Harold (Hank) Norman was born in Clarksville, Texas in 1938. After leaving school he had a car washing job at the McElroy Chevrolet Company.
In 1961 he moved to Dallas and later that year found work at the Texas School Book Depository as an order filler. A fellow worker was Lee Harvey Oswald but he later told the Warren Commission that he "just knew his name. I mean, you know, he wouldn't talk to anybody so I didn't."
On 22nd November, 1963, Norman saw the motorcade of President John F. Kennedy from the fifth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. He later testified that Lee Harvey Oswald came over to him and said, "What's everybody looking at, and what's everybody excited about?" Norman replied: "So I told him we was waiting on the President. So he just snudged up and walked away." He later told the Warren Commission: "I can't remember what the exact time was but I know I heard a shot, and then after I heard the shot, well, it seems as though the President, you know, slumped or something, and then another shot... I know I heard a third shot fired, and I could also hear something sounded like the shell hulls hitting the floor and the ejecting of the rifle, it sounded as though it was to me." Norman also claimed he was convinced that the shots had "came from up above us."
Norman told the CBS: The Warren Report in June 1967: "I could even hear the empty cartridges hitting the floor. I mean, after the shots had been fired. And so, after the shots were fired, well, all the officers and everyone else seemed to think they came from by the track over by the underpass, because that's where everyone ran, over that-a-way."
That particular morning three or four of us were standing by the window, and Oswald came over, and he said, "What's everybody looking at, and what's everybody excited about?" So I told him we was waiting on the President. So he just snudged up and walked away.
Then I think, about that time, well, Jarman says, somebody's shooting at the President. And I told Jarman, I said, I said, I know it is because I could hear - they are above me, and I could hear the shots and everything, and I could even hear the empty cartridges hitting the floor. I mean, after the shots had been fired.
And so, after the shots were fired, well, all the officers and everyone else seemed to think they came from by the track over by the underpass, because that's where everyone ran, over that-a-way. But, I - just like I said, I've been hunting enough to know the sound of a rifle from-from a backfire or a firecracker or anything like - especially that close to me.
Just about the time that the parade turned on Elm Street, about where that truck is - that bus is now, there was a shot came from up-the upper end of the street. I couldn't say then, at that time, that it came from the Book Depository bookstore. But I knew that it came from the other end of the street, and the President slumped over forward like that and tried to raise his hand up. And Governor Connally, sitting in front of him on the right side of the car, tried to turn to his right and he was sitting so close to the door that he couldn't make it that-a-way, and he turned back like that with his arm out to the left. And about that time, the second shot was fired and it knocked him over forward and he slumped to the right, and I guess his wife pulled him over in her lap because he fell over in her lap.
And about that time, there was a third report that wasn't nearly as loud as the two previous reports. It came from that picket fence, and then there was a fourth report. The third and the fourth reports was almost simultaneously. But, the third report wasn't nearly as loud as the two previous reports or the fourth report. And I glanced over underneath that green tree and you see a - a little puff of smoke. It looked like a puff of steam or cigarette smoke. And the smoke was about - oh, eight or ten feet off the ground, and about fifteen feet this side of that tree.
Eddie Barker: Abraham Zapruder, whose film of the assassination was studied at length on last night's program, was standing up on this little wall right at the edge of the grassy knoll. Now, shots from behind that picket fence over there would have almost had to whistle by his ear. Mr. Zapruder, when we interviewed him here, tended to agree that the knoll was not involved.
Abraham Zapruder: I'm not a ballistics expert, but I believe that if there were shots that come from my right ear, I would hear a different sound. I heard shots coming from - I wouldn't know which direction to say-but they was driven from the Texas Book Depository and they all sounded alike. There was no difference in sound at all.
