ordinary witnesses they persuaded to change their stories. It is not surprising that we have a long list of witnesses who later said their FBI statements misrepresented what they told the interviewing agents. Some witnesses also later said that Dallas law enforcement officers misrepresented what they told them during their interviews. A number of witnesses said they were told by federal or local law enforcement officers to keep quiet.
Take, for example, Jean Hill, a down-to-earth public school teacher who was standing near the grassy knoll during the assassination. Hill said there were five or six shots in her 11/22/63 Dallas sheriff department’s statement. A short time later, she was interviewed by federal agents. She described the encounter:
They asked me what I had seen, and it became clear that they knew what I had seen. They asked me how many shots I had heard and I told them four to six. And they said, “No, you didn't. There were three shots. We have three bullets and that's all we're going to commit to now.” I said, “Well, I know what I heard,” and they told me, “What you heard were echoes. You would be very wise to keep your mouth shut.” Well, I guess I've never been that wise. I know the difference between firecrackers, echoes, and gunshots. I'm the daughter of a game ranger, and my father took me shooting all my life. (https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKhillJ.htm)Hill did not change her story when she testified to the WC, and for that she endured intimidation and harassment by federal agents. When Mark Lane contacted her in 1966, she declined to give a filmed interview, saying,
The FBI was here for days. They practically lived here. They just didn't like what I told them I saw and heard when the President was assassinated. She declined to permit a filmed interview, stating, for two years I have told the truth, but I have two children to support and I am a public school teacher. My principal said it would be best not to talk about the assassination, and I just can't go through it all again. I can't believe the Warren Report. I know it's all a lie, because I was there when it happened, but I can't talk about it anymore because I don't want the FBI here constantly and I want to continue to teach here. I hope you don't think I'm a coward, but I cannot talk about the case anymore. (https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKhillJ.htm)WC defenders have roundly attacked Jean Hill and have dismissed all of her accounts of harassment as fabrications or gross exaggerations. It is true that in later years Hill appears to have embellished her story, but her 11/22/63 statement and her WC testimony about the number of shots are consistent with a great deal of evidence, and her 1992 statement about being pressured to “keep your mouth shut” soon after the assassination is consistent with her 1966 statement about harassment by federal agents over their displeasure with her account of the shooting. It is also consistent with the accounts of other witnesses who were likewise told they should keep quiet and/or were pressured to change their stories.
If Buell Wesley Frazier noticed that Oswald came and stood several feet to his right at the TSBD’s front entrance during the assassination, I can only imagine the pressure that would have been applied to him to keep quiet about seeing Oswald on the front steps during the shooting. However, it is also possible that Frazier simply did not notice when Oswald came and stood several feet to his right at the TSBD entrance.
It is worth noting that the DPD immediately subjected Frazier to hours of hostile interrogation and arrested him twice. At an AARC conference in 2014, Frazier explained the ordeal he endured right after the assassination:
"Two policemen interrogated me for hours," he said. "It was like a military interrogation. They asked me questions for hours, and when they got tired, a second and a third set of policemen came in and asked me the same questions over and over. Before they let me go in, Captain Fritz came into the room with a typed confession he asked me to sign that had me admit I was part of the JFK assassination." Frazier explained that after the Dallas police let him go home, they arrested him again and brought him back to the headquarters where they took mug shots, fingerprinted him, and gave him a lie detector test. "I was frightened and I was scared," Frazier said.
