Chapter III: The Shots From the Texas School Book Depository (1)

In this chapter the Commission analyzes the evidence and sets forth its conclusions concerning the source, effect, number and timing of the shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally. In that connection the Commission has evaluated (1) the testimony of eyewitnesses present at the scene of the assassination; (2) the damage to the Presidential limousine; (3) the examination by qualified experts of the rifle and cartridge cases found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and the bullet fragments found in the Presidential limousine and at Parkland Hospital; (4) the wounds suffered by President Kennedy and Governor Connally; (5) wound ballistics tests; (6) the examination by qualified experts of the clothing worn by President Kennedy and Governor Connally; and (7) motion-picture films and still photographs taken at the time of the assassination.

THE WITNESSES

As reflected in the previous chapter, passengers in the first few cars of the motorcade had the impression that the shots came from the rear and from the right, the general direction of the Texas School Book Depository Building, although none of these passengers saw anyone fire the shots. Some spectators at Houston and Elm Streets, however, did see a rifle being fired in the direction of the President’s car from the easternmost window of the sixth floor on the south side of the building. Other witnesses saw a rifle in this window immediately after the assassination. Three employees of the Depository, observing the parade from the fifth floor, heard the shots fired from the floor immediately above them. No credible evidence suggests that the shots were fired from the railroad bridge over the Triple Underpass, the nearby railroad yards or any place other than the Texas School Book Depository Building.

Position of Howard L. Brennan on November 22, 1963. (Photograph taken on March 20, 1964, and marked by Brennan during his testimony to show the window (A) in which he saw a man with a rifle, and the window (B) on the fifth floor in which he saw people watching the motorcade.)]

Near the Depository

Eyewitnesses testified that they saw a man fire a weapon from the sixth-floor window. Howard L. Brennan, a 45-year-old steamfitter, watched the motorcade from a concrete retaining wall at the southwest corner of Elm and Houston, where he had a clear view of the south side of the Depository Building.[C3-1] (See Commission Exhibit No. 477, p. 62.) He was approximately 107 feet from the Depository entrance and 120 feet from the southeast corner window of the sixth floor.[C3-2] Brennan’s presence and vantage point are corroborated by a motion picture of the motorcade taken by amateur photographer Abraham Zapruder, which shows Brennan, wearing gray khaki work clothes and a gray work helmet, seated on the retaining wall.[C3-3] Brennan later identified himself in the Zapruder movie.[C3-4] While waiting about 7 minutes for the President to arrive, he observed the crowd on the street and the people at the windows of the Depository Building.[C3-5] He noticed a man at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor, and observed him leave the window “a couple of times.”[C3-6]

Brennan watched the President’s car as it turned the corner at Houston and Elm and moved down the incline toward the Triple Underpass. Soon after the President’s car passed, he heard an explosion like the backfire of a motorcycle.[C3-7] Brennan recalled:

Well, then something, just right after this explosion, made me
think that it was a firecracker being thrown from the Texas
Book Store. And I glanced up. And this man that I saw previous
was aiming for his last shot.

* * * * *

Well, as it appeared to me he was standing up and resting
against the left window sill, with gun shouldered to his
right shoulder, holding the gun with his left hand and taking
positive aim and fired his last shot. As I calculate a couple
of seconds. He drew the gun back from the window as though he
was drawing it back to his side and maybe paused for another
second as though to assure hisself that he hit his mark, and
then he disappeared.[C3-8]

Brennan stated that he saw 70 to 85 percent of the gun when it was fired and the body of the man from the waist up.[C3-9] The rifle was aimed southwesterly down Elm Street toward the underpass.[C3-10] Brennan saw the man fire one shot and he remembered hearing a total of only two shots. When questioned about the number of shots, Brennan testified:

I don’t know what made me think that there was firecrackers
throwed out of the Book Store unless I did hear the second
shot, because I positively thought the first shot was a
backfire, and subconsciously I must have heard a second shot,
but I do not recall it. I could not swear to it.[C3-11]

Brennan quickly reported his observations to police officers.[C3-12] Brennan’s description of the man he saw is discussed in the next chapter.

Amos Lee Euins, a 15-year-old ninth grade student, stated that he was facing the Depository as the motorcade turned the corner at Elm and Houston. He recalled:

Then I was standing here, and as the motorcade turned the
corner, I was facing, looking dead at the building. And so I
seen this pipe thing sticking out the window. I wasn’t paying
too much attention to it. Then when the first shot was fired, I
started looking around, thinking it was a backfire. Everybody
else started looking around. Then I looked up at the window,
and he shot again.[C3-13]

After witnessing the first shots, Euins hid behind a fountain bench and saw the man shoot again from the window in the southeast corner of the Depository’s sixth floor.[C3-14] According to Euins, the man had one hand on the barrel and the other on the trigger. Euins believed that there were four shots.[C3-15] Immediately after the assassination, he reported his observations to Sgt. D. V. Harkness of the Dallas Police Department and also to James Underwood of station KRLD-TV of Dallas.[C3-16] Sergeant Harkness testified that Euins told him that the shots came from the last window of the floor “under the ledge” on the side of the building they were facing.[C3-17] Based on Euins’ statements, Harkness radioed to headquarters at 12:36 p.m. that “I have a witness that says that it came from the fifth floor of the Texas Book Depository Store.”[C3-18] Euins accurately described the sixth floor as the floor “under the ledge.” Harkness testified that the error in the radio message was due to his own “hasty count of the floors.”[C3-19]

