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

OIC Chairman Larry Rivera has planted the idea in my head that maybe, just maybe, Billy Lovelady didn't die in 1979, and it's been growing on me.

After all, Lovelady reportedly died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 41, but they didn't do an autopsy. 

How do you not do an autopsy on a guy who suddenly drops dead at the age of 41? 

And then his wife Patricia appeared before reporters (which is something her husband Billy studiously avoided) and said that she was beaten down over that shirt for 16 years, but she was not going to be beaten down any more. 

Now you see that strikes me as an odd reaction from a grieving widow. 

As far as I know, Billy Lovelady was interviewed by Joseph Ball for the Warren Commission in April 1964, and then a month later, he underwent an interview with Jones Harris outside the TSBD in May 1964. And that was it. His talking days were over. He never made any statements to reporters again. But, in 1976, he wrote that very terse statement for Ken Brooten and Robert Groden saying that he was the man in the plaided shirt. But, that was in lieu of him going to Washington to testify or being deposed in Denver by Brooten. Lovelady must have pleaded with them that he did NOT want to answer questions about it; he did not like talking about it. He hated talking about it. He must have told him that it was a fear worse than death.

So, why did Brooten let Lovelady off so easy? Brooten went to Mexico City and forced witnesses to sit through grueling 6-hour depositions. Why not Lovelady? Was it compassion? 

I doubt it was compassion. Brooten must have seen that Lovelady was a wreck. He'd been living  for 13 years with this hanging over him, and apparently, HE WASN'T GOOD AT SELLING THE STORY. CBS interviewed him in 1967 for their 4-hour JFK Special, and they wound up trashing the whole segment- not just his interview but the whole subject; the images; everything. They too must have realized that: you don't want to put Lovelady in front of a camera. 

Think about it: Lovelady should have been a celebrity. He worked with Lee Harvey Oswald- the most notorious assassin in the history of assassins. And not only did he work with him, but he looked like him. A lot like him. He looked so much like him that his own kids thought that Oswald was him. They saw Oswald on tv and started crying for their daddy whom they thought was being led away in handcuffs. And, he looked so much like Oswald that Lovelady's own wife saw Oswald from behind at the Depository and called to him as her husband. 

Now, don't you think the American public would have been interested in meeting this guy, hearing his story, finding out what he had to say about Oswald, and seeing what he looked like, and basking on his uncanny resemblance to Oswald? 

They had talk shows then. Carson was at it, and there were other programs. Look what happened after the OJ murders. Kato Kaelin was so broke that he was bumming a place to sleep off OJ, sleeping on his couch. But, after the murders, he got an agent and started doing interviews- for cash. I remember reading an article a few years later that Kato Kaelin had come to Texas to buy a Dallas car dealership. 

People wanted to know what OJ was like, and it had economic value. Well, how much more would the public have been interested in hearing from and seeing a guy who knew Lee Harvey Oswald, worked with Lee Harvey Oswald, and looked uncannily like Lee Harvey Oswald? Instead, Lovelady went into hiding. After that interview with Jones Harris, he never did another. From that point on, it was always other people speaking for him. Lovelady said this, and Lovelady said that- but always according to so and so. He didn't even provide a statement in 1971 when Bob Jackson took his picture in the doorway.  I thought Greta Garbo was quiet until I heard about Billy Lovelady. 

And it spread like a disease. His lawyer Ken Brooten is still alive, and Larry Rivera has tried to contact him several times to answer questions for us, and he just ignores us. 

"Hey Kenny! We want to depose you, buddy. You know the routine. Get with the program. Because otherwise, I just might think that you're fleeing the interview. You're not taking the 5th, are you?"   

It does seem awfully coincidental that Lovelady dropped dead suddenly of a "heart attack" just as the HSCA Final Report was coming out. 

So, just think: they could have funneled Billy Lovelady into some witness protection program: new name, new identity, new location, new Social Security number, etc. It's not far-fetched. I know a guy who went from being Barry Soetoro to Barack Obama.