First shot reactions

[Andrew Mason]

Shouldn't the upright lines on the walls by the reflecting pool be more true to vertical?

Yes. You are right.  I have corrected the model here:

And doesn't the Stemmons sign lean the opposite way and should it be bigger? Maybe it doesn't matter if only camera-left post-top is relevant to line-of-sight.

I don't have the exact dimensions of the Stemmons sign. I have made the Stemmons sign 5 ft wide.

Shouldn't there be some space (relative to Zapruder's view) between Kennedy and Connally? In your model they overlap, whether in the near-view or far-view. I model Z193 because it's clearer than other frames in the mid-Z190s and there were no major changes in position during that time. In my model: right-to-left: about 13 degrees; slope: about 22 degrees.

My JFK model is a bit too large and inflexible.  I could use a better JFK model.  The separation depends on the angle and it is difficult to compare the poor resolution shot from a distance, which approximates Zapruder's viewpoint.

[Andrew Mason]

Hurchel Jacks, driver of the VP car carrying Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson gave his position at the time of the first shot as follows:

"My car had just straightened up from making the left turn . I was looking directly at the President's car at that time . At that time I heard a shot ring out which appeared to come from the right rear of the Vice President's car." (18 H 801 - the statement is part of CE1024).

We cannot see any of the VP car after z180 and it is hardly discernible after z177.  But Zapruder frames z1 to z64 show a motorcycle making the same turn.  Assuming that the motorcycle is moving at approximately the same speed as the motorcade, the motorcycle turn should give us a reasonable idea of the number of frames required for a vehicle to make the turn. 

We start with the first frame z1 which compares to the VP car position at z133:


The position of the motorcycle 23 frames later at z23 is similar to the position of the VP car at z163 which is 30 frames after z133:


The position of the motorcycle 13 frames later at z36 is similar to the position of the VP car at z172 which is only 9 frames after z163:


I would suggest that the position of the motorcycle at z59 is the earliest frame in which one could conclude that the motorcycle had completed the turn. 


There are different ways to estimate the frame at which the VP car was in the same position as the motorcycle at frame z59.  58 frames after z133 is z191.  z59 is 23 frames after z36 so 23 frames after z172 is z195. But since z172 is 39 frames after z133 and z36 is 35 frames after z1, the VP car may have been moving a bit slower than the motorcycle was.  That would mean that z59 should be equivalent to 58 x 39/36 = 63 frames after z133 or z196.   

On the other hand, moving between positions seen in z23 and z36 for the motorcycle took only 9 frames for the VP car - so maybe after z163 the VP car was moving faster than the motorcycle after z36. Projecting that faster speed through to the VP car equivalent position to z59 would be to add (9/13) x (59-36) = 16 frames to z172 which puts the VP car in the same position at z188 (as the motorcycle at z59).  So the estimated range is anywhere from z188 to z196 as the possible range for the VP car completing the turn. And Jacks said it was just after that, not before.

All the occupants of the VP gave statements that are fully consistent with Jacks' statement that the car had completed the turn and was moving along Elm at the time of the first shot.  None of that fits with an early first shot miss, even without SA Youngblood's recollection after the first shot: " I noticed that the movements in the Presidential car were very abnormal and, at practically the same time, the movements in the Presidential follow-up car were abnormal".

[Peter Kleinschmidt]

That Hughes film you show at an angle within the animated picture of the motorcade turning onto Elm. My question is about the motorcade in the Hughes film, specifically when you see the VP car before it starts to turn onto Elm, will say before it enters the intersection, maybe a car length away from entering the intersection-- is the driver's door or the left backseat door open? And if so isn't that before the driver says he the loud sound

[Andrew Mason]

He said "the left turn" not the curve. He had just begun to relax the pressure on the steering wheel when he heard the first shot. The car's front wheels would then gradually go from turning to straightening up.

Mrs. Johnson said they were still rounding the curve. Lyndon Johnson wrote in his 1971 memoir: "Just after our car made the left turn at the top of Elm, I was startled by an explosion." Youngblood testified: "As we were beginning to go down this incline, all of a sudden there was an explosive noise."

That is your editorialzing.  One straightens up after finishing the turn. Do you actually drive a car, Jerry?  Lady Bird did not use the word "still".  She said they were "rounding a curve, going down a hill" (5 H 565).  You are suggesting that means "making a 120 degree turn"? 

