The Same Earwitnesses the Warren Commission Used to Place Shots from the Book Depository Building Also Prove a Second Sniper Shot JFK!

by Dave O’Brien

Prosecutors and defense attorneys will tell you that earwitnesses of a crime are highly unreliable.

Two people standing beside each other at a crime scene can hear a criminal act play out entirely different.

However, a review of earwitness accounts of the shooting of President Kennedy in Dealey Plaza is fascinating when we look at how the Warren Commission handled these witnesses for what they heard during six seconds that changed American history forever.

It may not surprise you to know that the Warren Commission happily cited earwitness accounts to establish that the shots fired that day came from the Texas School Book Depository Building behind the President’s limousine where Lee Harvey Oswald is said to have fired those shots from the 6th floor southeast corner window.

This is not unexpected since we know that at least two shots came from the so-called ‘Oswald’ window in the Book Depository Building. In this instance, earwitnesses merely confirm a true fact.

At the same time, the Commission dismissed, discredited, altered and even suppressed earwitness evidence that suggested a second or even a third assassin in Dealey Plaza.

As it relates to eyewitness and earwitness accounts of the shooting of President John F. Kennedy, the Commission was able to shape this testimony to fit a pre-conceived conclusion that Oswald was the only assassin that horrific day in Dallas.

Had Oswald lived to stand trial, all eyewitnesses and earwitnesses would have got to tell their story no matter if it incriminated Oswald or cast reasonable doubt on him being solely responsible for the assassination of JFK.

With Oswald denied legal representation before the Warren Commission proceedings, eyewitnesses and earwitnesses were considered credible only if they confirmed that shots came from behind the President’s car.

All other visual or audio witnesses, some 60 in total, were ignored by the Commission, a luxury that a public trial would not have permitted.

“TRAUMA OF THE MOMENT”

For instance, there were approximately 40 witnesses in Dealey Plaza who claimed to see or hear at least one shot come from behind a picket fence atop a grassy knoll, which was to the right and in front of Kennedy at that moment.

This includes some high profile witnesses such as:

• Abraham Zapruder – The man who took the famous Zapruder film, who was standing on the grassy knoll side of Elm Street, told the Commission that he believed the shots he heard came from his side of Elm Street.
• Billy Newman – Newman, his wife and two young children, were standing at the curb on Elm Street on the grassy knoll side, mere feet away from JFK when he was struck by the fatal head shot. When the third shot rang out, Newman and his wife grabbed their kids and hit the ground.

“Then we fell down on the grass as it seemed we were in the direct path of fire,” Newman said in a sworn statement. “I thought the shot had come from the garden directly behind me.”

As shown in the photo here, Newman said he literally felt the bullet whiz by his ear on its way to the President, telling him the shot came from behind him.

Thankfully, Newman appeared on live TV coverage mere hours after the assassination and reported he and his family’s reaction to the fatal head shot.

You would think that the Warren Commission would want to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Newman given their close proximity to President Kennedy as the kill shot narrowly missed Bill Newman and hit JFK at the side of his head, just above the right ear.

You would be wrong.

Neither Bill nor Gayle Newman were ever called before the Warren Commission to tell their frightening story.

Is it just a coincidence that Mr. and Mrs. Newman, whose earwitness account and instinctive physical reaction suggest the fatal shot came from the grassy knoll to the right-front of the limousine, were never called to testify before the Commission?

This is highly unlikely since almost all other eyewitnesses and earwitnesses who reported a shot from the grassy knoll were also not called to testify before the Commission or questioned by the FBI.

The few witnesses who claimed a shot came from the grassy knoll who did get to tell their story to the Warren Commission were off-handidly dismissed as mistaken due to the “trauma of the moment.”

YOU DIDN’T SEE THAT

These discredited witnesses include the following:

• Ed Hoffman – As a deaf mute, Hoffman had a difficult time tracking down a police officer and explaining that he saw a large puff of smoke rise from behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll as the shooting was occurring.

He raced over to the area and says he got there in time to see two men, one of whom tossed what appeared to be a rifle into a car, which raced off hurriedly.

Apparently, the Commission decided that Hoffman was also blind, dismissing his testimony altogether.

• Sam Holland – Hoffman’s testimony is partially corroborated by Sam Holland, who was standing on the triple overpass as the motorcade approached him on Elm Street.

Holland says he also saw a plume of smoke emerge from the same area described by Hoffman. However, Holland was too far away to see anything after the shooting.

Like Hoffman, the Commission simply decided that Holland was mistaken and concluded that there was no sniper positioned on the grassy knoll.

• Officer Bobby Hargis – What happened to Bobby Hargis that day goes beyond being a uniquely positioned witness to the assassination.

Hargis was a Dallas motorcycle cop who rode along the left-rear bumper of the President’s car as the shots erupted. Hargis told the Commission that as he was riding just behind the limousine, he was hit so strong by a spray of the President’s blood and brain tissue, it startled him and told him that the shot originated from the right-front of the car.

Hargis was so sure the sound of the shot came from the knoll, he dismounted his motorcycle and ran up the grassy incline, but saw nothing suspicious.

