The First Shot

[Gerry Down]

That lamp (and another one just like it) was made by my mother and given to me many years before, when I left home. I believe that I hadn’t yet completely gotten that room’s furniture arrangement worked out or set up at the time the photo was made. Hence the lamp on the floor.   

Your mother could make lamps? What a crafty woman. The whole thing or just the shade?

[Charles Collins]

Your mother could make lamps? What a crafty woman. The whole thing or just the shade?

She was in some sort of ceramics group. As far as I know, they basically just painted and then baked on the finishes. She made a beer stein for me also. The lamp shade was purchased.

[Gerry Down]

She was in some sort of ceramics group. As far as I know, they basically just painted and then baked on the finishes. She made a beer stein for me also. The lamp shade was purchased.

That was the old folks for you. What could a young person do for you nowadays. Can't even change the oil in their car.

[Andrew Mason]

This is a model set I don't use anymore. Seems to have overdeveloped muscles. I did proportionally-scale the figures to a height of 6' 1". But the chest, as noted, was barrel-shaped and the shoulders were a bit too wide. Thanks for spotting that. I have a different more-average model set today.

I did return to the model and narrowed the shoulder width of JFK and JBC. The open gap between them in the film (where we see the seatback) is now closer in width to what is in Z193. This must be the problem. I didn't change anything else on the figure models. The only other change I did was reorient the car relative to the curvature of Elm at that point. About a 1 or 2 degree change.

My limousine is not accurate yet with regards to the hand-holds and tire hump. So I removed the handholds. I estimate Kennedy's midline to be 7 1/2" in from the interior wall of the limousine. The rear seat is 60" wide.

This is not a criticism of your graphics, which you do really well, but the arm and chest position does not look natural and does not look like the photos.  This photo taken on Houston Street shows a more natural position that is not have his armpit was pressed against the side of the car as you are assuming:
   

Also:  you have to get the right distance between JFK's neck exit wound and JBC's spine. His spine was not pressed against the back of the jump seat.  The distance between the neck exit wound and JBC's spine was more like 36 inches, based on the Croft photo:
   

Nothing much changed with regard to the trajectory hitting Connally to the right of his mid-line.

The Powers film shows JFK and JBC from the rear and has JFK's shoulder inside the car:
   

Something must have changed in the relative position of the two men after that for the trajectory through JFK's neck to get close to JBC's right armpit.  [Note: the lighter area between JFK and Jackie appears to be the bouquet of yellow roses but the white spot just above that could be JBC's stetson - resting on his left knee?]

So I have JFK's midline at 7 1/2" from the interior side wall and the bullet arriving at Connally 13 1/2" from the same wall. About six inch difference. My jumpseats are 21" wide and about 8 1/2" apart. The center of a jumpseat is about 16" from the side wall interior.

I would have to move the Kennedy figure about six inches further away from the interior side wall to get the missile path to bypass Connally's torso.

You should estimate the range of error or uncertainty on the right/left position of JFK. The minimum is 7.5 inches and that has his right armpit right against the side (Canning measured the spine to armpit distance to be 20 cm = 7.9 inches on JBC).  As explained above, there is also some uncertainty in the distance from JFK's exit wound to JBC's spine.  It is at least 24 inches to the plane of the jump seat.

On the Hess & Eisenhardt scale drawing at 6 HSCA 50 the right jump seat is 2.5 inches from the side of the door which is about 1 inch further inside the car than the panel beside JFK. That makes 3.5 inches. But when I measure it, it appears to be 5 inches.  The seat itself is shown as 20.5 inches wide so by that the middle of the jump seat would be 15.25 inches farther inside the car than the interior side wall beside JFK.

If you then assume just 30 inches between JFK's exit wound and JBC's spine, the bullet moves 30 tan(15) = 8 inches farther left. That puts it 18 inches left of the side wall using my 10 inch side wall to JFK midline figure. That is 2.75 inches left of JBC's turned spine. It could be a bit more. But even using your 7.5 inches for JFK's midline from the right side, that puts the bullet passing to the left side of JBC's spine by 1/4 of an inch.

[Zeon Mason]

Why would either a lone gunman or a 2nd gunman take a shot after 313?

Would it not be quite apparent to the one (or both) observing the target in their scope or iron sights, that the head is nearly completely destroyed?

rusty barrel MC rifle with defective scope impossible to align unless shim used after rescrewiimg the mount to the stock, Suggests this rifle was planted before the shooting and never actually fired

What purpose to do this, as it seems rather pointless?

One possibility might be a shooter who was an CIA operative who was got left for dead at the Bay of Pigs.

