The Girl on the Stairs

Book excerpt: On November 22, 1963, a young Victoria Elizabeth Adams stood behind a fourth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. She watched as John Kennedy was murdered in the streets below. Then, with a co-worker in tow, she ran down the back stairs of the building in order to get outside and determine what had happened. At that precise moment, her life changed forever. Her actions posed serious problems for the Warren Commission, already grappling with its agenda of naming Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin. If Miss Adams was telling the truth, then she had descended those stairs at the same time Oswald would have been on them as he made his escape from the sixth floor sniper's nest. Yet Miss Adams saw no one. And even though the stairs were old, wooden, and creaky under any weight, she heard no one either. When Miss Adams was called to testify before a Commission attorney, she was quickly discredited, humiliated, and eventually branded a liar. Behind closed doors she pleaded with the government to conduct time tests of her actions if she was felt to have been inaccurate. She begged the government to question her co-workers, particularly the woman who had accompanied her down the stairs, if she was not believed. Instead, she was ignored. And so, knowing the truth of what she had done and now fearing for her life because of it, she went into hiding and became willing to die with that secret knowledge. Intrigued by what little was available about Miss Adams, the author went in search of her. It took him 35 years to eventually find this elusive witness. As his journey progressed, many questions arose about the assassination while others were put to rest. And in the end, the truth of what Miss Adams did was finally discovered. This is an important story, unique in this mess that continues to surround Kennedy's death. It is a story that has been buried for decades. It is an account the government did not want you to hear, and actually fabricated evidence in order to keep you from hearing it. Now, the truth can be told.