Near the Depository
Near the Depository section presents testimony from eyewitnesses who saw a man fire a weapon from the sixth-floor window. Howard L. Brennan, a steamfitter, watched from a retaining wall approximately 107 feet from the Depository entrance and 120 feet from the sixth-floor southeast corner window, and was corroborated by the Zapruder film. Brennan saw 70-85 percent of the rifle and described the shooter firing his last shot before withdrawing. Amos Lee Euins, a 15-year-old student, saw a “pipe thing” sticking from the window and watched the man fire twice more from behind a fountain bench, reporting his observations to police (though his testimony was initially misheard as “fifth floor” due to Officer Harkness’s hasty count). Robert H. Jackson, a Dallas Times Herald photographer in the motorcade, saw a rifle being drawn back into the sixth-floor window after the third shot, an observation confirmed by fellow passengers Thomas Dillard, James Underwood, Malcolm Couch, and James Darnell. Mayor Earle Cabell’s wife saw a “projection” from a top-floor window as the car turned at Elm and Houston. James N. Crawford and Mary Ann Mitchell, deputy district clerks, witnessed the shooting from the southeast corner of Elm and Houston, with Crawford describing a quick profile-like movement in the sixth-floor window.
On the Fifth Floor
On the Fifth Floor section recounts the experience of three Depository employees on the fifth floor during the assassination. James Jarman Jr., Bonnie Ray Williams, and Harold Norman had gathered at the fifth-floor windows to watch the parade. Norman, positioned in the southeast corner window directly beneath the sniper’s location, heard shots and debris falling, concluding the shots came from above. Williams noted that the second and third shots shook the building and dislodged cement onto his head, with Norman stating the shots came “right from over our head” and that he could hear shell casings ejecting and hitting the floor. Jarman initially thought the first sound was a backfire or salute, but after the third shot declared it was gunfire aimed at the President. After fleeing to the west side, Jarman reasoned that the debris on Williams’s head confirmed the shots came from above. The Commission conducted experiments on March 20, May 9, June 7, and September 6, 1964, in which a Secret Service agent operated a rifle bolt above the witnesses’ fifth-floor positions while cartridge shells were dropped at three-second intervals; Norman confirmed the sounds matched what he heard on November 22, and all seven Commissioners clearly heard the shells drop to the floor.
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