Other witnesses saw a rifle in the window after the shots were fired. Robert H. Jackson, staff photographer, Dallas Times Herald, was in a press car in the Presidential motorcade, eight or nine cars from the front. On Houston Street about halfway between Main and Elm, Jackson heard the first shot.[C3-20] As someone in the car commented that it sounded like a firecracker, Jackson heard two more shots.[C3-21] He testified:

Then we realized or we thought that it was gunfire, and then we
could not at that point see the President’s car. We were still
moving slowly, and after the third shot the second two shots
seemed much closer together than the first shot, than they were
to the first shot. Then after the last shot, I guess all of
us were just looking all around and I just looked straight up
ahead of me which would have been looking at the School Book
Depository and I noticed two Negro men in a window straining to
see directly above them, and my eyes followed right on up to
the window above them and I saw the rifle or what looked like
a rifle approximately half of the weapon, I guess I saw, and
just as I looked at it, it was drawn fairly slowly back into
the building, and I saw no one in the window with it.

I didn’t even see a form in the window.[C3-22]

In the car with Jackson were James Underwood, television station KRLD-TV; Thomas Dillard, chief photographer, Dallas Morning News; Malcolm O. Couch and James Darnell, television newsreel cameramen. Dillard, Underwood, and the driver were in the front seat, Couch and Darnell were sitting on top of the back seat of the convertible with Jackson. Dillard, Couch, and Underwood confirmed that Jackson spontaneously exclaimed that he saw a rifle in the window.[C3-23] According to Dillard, at the time the shots were fired he and his fellow passengers “had an absolutely perfect view of the School Depository from our position in the open car.”[C3-24] Dillard immediately took two pictures of the building: one of the east two-thirds of the south side and the other of the southeast corner, particularly the fifth- and sixth-floor windows.[C3-25] These pictures show three Negro men in windows on the fifth floor and the partially open window on the sixth floor directly above them. (See Dillard Exhibits C and D, pp. 66-67.) Couch also saw the rifle in the window, and testified:

And after the third shot, Bob Jackson, who was, as I recall,
on my right, yelled something like, “Look up in the window!
There’s the rifle!”

And I remember glancing up to a window on the far right, which
at the time impressed me as the sixth or seventh floor, and
seeing about a foot of a rifle being--the barrel brought into
the window.[C3-26]

Couch testified he saw people standing in other windows on the third or fourth floor in the middle of the south side, one of them being a Negro in a white T-shirt leaning out to look up at the windows above him.[C3-27]

Mayor and Mrs. Earle Cabell rode in the motorcade immediately behind the Vice-Presidential followup car.[C3-28] Mrs. Cabell was seated in the back seat behind the driver and was facing U.S. Representative Ray Roberts on her right as the car made the turn at Elm and Houston. In this position Mrs. Cabell “was actually facing” the seven-story Depository when the first shot rang out.[C3-29] She “jerked” her head up immediately and saw a “projection” in the first group of windows on a floor which she described both as the sixth floor and the top floor.[C3-30] According to Mrs. Cabell, the object was “rather long looking,” but she was unable to determine whether it was a mechanical object or a person’s arm.[C3-31] She turned away from the window to tell her husband that the noise was a shot, and “just as I got the words out * * * the second two shots rang out.”[C3-32] Mrs. Cabell did not look at the sixth-floor window when the second and third shots were fired.[C3-33]

Enlargement of photograph taken by Thomas C. Dillard on November 22, 1963.]

Photograph taken by Thomas C. Dillard on November 22, 1963.]

James N. Crawford and Mary Ann Mitchell, two deputy district clerks for Dallas County, watched the motorcade at the southeast corner of Elm and Houston. After the President’s car turned the corner, Crawford heard a loud report which he thought was backfire coming from the direction of the Triple Underpass.[C3-34] He heard a second shot seconds later, followed quickly by a third. At the third shot, he looked up and saw a “movement” in the far east corner of the sixth floor of the Depository, the only open window on that floor.[C3-35] He told Miss Mitchell “that if those were shots they came from that window.” When asked to describe the movement more exactly, he said,

* * * I would say that it was a profile, somewhat from
the waist up, but it was a very quick movement and rather
indistinct and it was very light colored. * * *

* * * * *

When I saw it, I automatically in my mind came to the
conclusion that it was a person having moved out of the window.
* * *[C3-36]

He could not state whether the person was a man or a woman.[C3-37] Miss Mitchell confirmed that after the third shot Crawford told her, “Those shots came from that building.”[C3-38] She saw Crawford pointing at a window but was not sure at which window he was pointing.[C3-39]

On the Fifth Floor

Three Depository employees shown in the picture taken by Dillard were on the fifth floor of the building when the shots were fired: James Jarman, Jr., age 34, a wrapper in the shipping department; Bonnie Ray Williams, age 20, a warehouseman temporarily assigned to laying a plywood floor on the sixth floor; and Harold Norman, age 26, an “order filler.” Norman and Jarman decided to watch the parade during the lunch hour from the fifth-floor windows.[C3-40] From the ground floor they took the west elevator, which operates with push-button controls, to the fifth floor.[C3-41] Meanwhile, Williams had gone up to the sixth floor where he had been working and ate his lunch on the south side of that floor. Since he saw no one around when he finished his lunch, he started down on the east elevator, looking for company. He left behind his paper lunch sack, chicken bones and an empty pop bottle.[C3-42] Williams went down to the fifth floor, where he joined Norman and Jarman at approximately 12:20 pm.[C3-43]

Harold Norman was in the fifth-floor window in the southeast corner, directly under the window where witnesses saw the rifle. (See Commission Exhibit No. 485, p. 69.) He could see light through the ceiling cracks between the fifth and sixth floors.[C3-44] As the motorcade went by, Norman thought that the President was saluting with his right arm,

* * * and I can’t remember what the exact time was but I know I
heard a shot, and then after I heard the shot, well, it seems
as though the President, you know, slumped or something, and
then another shot and I believe Jarman or someone told me,
he said, “I believe someone is shooting at the President,”
and I think I made a statement “It is someone shooting at the
President, and I believe it came from up above us.”