This shooter was an enraged individual who vowed not just to terminate JFK but make him suffer pain just before finishing him off with a head shot

The shooter used a semi auto rifle with accurate scope and made his 1st shot approx 223 purposely aiming at the back of JFK in order to inflict a moment of severe pain

The shooter could have then immediately fired a 2nd and 3td shot in 2 secs, but instead, he waited a full 4.8 secs, carefully keeping his scope on the head of JFK as the shooter sadistically enjoyed those few seconds knowing the agony of pain that JFK must have been suffering at that point

The shooter then fired his final kill shot by rapid firing 2 shots in about 1.5 secs

The 2nd shot hit the skull at Z312-313

The 3rd shot right immediately followed but went slightly high due to muzzle rise , and flew just over the windshield to strike the curb near James Teague

All the bullets fired by the lone gunman using a semi auto rifle (7.62mm?). were comical shaped FMG type this necessitating the replacement with CE 399 and placing MC 6.5 mm fragments underneath Mrs Connallys seat in the limo.

The point of pre planting the MC rusty barrel rifle was to make a final statement of mockery , perhaps implicate Oswald as a traitor and or informant

This shooter would have had to use an elevator to descend from 6th floor to 1st floor, as he Would have been by Mrs Garner on the 4th floor if he had used the staircase.

This leaves Jack Dougherty as a prime suspect, either aiding the shooter or Jack being the shooter himself, UNLESS, JD was actually on the 7th floor sleeping when shots were fired and Jack stayed on the 7th floor for hiding for awhile (otherwise would’ve been seen by the 3 amigos huddling on the 5th floor, or by Mrs Garner, or by Truly/Baker when they arrived on the 7th floor.

[Andrew Mason]

Why would either a lone gunman or a 2nd gunman take a shot after 313?

Would it not be quite apparent to the one (or both) observing the target in their scope or iron sights, that the head is nearly completely destroyed?

rusty barrel MC rifle with defective scope impossible to align unless shim used after rescrewiimg the mount to the stock, Suggests this rifle was planted before the shooting and never actually fired

What purpose to do this, as it seems rather pointless?

One possibility might be a shooter who was an CIA operative who was got left for dead at the Bay of Pigs.

This shooter was an enraged individual who vowed not just to terminate JFK but make him suffer pain just before finishing him off with a head shot

The shooter used a semi auto rifle with accurate scope and made his 1st shot approx 223 purposely aiming at the back of JFK in order to inflict a moment of severe pain

The shooter could have then immediately fired a 2nd and 3td shot in 2 secs, but instead, he waited a full 4.8 secs, carefully keeping his scope on the head of JFK as the shooter sadistically enjoyed those few seconds knowing the agony of pain that JFK must have been suffering at that point

The shooter then fired his final kill shot by rapid firing 2 shots in about 1.5 secs

The 2nd shot hit the skull at Z312-313

The 3rd shot right immediately followed but went slightly high due to muzzle rise , and flew just over the windshield to strike the curb near James Teague

All the bullets fired by the lone gunman using a semi auto rifle (7.62mm?). were comical shaped FMG type this necessitating the replacement with CE 399 and placing MC 6.5 mm fragments underneath Mrs Connallys seat in the limo.

The point of pre planting the MC rusty barrel rifle was to make a final statement of mockery , perhaps implicate Oswald as a traitor and or informant

This shooter would have had to use an elevator to descend from 6th floor to 1st floor, as he Would have been by Mrs Garner on the 4th floor if he had used the staircase.

This leaves Jack Dougherty as a prime suspect, either aiding the shooter or Jack being the shooter himself, UNLESS, JD was actually on the 7th floor sleeping when shots were fired and Jack stayed on the 7th floor for hiding for awhile (otherwise would’ve been seen by the 3 amigos huddling on the 5th floor, or by Mrs Garner, or by Truly/Baker when they arrived on the 7th floor.

... so how, exactly did he find Oswald, a person who unbeknownst to him had used his gun in a previous assassination attempt? And how did he persuade Oswald to bring his gun to work, then leave, get his gun and shoot officer Tippett... and trust that he would not talk?

[Charles Collins]

For what it is worth:

Harry McCormick, the legendary crime reporter for the Dallas Morning News, writes (in his notes written four months after the assassination per his editor’s request):

One of the first persons I ran into was Abraham Zapruder. He was obviously highly agitated, almost weeping.

“I saw it all through my camera,” he half sobbed to himself. I stopped him and without identifying myself I asked him questions. “I got it all on film,” he said. “There were three shots. Two hit the President and the other Gov. Connelly. I know the President is dead for his head seemed to fly to pieces when he was hit the second time.


Looking at the televised interview with Zapruder done only a short while later, he is unsure whether or not there were two or three shots. This is the first time that I have seen a quote of Zapruder that appears to be definite regarding the number of shots. If Harry McCormick had not put those words in quotation marks, I would probably guess that McCormick had used the generally accepted view of that point in time. But it appears that this is a verbatim quote of Abraham Zapruder. And I find that interesting because I was under the impression that Zapruder was always unsure about the number of shots.