S. M. Holland's "Smoke" on the Grassy Knoll

[John Corbett]

Plus, a number of witnesses in the motorcade and on the knoll said they smelled the pungent odor of gunpowder near/on the grassy knoll.

Unless someone fired a shot while on Elm St., the smell of the gunpowder would have had to travel some distance from the firearm that discharged it. Ergo, the smell of gunpowder on Elm St. gives us no indication as to where the gunpowder was discharged from. Fortunately, we have plenty of evidence that does tell us where the gunpowder was discharged. All that evidence points to one and only one place. The sniper's nest in the TSBD.

[Royell Storing]

Unless someone fired a shot while on Elm St., the smell of the gunpowder would have had to travel some distance from the firearm that discharged it. Ergo, the smell of gunpowder on Elm St. gives us no indication as to where the gunpowder was discharged from. Fortunately, we have plenty of evidence that does tell us where the gunpowder was discharged. All that evidence points to one and only one place. The sniper's nest in the TSBD.

   So people at ground level reported smelling gun smoke, but no one reported smelling gun smoke inside the sniper's nest. How does this happen?

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

An excerpt from page 121 of Mortal Error.
……….Finally, Donahue found a statement made by S M Holland.  Holland was a rail traffic supervisor with the Union Terminal Co.  He had watched the motorcade come down Elm St from atop the triple overpass, and he’d received considerable attention due to his claim that he’d seen a puff of smoke on the grassy knoll at the time of the shooting.  Holland’s observations about the Secret Service agent appeared in   The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report   , a 1967 book Donahue had read some years before:

Interviewer:  After the second time he was hit, what did the Secret Service men do?
Holland:  Well, i noticed that this Secret Service man stood up in the car, in the President’s car.
Interviewer:  When did he stand up in the car?
Holland:  Just about the same time the President was shot the second time. He jumped up in the seat and was standing up in the, on the seat. Now I actually thought when they started up, I actually thought he was shot, too, because he fell backwards just like he was shot, but it jerked him down when they started off.
Interviewer:  What did he do when he stood up?
Holland:  He pointed this machine gun right towards that grassy knoll behind that picket fence.

Holland was transfixed. Holland had put the gun in the agent’s hands at the moment the last shot was fired and said the agent then fell over………..

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

Mortal Error was printed in 1991 & explains that SSA Hickey accidentally shot jfk with an AR15. Bonar Menninger wrote the book & Howard Donahue provided the info.
Donahue realized that Oswald did not fire the headshot in Feb 1968.
Donahue realized that an agent in the follow up car might have fired the headshot in March 1967.
Donahue realized that agent Hickey fired the headshot in about Sept 1968.
In 2024 it was discovered that Hickey had fired an accidental autoburst of at least 4 shots, the last shot being the headshot.
However the first mention in print was in The Sun Magazine on May 8 1977... that a SSA in the follow up car had fired the headshot.
However the first mention that the headshot was an accident was made by SSA Clint Hill on Nov 22 1963.

[John Corbett]

   So people at ground level reported smelling gun smoke, but no one reported smelling gun smoke inside the sniper's nest. How does this happen?

I'm not at all surprised you were unable to follow the logic.

First of all, people are not smelling gun smoke. The smoke dissipates almost immediately. What people smell is the residue of the gunpowder discharged into the air and which can travel some distance from the firearm that discharged it. This is why people smelling gunpowder residue on Elm St is no indication of where the residue was discharged from. But this is the kind of nonsense conspiracy hobbyists have clung to for over 62 years because they still have zero evidence that anyone other than Oswald took part in the assassination.

There was only one person in the sniper's nest and I'm not at all surprised he didn't report smelling gunpowder residue there.

[Michael Capasse]

Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas: Riding in the motorcade behind the President, he stated he smelled gunpowder as they passed the grassy knoll.
Patrolman Joe Smith: A Dallas police officer who reported a "distinctive smell of gun-smoke cordite" and ran toward the knoll.
Tom Dillard: A press photographer in the motorcade who stated he "very definitely smelled gunpowder".
Mrs. Earle Cabell: The wife of the Mayor of Dallas, who was "acutely aware of the odor of gunpowder".
Virgie Rachley: A bookkeeper who reported smelling "gun smoke" while on Elm Street.
Patrolman Earl Brown: Reported smelling gun powder while seeing an officer in the follow-up car swinging a gun.

[John Corbett]

Mortal Error was printed in 1991 & explains that SSA Hickey accidentally shot jfk with an AR15. Bonar Menninger wrote the book & Howard Donahue provided the info.

Donahue was an idiot. I can't say much for anyone who bought into his crap.

[John Corbett]

Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas: Riding in the motorcade behind the President, he stated he smelled gunpowder as they passed the grassy knoll.
Patrolman Joe Smith: A Dallas police officer who reported a "distinctive smell of gun-smoke cordite" and ran toward the knoll.
Tom Dillard: A press photographer in the motorcade who stated he "very definitely smelled gunpowder".
Mrs. Earle Cabell: The wife of the Mayor of Dallas, who was "acutely aware of the odor of gunpowder".
Virgie Rachley: A bookkeeper who reported smelling "gun smoke" while on Elm Street.
Patrolman Earl Brown: Reported smelling gun powder while seeing an officer in the follow-up car swinging a gun.

Not one item above is an indication a shot was fired from Elm St. or from the grassy knoll. It just tells use where certain people were when the smell of the gunpowder reached them. It doesn't tell us where that gunpowder came from.