Well, I couldn’t see at all during the time but I know I heard
a third shot fired, and I could also hear something sounded
like the shell hulls hitting the floor and the ejecting of the
rifle * * *.[C3-45]

Williams said that he “really did not pay any attention” to the first shot--

* * * because I did not know what was happening. The second
shot, it sounded like it was right in the building, the second
and third shot. And it sounded--it even shook the building, the
side we were on. Cement fell on my head.

Q. You say cement fell on your head?

A. Cement, gravel, dirt, or something, from the old building,
because it shook the windows and everything. Harold was sitting
next to me, and he said it came right from over our head.[C3-46]

Williams testified Norman said “I can even hear the shell being ejected from the gun hitting the floor.”[C3-47]

When Jarman heard the first sound, he thought that it was either a backfire--

* * * or an officer giving a salute to the President. And then
at that time I didn’t, you know, think too much about it. * * *

* * * * *

Well, after the third shot was fired, I think I got up and
I run over to Harold Norman and Bonnie Ray Williams, and
told them, I said, I told them that it wasn’t a backfire or
anything, that somebody was shooting at the President.[C3-48]

Jarman testified that Norman said “that he thought the shots had come from above us, and I noticed that Bonnie Ray had a few debris in his head. It was sort of white stuff, or something.”[C3-49] Jarman stated that Norman said “that he was sure that the shot came from inside the building because he had been used to guns and all that, and he said it didn’t sound like it was too far off anyway.”[C3-50] The three men ran to the west side of the building, where they could look toward the Triple Underpass to see what had happened to the motorcade.[C3-51]

After the men had gone to the window on the west side of the building, Jarman “got to thinking about all the debris on Bonnie Ray’s head” and said, “That shot probably did come from upstairs, up over us.”[C3-52] He testified that Norman said, “I know it did, because I could hear the action of the bolt, and I could hear the cartridges drop on the floor.”[C3-53] After pausing for a few minutes, the three men ran downstairs. Norman and Jarman ran out of the front entrance of the building, where they saw Brennan, the construction worker who had seen the man in the window firing the gun, talking to a police officer, and they then reported their own experience.[C3-54]

On March 20, 1964, preceding their appearance before the Commission, these witnesses were interviewed in Dallas. At that time members of the Commission’s legal staff conducted an experiment. Norman, Williams, and Jarman placed themselves at the windows of the fifth floor as they had been on November 22. A Secret Service agent operated the bolt of a rifle directly above them at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor. At the same time, three cartridge shells were dropped to the floor at intervals of about 3 seconds. According to Norman, the noise outside was less on the day of the assassination than on the day of the test.[C3-55] He testified, “Well, I heard the same sound, the sound similar. I heard three something that he dropped on the floor and then I could hear the rifle or whatever he had up there.”[C3-56] The experiment with the shells and rifle was repeated for members of the Commission on May 9, 1964, on June 7, 1964, and again on September 6, 1964. All seven of the Commissioners clearly heard the shells drop to the floor.

At the Triple Underpass

In contrast to the testimony of the witnesses who heard and observed shots fired from the Depository, the Commission’s investigation has disclosed no credible evidence that any shots were fired from anywhere else. When the shots were fired, many people near the Depository believed that the shots came from the railroad bridge over the Triple Underpass or from the area to the west of the Depository.[C3-57] In the hectic moments after the assassination, many spectators ran in the general direction of the Triple Underpass or the railroad yards northwest of the building. Some were running toward the place from which the sound of the rifle fire appeared to come, others were fleeing the scene of the shooting.[C3-58] None of these people saw anyone with a rifle, and the Commission’s inquiry has yielded no evidence that shots were fired from the bridge over the Triple Underpass or from the railroad yards.

On the day of the motorcade, Patrolman J. W. Foster stood on the east side of the railroad bridge over the Triple Underpass and Patrolman J. C. White stood on the west side.[C3-59] Patrolman Joe E. Murphy was standing over Elm Street on the Stemmons Freeway overpass, west of the railroad bridge farther away from the Depository.[C3-60] Two other officers were stationed on Stemmons Freeway to control traffic as the motorcade entered the Freeway.[C3-61] Under the advance preparations worked out between the Secret Service and the Dallas Police Department, the policemen were under instructions to keep “unauthorized” people away from these locations.[C3-62] When the motorcade reached the intersection of Elm and Houston Streets, there were no spectators on Stemmons Freeway where Patrolman Murphy was stationed.[C3-63] Patrolman Foster estimated that there were 10 or 11 people on the railroad bridge where he was assigned;[C3-64] another witness testified that there were between 14 and 18 people there as the motorcade came into view.[C3-65] Investigation has disclosed 15 persons who were on the railroad bridge at this time, including 2 policemen, 2 employees of the Texas-Louisiana Freight Bureau and 11 employees of the Union Terminal Co.[C3-66] In the absence of any explicit definition of “unauthorized” persons, the policemen permitted these employees to remain on the railroad bridge to watch the motorcade. (See chapter VIII, pp. 446-447.) At the request of the policemen, S.M. Holland, signal supervisor for Union Terminal Co., came to the railroad bridge at about 11:45 a.m. and remained to identify those persons who were railroad employees.[C3-67] In addition, Patrolman Foster checked credentials to determine if persons seeking access to the bridge were railroad employees.[C3-68] Persons who were not railroad employees were ordered away, including one news photographer who wished only to take a picture of the motorcade.[C3-69]

