Who were the shooters?

[Jack White]

In the photos below, Plumlee was standing in the Cancellare in the shadows just above the big tail fin on the car at left and in the lower photo where the blue line meets the shade of the trees on the S. Knoll area. The wiggly blue line is the path he drew of where he walked following the shots.

Thanks, Peter. I've also recently found some other reference on this and I will set it up.

The other line ignore for now.

Sure. No problem. And you try not to think of an elephant.

Ashton

Ashton...in Cancellare, Tosh claims to be at the far left in the tree shadows, near the steps just out of the photo.

The late Tom Wilson claimed to have located two persons in the tree shadows of Cancellare.

As for the "south knoll gunman location", it is at the at the end of the TU railing, directly above Pickupman.

Jack

[Bernice Moore]

Here are a few photos that may help.

B

Edited December 12, 2006 by Bernice Moore

[Ashton Gray]

Hi Bernice.

I've been being chased by wild and rabid hounds of deadlines and have had no time to get back into the model at all in the past week or so (I can't remember when last), but I've carved out a few minutes this weekend to add the new limo model someone sent to me, and because your concerns about the original Elm sewer drain shot I set up have been weighing on my mind, I went back to it.

I've really tried to figure out a way from that the head shot could have come from that location, and I'm sorry to report that I've thrown in the towel on it. One problem that was in the original set-up I did from there is that I had the "Connally" figure sitting upright, and Connally was lying back against his wife by the time of the headshot. But once the more correctly modeled limo was in the scene, even with Connally out of the way, things seemed to get worse, not better. Here's all I could come up with:

It appears that the shot would have had to through the windshield and perilously close to the SS "shotgun" guy. I may have the JFK figure now leaning too far to his left, but even if I bring him back to his right (screen left), then there are the frames of the windshield and the little side window, and the "roll bar" (which is pretty much invisible in this image—sorry). Maybe a shooter could have split the seam between the windshield and the side window. If so I consider it the unluckiest luckiest shot possibly in history.

I wish I had something else to report on this location, but unless someone can tell me where I've gone wrong on it I don't know where to take it.

Ashton

[Ashton Gray]

For Peter, Jack, and anyone else interested:

Here are three Plumlee related images from the 3D model based on my best understanding of the information in this thread.

First, from the purported Plumlee location near the steps on the south knoll:

Assuming there had been a Lee Harvey Oswald busy pumping off three shots from the sixth floor window (which there wasn't), how Plumlee could have avoided seeing the activity and flash up there is something for mystics to ponder.

Now here is a view from as close as I can figure a place for the purported south knoll shooter (following Plumlee's nose for gunpowder smells), who I believe also would have been behind a picket fence with the shrubs outside it, but I don't have time to put them in:

Not that it matters as far as I'm concerned: here is a close-up on the limo from that angle:

I would have put in a view from a shooter whose bullets would have flown over Plumlee's head, but so far I haven't built a sky hook into the model, and that's the only way a shooter could have gotten elevated over Plumlee's head where he claims he was standing.

Ashton

[Frank Agbat]

It seems to me, at least on superficial review, that we're rapidly running out of non-building locations for a shooter.

If memory serves me correctly, though, the "Plumlee Shooter" location would have been closer to the railroad bridge and have more elevation.

[Bill Grote]

It seems to me, at least on superficial review, that we're rapidly running out of non-building locations for a shooter.

If memory serves me correctly, though, the "Plumlee Shooter" location would have been closer to the railroad bridge and have more elevation.

For what it's worth, I agree. Tosh mentioned a hidey-hole next to the railroad bridge. A slight indentation in the butress where a shooter could easily hide, according to my memory.

[Ashton Gray]

It seems to me, at least on superficial review, that we're rapidly running out of non-building locations for a shooter.

If memory serves me correctly, though, the "Plumlee Shooter" location would have been closer to the railroad bridge and have more elevation.

Hey Frank you (and Bill Grote) are right about the hidey-hole-by-the-overpass/underpass/railroad-bridge suggested possible shooter location from Plumlee. I had done a view from there earlier in this thread, so in the latest round was trying to get the other Plumlee-suggested possible south knoll shooter location (as I understood it), which had been indicated as being somewhere between the railroad bridge and Plumlee's location.

Given that I've recently done some tweaks to the model, though, I revisited the location you've both described, and here it is for what it's worth. First the long view (in which I forgot to turn on the layer with the motorcycle cops and other vehicles, but they're in the next image, the close-up):

As with the view I did from the pergola for John Dolva, I created a "construction line" from there to JFK to put the "camera" on so I could move it on that line and approach close to the limo (bullet's-eye view). Here's what I get:

I keep reminding all of the caveats of possible inaccuracies in the model. At the same time I keep going and looking from these proposed locations, and I have to think the model would have to be egregiously inaccurate indeed to convert them into viable, premeditated shooting locations. But that's just how I see it.

Any I've missed?

Ashton

[Ashton Gray]

I have had an eerie night on the eve of Christmas eve.

Foolishly, I allowed my thoughts to stray to the ejecta that is visible in Zapruder frame 314 (discussed at some length recently in the thread The Head Wound Explained).

Without trying (and preferring not to), I thought the thought that if something representing that ejecta of matter from JFK's head could be placed more or less reasonably in 3D space, it might be used as a plotted point that if connected with another plotted point at the apparent head wound in the Zapruder film (on the right front of JFK's head) would create a line theoretically leading back— Well, it very well could lead back to the head wound shooter location.

