Mark Tyler

The issue of authenticity is always important in this case. Unfortunately there have been proven examples of photo manipulation such as the touching up of the shoe in the presidential limo that was done some time soon after the assassination: Then there was the more recent Photoshop job where someone pasted an image of Lee Harvey Oswald onto the Dillard photo: https://vincepalamara.com/2014/11/08/photo-of-lee-harvey-oswald-in-window-after-jfk-assassination-fake/ Thankfully it was easy enough to expose both, but it does demonstrate the value of a keen eye and skepticism when studying evidence in this case (including the motivations of the human actors involved!).

I think this version of the Wiegman film is generally darker, but otherwise it looks consistent with the lighter still frame. That window seems to be in full view of the first few seconds of the film and I don't see any movement or changes in the various versions I have seen. Judging from my animation and the speed calculations of the cars turning that corner onto Elm Street, I think the first clear frames were exposed around Z285-Z340 so the lack of a gunman suggests to me that the head shot wasn't fired from that window. Also, if the shot(s) that hit the victims were fired Z190-Z220, I don't think an assassin had time to fire the shot, shut the window, and duck down so I think we can eliminate that possibility also. I think the window is closed because the horizontal frame in the middle of the dark area is the right size for the thinner middle section. If the window was open in the same way as the sixth floor window sniper position it would be thicker like the base of the window, as seen in these photos: Alas, photo-analysis is always somewhat subjective, but what I see here is a slightly dirty window above and below the mid horizontal bar: Having said that I'm always open to another point of view if anyone disagrees.

That's a really interesting backstory, which I didn't know about so thanks for mentioning it. The Mauser angle is deeply troubling as there were reports on the day of a Mauser being found in the search of the TSBD. I shall have to put the Mauser and Caster issues on my reading list for the next week or two! I completely agree with this reading of the police and the FBI from 1963, as they clearly felt they had caught the culprit: he worked in the building where the witnesses said the shots came from; they had a photo of him with the gun found in the TSBD and the gun used to shoot Tippit; Oswald fled Dealey Plaza and violently resisted arrest less than an hour later. Superficially the narrative fits perfectly so it seems reasonable that the authorities acted on this and assumed he was the only suspect. Once Oswald was dead they had no real motivation to dig around chasing up any other leads as they felt all of the jigsaw pieces fitted together without any gaps. We have the benefit of hindsight and see things slightly differently, but I do feel their behaviour was understandable at the time.

A shot from a second floor TSBD window would be a good candidate for a single bullet going through JFK and then hitting Connally. The Wiegman film has a great view of that specific window while the shots were still being fired: The window looks closed I think, but the photo you reference from 12:42 seems to have the sun-blind slightly further down so somebody must have been in that room I would say. Another comparison is the Weaver photo taken about 30 seconds before the shooting started: From a similar time as Weaver but from another angle is Moorman 3, which suggests that window did have a view onto Elm Street: Overall I think that the vertical angle is perfect, and the limo could probably be seen (assuming nothing like the oak tree or the concrete block near it obstructed the view). However, the window probably wasn't open so whoever was in that room wasn't able to fire a shot at the victims Z190-Z220. Without other open windows on the lower floors of the eastern side of the TSBD, I would think that one of the middle floors of the Dal-Tex might be worth considering as another source of the single bullet theory shot as the angles seem about right.

I tend to agree, the back wounds to JFK and Connally only make sense as entry wounds, with the shot(s) coming from the rear. As the limo comes out from behind the sign in the Zapruder film the victims seem to react at the same time so either the single bullet theory is correct (I'm not sure which location the shot was fired from), or there must have been two shots fired at exactly the same time. I don't think there is a way to prove with certainty what happened (although I'm happy to be proved wrong!), but those are the obvious options that would explain the evidence we have. The limo does indeed slow down, from about 12-13 MPH to 7-8 MPH in the 4-5 seconds after Z230. The Muchmore film suggests that the brake lights were on at Z313:

Thanks Greg. Despite the huge amount of information we have, it's a surprisingly difficult crime scene to explain. This is why it's well worth exploring different options to see which is consistent with most of the crime scene evidence, and which has the fewest loose ends. I do agree with you that the single bullet theory is tricky to explain, but it seems to create even more complexity when you get rid of it, as many more shots seem to be required and that's very hard to match with the autopsy. This is one of the reasons I have considered that the SBT may have come from somewhere other than the sixth floor window as the angle from that high up seems rather too steep to work. With a shallower angle JFK doesn't need to lean so far forward like the HSCA suggested. On the subject of bullet experiments, if you haven't already seen it this may be worth looking at: When I saw this I realised that the theory of a bullet hitting the oak tree and being deflected to hit Tague was nonsense. High speed bullets seem to maintain momentum well, but can wobble or tumble so it may have entered JFK slightly awkwardly as you suggest.