Another employee of the Union Terminal Co., Lee E. Bowers, Jr., was at work in a railroad tower about 14 feet above the tracks to the north of the railroad bridge and northwest of the corner of Elm and Houston, approximately 50 yards from the back of the Depository.[C3-70] (See Commission Exhibit No. 2218, p. 73.) From the tower he could view people moving in the railroad yards and at the rear of the Depository. According to Bowers, “Since approximately 10 o’clock in the morning traffic had been cut off into the area so that anyone moving around could actually be observed.”[C3-71] During the 20 minutes prior to the arrival of the motorcade, Bowers noticed three automobiles which entered his immediate area; two left without discharging any passengers and the third was apparently on its way out when last observed by Bowers.[C3-72] Bowers observed only three or four people in the general area, as well as a few bystanders on the railroad bridge over the Triple Underpass.[C3-73]

As the motorcade proceeded toward the Triple Underpass, the spectators were clustered together along the east concrete wall of the railroad bridge facing the oncoming procession.[C3-74] (See Commission Exhibit No. 2215, p. 75.) Patrolman Foster stood immediately behind them and could observe all of them.[C3-75] Secret Service agents in the lead car of the motorcade observed the bystanders and the police officer on the bridge.[C3-76] Special Agent Winston G. Lawson motioned through the windshield in an unsuccessful attempt to instruct Patrolman Foster to move the people away from their position directly over the path of the motorcade.[C3-77] Some distance away, on the Stemmons Freeway overpass above Elm Street, Patrolman Murphy also had the group on the railroad bridge within view.[C3-78] When he heard the shots, Foster rushed to the wall of the railroad bridge over the Triple Underpass and looked toward the street.[C3-79] After the third shot, Foster ran toward the Depository and shortly thereafter informed Inspector Herbert J. Sawyer of the Dallas Police Department that he thought the shots came from the vicinity of Elm and Houston.[C3-80]

VIEW FROM NORTH TOWER OF UNION TERMINAL COMPANY, DALLAS, TEXAS]

VIEW FROM TRIPLE UNDERPASS, DALLAS, TEXAS]

VIEW OF TRIPLE UNDERPASS FROM LOCATION ON ELM STREET

(BETWEEN ZAPRUDER FRAMES 272-280)]

Other witnesses on the railroad bridge had varying views concerning the source and number of the shots. Austin L. Miller, employed by the Texas-Louisiana Freight Bureau, heard three shots and thought that they came from the area of the Presidential limousine itself.[C3-81] One of his coworkers, Royce G. Skelton, thought he heard four shots, but could not tell their exact source.[C3-82] Frank E. Reilly, an electrician at Union Terminal, heard three shots which seemed to come from the trees “On the north side of Elm Street at the corner up there.”[C3-83] According to S.M. Holland, there were four shots which sounded as though they came from the trees on the north side of Elm Street where he saw a puff of smoke.[C3-84] Thomas J. Murphy, a mail foreman at Union Terminal Co., heard two shots and said that they came from a spot just west of the Depository.[C3-85] In the railroad tower, Bowers heard three shots, which sounded as though they came either from the Depository Building or near the mouth of the Triple Underpass. Prior to November 22, 1963, Bowers had noted the similarity of the sounds coming from the vicinity of the Depository and those from the Triple Underpass, which he attributed to “a reverberation which takes place from either location.”[C3-86]

Immediately after the shots were fired, neither the policemen nor the spectators on the railroad bridge over the Triple Underpass saw anything suspicious on the bridge in their vicinity. (See Commission Exhibit No. 2214, p. 74.) No one saw anyone with a rifle. As he ran around through the railroad yards to the Depository, Patrolman Foster saw no suspicious activity.[C3-87] The same was true of the other bystanders, many of whom made an effort after the shooting to observe any unusual activity. Holland, for example, immediately after the shots, ran off the overpass to see if there was anyone behind the picket fence on the north side of Elm Street, but he did not see anyone among the parked cars.[C3-88] Miller did not see anyone running across the railroad tracks or on the plaza west of the Depository.[C3-89] Bowers and others saw a motorcycle officer dismount hurriedly and come running up the incline on the north side of Elm Street.[C3-90] The motorcycle officer, Clyde A. Haygood, saw no one running from the railroad yards.[C3-91]

THE PRESIDENTIAL AUTOMOBILE

After the Presidential car was returned to Washington on November 22, 1963, Secret Service agents found two bullet fragments in the front seat. One fragment, found on the seat beside the driver, weighed 44.6 grains and consisted of the nose portion of a bullet.[C3-92] The other fragment, found along the right side of the front seat, weighed 21.0 grains and consisted of the base portion of a bullet.[C3-93] During the course of an examination on November 23, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation found three small lead particles, weighing between seven-tenths and nine-tenths of a grain each, on the rug underneath the left jump seat which had been occupied by Mrs. Connally.[C3-94] During this examination, the Bureau agents noted a small residue of lead on the inside surface of the laminated windshield and a very small pattern of cracks on the outer layer of the windshield immediately behind the lead residue.[C3-95] There was a minute particle of glass missing from the outside surface, but no penetration. The inside layer of glass was not broken.[C3-96] The agents also observed a dent in the strip of chrome across the top of the windshield, located to the left of the rear view mirror support.[C3-97]

The lead residue on the inside of the windshield was compared under spectrographic analysis by FBI experts with the bullet fragments found on and alongside the front seat and with the fragments under the left jump seat. It was also compared with bullet fragments found at Parkland Hospital. All these bullet fragments were found to be similar in metallic composition, but it was not possible to determine whether two or more of the fragments came from the same bullet.[C3-98] It is possible for the fragments from the front seat to have been a part of the same bullet as the three fragments found near the left jump seat,[C3-99] since a whole bullet of this type weighs 160-161 grains.[C3-100] (See app. X, pp. 555-558.)

