Mid-afternoon April 15, 2008: I received a phone call from Mike Williams, whose name I did not recognize. He told me that he was working on drawings of the so-called sniper's nest in the Texas School Book Depository. His objective was to make these drawings precisely accurate. He asked permission to use a graphic he had come across in an article on the book-carton arrangements in the "sniper's nest" that I published in 2003, namely Figure 26 in The "Sniper's Nest": Incarnations and Implications. I happily granted that permission with the request that he acknowledge the photograph's originator, Tom Alyea, not me.

He told me that his expertise is in ballistics and that he was contributing to the discussions on the JFK Lancer forum. It was a pleasant conversation. Shortly after, I received this email:

I responded:

I then sent this:

To which he responded:

The work referred to above is described at The Tell-Tale Dash: James Files and the Dented Cartridge Case. Further to my request, I added some detail:

In the following message he makes the bold statement, "I...will get an answer for you. A conclusive and undisputable answer."

I responded:

Just two days later, he left a telephone message stating that he would soon have definitive information to the effect that the cartridge cases found by John Rademacher on the grassy knoll were manufactured in the 1970s or later.

I emailed as follows:

To which he replied:

And my response:

He then stated that the proof would be solid, provided by a historian at Remington Arms on Remington letterhead:

A week later, I had heard nothing further. I emailed him again:

He responded that as soon as he received the documents he would send me copies:

A little over a week later, he emailed again:

I emailed my address just a few minutes later. Six days later I sent him this message:

He did not respond to that message. A week later, I emailed him again:

I waited another 11 days:

He said that he'd email it that day then send a hard copy:

Four days later, still nothing:

I received no response to that message. Six days later I tried a more assertive approach:

He said that he'd scan and email it the next day:

And, again, I received nothing from him. A few days later, by what seemed an odd coincidence, he opened a thread at the JFK Lancer forum titled "IOU" with the message, "Please post here if there is anything I was supposed to look into for you and forgot." I welcomed the opportunity to take him to task in public, in response to which he promised again to email it that day (June 11):

Thirteen days later:

Two months later (August 30): I've heard nothing further from him.