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An Overview

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The Texas School Book Depository, colorized. 

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Citizens gazed toward the 6th floor.

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Policeman gather outside the TSBD.

The Employees of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) provide us the unique testimonies of individuals in the same building as Lee Harvey Oswald when he killed President John F. Kenney on November 22, 1963. Included in this exhibit are employees of the TSBD, the first investigators on the scene, and the officers who found the crucial evidence that charged Oswald with the murder. 

Leslie Dell (L. D.) Montgomery was a Dallas Police detective who was the first Dallas Police Officer stationed on the 6th floor of the TSBD. He and his partner, Marvin Johnson, were tasked with protecting the 6th floor between 12:50pm and 1:30pm on Nov. 22, 1963. During his time in the building, he found a large paper bag (used by Oswald to transport the .44 caliber rifle into the building), an empty Dr. Pepper bottle, and rifle shells. After tagging and bagging the evidence, Montgomery was crucial to the interrogation, charging, and monitoring of Lee Harvey Oswald. He was one of the four men stationed around Owald when the Dallas Police transferred him from City Hall to the county jail. Montgomery followed immediately behind Oswald but was unable to stop Jack Ruby's assassination of Oswald on Nov. 24, 1963.

Robert Lee (R. L.) Studebaker was a detective for the Crime Scene Service of the Dallas Police Department at the time of the assassination of the president. He was tasked, along with Det. L. D. Montgomery, with documenting the crime scene. They documented the discovered rifle, the cardboard boxes that Lee Harvey Oswald used to steady his arm while firing the weapon, and lunch items that were later determined to be irrelevant to the investigation. Studebaker's photographs are the primary evidence from the crime scene. 

William H. Shelley was foreman of the Texas School Book Depository, was in charge of all of the employees and operations in the building. Shelley testifies that he was at work on November 22, 1963, had seen Lee Harvey Oswald at work that morning, and during the shooting had been standing outside with other employees watching the President's motorcade. Shelley's Key person file contains key insights into the social dynamic of the Texas School Book Depository, Lee Harvey Oswald's character, and the events that transpired at the Texas School Book Depository that day. 

Bonnie Ray Williams was a black employee of the TSBD, and a co-worker of Lee Harvey Oswald's. On Nov. 22, 1963, Williams was able to place Oswald in the building and on the 6th floor of the TSBD around the time of President Kennedy's assassination. He witnessed the assassination from the 5th floor - just one floor below the shooter.

Jack Dougherty was an employee of the Texas School Book Depository since 1952. Dougherty was one of only six TSBD employees present in the building at the exact moment as the shooting. Jack recalls that Bill Lovelady, William Shelby, Dany Arce, Bonnio Williams, Charles Givens, and Lee Harvey Oswald were all in the building the day of the shooting. Jack and other employees were given the task of relaying the floors on the sixth floor of the TSBD to the police. All elite investigative agencies (the Dallas Police, the FBI, and the Warren Commission) interviewed Jack because he was supposedly on sixth floor, the exact same floor as Oswald, at the time of the murder. However, to prove even more of a suspicious situation, every testimony from Jack Dougherty is different than the previous one--providing fuel to the conspiracy fires.