Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

So, why in 1967, did they rely on thrice-removed hearsay evidence to determine what Lovelady said about being Doorman when Lovelady was alive and well and could have been asked directly? 

That doesn't make sense. It would have been one thing if the man were dead, but he was hale and hearty. 

Then, when the issue arose again 9 years later during the HSCA hearings, they obtained a short written statement from Lovelady. But, considering how important it was, why didn't they bring him in for questioning? Why didn't they subpoena him? They subpoenaed a lot of other people, so why not Lovelady?

And look at his statement:

  
The man in the doorway wasn't wearing a plaid shirt. All it shows is splotchyness - vague spolotchyness. It definitely wasn't plaid. Did Billy Lovelady think it was plaid? Of course not. He was just repeating what he was being told; that's all.  But, why didn't they bring him in? Weren't there pertinent questions to ask him? 

The reason they didn't bring him in is because they knew, full-well, that Billy Lovelady would not be a good witness. He would not be a convincing witness. In this world, there are good liars and bad liars, and Billy was a bad liar. They must have known that in saying it, he would not have sounded truthful. 

It's easy to lie on paper. All you have to do is write something down. There is no one to cross-examine you. There is no one to appraise the veracity of what you're claiming. But, it's not so easy to lie in person and under oath. 

The fact is: they didn't trust Lovelady to voice it, to say it out loud. They just didn't think he could pull it off. And they certainly didn't think he could hold up. 

Another likely thing is that he pleaded with them NOT to drag him in. He hired a lawyer. He hired one of the HSCA lawyers to be his own lawyer. Doesn't that seem like a conflict of interest? I think they realized that he would NOT be a credible witness.

In fact, I think he was perceived to be such a non-credible witness that some folks decided that they couldn't take a chance with him. What if some reporters or researchers or buffs tracked him down in Colorado and put him on the spot? What if he stammered and stuttered and acted guilty of lying? So, I think that before the HSCA Final Report was released, they made sure Billy Lovelady was silenced forever by "heart attacking" him out. I think the odds of that are great. He was 41 years old, so what are the odds that he would have a fatal heart attack? 

And after he died, do you know who his lawyer blamed his death on? Conspiracy theorists. I kid you not. 

In 1963, Billy Lovelady was a lowly warehouse worker at the TSBD. When he was arrested in January 1963 in Dallas for skipping out on his criminal fine in Maryland, he didn't have the $75, and the only reason he wasn't extradited back to Maryland is because his boss paid the fine for him. Yet, after the assassination, Billy went on to own his own trucking company in Denver. And at the time of her death, Patricia Lovelady had vast real estate holdings throughout Colorado.  That's some rags to riches story, isn't it? 

It's true that Billy Lovelady went along with the ruse that he was Doorman, but he didn't like talking about it. 

It reminds of the old joke that the thing people fear most in life is public speaking. Not death, but public speaking. Therefore, for most people, if they have to go to a funeral, they'd rather be the guy in the casket than the one giving the eulogy. That was Billy Lovelady's preference, and it was honored.