While these are two both widely known stories in the realm of the Kennedy Assassination and what happened in the immediate aftermath, I had only considered one of them (the first one of the two mentioned below) really in regards to understanding the time figures in which things happened. But now, in putting them both together I realize they create a very interesting picture in regards to that never ending question: did Lee Harvey Oswald kill the President? These two elements are listed below:
1) Dallas Officer Marion Baker ran into the Texas School Book Depository and encountered Oswald in the second floor lunchroom, officially, 90 seconds after the shooting. Thus, Oswald managed to shoot the President, run across the 6th floor and down four sets of stairs in less than 90 seconds.
2) Two Depository employees, Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles, were on the fourth floor of the building when the shooting happened and left the floor right after the shooting to go downstairs and see what was going on. They ran down the same staircase that Oswald would have ran down to the first floor and never saw anyone on that staircase.
Now I always treated the accounts of these two women as just strong proof that Oswald didn't kill the President because it's likely these two women would have seen him or at least heard him. Anyone who has been on a staircase with someone else running down them knows you can hear them from a good distance away, sometimes more than a floor's distance away. But we do have moderate time figured for when these two women were on this staircase. According to Adams (Styles was never called to testify because, as Adams believed, the Warren Commission didn't want verification for her story) both she and Adams reached the staircase about 20 seconds after the assassination and made it to the first floor about 55 to 60 seconds after the assassination (she put it around a minute).
With this time figure there is no doubt that these two women reached the stairs before Oswald, even if their leaving was a little later, like say 30 seconds after the shooting. Oswald had to wipe prints from his rifle, stash the rifle and dodge book boxes that Adams and Styles did not have to. Furthermore, these two women were two floors down from Oswald. There is no way he could have reached that staircase and stormed down past the fourth floor without being seen or heard by these women. So he had to have been behind them, and likely a good distance behind them. And if these two women, at the earliest, reached the first floor around a minute after the shooting it means they passed the second floor lunchroom around 45 to 50 seconds after the shooting (the stairs down to the first floor were very close to the entrance to the lunchroom). And with how loud Oswald would have been storming down those steps (admittedly, somewhat drowned out by the women who said they were running downstairs, wearing clicking heeled shoes), he would have had to be at least 10 seconds behind these women. And that's probably a kind estimate, but that is honestly the closest he could have been to them while still being able to go unheard. So this puts Oswald on the second floor, unseen by anyone, at best maybe 60 seconds after the assassination.
This is critical because the official story suggests that Officer Baker encountered Oswald 90 seconds after the assassination, so Oswald still had about 20 seconds to get himself situated in the lunchroom right? Well, it's not quite that simple. The Warren Commission reached their bogus 90-second figure after conducting time tests with Officer Baker reconstructing his movements from the assassination until he reached the second floor... going at a walking pace! They conducted another test with Baker going at a fast walking pace and found that he reached the lunchroom in 75 seconds. But who can honestly believe that an Officer pursuing the potential assassin of the President of the United States would go at a fast walking pace? Even if it were a kid who stole a $0.75 candy bar and took off running an officer would have chased that kid down and done what he was supposed to do. But the Commission not only embraced the potential that Baker walked, but they considered the most accurate time figure to be the one used for when he moved at a regular walking pace. This 90-second figure is one of the most absurd lies posed by the official story.
There is film footage capturing Baker outside of the Book Depository sprinting into the building only some ten seconds after the shooting. Everyone who saw Baker inside said he was moving at a running/sprinting pace. He checked to see if he could use the elevator to go up, which wasn't operating. The building's superintendent, Roy Truly, directed Baker to the next best option, to go up the stairs. They both went up the stairs, with Truly ahead of Baker, mind you. Now who can honestly say this whole event, going at a legitimate running pace, took more than maybe thirty seconds? It was a quick run from the first floor up to the second floor, passing right by the lunchroom.
But let's play the devil's advocate and say, "Well fine, let's say if a fast walking pace came out with a 75 second figure, then let's have a running figure come out at 60 seconds." And 60 seconds might even be longer than it took for Baker to reach the second floor. And Truly was a few seconds ahead of him because he was leading Baker around since he was more familiar with the structure of the building. When Baker encountered Oswald he had to call Truly back so he could identify Oswald and determine if he was someone supposed to be there. Truly identified Oswald as an employee there and they left him be, journeying up to higher floors (because Baker's initial feeling was that the shot came from high up in the Depository building). So Truly likely passed the lunchroom around 55 seconds after the shooting.
Based on these figures it's likely that Truly and Baker started running upstairs right around the time that Adams and Styles reached the first floor. Adams claimed she didn't see anyone until they came down to the first floor. And again, based on her account this could be put around 50 to 60 seconds after the shooting and we consider Truly and Baker going up to the second floor about 55 seconds after the shooting. Either way, we are presented circumstances wherein Truly and Baker would have reached the second floor at the exact moment that Oswald did, if not a second or two before he did. Had this occurred they most certainly would have seen him before reaching the lunchroom, or would have seen the door to the lunchroom closing. Baker said he only caught sight of Oswald by looking through the window to the door leading into the lunchroom.
When Baker walked into the room and pulled his revolver on Oswald he was walking away from the door with a partially drank Coke in his hand. Oswald turned and faced Baker completely calm. He wasn't shaking or breathing heavily, as would have been characteristic of someone who just killed a President and then sprinted down several floors, having arrived on the second floor only seconds before. Only a cold-hearted, trained killer could even come close to collecting himself in this manner, and even the Warren Commission wanted to push the idea that Oswald was a wandering loser and idealist who killed the President for attention (a contention that is laughable at best). The fact is Oswald showed no signs of exhaustion or fatigue that anybody would have. He appeared completely as though he had been there a while or had reached there by walking. The partially drank Coke he had is important at well as it suggests further proof of his having been there awhile since it had been drank. Then again, maybe he bought it before and planted it there so as to look like he'd been there a while. That is a possibility.
But the fact of the matter is that will a legitimate examination of the time figures involving Adams and Styles and then Truly and Baker, there is practically no time for Oswald to have slipped out onto the second floor and taken refuge in the lunchroom. It suggests that Oswald was never up there and that the real assassin did not leave the sixth floor right away. An eyewitness, Lillian Mooneyham claimed she saw someone up in the sniper's nest on the sixth floor four or five minutes after the shooting. Who was this man? The police hadn't begun their search up there yet? No employees are known to have been up there? Three employees were down on the fifth floor directly below the sniper's nest, and only one of them suggested the shots may have come from directly above. None of them heard the footsteps of the assassin fleeing right after and, like Adams and Styles, they left the fifth floor shortly after the assassination took place. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing to suggest that the President's killer, if he was acting alone on the sixth floor of the Book Depository, left his location immediately. And thus there is little to no evidence to suggest Oswald was ever there as well. The only evidence suggesting he was there was the shaky and unreliable account of eyewitness Howard Brennan, the three shells recovered from the sniper's next, which couldn't be proven to have been fired from the rifle which was found up there as well, which has never been proven as belonging to Oswald! Thus, there is no proof whatsoever that he was up there!
