Mary Moorman (later Mary Krahmer) lived in Dallas, Texas. On 22nd
November, 1963, Mary Moorman and her friend, Jean
Hill,
watched the motorcade of President John
F. Kennedy from the grassy knoll facing the Texas School Depository
Building. Moorman, who was taking Polaroid pictures of the motorcade,
were only a few feet away from President John
F. Kennedy when
he was shot. Hill and Moorman thought the shots had come from behind
her on the grassy knoll and as soon as the firing stopped they ran
towards the wooden fence in an attempt to find the gunman. However,
they were detained by two secret service men. After searching the
two women they confiscated the picture of the assassination.
The
photograph taken by Mary Moorman that shows the grassy knoll.
Jean
Hill
gave a statement to the police where she stated: "Mary Moorman
started to take a picture. We were looking at the president and Jackie
in the back seat... Just as the president looked up two shots rang
out and I saw the president grab his chest and fell forward across
Jackie's lap... There was an instant pause between two shots and the
motorcade seemingly halted for an instant. Three or four more shots
rang out and the motorcade sped away."
Some researchers
have claimed that another Moorman photograph shows a man on the other
side of the wooden picket fence firing a rifle.
Research carried
out by Gary Mack, John P. Costella and David W. Mantik for the Discovery
Channel in November, 2003, on Moorman's photograph, indicates that
the "Zapruder film... which many take to be the closest thing
to "absolute truth" in the assassination - has been subject
to alteration".
The
Zapruder Film film shows the position
of Jean Hill (left)
and Mary Moorman when John
F. Kennedy was shot.
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
Jean
Hill,
statement made to the Dallas Police Department (22nd November, 1963)
Mary Moorman started to take a picture. We were looking
at the president and Jackie in the back seat... Just as the president
looked up two shots rang out and I saw the president grab his chest
and fell forward across Jackie's lap... There was an instant pause
between two shots and the motorcade seemingly halted for an instant.
Three or four more shots rang out and the motorcade sped away. I saw
some men in plain clothes shooting back but everything was a blur
and Mary was pulling on my leg saying "Get down their shooting".
(2)
Federal
Bureau of Investigation Report (22nd
November, 1963)
Mary Ann Moorman, 2832 Ripplewood, telephone number DA 1-9390, advises
that she and a friend named Jean Hill, 9402 Bluff Creek, Dallas, Texas,
watched the President Kennedy parade from the grassy area in the parkway
between Main and Elm Streets, and at approximately 12:25 p.m, as well
as she recalls, she took a photograph of the procession as it proceeded
toward her. She took this photgraph with a polaroid camera, and the
photograph showed the police motorcycle escort preceding the President's
car. In the background of this photograph she said the Texas School
Book Depository Building was visible.
She took a second photograph
of the President as his automobile passed her, and just as she snapped
the the picture, she heard what she at first thought was a firecracker
and very shortly thereafter heard another similar sound which she
later determined to have been gunfire. She knows that she heard two
shots and possibly a third shot. She recalls seeing the president
"sort of jump" and start to slump sideways in the seat,
and seems to recall President Kennedy's wife scream, "My God,
he's been shot"!
Mrs. Moorman states that
she and her companion fell to the ground, but does not now recall
what prompted her to fall unless it was the reports and the commotion
in the President's car. She says she must have instictively realized
that there was a shooting, but does not recall actually thinking about
it. She states that she could not determine where the shots came from,
and her next recollection is of people running more or less aimlessly,
it seemed to her. She recalls that the President's automobile was
moving at the time she took the second picture, and when she heard
shots, and has the impression that the car either stopped momentarily
or hesitated and then drove off in a hurry.
She stated that as the
President's car drove off she started to leave the grassy area and
was stopped by a Mr. Featherstone, a newspaper man with the KRLD Radio
and TV Station who questioned her concerning her observance of the
incident.
Mrs. Moorman advises that
the photograph she took showing the police motorcycles preceeding
President Kennedy's car and also showing the Texas School Book Depository
Building was given by her to Secret Service Agents John Joe Howlett
and Bill Patterson shortly before 4:00 p.m. November 22, 1963. The
second photograph taken at the time she heard the shots showed the
President slumping sideways in the automobile. She furnished this
photograph to Bureau Agents.