The physical characteristics of the windshield after the assassination demonstrate that the windshield was struck on the inside surface. The windshield is composed of two layers of glass with a very thin layer of plastic in the middle “which bonds them together in the form of safety glass.”[C3-101] The windshield was extracted from the automobile and was examined during a Commission hearing.[C3-102] (See Commission Exhibit No. 350, p. 78.) According to Robert A. Frazier, FBI firearms expert, the fact that cracks were present on the outer layer of glass showed that the glass had been struck from the inside. He testified that the windshield

could not have been struck on the outside surface because of
the manner in which the glass broke and further because of the
lead residue on the inside surface. The cracks appear in the
outer layer of the glass because the glass is bent outward at
the time of impact which stretches the outer layer of the glass
to the point where these small radial or wagon spoke, wagon
wheel spoke-type cracks appear on the outer surface.[C3-103]

Although there is some uncertainty whether the dent in the chrome on the windshield was present prior to the assassination,[C3-104] Frazier testified that the dent “had been caused by some projectile which struck the chrome on the inside surface.”[C3-105] If it was caused by a shot during the assassination, Frazier stated that it would not have been caused by a bullet traveling at full velocity, but rather by a fragment traveling at “fairly high velocity.”[C3-106] It could have been caused by either fragment found in the front seat of the limousine.[C3-107]

Windshield of Presidential limousine.]

EXPERT EXAMINATION OF RIFLE, CARTRIDGE CASES, AND BULLET FRAGMENTS

On the sixth floor of the Depository Building, the Dallas police found three spent cartridges and a rifle. A nearly whole bullet was discovered on the stretcher used to carry Governor Connally at Parkland Hospital. As described in the preceding section, five bullet fragments were found in the President’s limousine. The cartridge cases, the nearly whole bullet and the bullet fragments were all subjected to firearms identification analysis by qualified experts. It was the unanimous opinion of the experts that the nearly whole bullet, the two largest bullet fragments and the three cartridge cases were definitely fired in the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building to the exclusion of all other weapons.

Discovery of Cartridge Cases and Rifle

Shortly after the assassination, police officers arrived at the Depository Building and began a search for the assassin and evidence.[C3-108] Around 1 p.m. Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney noticed a pile of cartons in front of the window in the southeast corner of the sixth floor.[C3-109] (See Commission Exhibit No. 723, p. 80.) Searching that area he found at approximately 1:12 p.m. three empty cartridge cases on the floor near the window.[C3-110] When he was notified of Mooney’s discovery, Capt. J. W. Fritz, chief of the homicide bureau of the Dallas Police Department, issued instructions that nothing be moved or touched until technicians from the police crime laboratory could take photographs and check for fingerprints.[C3-111] Mooney stood guard to see that nothing was disturbed.[C3-112] A few minutes later, Lt. J. C. Day of the Dallas Police Department arrived and took photographs of the cartridge cases before anything had been moved.[C3-113]

At 1:22 p.m. Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone and Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman found a bolt-action rifle with a telescopic sight between two rows of boxes in the northwest corner near the staircase on the sixth floor.[C3-114] No one touched the weapon or otherwise disturbed the scene until Captain Fritz and Lieutenant Day arrived and the weapon was photographed as it lay on the floor.[C3-115] After Lieutenant Day determined that there were no fingerprints on the knob of the bolt and that the wooden stock was too rough to take fingerprints, he picked the rifle up by the stock and held it that way while Captain Fritz opened the bolt and ejected a live round.[C3-116] Lieutenant Day retained possession of the weapon and took it back to the police department for examination.[C3-117] Neither Boone nor Weitzman handled the rifle.[C3-118]

Discovery of Bullet at Parkland Hospital

A nearly whole bullet was found on Governor Connally’s stretcher at Parkland Hospital after the assassination. After his arrival at the hospital the Governor was brought into trauma room No. 2 on a stretcher, removed from the room on that stretcher a short time later, and taken on an elevator to the second-floor operating room.[C3-119] On the second floor he was transferred from the stretcher to an operating table which was then moved into the operating room, and a hospital attendant wheeled the empty stretcher into an elevator.[C3-120] Shortly afterward, Darrell C. Tomlinson, the hospital’s senior engineer, removed this stretcher from the elevator and placed it in the corridor on the ground floor, alongside another stretcher wholly unconnected with the care of Governor Connally.[C3-121] A few minutes later, he bumped one of the stretchers against the wall and a bullet rolled out.[C3-122]

Shield of cartons around sixth floor southeast corner window.]

