Gayle Newman's Nov. 22nd affidavit reads like she's heard three shots.
| | When President Kennedy's car was about ten feet from us. I heard a noise like a firecracker going off. President Kennedy kind of jumped like he was startled and covered his head with his hands and then raised up. After I heard the first shot, another shot sounded and Governor Connally kind of grabbed his chest and lay back on the seat of the car. When I first saw and heard all of this, I thought it was all of a joke. Just about the time President Kennedy was right in front of us, I heard another shot ring out, and the President put his hands up to his head. I saw blood all over the side of his head. | |
Gayle seems to be describing the hand-clutching in a vague way. But pre-sign, Kennedy has a hand above his head (I don't see how the throat-clutching was "covering his head"). At the Shaw Trial, she says of Connally at the moment of the second shot:
"Well, his eyes just got real big and he sort of slumped down in the seat." This has to be the puffing of the cheeks and the subsequent collapse. By Altgens, the Governor is clearly wounded. This is about 1.5 seconds before Mason has him take a bullet.
She said JFK definitely reacted on the first shot and on the second shot JBC grabbed his chest and lay back on his seat. On the third shot JFK was hit in the head. She had a pretty good view. It happened right in front of her (she was standing on the curb west of the lamp post seen in z270 and about opposite the position of car at z313). She was definitely describing three shots, three hits. That fits with a lot of other evidence such as Dave Powers who said that JFK leaned over on the first shot, JBC disappeared on the second and JFK was hit in the head on the third.
We saw this with Nellie. She took a few pre-signs movements by Kennedy, heard the second shot and blended everything into Kennedy being hit with the first shot.
Or she actually saw what she said she saw.
She has Connally hit by the second shot because she notices him recoil immediately after the second shot. Not a single eyewitness saw the two men wounded at the same instance, which is not surprising as they would have their attention on either Kennedy or Connally, or Jackie. The SBT strike captured on the Z-film eluded researchers for many years (Life magazine and Thompson failed to notice it, for example), so seeing it in real life would have been difficult (they could not replay it).
Or people were looking at all the evidence, not just the zfilm.
Yet the SBT strike at Z223ff is there on the film and it's unmistakable that two men react virtually simultaneously.
Let's say they do (I see a bit of a time difference and we cannot see what JFK is doing behind the sign so we don't know when JFK's reaction begins). So they are reacting to the same shot and it has to be the one that hit JFK in the neck. So how can you tell that JBC is reacting to being hit by the shot rather than to having heard the first shot? He said he reacted to the first shot by turning to see JFK fearing an assassination attempt because he realized it was a rifle shot. Then he was hit on the second shot. How can you tell that look on his face is not from hearing it and fearing an assassination but from actually being hit by it? Keep in mind that both Connallys strongly disagreed with your interpretation.