Mrs. Moorman advised that
she saw no one in the area that appeared to have possibly been the
assassin, and could furnish no additional information.
(3)
Jean
Hill interviewed by Arlen
Specter for the Warren
Commission (24th March, 1964)
Arlen Specter: Now, moving on to the question about Mark Lane, what
did you tell him other than that which you have told me here today?
Jean
Hill: He asked me where we were taken and I told him in the pressroom,
that we didn't know it was the pressroom at the time, and that we
didn't know we couldn't leave and because they kept standing across
the door and the first time we really - we were getting tired of it,
I mean, we had been down there quite a while and we were getting tired
of it and we wanted to leave and this is what I told him, and so some
man came in and offered Mary a sum, I think - say - $10,000 or something
like this for this picture.
We
realized that - they said, "Don't sell the picture." He
was a representative of either Post or Life, and they said, "Don't
sell that picture until our representatives have contacted you or
a lawyer or something." Anyway, we realized at that time we didn't
have that picture, that it had been taken from us. I mean, we had
let Featherstone look at it, you know, but we told no one they could
reproduce it. They said, "Would you let us look at it and see
if it could be reproduced?" We said, "Yes; you could look
at it," we thought it was - you know, it was fuzzy and everything,
but we were wanting to keep them and we suddenly realized we didn't
have that picture, and that was quite a bit of money and we were getting
pretty excited about it, and Mary was getting scared.
Arlen
Specter: Did she eventually sell the picture, by the way?
Jean
Hill: She sold the rights, the publishing rights of it, not the original
picture, but they had already - AP and UP had already picked it up
because Featherstone stole it.
Arlen
Specter: Do you know what she sold those rights for?
Jean
Hill: I think it was $600.
Arlen
Specter: What did you tell Mark Lane besides about the picture?
Jean
Hill: This is it.
Arlen
Specter: Fine, go ahead.
Jean
Hill: Anyway, when I realized we didn't have that picture and Mary
was getting upset about that - by that time I had realized we were
in a pressroom and that he had no right to be holding us and he had
no authority and that we could get out of there, and they kept standing
in front of the door, and I told him - I said, "Get out."
We kept asking him for our picture, and where it was, and he said,
We'll get it back - we'll get it back. And so I jerked away and ran
out of the door and as I did, there was a Secret Service man. Now,
this I was told - that he was a Secret Service man, and he said, "Do
you have a red raincoat?" And, I said, "Yes; it's in yonder.
Let me go." I was intent on finding someone to get that picture
back and I said as I walked out, "I can get someone big enough
to get it back for us." He said, "Does your friend have
a blue raincoat?" And I said, "Yes; she's in there."
He said, "Here they are," to somebody else and they told
us that they had been looking for us.
Arlen
Specter: Who told you that?
Jean
Hill: This man.
Arlen
Specter: All this you told Mr. Lane?
Jean
Hill: Yes.
Arlen
Specter: Go ahead.
Jean
Hill: And so, then they took us into the police station. Just about
that time Sheriff Decker came out and the man was with us and we were
telling him why we were in there, why we had been in the pressroom,
you know, and why they hadn't been able to find us, because they had
thought that Mary had been hit and they were looking for the two women
that were standing right by the car with the camera. At that time
they didn't know what we were doing down there and why we were right
at the car. So, there followed questioning all afternoon long, and
he asked me at one time - well, in fact he asked repeatedly if I was
held and I told him, "Yes."
Arlen
Specter: Who asked you that?
Jean
Hill: Mark Lane.
Arlen
Specter: If you were held?
Jean
Hill: Yes; you know if I were held, if I had to stay there and I told
him, "Yes," but I told him when we were in the pressroom
it was just our own ignorance, really, that was keeping us there and
letting the man intimidate us that had no authority.
Arlen
Specter: That was a newsman as opposed to the police official?
Jean
Hill: Yes; and I gave Mark Lane his name several times - clearly.
I remember clearly that I gave him his name.
Arlen
Specter: And what name did you give him?
Jean
Hill: Featherstone of the Times Herald, and so after we got out of
there and I talked with a man.
Arlen
Specter: Now, you are continuing to tell me everything you told Mark
Lane?