In any event, your suggestion does not fit with what the occupants of the VP security car said.  SA Kivett said (18 H 778): "As the motorcade was approximately i/3 of the way to the underpass, traveling between 10 and 15 miles per hour, I heard a loud noise - - - someone hollered "What was that?".   He said that their car had "just turned the corner", as did driver Joe Rich, Clifton Carter, SA Johns and SA Taylor. Clifton Carter said "7 H 474: "our car had just made the lefthand turn off Houston onto Elm Street and was right along side of the Texas School Book Depository Building".  None of that fits with the position of the VP security car at z160, which is just entering the intersection at that time:

No unusual movements immediately after Z198.

Youngblood's statement is consistent with the movements seen after the car emerges from behind the Stemmons sign at z223 and after.  The point he was making was that he looked around after the first shot and when he looked at the President's car and the Security car he saw abnormal actions.  He had been watching from that position during the entire motorcade so he would have a good idea of what was and what wasn't normal.

It is also worth noting how Youngblood and Lyndon Johnson say he reacted to that first shot.  He told the Johnsons to get down and stepped/"vaulted" over the seat and got on top of the VP.  We can see from Altgens' no. 6 photo that he is facing the back and is in the process of climbing over the seatback by z256 but is not yet on top of the VP:

[Thomas Graves]

Z161 chosen because it's about where people would become aware of a first shot fired a few frames earlier, per LN scenarios generally. Governor Connally begins a rapid rightward head turn a frame later at Z162.



Z191 chosen because it's the last Zapruder frame to show either of the cars. Mason's theory has a first shot about Z195 with a few frames later for perception. I guess the cars would have moved about six-to-ten feet further.

Mary Ann Mitchell and James Crawford were standing together on the SE corner of Elm and Houston.

Mitchell told the Commission: "probably about the time the car in which Senator Yarborough was riding had just passed, I heard some reports." Yarborough was seated on the left-side of the backseat of the VP car. Mitchell's statement works better with 161 than 191. She probably can't see Yarborough in the Z190s.

Crawford told the Commission: "It was after the Secret Service Sedan had gone around the corner that I heard the first report". If Crawford meant the VP Security Car had completed its turn, tehn his statement doesn't literally apply to either 161 or 191. He may mean the car was in the process of turning rather than having completed the turn, if which case his statement works with both 161 and 191.

Jerry,

How do the "statements" of Patricia Ann Donaldson (married name: Lawrence) and Amos Euis in The Lost Bullet fit into your scenario?  If memory serves, what they said tended to suggest that the first shot happened a second or to before Zapruder turned his camera back on at Z-133 (iirc).

Also, which shot do you believe damaged James Tague, down by the Triple Underpass?

-- MWT 

[Thomas Graves]

I was showing the VP and VP Security Cars.

The "Lost Bullet" shows Euins in a location that he is not seen in in the Bell Film. And Donaldson says the limousine (stopped at Z334) is about where the first shot occurred. That doesn't even support Holland's theory.

Jerry,

You're making the very common mistake of conflating journalist Anne Donaldson with Patrician Ann Donaldson (maiden name: Patricia Ann Lambert Lawrence).

Amos Euins was 14 years-old and quite short, and, according to him, he moved from near the curb on Houston over to the short pillar by the reflecting fountain (or whatever it is) as the limo was making the turn onto Elm Street, so it's no surprise that he hasn't been spotted in any of the films (yet).

Rhetorical question: When's the last time you watched The Lost Bullet?

Factoid:  If you watch a clear version of Mark Bell's film and/or Tina Towner's film in slow-motion, you can spot Lambert and her friend Lupe Whittaker (both basically dressed in black) and tall, dressed-in-white Stetson Man (all three of whom are very visible in the Wiegman film), standing on the "island," or maybe in the street just off the tip of the "island," to the right of the TSBD's entrance (from Bell's and Towner's points-of-view).

--  MWT   

[Royell Storing]

Jerry,

You're making the very common mistake of conflating journalist Anne Donaldson with Patrician Ann Donaldson (maiden name: Patricia Ann Lambert).

Amos Euins was 14 years-old and quite short, and, according to him, he moved from near the curb on Houston over to the short pillar by the reflecting fountain (or whatever it is) as the limo was making the turn onto Elm Street, so it's no surprise that he hasn't been spotted in any of the films (yet).

Rhetorical question: When's the last time you watched The Lost Bullet?

Factoid:  If you watch a clear version of Mark Bell's film and/or Tina Towner's film in slow-motion, you can spot Lambert and her friend Lupe Whittaker (both basically dressed in black) and tall, dressed-in-white Stetson Man (all three of whom are very visible in the Wiegman film), standing on the "island," or maybe in the street just off the tip of the "island," to the right of the TSBD's entrance (from Bell's and Towner's points-of-view).

--  MWT   

     Euins told HSCA Investigators that he had a camera with him on 11/22/63 and lost track of it. This late addition to his story makes him an unreliable witness.