by Barry Ernest
Shelley and Lovelady, however, have testified that they were watching the parade from the top step of the building entrance when Gloria Calvery, who works in the Depository Building, ran up and said that the President had been shot. Lovelady and Shelley moved out into the street. About this time Shelley saw Truly and Patrolman Baker go into the building. Shelley and Lovelady, at a fast walk or trot, turned west into the railroad yards and then to the west side of the Depository Building. They reentered the building by the rear door several minutes after Baker and Truly rushed through the front entrance. On entering, Lovelady saw a girl on the first floor who he believes was Victoria Adams. If Miss Adams accurately recalled meeting Shelley and Lovelady when she reached the bottom of the stairs, then her estimate of the time when she descended from the fourth floor is incorrect, and she actually came down the stairs several minutes after Oswald and after Truly and Baker as well.2
It seemed cut and dried. Miss Adams may have come down the stairs, just as she said. But the question was, when? If it was right after the shots, as she claimed, she should have heard or seen Oswald. Yet she didn’t.
The most convincing detail proving that her timing was wrong was her statement that she saw Shelley and Lovelady on the first floor. Both men, according to the Warren Report, had remained outside the building after the shooting for several minutes before entering. Therefore, if Miss Adams saw them on the first floor when she arrived there, she must have come down the stairs later than she thought. No wonder she saw and heard no one on the staircase. Oswald had already descended it.
Something was gnawing at me, though. I was uncomfortable with all the ifs—if her estimate of time was correct; if she descended from the fourth to the first floor as fast as she claimed; if Miss Adams accurately recalled . . .
What if she was right? And how convincing was Billy Lovelady’s statement that he saw a girl he only believed was Miss Adams?
I decided to examine her official testimony.
CHAPTER 2
March 1964
By now, four months after the assassination, Victoria Adams was getting nervous.
From day one since that horrific event, authorities had been nosing around her office. The FBI, Secret Service, Dallas Police, Sheriff’s Department—they were all there. It seemed understandable, of course. After all, she had been a witness to the assassination of a United States president. How often does that happen?
But what about Sandra Styles and Elsie Dorman and Dorothy Ann Garner? They had all been there too, right beside her at the window, watching the same thing she had watched. Why weren’t they being questioned as much or as often? Why were they focusing on her?
And it didn’t stop at her workplace. They even came to her apartment, the same men from the same offices. Couldn’t they just share their notes?
She had moved to another part of town and left no forwarding address, not even yet alerting her boss or the local post office as to her current whereabouts. Plus the new place was leased in her roommate’s name. And still they had found her, coming up late at night, knocking loudly, dark shadowy figures on the doorstep scaring the bejeezus out of her.
Each time they appeared, they asked her about the same thing: her trip down the stairs and when exactly she had made it. It was almost as if she were a suspect.
When she left her office for lunch or at the end of the workday, she saw some of those same men watching her as she walked from the building. One time she even caught one of them—an FBI agent who had been in her office that morning—following her through town. The afternoon of the assassination, she had written and sent a lengthy letter to John O’Connor, editor of a newspaper in San Francisco where she had worked while in high school. In that letter she had described in detail what she had seen and done that day.
He never received it.
And there always seemed to be funny noises on her phone.
She was young, alone, and in a big city. The memories of her parents abandoning her when she was just a child still haunted her. There was no one she could turn to for help or guidance.
She had told them all, over and over again, that she heard three shots, no more, no less. They were not concerned with the number.
She had told them she saw the president’s head explode after that final shot. They did not seem to care about that.
But when she told them that within moments after the final shot, she and Sandra had left the office to go outside and had heard absolutely no one on the stairs, then they were all ears. This, for some reason, seemed to bother them.
Sandra, Elsie, and Dorothy—they too were becoming concerned, but for a different reason. The trio wondered why all the attention seemed to be focused on Miss Adams, when they had seen the same thing from the window. Yes, they had been interviewed as well, but certainly nowhere near as much as Miss Adams. All the officers and agents went directly to her. She had become, well, the target.
She would be singled out again one day when a registered letter from Washington arrived. Now Miss Adams was being summoned to appear in front of a staff member of the Warren Commission who would soon arrive in Dallas. Sandra, Elsie, and Dorothy were left behind once more.
At 2:15 P.M. on April 7, 1964, Miss Adams arrived at the U.S. attorney’s office in the Post Office Building at Bryan and Ervay streets. There, she was met by David Belin, an assistant counsel for the Commission. He did not rise from his chair when she entered his office, merely motioning for her to sit down. He chatted with her briefly. The emphasis was on how the proceeding would take place: what he expected from her; how she was to answer his queries; and how she was not, under any circumstances, to veer from his line of questioning by offering extraneous and unsought details.
Then he signaled for a stenographer to enter and begin transcribing the session.
CHAPTER 3
February 1967
Victoria Adams’ testimony was taken on April 7, 1964, and the first thing that surprised me about her was the fact that she had wanted to become a nun.