Although Tomlinson was not certain whether the bullet came from the Connally stretcher or the adjacent one, the Commission has concluded that the bullet came from the Governor’s stretcher. That conclusion is buttressed by evidence which eliminated President Kennedy’s stretcher as a source of the bullet. President Kennedy remained on the stretcher on which he was carried into the hospital while the doctors tried to save his life.[C3-123] He was never removed from the stretcher from the time he was taken into the emergency room until his body was placed in a casket in that same room.[C3-124] After the President’s body was removed from that stretcher, the linen was taken off and placed in a hamper and the stretcher was pushed into trauma room No. 2, a completely different location from the site where the nearly whole bullet was found.[C3-125]

Description of Rifle

The bolt-action, clip-fed rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository, described more fully in appendix X, is inscribed with various markings, including “MADE ITALY,” “CAL. 6.5,” “1940” and the number C2766.[C3-126] (See Commission Exhibit Nos. 1303, 541(2) and 541(3), pp. 82-83.) These markings have been explained as follows: “MADE ITALY” refers to its origin; “CAL. 6.5” refers to the rifle’s caliber; “1940” refers to the year of manufacture; and the number C2766 is the serial number. This rifle is the only one of its type bearing that serial number.[C3-127] After review of standard reference works and the markings on the rifle, it was identified by the FBI as a 6.5-millimeter model 91/38 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.[C3-128] Experts from the FBI made an independent determination of the caliber by inserting a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter cartridge into the weapon for fit, and by making a sulfur cast of the inside of the weapon’s barrel and measuring the cast with a micrometer.[C3-129] From outward appearance, the weapon would appear to be a 7.35-millimeter rifle, but its mechanism had been rebarreled with a 6.5-millimeter barrel.[C3-130] Constable Deputy Sheriff Weitzman, who only saw the rifle at a glance and did not handle it, thought the weapon looked like a 7.65 Mauser bolt-action rifle.[C3-131] (See chapter V, p. 235.)

The rifle is 40.2 inches long and weighs 8 pounds.[C3-132] The minimum length broken down is 34.8 inches, the length of the wooden stock.[C3-133] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1304, p. 132.) Attached to the weapon is an inexpensive four-power telescopic sight, stamped “Optics Ordnance Inc./Hollywood California,” and “Made in Japan.”[C3-134] The weapon also bears a sling consisting of two leather straps. The sling is not a standard rifle sling but appears to be a musical instrument strap or a sling from a carrying case or camera bag.[C3-135]

Photograph of markings on C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.]

Expert Testimony

Four experts in the field of firearms identification analyzed the nearly whole bullet, the two largest fragments and the three cartridge cases to determine whether they had been fired from the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository. Two of these experts testified before the Commission. One was Robert A. Frazier, a special agent of the FBI assigned to the FBI Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Frazier has worked generally in the field of firearms identification for 23 years, examining firearms of various types for the purpose of identifying the caliber and other characteristics of the weapons and making comparisons of bullets and cartridge cases for the purpose of determining whether or not they were fired in a particular weapon.[C3-136] He estimated that he has made “in the neighborhood of 50,000 to 60,000” firearms comparisons and has testified in court on about 400 occasions.[C3-137] The second witness who testified on this subject was Joseph D. Nicol, superintendent of the bureau of criminal identification and investigation for the State of Illinois. Nicol also has had long and substantial experience since 1941 in firearms identification, and estimated that he has made thousands of bullet and cartridge case examinations.[C3-138]

In examining the bullet fragments and cartridge cases, these experts applied the general principles accepted in the field of firearms identification, which are discussed in more detail in appendix X at pages 547-553. In brief, a determination that a particular bullet or cartridge case has been fired in a particular weapon is based upon a comparison of the bullet or case under examination with one or more bullets or cases known to have been fired in that weapon. When a bullet is fired in any given weapon, it is engraved with the characteristics of the weapon. In addition to the rifling characteristics of the barrel which are common to all weapons of a given make and model, every weapon bears distinctive microscopic markings on its barrel, firing pin and bolt face.[C3-139] These markings arise initially during manufacture, since the action of the manufacturing tools differs microscopically from weapon to weapon and since, in addition, the tools change microscopically while being used. As a weapon is used further distinctive markings are introduced. Under microscopic examination a qualified expert may be able to determine whether the markings on a bullet known to have been fired in a particular weapon and the markings on a suspect bullet are the same and, therefore, whether both bullets were fired in the same weapon to the exclusion of all other weapons. Similarly, firearms identification experts are able to compare the markings left upon the base of cartridge cases and thereby determine whether both cartridges were fired by the same weapon to the exclusion of all other weapons. According to Frazier, such an identification “is made on the presence of sufficient individual microscopic characteristics so that a very definite pattern is formed and visualized on the two surfaces.”[C3-140] Under some circumstances, as where the bullet or cartridge case is seriously mutilated, there are not sufficient individual characteristics to enable the expert to make a firm identification.[C3-141]

After making independent examinations, both Frazier and Nicol positively identified the nearly whole bullet from the stretcher and the two larger bullet fragments found in the Presidential limousine as having been fired in the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found in the Depository to the exclusion of all other weapons.[C3-142] Each of the two bullet fragments had sufficient unmutilated area to provide the basis for an identification.[C3-143] However, it was not possible to determine whether the two bullet fragments were from the same bullet or from two different bullets.[C3-144] With regard to the other bullet fragments discovered in the limousine and in the course of treating President Kennedy and Governor Connally, however, expert examination could demonstrate only that the fragments were “similar in metallic composition” to each other, to the two larger fragments and to the nearly whole bullet.[C3-145] After examination of the three cartridge cases found on the sixth floor of the Depository, Frazier and Nicol concluded that they had been fired in the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons.[C3-146] Two other experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who made independent examinations of the nearly whole bullet, bullet fragments and cartridge cases, reached the identical conclusions.[C3-147]

THE BULLET WOUNDS

In considering the question of the source of the shots fired at President Kennedy and Governor Connally, the Commission has also evaluated the expert medical testimony of the doctors who observed the wounds during the emergency treatment at Parkland Hospital and during the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital. It paid particular attention to any wound characteristics which would be of assistance in identifying a wound as the entrance or exit point of a missile. Additional information regarding the source and nature of the injuries was obtained by expert examination of the clothes worn by the two men, particularly those worn by President Kennedy, and from the results of special wound ballistics tests conducted at the Commission’s request, using the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle with ammunition of the same type as that used and found on November 22, 1963.