The angle seems possible, but what about the shot itself? Do you think it goes through JFK and the back wound is an exit wound, or is that from a different shot? I'm trying to understand the general scenario required by the theory. For example, this also requires a shot from the rear that hits John Connally.

I haven't previously looked at the idea of a shot going through the windshield, but I did have a look at the video. The first thing that occurred to me was that if a shot went through the windshield, a good view of this angle would be the Altgens 6 photo here: We can just about see JFK, so presumably an assassin firing from the front could also see him. From the position of the hole mentioned in the video, a sniper would have to be somewhat to the south side of the railway bridge over the triple underpass. Alas I don't have a 3D model so I can't check the exact trajectory but on a 2D map it would be somewhere around this area I would say (this is the limo position at Z188, but a second or so later wouldn't change the angles much): A few issues crossed my mind: It looks like quite a hard shot as the target is somewhat obscured (much harder than from the rear, which is a much easier shot as JFK was totally exposed). If any shot went through the windshield at Z190-Z220 I would have expected Greer or Kellerman to have noticed, but they didn't mention anything in their official testimony and the Z-film shows no obvious reaction. The only reactions from Greer and Kellerman are just after the head shot when they duck. I would judge the damage to the windshield to have happened at this point from a sniper to the rear of the limo (i.e. the bullet hit JFK and then split into several pieces that hit the windshield, chrome topping, and ended up around the front seat area). Generally I feel the theory doesn't quite fit the evidence, but as so often in the case we can't really know for certain due to the car being cleaned soon afterwards and the damaged windshield being replaced and destroyed. The destruction of evidence by the authorities in this case is deeply problematic on many levels, and makes proper analysis almost impossible.

Hi Eddy. No stone should remain unturned, so a frontal shot should be examined as a possibility. The first shot or shots that were fired seem a bit of a mystery as I struggle to make any theory work. For example the official single bullet theory is problematic because the vertical angle from JFK's back wound to his throat wound seems flat, and yet the downward angle from the sixth floor window gunman is about 20 degrees. All of the models I have seen where the back wound is faithfully placed ends up with the shot exiting JFK's chest which we all know is completely wrong. The only way to make it work is to have JFK leaning forward like the HSCA diagrams show, but we all know from the Z-film that this didn't happen! Unless JFK had a peculiar physiology, I can't see how the shot came from where the Warren Commission and HSCA said it did. A lower angle is possible if JFK slouched somewhat (maybe 8-10 degrees, with 3 degrees of this coming from the road decline making a 5 degree JFK slouch), but it would have to be somewhere other than the TSBD as there were no low open windows on that side of the building. The fourth or fifth floor of the Dal-Tex fits this angle, but I would expect the many people in that building to have reported such a noisy event (in the Altgens 6 photo we see people hanging out of the windows on the third floor). A frontal shot from a low source (such as the storm drain) suffers from a similar problem because if it entered the throat it would presumably would exit via the back of the neck, which the autopsy photos don't show. A slightly elevated frontal shot might connect with the back wound, but then the bullet should presumably hit the back of the limo somewhere, which I don't see reflected in any of the photos. Finally, there is the possibility as mentioned by Cliff and Ron earlier that the wounds are simply not related to the same shot, and that maybe two or three shots fired from different directions are responsible. While very tempting, this also has the problem regarding exit wounds which I don't really see in the autopsy photos. I have heard about the idea of the back wound only being a shallow wound, but for this to have happened the bullet must have been travelling incredibly slowly which doesn't seem likely unless there was some kind of strange misfire. In summary, I'm fairly stumped as to how the victims received their wounds. Judging from the witnesses and the Z-film I think shots were fired at Z185 and Z220, so I do think two gunmen were involved, but apart from that I find it very hard to resolve all of the issues. I haven't yet seen the new Josiah Thompson book, but it would be interesting to know how he deals with the first couple of shots around Z185-Z220. I'll leave a comment on the other thread regarding the details of the windshield shot theory.