The second thing was her age. At the time of her questioning by the Commission, she was twenty-three years old. For some reason, I had envisioned her as being much older. She was, in fact, only a few years beyond me.
Born in San Francisco, Miss Adams graduated from high school there before moving to Ohio, where she entered the Ursuline Order in St. Mary’s. She taught at Catholic schools in Atlanta and Dallas, then suddenly switched gears to become an office-survey representative for the Scott Foresman Company in the soon-to-be-famous Texas School Book Depository.
What must she have felt in her dogmatic youth as she watched her president get murdered just outside her office window? What must she have felt to now end up sitting in front of a high-powered Washington attorney like David Belin, having to undergo scrutiny of her actions during one of the most significant historical events of all time? Did she relish it? Was she nervous or scared? Or did she look at it as some kind of an opportunity?
Those questions went unasked. Belin was not there for that kind of personal detail. Instead he focused his attention on the fourth-floor window behind which Miss Adams had stood.
Belin: Were you standing with anyone?
Miss Adams: Yes, sir.
Belin: With whom?
Miss Adams: I was standing with Sandra Styles, Elsie Dorman, and Dorothy Ann Garner.
Belin: Will you state what you saw, what you did, and what you heard?
Miss Adams: I watched the motorcade come down Main, as it turned from Main onto Houston, and watched it proceed around the corner on Elm, and apparently somebody in the crowd called to the late President, because he and his wife both turned abruptly and faced the building, so we had a very good view of both of them.
Belin: Where was their car as you got this good view, had it come directly opposite your window? Had it come to that point on Elm, or not, if you can remember?
Miss Adams: I believe it was prior, just a second or so prior to that.
Belin: All right.<
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Miss Adams: And from our vantage point we were able to see what the President’s wife was wearing, the roses in the car, and things that would attract women’s attention. Then we heard—then we were obstructed from the view.
Belin: By what?
Miss Adams: A tree. And we heard a shot, and it was a pause, and then a second shot, and then a third shot.
It sounded like a firecracker or a cannon at a football game, it seemed as if it came from the right below rather than from the left above. Possibly because of the report.
And after the third shot, following that, the third shot, I went to the back of the building down the back stairs, and encountered Bill Shelley and Bill Lovelady on the first floor on the way out to the Houston Street dock.1
Her reference to Shelley and Lovelady seemed odd. In a recitation of her general actions, the sudden mention of those two men seemed out of place. Maybe it was just me.
Belin next asked about her trip down the stairs.
Belin: Was anyone going along with you?
Miss Adams: Yes, sir; Sandra Styles. . . .
Belin: Are there any other stairs that lead down from the fourth floor other than those back stairs in the rear of the stockroom?
Miss Adams: No, sir.
Belin: Those stairs would be in the northwest corner of the building, is that correct?
Miss Adams: That’s correct.
Belin: You took those stairs. Were you walking or running as you went down the stairs?
Miss Adams: I was running. We were running.
Belin: What kind of shoes did you have on?
Miss Adams: Three-inch heels.
Belin: You had heels. Now, as you were running down the stairs, did you encounter anyone?
Miss Adams: Not during the actual running down the stairs; no, sir.
Belin: After you left the Scott Foresman office and went into the stockroom, did you see anyone until you got to the stairs on the fourth floor other than the person you were with?
Miss Adams: Outside of our office employees; no.
Belin: Would these office employees that you might have seen, all be women?
Miss Adams: Yes, sir.
Belin: Then you got to the stairs and you started going down the stairs. You went from the fourth floor to the third floor?
Miss Adams: That’s correct.
Belin: Anyone on the stairs then?
Miss Adams: No, sir. . . .
Belin: As you got off the stairs on the third floor, did you see anyone on the third floor?
Miss Adams: No, sir.
Belin: Then you immediately went to the stairs going down from the third to the second?
Miss Adams: That’s correct.
Belin: As you ran down the stairs, did you see anyone on the stairs?
Miss Adams: No, sir.
Belin: All right. You got down to the second floor. Did you see anyone by the second floor?
Miss Adams: No, sir.
Belin: Did you immediately turn and run and keep on running down the stairs towards the first floor?
Miss Adams: Yes.
Belin: When you got to the bottom of the first floor, did you see anyone there as you entered the first floor from the stairway?
Miss Adams: Yes, sir.
Belin: Who did you see?
Miss Adams: Mr. Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady.
Belin: Where did you see them on the first floor?
Miss Adams: Well, this is the stairs, and this is the Houston Street dock that I went out. They were approximately in this position here, so I don’t know how you would describe that.
Belin: You are looking now at a first floor plan or diagram of the Texas School Book Depository, and you have pointed to a position where you encountered Bill Lovelady and Mr. Bill Shelley?
Miss Adams: That’s correct.
Belin: It would be slightly east of the front of the east elevator, and probably as far south as the length of the elevator, is that correct?
Miss Adams: Yes, sir.