The President’s Head Wounds

The detailed autopsy of President Kennedy performed on the night of November 22 at the Bethesda Naval Hospital led the three examining pathologists to conclude that the smaller hole in the rear of the President’s skull was the point of entry and that the large opening on the right side of his head was the wound of exit.[C3-148] The smaller hole on the back of the President’s head measured one-fourth of an inch by five-eighths of an inch (6 by 15 millimeters).[C3-149] The dimensions of that wound were consistent with having been caused by a 6.5-millimeter bullet fired from behind and above which struck at a tangent or an angle causing a 15-millimeter cut. The cut reflected a larger dimension of entry than the bullet’s diameter of 6.5 millimeters, since the missile, in effect, sliced along the skull for a fractional distance until it entered.[C3-150] The dimension of 6 millimeters, somewhat smaller than the diameter of a 6.5-millimeter bullet, was caused by the elastic recoil of the skull which shrinks the size of an opening after a missile passes through it.[C3-151]

Lt. Col. Pierre A. Finck, Chief of the Wound Ballistics Pathology Branch of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, who has had extensive experience with bullet wounds, illustrated the characteristics which led to his conclusions about the head wound by a chart prepared by him. This chart, based on Colonel Finck’s studies of more than 400 cases, depicted the effect of a perforating missile wound on the human skull.[C3-152] When a bullet enters the skull (cranial vault) at one point and exits at another, it causes a beveling or cratering effect where the diameter of the hole is smaller on the impact side than on the exit side. Based on his observations of that beveling effect on the President’s skull, Colonel Finck testified: “President Kennedy was, in my opinion, shot from the rear. The bullet entered in the back of the head and went out on the right side of his skull * * * he was shot from above and behind.”[C3-153]

Comdr. James J. Humes, senior pathologist and director of laboratories at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, who acted as chief autopsy surgeon, concurred in Colonel Finck’s analysis. He compared the beveling or coning effect to that caused by a BB shot which strikes a pane of glass, causing a round or oval defect on the side of the glass where the missile strikes and a belled-out or coned-out surface on the opposite side of the glass.[C3-154] Referring to the bullet hole on the back of President Kennedy’s head, Commander Humes testified: “The wound on the inner table, however, was larger and had what in the field of wound ballistics is described as a shelving or coning effect.”[C3-155] After studying the other hole in the President’s skull, Commander Humes stated: “* * * we concluded that the large defect to the upper right side of the skull, in fact, would represent a wound of exit.”[C3-156] Those characteristics led Commander Humes and Comdr. J. Thornton Boswell, chief of pathology at Bethesda Naval Hospital, who assisted in the autopsy, to conclude that the bullet penetrated the rear of the President’s head and exited through a large wound on the right side of his head.[C3-157]

Ballistics experiments (discussed more fully in app. X, pp. 585-586) showed that the rifle and bullets identified above were capable of producing the President’s head wound. The Wound Ballistics Branch of the U.S. Army laboratories at Edgewood Arsenal, Md., conducted an extensive series of experiments to test the effect of Western Cartridge Co. 6.5-millimeter bullets, the type found on Governor Connally’s stretcher and in the Presidential limousine, fired from the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found in the Depository. The Edgewood Arsenal tests were performed under the immediate supervision of Alfred G. Olivier, a doctor who had spent 7 years in wounds ballistics research for the U.S. Army.[C3-158]

One series of tests, performed on reconstructed inert human skulls, demonstrated that the President’s head wound could have been caused by the rifle and bullets fired by the assassin from the sixth-floor window. The results of this series were illustrated by the findings on one skull which was struck at a point closely approximating the wound of entry on President Kennedy’s head. That bullet blew out the right side of the reconstructed skull in a manner very similar to the head wound of the President.[C3-159] As a result of these tests, Dr. Olivier concluded that a Western Cartridge Co. 6.5 bullet fired from the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle at a distance of 90 yards would make the same type of wound as that found on the President’s head. Referring to the series of tests, Dr. Olivier testified:

It disclosed that the type of head wounds that the President
received could be done by this type of bullet. This surprised
me very much, because this type of stable bullet I didn’t
think would cause a massive head wound, I thought it would go
through making a small entrance and exit, but the bones of the
skull are enough to deform the end of this bullet causing it to
expend a lot of energy and blowing out the side of the skull or
blowing out fragments of the skull.[C3-160]

After examining the fragments of the bullet which struck the reconstructed skull, Dr. Olivier stated that--

the recovered fragments were very similar to the ones recovered
on the front seat and on the floor of the car.