The HSCA diagrams of the single bullet theory are truly appalling! Getting the SBT trajectory to work from the sixth floor window at Z220 is already very difficult, but at Z190 it's almost impossible as the angle is even greater, hence the geometric gymnastics. And why did the HSCA say Z190 and not later? The dictabelt strikes again! For what it's worth I'm not against the general idea of a single bullet going through JFK and Connally, but it seems to me that the natural angle is much flatter than the 20+ degrees from the TSBD. A 10 degree angle would seem a much better fit for both sets of injuries to the victims, and JFK would only need a modest slouch to make it work rather than leaning so far forward he is almost headbutting John Connally! So, if the first shot missed the limo during Z180-Z190 (e.g. hitting the road as a couple of witnesses said), and a flatter SBT occurred at Z220, this connects the physical evidence, the Z-film events, and the witness evidence (most notably John Connally himself who said there were two seconds between the sound of the first shot and when he was hit: Z188 to Z225 is two seconds). Two shots fired in quick succession like this requires two gunmen, which many people will never accept, but it seems to be the most obvious interpretation of the evidence. Interestingly the HSCA dictabelt conclusions also require two shots within two seconds, but somehow they had Oswald firing both which seems a bit of a stretch for that old bolt action gun.

It's a good question, so I shall explain what I did to arrive at the conclusion I did about the gap from the shots to the sirens. In a nutshell it boils down to the synchronization between the two channels and the real time clock that the dispatcher periodically mentions. Firstly, the judgement of the shot timing is done on channel 2 as we hear Curry mention he was approaching the triple underpass. 10 seconds later the dispatcher says it is 12:30. About 10 seconds after that Curry starts transmitting again and we briefly hear a siren in the background and it is clear that the shooting has just taken place during the previous 20 seconds. We then get some fairly constant chatter for the next minute until we hear Bill Decker mention about holding everything secure and then we hear what sounds like a bell. These two events also happen on channel 1 (which was continuously recording for over 6 minutes due to the stuck open microphone), and is the so called crosstalk. This is my sync point between the two channels, and by checking the time announcements on each of the channels there seems to be a good sync which confirms it is about right. We can never know to the nearest second exactly how they sync, but everything seems to line up without any loose ends from what I can tell. However, the shots that the HSCA scientists identify are just before the bell event and so therefore the alleged shots happened more than a minute after the actual assassination. This is the big bone of contention between the defenders of the HSCA report and others who feel that the continuity doesn't align with the real time of the shots. Taking the recordings of the dictabelt at face value these are my conclusions: The timing is wrong for the position of the alleged shots (it's too late by over a minute). The siren that appears 3+ minutes after the assassination indicates that the microphone is near the Trade Mart as the motorcade rushes past to go to the hospital. The lack of a siren during the shooting, and no crowd noise, suggests that the microphone was never in Dealey Plaza. Curry on channel 2 was able to pick up a lot of crowd noise on Main Street before the shots, and a siren was audible seconds after the event, so this should have been audible on channel 1 (but it wasn't). The calculated position of the microphone turning from Houston Street onto Elm Street does not correspond to any single vehicle, and no motorbike is close enough for a match (McLain is well over 100 feet away for example). The dictabelt evidence tells us many things about the events in Dallas, but sadly it tells us nothing about the shots fired in Dealey Plaza.

Yes, this is the shot I think was fired near Z185 (the massive blur in the Zapruder film Z190-Z210 indicates Zapruder was startled by the noise). A couple of witnesses saw something hit the road by the limo (Royce Skelton & Virgie Baker), and other witnesses like Mary Woodward said nothing seemed to happen in the car. John Connally said he wasn't hit by this shot. This is my assumption as the Z-film shows them both reacting at the same time Z225-Z230 (presumably this shot was fired somewhere Z210-Z220). This shot may have come from the TSBD or may have come from another window nearby with a similar trajectory, e.g. the Dal-Tex building. Many witnesses said the head shot was the third shot fired, but several of these people also said the 2nd shot came just a second or two before. There is a slight jiggle in the Z-film at Z290 and William Greer is spinning his head around at this point which he said he did after hearing a shot just before the head shot. Once again the witnesses and the Z-film seem to be consistent. The Warren Commission never committed to saying when the missed shot was fired as they said different witnesses supported a shot before fired: before Z210; after Z313; and in between Z210 and Z313. I agree with their analysis as there are plenty of witnesses to support each of these conclusions. However I disagree with the Warren Commission as they limit themselves to just three shots which I think is a mistake. They relied on the blind statistical analysis that most witnesses heard three shots fired, but as discussed earlier most of these three shot witnesses heard two shots at the head shot or two shots at the beginning. The two shot witnesses help explain this somewhat as they clearly missed the first or last burst of gunfire. Any witness who missed the first or last burst said that the whole shooting lasted just 5 seconds. Those who heard the first and last shots said it lasted about 10 seconds. This helps us grasp why there are so many contradictions between witnesses. Lone gunman researchers know that a shot at Z185 and Z220 proves a conspiracy as Oswald didn't have time to fire both shots, so they are keen to show a shot was fired at Z150 (or before), despite almost no witness or film evidence supporting this theory. There is actually far more witness evidence of shots after Z313 than before Z180, but this creates many more problems for them so once again they say "the witnesses are wrong". No explanation, just that the witnesses must be wrong as their theory is correct!