Jean
Hill: That's right, and I talked with this man, a Secret Service man,
and I said, "Am I a kook or what's wrong with me?" I said,
"They keep saying three shots - three shots," and I said,
"I know I heard more. I heard from four to six shots anyway."
He said, "Mrs. Hill, we were standing at the window and we heard
more shots also, but we have three wounds and we have three bullets,
three shots is all that we are willing to say right now."
(4)
Jim Featherston worked for the Dallas Times Herald in November,
1963. He later wrote about the assassination of President John
F. Kennedy in the book, Secrets
from the Sixth Floor Window (1994)
I ran to Dealey Plaza, a few yards away, and this is where I first
learned the president had been shot. I found two young women, Mary
Moorman and Jean Lollis Hill, near the curb on Dealey Plaza. Both
had been within a few feet of the spot where Kennedy was shot, and
Mary Moorman had taken a Polaroid picture of Jackie Kennedy cradling
the president's head in her arms. It was a poorly focused and snowy
picture, but, as far as I knew then, it was the only such picture
in existence. I wanted the picture and I also wanted the two women's
eyewitness accounts of the shooting.
I
told Mrs. Moorman I wanted the picture for the Times Herald
and she agreed. I then told both of them I would like for them to
come with me to the courthouse pressroom so I could get their stories
and both agreed... I called the city desk and told Tom LePere, an
assistant city editor, that the president had been shot. "Really?
Let me switch you to rewrite," LePere said, unruffled as if it
were a routine story. I briefly told the rewrite man what had happened
and then put Mary Moorman and Jean Lollis Hill on the phone so they
could tell what they had seen in their own words. Mrs. Moorman, in
effect, said was so busy taking the picture that she really didn't
see anything. Mrs. Hill, however, gave a graphic account of seeing
Kennedy shot a few feet in front of her eyes.
Before
long, the pressroom became filled with other newsmen. Mrs. Hill told
her story over and over again for television and radio. Each time,
she would embellish it a bit until her version began to sound like
Dodge City at high noon. She told of a man running up toward the now
famed grassy knoll pursued by other men she believed to be policemen.
In the meantime, I had talked to other witnesses and at one point
I told Mrs. Hill she shouldn't be saying some of the things she was
telling television and radio reporters. I was merely trying to save
her later embarrassment but she apparently attached intrigue to my
warning.
As
the afternoon wore on, a deputy sheriff found out that I had two eyewitnesses
in the pressroom, and he told me to ask them not to leave the courthouse
until they could be questioned by law enforcement people. I relayed
the information to Mrs. Moorman and Mrs. Hill.
All
this time, I was wearing a lapel card identifying myself as a member
of the press. It was also evident we were in the pressroom and the
room was so designated by a sign on the door.
I am mentioning all this because a few months later Mrs. Hill told
the Warren Commission bad things about me. She told the commission
that I had grabbed Mrs. Moorman and her camera down on Dealey Plaza
and that I wouldn't let her go even though she was crying. She added
that I "stole" the picture from Mrs. Moorman. Mrs. Hill
then said I had forced them to come with me to a strange room and
then wouldn't let them leave. She also said I had told her what she
could and couldn't say. Her testimony defaming me is all in Vol. VI
of the Hearings Before the President's Commission on the Assassination
of President Kennedy, the Warren Report.
Why
Mrs. Hill said all this has never been clear to me - I later theorized
she got swept up in the excitement of having the cameras and lights
on her and microphones shoved into her face. She was suffering from
a sort of star-is-born syndrome, I later figured.
(5)
Mark
Lane,
Rush to Judgment (1966)
Mary Ann Moorman, an eyewitness to the assassination equipped
with a Polaroid camera, was positioned in a strategic location
in Dealey Plaza. She was standing with her friend, Jean Hill, across
the street from and southwest of the Depository. Consequently, as
she took a picture of the approaching motorcade the Book Depository
formed the backdrop. Her camera was aimed, providentially, a trifle
higher than the occasion demanded, and her photograph therefore contained
a view of the sixth-floor of the building, including the alleged assassination
window.