This, to me, indicates that those fragments did come from the
bullet that wounded the President in the head.[C3-161]

The President’s Neck Wounds

During the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital another bullet wound was observed near the base of the back of President Kennedy’s neck slightly to the right of his spine which provides further enlightenment as to the source of the shots. The hole was located approximately 5½ inches (14 centimeters) from the tip of the right shoulder joint and approximately the same distance below the tip of the right mastoid process, the bony point immediately behind the ear.[C3-162] The wound was approximately one-fourth by one-seventh of an inch (7 by 4 millimeters), had clean edges, was sharply delineated, and had margins similar in all respects to those of the entry wound in the skull.[C3-163] Commanders Humes and Boswell agreed with Colonel Finck’s testimony that this hole--

* * * is a wound of entrance. * * * The basis for that
conclusion is that this wound was relatively small with clean
edges. It was not a jagged wound, and that is what we see in
wound of entrance at a long range.[C3-164]

The autopsy examination further disclosed that, after entering the President, the bullet passed between two large muscles, produced a contusion on the upper part of the pleural cavity (without penetrating that cavity), bruised the top portion of the right lung and ripped the windpipe (trachea) in its path through the President’s neck.[C3-165] The examining surgeons concluded that the wounds were caused by the bullet rather than the tracheotomy performed at Parkland Hospital. The nature of the bruises indicated that the President’s heart and lungs were functioning when the bruises were caused, whereas there was very little circulation in the President’s body when incisions on the President’s chest were made to insert tubes during the tracheotomy.[C3-166] No bone was struck by the bullet which passed through the President’s body.[C3-167] By projecting from a point of entry on the rear of the neck and proceeding at a slight downward angle through the bruised interior portions, the doctors concluded that the bullet exited from the front portion of the President’s neck that had been cut away by the tracheotomy.[C3-168]

Concluding that a bullet passed through the President’s neck, the doctors at Bethesda Naval Hospital rejected a theory that the bullet lodged in the large muscles in the back of his neck and fell out through the point of entry when external heart massage was applied at Parkland Hospital. In the earlier stages of the autopsy, the surgeons were unable to find a path into any large muscle in the back of the neck. At that time they did not know that there had been a bullet hole in the front of the President’s neck when he arrived at Parkland Hospital because the tracheotomy incision had completely eliminated that evidence.[C3-169] While the autopsy was being performed, surgeons learned that a whole bullet had been found at Parkland Hospital on a stretcher which, at that time, was thought to be the stretcher occupied by the President. This led to speculation that the bullet might have penetrated a short distance into the back of the neck and then dropped out onto the stretcher as a result of the external heart massage.[C3-170]

Further exploration during the autopsy disproved that theory. The surgeons determined that the bullet had passed between two large strap muscles and bruised them without leaving any channel, since the bullet merely passed between them.[C3-171] Commander Humes, who believed that a tracheotomy had been performed from his observations at the autopsy, talked by telephone with Dr. Perry early on the morning of November 23, and learned that his assumption was correct and that Dr. Perry had used the missile wound in the neck as the point to make the incision.[C3-172] This confirmed the Bethesda surgeons’ conclusion that the bullet had exited from the front part of the neck.

The findings of the doctors who conducted the autopsy were consistent with the observations of the doctors who treated the President at Parkland Hospital. Dr. Charles S. Carrico, a resident surgeon at Parkland, noted a small wound approximately one-fourth of an inch in diameter (5 to 8 millimeters) in the lower third of the neck below the Adam’s apple.[C3-173] Dr. Malcolm O. Perry, who performed the tracheotomy, described the wound as approximately one-fifth of an inch in diameter (5 millimeters) and exuding blood which partially hid edges that were “neither cleancut, that is, punched out, nor were they very ragged.”[C3-174] Dr. Carrico testified as follows:

Q. Based on your observations on the neck wound alone did you
have a sufficient basis to form an opinion as to whether it was
an entrance or an exit wound?

A. No, sir; we did not. Not having completely evaluated all
the wounds, traced out the course of the bullets, this wound
would have been compatible with either entrance or exit wound
depending upon the size, the velocity, the tissue structure and
so forth.[C3-175]

The same response was made by Dr. Perry to a similar query:

Q. Based on the appearance of the neck wound alone, could it
have been either an entrance or an exit wound?

A. It could have been either.[C3-176]

Then each doctor was asked to take into account the other known facts, such as the autopsy findings, the approximate distance the bullet traveled and tested muzzle velocity of the assassination weapon. With these additional factors, the doctors commented on the wound on the front of the President’s neck as follows:

Dr. CARRICO. With those facts and the fact as I understand it
no other bullet was found this would be, this was, I believe,
was an exit wound.[C3-177]

Dr. PERRY. A full jacketed bullet without deformation passing
through skin would leave a similar wound for an exit and
entrance wound and with the facts which you have made available
and with these assumptions, I believe that it was an exit
wound.[C3-178]

Other doctors at Parkland Hospital who observed the wound prior to the tracheotomy agreed with the observations of Drs. Perry and Carrico.[C3-179] The bullet wound in the neck could be seen for only a short time, since Dr. Perry eliminated evidence of it when he performed the tracheotomy. He selected that spot since it was the point where such an operation was customarily performed, and it was one of the safest and easiest spots from which to reach the trachea. In addition, there was possibly an underlying wound to the muscles in the neck, the carotid artery or the jugular vein, and Dr. Perry concluded that the incision, therefore, had to be low in order to maintain respiration.[C3-180]

Considerable confusion has arisen because of comments attributed to Dr. Perry concerning the nature of the neck wound. Immediately after the assassination, many people reached erroneous conclusions about the source of the shots because of Dr. Perry’s observations to the press. On the afternoon of November 22, a press conference was organized at Parkland Hospital by members of the White House press staff and a hospital administrator. Newsmen with microphones and cameras were crowded into a room to hear statements by Drs. Perry and William Kemp Clark, chief neurosurgeon at Parkland, who had attended to President Kennedy’s head injury. Dr. Perry described the situation as “bedlam.”[C3-181] The confusion was compounded by the fact that some questions were only partially answered before other questions were asked.[C3-182]