The only versions of the recordings I have come across online are here: https://www.jfklibrary.org/about-us/news-and-press/press-kits https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xd9p2zg51xtk37u/AAADhHRoPlAKBAx83biIxoOia/Audio?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1 https://www.nap.edu/resource/JFK_audio/ I agree with you, the more versions we can check the better. Any tape recording from the original dictabelt made soon after the event in 1963 would be the most useful as it would be the best quality and least likely to have been interfered with. There is an interesting history of how this evidence was handled after the event here: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/scally.htm

I put the transcript together myself but I also used other peoples work to help me where the audio was a little bit garbled, such as here: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/dpdtapes/ The current version is here: https://www.marktyler.org/mc63/mc63_dictabelt.csv If anyone spots any errors or omissions please let me know and I will be happy to update it for the next version.

Indeed, yet another one to add to the rapid fire witness list!

Thats right James, the recording was noise activated, but with the bike noise running on channel 1 continuously we know we everything for the period from 12:28 to 12:34 was recorded on Channel 1. Channel 2 is a bit more patchy, but due to the assassination chatter it was in near constant use after 12:30 so not much time was lost. When I did the audio mixing for the animation I took the recordings directly from the Kennedy Library (i.e. no editing or splicing) and simply tried my best to align both channels correctly to 12:30:00 (where I put the head shot). The early timestamps are slightly out but the others seem about right. Here is a filter showing just the timings and a few other useful landmarks in the recording:

It was a very large number (at least 35-40 by my count). In addition there were about ten witnesses who mentioned two shots in quick succession at the beginning just before JFK raised his arms (e.g. Kenneth O'Donnell, Sam Holland, Jean Hill and John Connally). Connally is especially helpful as he mentioned the gap was two seconds (he said he was hit by the second shot of the pair). He added that the two shots were fired so quickly he felt there were either two gunmen involved or maybe an automatic weapon was used. We see Connally starting to react to his injuries at Z225-Z230 of the Z-film, so two seconds before this is around Z188. Z190-Z210 is the second largest jiggle in the Z-film and looks to be the strongest evidence of when the first shot was fired (backed up by many of the witnesses). With two shots fired within two seconds Oswald could not have fired them both, so I feel that is the strongest evidence of conspiracy between the Z-film and the Dealey Plaza witnesses. My witness data is here, along with references: https://github.com/matyler/mc63.dpws/blob/master/mc63_dpws.csv

Thanks Steven, it's good to see people finding Motorcade 63 useful!

I think that the sirens are the key to understanding the location of the dictabelt microphone. By my calculation the audible sirens start around 3 minutes 25 seconds after the head shot. My full transcript and timings can be downloaded here and viewed in any spreadsheet program: https://www.marktyler.org/mc63/mc63_dictabelt.csv This timing is perfect if the three wheeled bike is located in the Trade Mart area as the motorcade and its sirens would have taken about 2.5-3.0 minutes to get from the Stemmons ramp to the Trade Mart (2.1 miles at an average of 42-50 MPH): The other important siren issue is the missing siren from when the shooting happened. Sam Kinney said he switched on the siren in the Secret Service follow up car immediately after he saw the effects of the head shot. Here is a map of my animation showing the position of the siren at Z388 when it must have been in full flow: The HSCA said that the microphone would pick up siren noise within 300 ft which is the red circle area. As we can see, all of the bikes in Dealey Plaza were in range and should have picked up the noise if they were recording. The only siren noise in the seconds following the shots was on channel 2 just before Jesse Curry starts talking (12:30:18 on my transcript). The absence of a siren at 12:30 on channel 1 indicates that the microphone was not in Dealey Plaza, and the 2.5-3.0 minute delay until the motorcade passes the microphone suggests to me that the microphone was at the Trade Mart. The timing and continuity seems to fit perfectly, including all of the time-clock announcements from the dispatcher on both channels. The dictabelt is a very important piece of evidence, but I don't think it contains any shots on it. The HSCA behaved impeccably by getting two sets of scientists to examine it, but the scientists were too narrowly focused on studying the wave-forms and echo patterns rather than studying the broader context of how and when the recording was made. In other words they couldn't see the forest for the trees.

