JFK Assassination Forum

McAdams on Jean Hill:

https://www.jfk-assassination.net/jhill.htm

Why would the Mafia want to kill lone gunman Oswald?

Lone gunman? bang.....bang..bang, no way he could fire those last two shots.

I think he was jealous of Clint Hill's fame/notoriety and decided to make his role on that fateful day larger than it really was.

What is the evidence of that?  I don't know whether Landis' is deliberately lying or whether his memory is accurate, but his stated motive sounds plausible: It was bothering his conscience and he was getting to the end of his life and wanted to set matters straight.  If that really was his motive, then he would have believed he was telling the truth. But that doesn't mean his memory is accurate.

The evidence against Landis is that in his statement after the events (30Nov63 CE1024 18 H 751): 1. he mentioned only picking up Jackie's purse, hat and a cigarette lighter from the back seat of the car and 2. he never mentioned going into the operating room where he now says he placed the bullet on JFK's stretcher. 

However, he would have realized that he should not have done what he did but should have realized that the bullet was important evidence and provided it immediately to the FBI.  He should at least have mentioned it to his superior officer in the Secret Service. That may explain why he did not mention it - for fear of being disciplined or fired from his job.  Possibly.

Is it possible that Landis correctly remembered placing the bullet on JFK's stretcher but was mistaken as to where that stretcher was when he placed it there.  Although Jackie may have been permitted to enter the operating room, it is less likely that Landis would have accompanied her into the room as it was crowded and medical staff did not present a security issue. If Landis had placed it at the foot of JFK's stretcher before it was moved into the operating room then that would avoid the problem: he was simply mistaken in recalling after 60 years where the stretcher was when he placed the bullet on it.

The final problem with Landis' story is that the WC found that the bullet had been on Connally's stretcher.   I have always wondered about how they could be so sure when Tomlinson, the hospital engineer who discovered CE399, was pretty sure it was not Connally's stretcher. 

Tomlinson related that he was asked to close off the elevator and operate it manually. When he entered the elevator on the second floor there was a stretcher already on it ("Stretcher A" as it is referred to in Tomlinson's testimony).  The second floor was the floor where the operating room was, which was where Connally was being operated on.  After they moved Connally onto the operating table the stretcher was placed in the elevator expecting other staff to take it down for cleanup. Tomlinson descended to the ground floor, where he removed the stretcher and parked it beside another stretcher (stretcher "B") that was already there.  JFK had been in Trauma Room 1 on the ground floor. Tomlinson said that a man moved stretcher B back from the wall so he could access a washroom and when he exited he did not move the stretcher back.  So Tomlinson said he moved it back against the wall and when he did it bumped the wall and the bullet fell onto the floor. He was pretty sure it came from stretcher B (6 H 130-131):

"Mr. TOMLINSON. I bumped the wall and a spent cartridge or bullet rolled out that apparently had been lodged under the edge of the mat.
Mr. SPECTER. And that was from which stretcher?
Mr. TOMLINSON. I believe that it was “B”.
Mr. SPECTER. And what was on “B”, if you recall ; if anything?
Mr. TOMLINSON. Well, at one end they had one or two sheets rolled up; I didn’t examine them. They were bloody. They were rolled up on the east end of it and there were a few surgical instruments on the opposite end and a sterile pack or so. "

He noted that the sheets were bloody.  Obviously JFK's sheets were bloody.  Jackie's dress was bloody.  The car seat was bloody. Everything around JFK was bloody. Even the operating room floor.  But the same could not be said for JBC. His shirt was not bloody. His cuff was not bloody. His jacket was not bloody.  While the medical reports for JFK mention "there was a great flow of blood from the cranial cavity, indicating that there was much vascular damage as well as brain tissue damage" and two lots of blood being obtained from the blood bank, there was no mention of external blood in the reports on Connally.  There was evidence that the sheet JBC was lying on did have some blood on it (Wester 6 H 123).

Was stretcher B JFK's? Nurse Henchcliffe said that they gathered up the sheets that had been placed on the floor so that staff would not step in the pools of blood from the floor from JFK's head wound.  She said that an orderly placed them in a laundry hamper.  She said that there were some items and sheets on the stretcher and the stretcher was moved into Trauma Room 2 (which had been where JBC was examined before being taken to the operating room).  She was asked if the sheets on or off the stretcher when was taken out and she said "I believe they were off." (6 H 142).

That is not much to go on but it seems to me that it is possible that stretcher B was the stretcher from which CE399 fell and stretcher B was not JBC's. If JFK's stretcher was taken to Trauma room 2 as Henchcliffe said, it may have been moved from there to the hallway before Tomlinson descended from the second floor and put stretcher A beside it.  The fact that Tomlinson said the sheets on it were bloody is worth noting.

In light of Landis' story, one may have to reopen the possibility that the bullet came from JFK's stretcher.

But Landis' story doesn't change the fact that CE399 came from somewhere within the confines of the limo interior.  And, in the end, that is all that matters.  How it found its way out of JBC's leg will probably have to remain something unknowable.  I would rather accept not knowing than having to accept a particular explanation that is a best a guess.

Yeah, eyewitnesses can be wrong. But they can also be making accurate/astute observations amidst the muddle of their inaccurate story. Jean Hill has been ridiculed for decades with respect to her claiming there was a, "dog in the middle of the seat....", inside the JFK Limo. And this ridicule includes the above puffed up, "FBI employee by day...".  There was a "Lamb Chop" hand puppet inside the JFK Limo. Specifically, this "Lamb Chop" hand puppet was on the back seat between JFK and Jackie. Jean Hill was the only person inside Dealey Plaza to see this Lamb Chop/"Dog" inside the JFK Limo. The point being, "Do NOT throw the baby out with the bath water". There can be specks of truth within an inaccurate eyewitness story.

This is why I don't put Jean Hill in the same category as Hoffman and Oliver. She was definitely in Dealey Plaza and was close to the limo when the fatal shot struck. I'm not surprised that she mistook a puppet for a small dog. I think she later embellished some of the things she claimed to have seen but I'll give her a pass on the small dog.

The simple fact is that a bullet fired from the sniper's nest through JFK's upper torso and exiting from his throat could not have missed JBC. He was directly in the line of fire. Had he not been turned slightly to his right when the bullet struck, it's likely he would have been hit more toward the center of his back, probably just right of his spine. The single bullet was inevitable given where the bullet entered and exited from JFK.