JACK DOUGHERTY, VICTORIA ADAMS, AND VINCENT BUGLIOSI
David Von Pein
www.JFKAssassinationForum.com/index.php/topic,776.msg14179.html#msg14179
CHRIS MESSNER SAID:
>>> "A prime suspect like Jack Dougherty..." <<<
DVP SAID:
>>> "Why on Earth would anyone call Jack Dougherty a "prime suspect"? What did Dougherty do that was so "suspicious", Chris?" <<<
CHRIS MESSNER SAID:
>>> "David, first: answer why V B [Vincent Bugliosi] dropped the testimony of Victoria Adams, who ran down the staircase some 30 seconds after the last shot and saw no Oswald at all, please! Second: Jack Dougherty was closest to the assassinator(s) during the shooting and he was watchdog to the northwest elevators while police was [sic] coming in and he could have elevated the real assassinator(s) down the building. Why is V B dropping these facts in his book?" <<<
DVP SAID:
Everything is covered very nicely in Mr. Bugliosi's "Reclaiming
History". You just don't like VB's explanations, that's all. Let's
take a look:
"The west elevator was not even on the fifth floor when Baker
and Truly reached that floor because Jack Dougherty, who was working
on the fifth floor at the time of the shooting in Dealey Plaza, took
the west elevator down to the first floor after he heard the “loud
noise” (WR, p.153; 6 H 379–380, WCT Jack Edwin Dougherty).
"One employee, Victoria Adams, who worked on the fourth floor of
the Depository, testified that within seconds of the shots she and a
coworker, Sandra Styles, ran down the same staircase Oswald reportedly
used but saw no one else on the stairs (6 H 388–390, 392, WCT Victoria
Elizabeth Adams; CE 1381, 22 H 632). (Styles didn’t testify before the
Warren Commission but corroborated Adams’s version of events [CE 1381,
22 H 676].)
"Conspiracy theorists see Victoria Adams’s testimony as evidence
that Oswald couldn’t have used the stairs to get to the second floor
(otherwise Adams would have seen or heard him), and therefore couldn’t
have been Kennedy’s assassin. The Commission concluded that Adams was
mistaken in her estimate of the time and must have used the back
staircase a few minutes after Oswald’s descent (as well as Truly and
Baker’s ascension), based on the fact that she saw Depository foreman
William Shelley and employee Billy Lovelady as soon as she reached the
first floor.
"Both men told authorities in 1964 that they were outside the
Depository at the time of the shots, ran to the railroad yards
immediately thereafter, and didn’t reenter the building until a few
minutes later (WR, p.154; 6 H 331, WCT William H. Shelley; 6 H 339,
WCT Billy Nolan Lovelady; CE 1381, 22 H 662, 673).
"However, one conspiracy critic, Sylvia Meagher, argued that the
affidavits Shelley and Lovelady gave on the afternoon of November 22
don’t mention the excursion into the railroad yards described in their
later statements, and as such, support Adams’s testimony that she used
the stairwell within a minute of the shooting.
"As for Shelley’s and Lovelady’s later statements, Meagher
simply passes them off to the possibility of “collusion and
misrepresentation.” (Meagher, Accessories after the Fact, pp.72–74)
But Meagher’s assessment is terribly deceptive. For example, she
doesn’t tell her readers that the affidavits the two men gave on the
day of the shooting are just one paragraph in length and consequently
don’t provide any of the details they later testified to (CE 2003, 24
H 214, 226).
"Nor does she tell them that even in these very brief
statements, Shelley says that after he heard the 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,” and he then “went back to the
building” (CE 2003, 24 H 226). That alone would eat up at least a
minute or more, meaning he could not have been on the first floor when
Adams got there if, indeed, Adams had quickly descended the stairs
within seconds after the shots.
"Nor does Meagher mention that Adams testified she left the
building by the rear loading dock (after encountering Shelley and
Lovelady), made her way around to the front of the building, and heard
a report (later proved incorrect) over a nearby police radio that
shots were thought to have been fired from the second or fourth floor
of the Depository (6 H 391).
"The two earliest such reports were made over channel 2, one at
12:39 and the other at 12:40 p.m.--nine to ten minutes after the
shooting (NAS-CBA DPD tapes, C2, 12:39–40 p.m.)--which is not only
consistent with the statements of Shelley and Lovelady, but also
strongly suggestive, all by itself, that Adams didn’t come down the
back stairs immediately after the shooting, as she claimed.
"Finally, Meagher doesn’t mention the testimony of Eddie Piper,
who told the Commission that he was standing near the back elevators
when Truly and Baker ran over, unsuccessfully tried to call one of the
elevators down, and dashed up the stairs. Piper stated that “nobody”
came down the stairs before Truly and Baker went up, which Adams and
Styles would have done if they had come down the stairs immediately.
"When Piper was specifically asked, “Did you see Vicky Adams
come down the steps...before Truly and the man [Baker] went up the
steps?” he responded, “No, sir, no, sir. She didn’t do it” (7 H 389)."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 468-469 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
=======================================
"Jack Dougherty, another Book Depository employee, gave an
affidavit on the afternoon of the assassination that he also saw
Oswald “on the sixth floor shortly before noon” (CE 2003, 24 H 206).
However, Dougherty, being somewhat mentally retarded, doesn’t have too
much credibility. In fact, the very next day he told the FBI he did
“not recall seeing [Oswald] at work after 11:00 a.m.” (CD 5, p.366)."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 461 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
=======================================
MORE REGARDING JACK DOUGHERTY:
"Depository superintendent Roy S. Truly told the Secret Service
that "although Dougherty is a very good employee and a hard worker, he
is mentally retarded and has difficulty in remembering facts, such as
dates, times, places, and has been especially confused since the
assassination." .... Obviously, Dougherty is not the kind of witness
one can rely on to substantiate whether Oswald carried a package into
the [Depository] building that morning [11/22/63] or not." -- Vincent
Bugliosi; Page 820 of "Reclaiming History"
=======================================
Now, given the above information concerning Jack E. Dougherty, does he
sound like the type of person that a group of conspirators who were
planning to bump off the President would rely on to be an integral
part of an "assassination plot" on November 22, 1963?
And:
Tell us again, Chris, why a picture of Jack E. Dougherty is a key
element to solving the JFK assassination?
And:
As you can see via the extensive "RH" endnote I provided above, the
idea that Victoria Adams came down those TSBD stairs within 30 seconds
of the assassination is a notion that can be dismissed. Like many,
many other people, Adams simply did not estimate the timing of her
movements correctly. She obviously descended those stairs with Sandra
Styles a little bit LATER than she said she did. Simple as that.