Indeed, for a show car this blemish would not be tolerated. It seems that the limo was also in Ireland in June 1963 as per this blog post from @Vince Palamara: http://jfkbubbletop.blogspot.com/2016/10/excellent-security-for-jfk-june-1963.html I did notice that some photos have a licence plate "GX 200" rather than "GG 300": The limo in Berlin 1963 used "GG 300", the same as on November 22: https://www.fu-berlin.de/en/sites/kennedy/index.html

Greer seems to be a very reliable witness. His early statements and Warren Commission testimony perfectly match what we see in the Zapruder film. Indeed, the debunking of the Geis statement is important as it forces the dent to be caused by either the Z313 head shot or a separate bullet entirely (presumably fired after Z313 as I see nothing in the Z-film before that time to suggest Greer or Kellerman are distracted by such a conspicuous event).

I assume it's a bullet hole too. There wasn't a hole in the chrome topping in June 1963 as proven by this photo: http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/John-F-Kennedy-in-Hesse-1963/8d1e7c9e1a7440d0b243f773d3ba83b9/1087/0 Here is the Warren Commission photo: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh16/pdf/WH16_CE_349.pdf Whether the hole came from a whole bullet or from the shrapnel from the head shot, I'm not sure.

I've just published version 2.2 of Motorcade 63, the reference handbook, and the witness survey (which now lists over 400 witnesses): https://www.marktyler.org/mc63.html https://www.marktyler.org/mc63/mc63_handbook.pdf https://www.marktyler.org/mc63/mc63_dpws.csv I added Virgie Baker to the animation as she gave evidence regarding the first shot hitting the road (corroborated by Royce Skelton). The animation proves this could only have occurred during Z175-Z215 as the cars blocked her view of the bullet impact zone outside those two seconds (full details are in the handbook appendix E.5). This matches the cluster of evidence that the first shot was fired near Z185, such as John Connally who heard a shot fired two seconds before he was hit around Z225. This timing is corroborated by several witnesses such as Gloria Calvery, Karen Westbrook, Phil Willis, and A.J. Millican who were all very close to the Presidential limo when the first shot was fired. After nearly two years of sitting on the fence regarding this case I have concluded that there were probably two gunman firing shots that day. It's the only way to properly explain all of the evidence without leaving loose ends. Especially notable are the pair of shots fired between Z185 and Z225 which could not have both been fired from the gun found in the TSBD in that short space of time. If you try to shoehorn the evidence into a single gunman firing just three shots then too many corroborated witnesses statements have to be discarded. Witnesses in this case do make mistakes but typically they are due to a lack of awareness (such as not hearing a shot due to being distracted) or errors of misinterpretation (like Jean Hill thinking she saw a white dog in the limo rather than white flowers). By contrast, when so many witnesses independently corroborate each other with detailed statements given very soon after the assassination, I accept what they say as having some basis in fact. If anyone spots errors or omissions feel free to let me know as I'm always happy to improve and fix things!

For the work that I have done I always favour the earlier statements, but if more details are given later such as in 1964 then I accept those details as long as they aren't contradicted elsewhere by stronger evidence. When evaluating evidence I'm always looking for things that witnesses say that can nail down exactly the time when shots were fired. For example Mary Moorman said that the first shot she heard was exactly at the time she took her photo at Z315. This means she must have missed the earlier shots and so gives us useful information about how easy it is for witnesses to miss things during a noisy parade (hence my interest in corroborating multiple witness statements to determine all shot events). When Skelton said the limo turned the corner and he heard shots this is not as clear as when he said the car had turned the corner and then travelled 100 feet before the shooting started. Technically both statements are consistent but the later one is clearer which is why I find it more useful in understanding events. The only time I disregard a later statement from a witness is if it is contradicted by other stronger evidence. The behaviour of the interviewer is crucial in determining the value of the witness statements. The Warren Commission staff and Mark Lane did some very good interviews back in the 1960's, but they were also responsible for some slightly one sided affairs that merely pushed a preconceived agenda.

The numbers seem to come from different witness interviews. For example (4), (A), (1) were used to help locate the policemen on the corner of Elm/Houston: Joe Marshall Smith, Edgar Smith, and Welcome Barnett. (5) is where JM Smith said he ran soon after the shooting: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh7/pdf/WH7_JoeSmith.pdf (7) is referenced in the Edgar Smith interview (he said the shots came from the concrete structure to the north, i.e. the pergola): https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh7/pdf/WH7_EdgarSmith.pdf (1) is reference in the Welcome Barnett interview: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh7/pdf/WH7_Barnett.pdf