JFK Assassination Forum

You are an insult -- to rationality.

You're right about Jones, but I would still like to know -- are you pro-Putin?

http://www.patspeer.com/chapter4b%3A%22theso-calledevidence%22

6. What did Dougherty hear if it wasn't a shot?
ANSWER: Well, one possibility is that he heard a sound related to Baker and Truly's running around on the roof, and subsequent descent using the east elevator.
Was it the slamming of the door to the roof?

The exact nature of this door remains a bit of a mystery. But it appears it was some sort of trap door or hatch.

Mr. BELIN - Officer Baker, I am going to hand you what the court reporter, what the Commission reporter, has marked as Exhibit 507 which purports to be a diagram of the seventh floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building and on that diagram you will see at the top the marks of two elevators and then, what looks to be the south, a stairway marked "Ladder to the roof."
Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN - What is the fact as to whether or not this stairway marked "Ladder to the roof" is the stairway that you took to go to the roof?
Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir; it would be.
Mr. BELIN - All right.
Here is the top half of Exhibit 507.
 And here is a drawing prepared by Roy Rose in March 1964, that was the source for this exhibit. (Thanks to Gary Murr and Bart Kamp for bringing this to my attention.)
 
Note that the stairway to the roof was indeed blocked off, and that the only way up to the roof was a ladder with 21 risers. Such a ladder does not stop at a door, but at a hatch.
Something like this...
 
There is a photo of the roof on the Baylor University website, from its Jack White collection, that supports my "hatch" theory, moreover. (Mucho thanks to Robin Unger for bringing this to my attention.)
Here it is.
 
The County Records Building, sitting on the southeast corner of Houston and Elm, is in the background, on the right side of the photo.
The white building on the left side of the photo is a small building which in 1963 sat atop the elevator shaft. The small shack in front of it then would have to have covered the outlet to the roof from the "Ladder to Roof" on the seventh floor diagram.
There wasn't enough room to stand up in this shack. It appears from this, then, that the outlet onto the roof was in the form of a hatch...
that would have made a loud noise should it have been slammed shut.
It should be noted here, while we're at it, that at least one other Dealey Plaza witness heard a loud sound around the time Baker and Truly descended from the roof. This was J.C. Price, an employee of the General Services Administration. Price watched the motorcade from the roof of the U.S. Post Office Terminal Annex Building. This was on the south side of the Plaza, and Price's recollections reflect that he was viewing the motorcade from some distance. On the day of the shooting, he presented the Dallas County Sheriff's Department with a signed statement. He asserted: "I was on the roof of the Terminal Annex Bldg on the NE corner when the presidential motorcade came down Main to Houston, North on Houston and then West on Elm. The cars had proceeded west on Elm and was just a short distance from the Triple underpass, when I saw Gov. Connally slump over. I did not see the president as his car had gotten out of my view under the underpass.
There was a volley of shots, and then much later, maybe as much as five minutes later, another one."
Now ain't that something. The only witness who'd watched the motorcade from the roof of a building to make a statement was also the only witness to claim he'd heard a loud sound around the time Baker and Truly came down from the roof of the depository building. The Terminal Annex Building is directly across the Plaza from the school book depository. It's about the same height... It's near certain a loud sound on the roof of the depository would be heard across the way. And was...
In any event, it seems probable that the sound heard by Dougherty came from the roof of the building as Baker and Truly returned to the seventh floor to take the east elevator down.
The sound Dougherty heard, after all, came from above him, not from the southeast windows of the fifth floor, off to his side. These were open windows but a few feet below an open window through which a high-powered rifle had supposedly fired three shots. Should shots have been fired while he was on the fifth floor, he would have heard these shots from the sniper's nest through these windows. That only makes sense.
So, okay, there's another one. Why wasn't this point ever brought up by Ball? Or Belin? And why wasn't this tested?

The Police Officer on duty on the roof on a building on the other side of Houston St also reported hearing a lone shot about 4 minutes after the other shots.
It would have been the trapdoor/hatch (at the top of the ladder) slamming shut.
Or it might have been a door in that there triangular penthouse over the exit of the stairs. However i think there was no such door, it too was a hatch.
Truly said that Baker & Truly used the stairs.  Baker said they used the ladder. I think Truly meant the ladder.



There is a ramp at that there dock door. Shelly & Lovelady entered there.  They (one ovem) mentioned a ramp.

Nor was Abraham Lincoln.