Secret Service (SS) Agent Clint Hill said this about what he heard as he approached the limousine from the follow-up car.
Representative BOGGS. This was the first shot?
Mr. HILL. This is the first sound that I heard; yes, sir. I jumped from the car, realizing that something was wrong, ran to the Presidential limousine. Just about as I reached it, there was another sound, which was different than the first sound. I think I described it in my statement as though someone was shooting a revolver into a hard object--it seemed to have some type of an echo. I put my right foot, I believe it was, on the left rear step of the automobile, and I had a hold of the handgrip with my hand, when the car lurched forward. I lost my footing and I had to run about three or four more steps before I could get back up in the car.
SS Agent Hill said he heard a sound similar to shooting a REVOLVER into a hard object. It seems Hill would receive support from a professional person on this verdict. His name was Dr. Charles Wilber and he was the medical examiner (that means he was a forensic pathologist) for Larimer County, Colorado. He would write a book called The Medico-Legal Investigation of the Late President John F. Kennedy Murder in 1978. Here is an excerpt from that book that agrees with Hill?s assessment of the noise he heard.
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Interpretation of the fatal head wound by several attending surgeons suggested a high velocity HAND GUN bullet fired at close range [as the cause of death]. (Dr. Charles Wilber, The Medico-Legal Investigation of the Late President John F. Kennedy Murder, 1978, p. 296)
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It seems the notion of JFK being shot up close with a pistol is not dead after all. The evidence of Agent Hill should have given the WC pause, but as usual they just ignored it.
I described it in my statement as though someone was
shooting a revolver into a hard object[/b][/color]--it seemed to have some type of an echo.
Hill's description of the sounds he heard are a bit ambiguous ..... I don't know why he would think that the sound of a
revolver being fired into a hard object would be any different than a
rifle being fired into a hard object...
Depending on the revolver and the rifle involved one could sound just like the other....
IMO, Hill had heard a large caliber revolver bullet strike some hard object prior to the assassination, and was relating the sound he heard at the prior time, to the sound he heard when he was climbing aboard the Lincoln.
I've heard bullets strike plywood and they create a sharp bang when they strike.... I've also head the slap of a bullet striking flesh and that sound is more of a snap or slap than a bang.... I would guess that the sound of a bullet striking a skull would be a loud smack...Neither a bang nor a slap....
At any rate, I seriously doubt that a person could determine if the bullet had been fired from a revolver, or a rifle, simply by hearing the sound.
Now then, having said that, I do believe there is a distinct possibility that a pistol could have been one of the weapons that was fired at JFK that day....