Belin: I have a document here called Commission’s Exhibit No. 496, which includes a diagram of the first floor, and there is a No. 7 and a circle on it, and I have pointed to a place marked No. 7 on the diagram. Is that correct?
Miss Adams: That is approximate.
Belin: Between the time you got off the stairs and the time you got to this point when you say you encountered them, which was somewhat to the south and a little bit east of the front of the east elevator, did you see any other employees there?
Miss Adams: No, sir.
Belin: Any other people prior to the time you saw them?
Miss Adams: No, sir.
Belin: Now when you were running down the stairs on your trip down the stairs, did you hear anyone using the stairs?
Miss Adams: No, sir.
Belin: Did you hear anyone calling for an elevator?
Miss Adams: No, sir.
Belin: Did you see the foreman, Roy Truly? Did you see the superintendent of the warehouse, Roy S. Truly?
Miss Adams: No, sir; I did not.
Belin: What about any motorcycle police officers?
Miss Adams: No, sir.
Belin: Now what did you do after you encountered Mr. Shelley and Mr. Lovelady?
Miss Adams: I said I believed the President was shot.
Belin: Do you remember what they said?
Miss Adams: Nothing.2
After encountering those two, Miss Adams said she and Miss Styles ran out the rear of the building and attempted to go in the direction of the railroad yards, where numerous people were running. They were prevented from doing so by a police officer, who told them to return to the building. The women then walked to the front of the Depository.
Miss Adams: When I got there, I happened to look around and noticed several of the employees, and I noticed Joe Molina for one, was standing in front of the building, and also Avery Davis, who works with me, and I said, “What do you think has happened?”
And she said, “I don’t know.”
And I said, “I want to find out. I think the President is shot.”
There was a motorcycle that was parked on the corner of Houston and Elm directly in front of the east end of the building, and I paused there to listen to the report on the police radio, and they said that shots had been fired which apparently came either from the second floor or the fourth floor window, and so I panicked, as I was at the only open window on the fourth floor.3
Of critical importance, of course, was when Miss Adams had descended the stairs. If it was immediately after the shots, then she might have been in a position to hear an assassin escaping down those same stairs from only two floors above. This naturally seemed to be the focal point in Belin’s next line of questioning.
Belin: Now trying to reconstruct your actions insofar as the time sequence, which we haven’t done, what is your best estimate of the time between the time the shots were fired and the time you got back to the building? How much time elapsed? If you have any estimate. Maybe you don’t have one.
Miss Adams: I would estimate not more than 5 minutes elapsed.
Belin: Is there any particular reason why you make this estimation?
Miss Adams: Yes, sir; going down the stairs toward the back, I was running. I ran to the railroad tracks. I moved quickly to the front of the building, paused briefly to talk to someone, listened only to the report of the windows from which the shot supposedly was fired, and returned to the building.
Belin: How long do you think it was between the time the shots were fired and the time you left the window to start toward the stairway?
Miss Adams: Between 15 and 30 seconds, estimated, approximately.
Belin: How long do you think it was, or do you think it took you to get from the window to the top of the fourth floor stairs?
Miss Adams: I don’t think I can answer that question accurately, because the time approximation, without a stopwatch, would be difficult.
Belin: How long do you think it
took you to get from the window to the bottom of the stairs on the first floor?
Miss Adams: I would say no longer than a minute at the most.
Belin: So you think that from the time you left the window on the fourth floor until the time you got to the stairs at the bottom of the first floor, was approximately 1 minute?
Miss Adams: Yes, approximately.
Belin: As I understand your testimony previously, you saw neither Roy Truly nor any motorcycle police officer at any time?
Miss Adams: That’s correct.
Belin: You heard no one else running down the stairs?
Miss Adams: Correct.
Belin: When you got to the first floor did you immediately proceed to this point where you say you encountered Mr. Shelley and Mr. Lovelady?
Well, you showed me on a diagram of the first floor that there was a place which was south and somewhat east of the front part of the east elevator that you encountered Truly [sic] and Lovelady?
Miss Adams: I saw them there.
Belin: I mean; you saw them?
Miss Adams: Yes.
Belin: Would that have been a matter of seconds after you got to the bottom of the first floor?
Miss Adams: Definitely.
Belin: Less than 30 seconds?
Miss Adams: Yes. . . .
Belin: During the trip down the stairs on the way down did you ever encounter Lee Harvey Oswald?
Miss Adams: No, sir.4
Belin then began to wrap up his inquiry. He asked a final question.
Belin: Is there any other information that you have that could be relevant?
Miss Adams: There was a man that was standing on the corner of Houston and Elm asking questions there. He was dressed in a suit and a hat, and when I encountered Avery Davis going down, we asked who he was, because he was questioning people as if he were a police officer, and we noticed him take a colored boy away on a motorcycle, and this man was asking questions very efficaciously, and we said, “I guess he is maybe a reporter,” and later on on television, there was a man that looked very similar to him, and he was identified as Ruby.