His story sounds right; the fact he called the elevator dispatcher is in his favor.

Twisting aside, the stubby man avoided the final members of the crowd and paused beside a table where the elevator dispatcher was standing.

Don't forget," reminded Nethro, recalling newspaper accounts, "that the cop and the elevator dispatcher were both in the lobby.

Spoke to the elevator dispatcher - fellow named Jennings - and to Terry O'Dool, the officer on this beat.

Besides Otis, several Japanese companies, including Hitachi, Toshiba and Mitsubishi, make fuzzy elevator dispatchers.

Large buildings with multiple elevators of this type also had an elevator dispatcher stationed in the lobby to direct passengers and to signal the operator to leave with the use of a mechanical "cricket" noisemaker.

By the beginning of the next decade, mechanical elevator dispatchers had been programmed to send cars all the way up and all the way down, stopping for passengers along the way - great if you were the one on or off first, but frustrating if you were along for the long ride.