Despite his credibility as a witness, the Commission rejected his testimony of a possible second shooter in Dealey Plaza. Hargis’s testimony was omitted from the summary edition of the Warren Report that was released to the public and was buried in the 26 supplemental volumes.

DOUBLE TROUBLE

Even if the above witness accounts are accurate, the JFK assassination proves that eyewitness and earwitness testimony if far from factual evidence.

Earwitnesses reported to officials that they heard anywhere from two to 11 shots in Dealey Plaza.

Needless to say, the Warren Commission, committed to the belief that a total of three shots were fired at President Kennedy from above and behind, dismissed all earwitnesses except those who affirmed its three-shot scenario.

In addition to disregarding any and all witnesses who believed a shot came from the grassy knoll, as detailed above, the Commission used the “three shots” earwitnesses to help them conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all three shots that day.

Subsequently, the government panel was also able to declare that Oswald acted as a lone assassin.

As illustrated on the McAdams website, their own study says nearly 60% of earwitnesses stated that the shots they heard came from the Book Depository Building where the Commission positioned Oswald as the sniper.

For sure, at least two shots came from the 6th floor, southeast corner window, but as I was able to establish in Through The ‘Oswald’ Window, Oswald could not have been the assassin at that location.

The two locations of shots fired in Dealey Plaza, according to earwitnesses, wasn’t the only problem posed to the Commission.

Another issue arose that was so threatening to the ‘lone gunman’ claim by the Commission, it chose to ignore this evidence altogether.

Even earwitnesses who helped place the shots as coming from the Book Depository Building were part of this major dilemma for the Commission.

IT’S ALL IN THE TIMING

When earwitnesses were asked to verbalize the shots they heard, the answers they got were shocking to the Commission, so it stopped asking.

Here’s why:

BANG- – – – -BANG/BANG

With each dash above denoting a full second of elapsed time, several earwitnesses reported a gap between the first two shots, but notice that the second and third shots are not even one second apart.

What does this suggest?

If correct, this is irrefutable proof that at least two assassins shot at JFK on November 22, 1963. This is not speculation. The timing of the shots demands that a second gunman fired one of the shots.

How do we know this?

Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, per FBI ballistic tests, could not be fired twice in under 2.3 seconds. This minimum firing time is way longer than the second and third shots heard that day.

As you can imagine, the Commission never raised the timing issue in its report because it doesn’t support its one gunman position.

Fortunately, reporters and researchers didn’t allow a pre-conceived agenda to dictate their pursuit of the truth.

For instance, legendary researcher Mark Lane interviewed witness Lee Bowers, who was positioned in a watchtower looking toward the picket fence running along the controversial grassy knoll.

Not only did Bowers see a possible assassin at the picket fence, he was an earwitnesses dismissed by the Commission. When asked by Mark Lane to describe the shots he heard, he tapped his fingers on the table to denote Bang/Bang.

Other earwitnesses, when asked to verbalize the timing of the shots they heard, clapped their hands together in rapid fashion to demonstrate how close together two of the shots were fired.

A great example of credible earwitnesses who reported two shots very close together was Sam Kinney, the Secret Service agent who was driving the follow-up car behind the JFK limousine.

Kinney is one of the agents featured in Vince Palamara’s book Who’s Who in the Secret Service.

Not only did Kinney report hearing a shot come from the grassy knoll to the right of JFK’s vehicle, Kinney was certain there was a pause of a few seconds after the first shot, followed by two shots coming extremely close together.

Despite knowing that this account of the shots in Dealey Plaza is at odds with his government’s official conclusion that all the shots came from one gunman from above and behind JFK, Kinney maintained his observations of the shots all his life.

ACOUSTICAL PROOF

There may be acoustical evidence to prove these earwitnesses were correct when reporting two shots sounded very close together.

A tape recording of the sounds in Dealey Plaza was found in the Dallas police evidence room. It indicates four gunshots with two shots too close together to come from the same rifle.

In 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations heard new scientific acoustical evidence of a police dictabelt recording of the sounds in Dealey Plaza.

It showed that two of the shots fired occurred just .44 seconds apart, making it impossible for one assassin to fire both shots using that particular weapon.

Although the test has come under attack by ‘lone assassin’ advocates, as the science of acoustics has evolved over the years, the sound test pertaining to Dealey Plaza has been confirmed as accurate to a 95% certainty.

Yet, this evidence raises even more controversy as follows:

1. Four Shots – The tape recording reveals four distinct rifle shots, not three as concluded in the Warren Report.

2. Elevated Rearward Assassin – The acoustical evidence was able to trace three shots as coming from above and behind JFK.

3. Grassy Knoll Shooter – A fourth shot was identified as originating from atop the west end of the grassy knoll, concealed by a picket fence.

There were several earwitnesses who reported hearing four shots, but very few were able to attribute two separate locations for what they heard.

With two shots being so close together, is it possible the earwitnesses who thought they heard three shots actually heard four shots?

Regardless, two shots less than ½ second apart turns even Warren Commission friendly earwitnesses into evidentiary adversaries.

The rapid fire shots in Dealey Plaza, no matter where they occurred in the sequence, destroys the Commission’s finding that one assassin killed Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally.

Who would have guessed that earwitnesses, backed by science, would correct history all these years later?