Mrs Moorman thus became
a most important witness and her photograph an essential part of the
evidence. Her presence at the scene and the fact that she did take
the picture were vouched for by Mrs Hill when she testified before
a Commission attorney. An FBI report filed by two agents discloses
that they both interviewed Mrs Moorman on November 22.15 On that same
day she signed an affidavit for the Dallas Sheriff's office. Deputy
Sheriff John Wiseman submitted a report in which he said that he talked
with Mrs Moorman that afternoon and that he took the picture from
her. Wiseman stated that in examining the picture he could see the
sixth-floor window from which the shots purportedly were fired."I
took this picture to Chief Criminal Deputy Sheriff, Allan Sweatt,
who later turned it over to Secret Service Officer Patterson,"
Wiseman said. A report submitted by Sweatt reveals that he also questioned
Mrs Moorman and Mrs Hill on November 22 and that he received and examined
the photograph. Sweatt said that "this picture was turned over
to Secret Service Agent Patterson".
Since Mrs Moorman had
used a Polaroid camera, the consequences were twofold: she was able
to see the picture before it was taken from her by the police; she
was not able to retain a negative. She told the FBI that the picture
showed the Book Depository in the background, a fact confirmed by
the two deputy sheriffs who also saw it.
Mrs Moorman was a witness
with inordinately pertinent evidence to offer. Pictures of her in
the act of photographing the motorcade appear in the volumes of evidence
published by the Commission and in the Warren Commission Report itself.
Yet the Report makes no mention of her or of her photograph; her name
does not appear in the index to the Report. Although the Commission
published many photographs, some of doubtful petinency it refused
to publish the picture that possibility constituted the single most
important item of evidence in establishing Oswald's innocence or guilt.
(6)
John
Costella,
Mary Moorman and Her Polaroids, included in The
Great Zapruder Film Hoax (edited
by James
H. Fetzer).
Jean (Hill) calls
to JFK - looking down into the middle of the seat - as he approaches
them. He turns, and perhaps starts to wave. Mary (Moorman) snaps a
photo and then the first shot hits him. He jumps, and starts to slump
forward. Jackie then responds, and cries out, as Jean and Mary reported.
The limo stops somewhere down past the steps. There are then anywhere
from two to seven further shots, that inflict the remaining wounds
to JFK and Connally Jean sees the hair on the back of JFK's head flap
up as his skull is blasted out. The limo speeds off. Mary is quickly
intercepted and asked for her photos. She and Jean undergo hours of
interrogation, after which they finally turn over the Polaroids. And
the cover-up begins.
(7)
Mary
Moorman gave evidence in the court case against Clay
Shaw (15th February, 1969)
Q:
Now, Mrs. Moorman, I show you what for purposes of identification
I have marked State 52, however prior to showing you this exhibit
I would ask you what happened if anything to your photograph after
you took it.
A: Immediately after taking
this photograph there was a matter of confusion and I did cross the
street and a man came up to me and asked me if to remove... I removed
the picture out of the camera.
Q: What did you do then
with the picture?
A: I looked at it.
Q: Did this photograph
remain in your possession from the time you took it until today?
A: No, it did not.
Q: Whose possession other
than yourself has this photograph been?
A: A reporter and the Secret
Service and the FBI that I know of.
(8)
James
H. Fetzer, JFK
Assassination Film Faked (20th
November, 2003)
A Polaroid photograph taken
by Dallas resident Mary Ann Moorman on Elm Street in Dealey Plaza,
Dallas on November 22, 1963 shows the President slumping in reaction
to a gunshot, as well as the infamous "grassy knoll" in
the background.
Moorman had driven to
Dealey Plaza with her friend, Jean Lollis Hill, to see the presidential
motorcade. They chose a location on the south side of Elm Street,
down the hill from the Texas School Book Depository, where there were
few spectators to block their view...
The Dallas Times-Herald,
published on the day of the assassination, reported that Mary Moorman
and Jean Hill were standing in the street when Mary took her photograph.
Moorman herself repeated the claim when interviewed by Charley Jones
on News Radio 1080 KRLD, broadcast live from The Sixth Floor Museum
in 1997.
The Zapruder film, however,
shows her standing still on the grass at the time she snapped the
Polaroid. Jean Hill told authorities after the assassination that
she had called to the President to get his attention, a claim repeated
by Mary Moorman herself in the Discovery Channel special. In a 1965
letter to historian Richard B. Trask, Hill stated that she had "jumped
into the street and yelled, 'Mr. President, we want to take your picture!'"