Unable to make this spectre leave my house (like some damnable ghost of Christmas past), I created a simple cube to represent the ejecta. I used a cube so I could angle one edge toward the apparent head wound location, then use two points on that edge to create a construction line back through the apparent head wound opening. Creating the "ejecta" cube and placing it as well as I could in the 3D space came out like this:

Aside: The surreal quality of the image itself has its own creepiness, but you would have had to be here to experience the real creep show: the "spectators" I have placed in the model are 2D images set to always face the viewer, giving the illusion of 3Dness while conserving processor overhead. So the entire time I was working to place this "ejecta" cube, as I turned the view to different angles and manipulated the cube in space, no matter where I was viewing or what I was doing, the "spectators" always followed with their eyes. I finally had to turn that layer of the model off.

The next thing to do was to create a construction line from the "ejecta" back through JFK's head. Once I felt the ejecta stand-in was placed and aligned according to my best possible estimates from the available reference, with the top near edge pointing to the apparent head wound, I created a "construction line" along its edge, which took only a moment. Then there was nothing left to do but take a deep breath and see where it led. I took several deep breaths. Then I rotated the "camera" to sight along its path (which I've made red in this next image). And with ever-growing creep I found this:

It went straight into a top window of the County Records building.

Some may be aware (even painfully aware) of my interest in the County Courts building, next door and connected to the County Records building. But this was new. I had not even made the "windows" in the County Records building transparent. I quickly rectified that with the window the line was pointing to, then went around through the back of the "building" to look down on the motorcade:

I discovered that there were absolutely no impediments to a shot. More than that, there clearly was ample space to have tracked the limo and taken shots earlier than the head shot—and to take later shots, if necessary, before the limo could reach the tunnels of the railroad bridge.

I used the construction line I had made to truck the view down its path toward the head to see what it looked like close up:

I wondered how this location compared to the 6th floor "sniper's nest" window of the Texas School Book Depository. Here's what it looks like:

It seems that it would be roughly on a level to an 8th floor if the TSBD had one.

As one final curiosity I measured the distance from the County Records building window to JFK's head, and from the TSBD 6th floor window to JFK's head. The County Records window is about 1.092xxx times as far as the TSBD 6th floor window. In other words, approximately the same distance.

And I felt it incumbent on me to present this. And with that, I think I'm going to shut this down for a while now, kick all the ghosts out, and have myself a merry little Christmas. I hope that all of you do, as well.

Ashton

Edited December 24, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[Frank Agbat]

I have had an eerie night on the eve of Christmas eve.

...

Very, very interesting. On the surface, the placement of the ejecta model seems consistent with what is observed in Zapruder, Muchmore, and Nix. With the descending angle in addition to the left-to-right entry near the crown, it could certainly explain the "skull flap" in the z-film -- especially if the bullet ran shallow.

Nice work!

[Dawn Meredith]

I have had an eerie night on the eve of Christmas eve.

...

Very, very interesting. On the surface, the placement of the ejecta model seems consistent with what is observed in Zapruder, Muchmore, and Nix. With the descending angle in addition to the left-to-right entry near the crown, it could certainly explain the "skull flap" in the z-film -- especially if the bullet ran shallow.

Nice work!

I agree. Compelling.

And Merry Christmas to you too, Ashton, and to all forum members.

Peace on earth.

Dawn

[Ashton Gray]

Having discovered in a most unlikely way a possible line of fire for the head shot (discussed and illustrated a few messages earlier in this thread) leading to a top floor window of the County Records building, I decided to work back from this possible location and assess its likelihood as a shooting location for any earlier shots.

I decided to consider the back wound. I looked at locations marked on various Dealey Plaza schematics for the position of the limo and JFK at the time of the back wound, which all seem to be estimated locations taken from testimony. After some trial in placing the limo in the marked positions, I wound up settling for placing it a bit farther back, where it is on a line from Zapruder through the Stemmons Freeway sign. For reasons I'm not going to go into here, I currently believe hypothetically that the back wound happened as or very shortly after the limo went behind the freeway sign in the Zapruder footage, and the impact trauma of that is what JFK was reacting to as he hunched foward when the limo was emerging from behind the sign.

Working on that hypothesis, I set the limo up in a location I thought was approximately correct for the back wound and looked at it from the same top floor County Records window:

I continue to be impressed at what a masterful view this location has of nearly all of the center lane of Elm Street, and at the clear shooting angles. Attempting to think like plotting, cold-blooded murderers planning an assassination months in advance isn't something that comes easy. But if it was in fact a premeditated act of co-conspirators and there was secured access to such a secluded location, there seems to be much to recommend it.

Zooming in on the limo and JFK:

This view called to mind at once the evidence of record that the back shot was found to be at an angle and shallow—which, as I understand it, likely would not have been fatal, however much the impact must have stunned the man. I haven't taken this further and am presenting it here to open it for discussion. I'm particularly interested in further understanding of whether the angle of entrance might support or tend to negate a shot from this location.

Ashton

Edited December 25, 2006 by Ashton Gray

[Charles Drago]

By definition there is a likelihood bordering on certainty that the identities of the gunmen in Dealey Plaza that day remain unknown to all of us on this site -- save those who may be doing the bidding of their original employers.

And even then ...

The best hunters of humans in all the world: That was the population from which the assassins who shot John Kennedy were chosen.

SS Rat Line snipers? Shin Beth gunmen? Green Beret hardons? How novelistic do you want or need to make these speculations?

Failure, as they say, was not an option. Professionals were hired. They did their jobs. They successfully escaped the scene and evaded pursuers.

And then?

I doubt that they were subsequently killed. These people knew the risks attendent to taking the contract on the big vegetable. They would have provided for their personal security. The relationship between the gunmen and their cutouts would have been the equivalent of MAD -- mutually assured destruction should either party be the first to fire on the other.

They lived. They prospered. And they carried the memories of that special day to their deathbeds.

Not that one or more couldn't be alive even as we ponder their identities ...