This is rather striking, because the Zapruder film shows Hill standing
completely still on the grass, with hands clasped, and only snapping
her head toward the President at the last moment. It constitutes a
proof that the film has been faked on its own.
Mary Moorman stated that
she stepped into the street to take her photograph. Jean Hill stated
that she stepped into the street with her to get the President's attention.
The reconstruction photograph confirms that Mary was standing in the
street when she took her photograph. As the Zapruder film shows the
women standing only on the grass, this proves that, at the very least,
frames have been removed from the film. And that, in turn, is more
than enough evidence to prove the lack of authenticity of the Zapruder
film...
Since the Zapruder film
shows Mary standing on the grass at the very instant that she took
her photograph, it also proves that this 27-second home movie - which
many take to be the closest thing to "absolute truth" in
the assassination - has been subject to alteration.
Experts continue to debate
the reasons for altering the film, the most important of which may
have been that the driver brought the limo to a halt after bullets
began to be fired. The purpose appears to have been to make sure that
the shooters would have an easier target.
Vincent Palamara, the leading
expert on the Secret Service, has collated the reports of some fifty-nine
spectators who said that the limousine had either slowed dramatically
or come to a halt in Dealey Plaza, including all four motorcycle patrolmen
accompanying the President. They were published in the book Murder
in Dealey Plaza.
These reports suggest that
the limousine slowed dramatically as it came to a halt. The Zapruder
film, however, does not show the limousine stopping or slowing dramatically.
There is a slight loss of speed - imperceptible to the naked eye -
that is gradual enough that the occupants of the limousine are not
jostled...
Before this latest discovery,
the simplest yet most powerful proof that the Zapruder film was fabricated
has been the lack of any "blurring" in Frame 232 of the
film, which was published in Life magazine just weeks after
the assassination.
Because the limousine was
moving, and the shutter speed of the Zapruder camera was only 1/40
of a second, either the limousine or the entire background should
be blurred by the same amount (or some combination of the two). They
are not.
Another powerful proof
has been the inconsistent behavior of a road traffic sign seen in
the film. When the optical properties of the Zapruder camera are carefully
accounted for, and two different frames of the film are precisely
overlaid, the sign appears to "twitch."
"This is one of the
few technical mistakes made in the fabrication of the film,"
explains Costella. "The optical properties of the Zapruder camera
were mimicked extremely well. However, some poor-quality images published
on the weekend of the assassination showed the sign as it would look
through a perfect camera. Unfortunately for those who faked the film,
the Zapruder camera was not perfect. Once published, the mistake could
not be retracted. The toothpaste was out of the tube."
The proven falsification
of the photographic evidence, however, leaves them little room to
maneuver: only these agencies had custody of the evidence and the
means to alter or change it. It has been speculated that, in turn,
the complicity of key members of these agencies in the planning of
the assassination supplies a powerful motive for a cover-up.
Despite these discoveries,
any official Watergate-style admission of wrongdoing by agencies of
the U.S. government looks as unlikely today as it did nearly 40 years
ago. With the ABC network planning to broadcast a special on November
20 claiming to prove Oswald acted alone on the basis of computer animations
that take for granted the authenticity of the Zapruder film, observers
can only wonder how historians of the future will regard this Orwellian
"doublethink."
(9)
Jack
White,
Was Mary Standing in the Street?, included in The
Great Zapruder Film Hoax
(2003)
In 1982 JFK
researcher Gary Mack noticed what he thought to be the image of a
gunman behind the fence on the knoll in a Moorman slide copy given
to him by Robert Groden. Mack asked whether I could copy the image,
enlarge and enhance it. By copying the slide at great enlargement
and using a wide range of exposure stops, I was able to derive a number
of optimum exposures which show in clear detail the face of a man
whose chin is obscured by a puff of smoke, in a rifle-firing, pose.
He seems to be wearing a Dallas police uniform, complete with shoulder
patch and badge. Considering the original image is smaller than an
eighth-inch square, the image is extremely sharp. This image was later
confirmed by computer photoanalysts at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and Jet Propulsion Lab, but neither would go public because
of political considerations.
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