JFK: Eyewitness statements, assassination of President John F. Kennedy, murder of J. D. Tippit and arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald: Hugh William Betzner
Many eyewitnesses reported hearing a shot inside or near the Presidential limousine. The driver, Bill Greer was seated two rows in front of and slightly to Jfk's left.
1.Bobby Hargis (Police motorcycle outrider, left rear of limousine):
Mr. Stern: Do you recall your impression at the time regarding the shots?
Hargis: “Well, at the time it sounded like the shots were right next to me,” 6WCH294.
2. Austin Miller (railroad worker, on triple overpass):
Mr. Belin: “Where did the shots sound like they came from?”
Miller:
“Well, the way it sounded like, it came from the, I would say right there in the car,” 6WCH225.
3. Charles Brehm (carpet salesman, south curb of Elm St.): “
Drehm seemed to think the shots came from in front or beside the President. He explained the President did not slump forward as if he would have after being shot from the rear,” “President Dead, Connally Shot,” The Dallas Times Herald, 22 November 1963, p.2
4. Officer E. L. Boone (policeman, corner of Main and Houston Streets):"
I heard three shots coming from the vicinity of where the President's car was,” 19WCH508.
5. Jack Franzen: (south curb of Elm):
“He said he heard the sound of an explosion which appeared to him to come from the President's car and ...small fragments flying inside the vehicle and immediately assumed someone had tossed a firecracker inside the automobile,” 22WCH840.
6. Mrs. Jack Franzen (south curb of Elm): “Shortly after the President’s automobile passed by…
she heard a noise which sounded as if someone had thrown a firecracker into the President’s automobile…at approximately the same time she noticed dust or small pieces of debris flying from the President’s automobile,” 24WCH525.
7. James Altgens: (photographer, south curb of Elm):“
The last shot sounded like it came from the left side of the car, if it was close range because, if it were a pistol it would have to be fired at close range for any degree of accuracy," 7WCH518.
8. Hugh Betzner, Jr. (south curb of Elm, nr junction with Houston): “I cannot remember exactly where I was when I saw the following:
I heard at least two shots fired and I saw what looked like a firecracker going off in the president's car. My assumption for this was because I saw fragments going up in the air,”
I also remember seeing what looked like a nickel revolver in someone's hand in the President's car or somewhere immediately around his car 19WCH467
"Handgun used"
"1. Dr. Charles R. Baxter, in Bill Sloan. JFK: Breaking the Silence (Dallas, Texas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1993), p.92: "Although Dr. Baxter…declined to be interviewed for this book, Baxter did issue a brief comment in October 1992 through the school's public information office in which he described the throat wound as being "very small" and looking as though "it might have come from a handgun."
2.
Dr. Charles Wilbur: “Interpretation of the fatal head wound by several attending surgeons suggested a high velocity handgun bullet fired at close range,”
3. Iona Antonov, “On the Trail of the President’s Killers: part 2,” New Times, 1977, pp.26-30: New York Daily News quoted friends of John Rosselli to the effect that
Oswald a decoy “while others ambushed” Kennedy from closer range.
4. Dr. Robert McClelland: "The cause of death was due to a massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple," (CE 392). <Admission>
5. Parkland Dr. McClelland's testimony as reproduced in Hearings volume 6, p.38: "Dr. McClelland judged that the wound in the President's skull could be expected '…from a very high velocity missile…with a heavy calibre bullet, such as a .45 pistol fired at close range…' This would particularly apply to the skull '…where there was a sudden change in density from the brain to the skull cavity, as it entered. As it left the body, it would still have a great deal of force behind it and would blow up a large segment of tissue as it exited.'"
6. A.J. Millican: “It sounded like a .45 automatic, or a high-powered rifle.” <19WCH486>
7. S.M. Holland: “It would be like you’re firing a .38 pistol right beside a shotgun, or a .45 right beside a shotgun.”
8. “Garrison says assassin killed Kennedy from sewer manhole,” New York Times, 11 December 1967, p.28: Report of Garrison claim on WFAA-TV in Dallas – “The man who killed President Kennedy fired a .45 caliber pistol” and that the bullet entered the “right temple.” Gunman located within manhole on north side of Elm Street. Garrison had just taken possession of a set of photos showing cartridge case being retrieved by unidentified man, under noses of two Dallas police officers, on south curb of Elm.
9. Photo referred to by Garrison contained within Garrison Tapes documentary, timed at 01:22:04:15.
10. Joachim Joesten. The Dark Side of Lyndon Baines Johnson (London: Peter Dawnay, 1968), pp.248-249: Garrison set to release previously unknown set of photos “which saw a federal agent picking up a large caliber bullet from the lawn on the south side of Elm St, at the spot where Kennedy received his mortal wound. The bullet, which was previously identified as .45, was found amidst splotches of dark grey matter which came from Kennedy’s head…” p.249: “clock above TSBD, clearly visible in one of the pictures, reads 12:40.”
11. Statement of Hugh William Betzner, Jr., Warren Commission Hearings (WCH), Vol. 19, p. 467, taken 11-22-63:
JFK: Eyewitness statements, assassination of President John F. Kennedy, murder of J. D. Tippit and arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald: Hugh William Betzner
I was standing on Houston Street near the intersection of Elm Street. I took a picture of President Kennedy's car as it passed along Houston Street. I have an old camera. I looked down real quick and rolled the film to take the next picture. I then ran down to the corner of Elm and Houston Streets, this being the southwest corner. I took another picture just as President Kennedy's car rounded the corner. He was just about all the way around the corner. I was standing back from the corner and had to take the pictures through some of the crowd. I ran on down Elm a little more and President Kennedy's car was starting to go down the hill to the triple underpass. I was running trying to keep the President's car in my view and was winding my film as I ran. I took another picture as the President's car was going down the hill on Elm Street. I started to wind my film again and I heard a loud noise. I thought that this noise was either a firecracker or a car had backfired. I looked up and it seemed like there was another loud noise in the matter of a few seconds.
I looked down the street and I could see the President's car and another one and they looked like the cars were stopped. Then I saw a a flash of pink like someone standing up and then sitting back down in the car. Then I ran around so I could look over the back of a monument and I either saw the following then or when I was standing back down on the corner of Elm Street. I cannot remember exactly where I was when I saw the following:
I heard at least two shots fired and I saw what looked like a firecracker going off in the president's car. My assumption for this was because I saw fragments going up in the air. I also saw a man in either the President's car or the car behind his and someone down in one of those cars pulled out what looked like a rifle.
I also remember seeing what looked like a nickel revolver in someone's hand in the President's car or somewhere immediately around his car. Then the President's car sped on under the underpass. Police and a lot of spectators started running up the hill on the opposite side of the street from me to a fence of wood. I assumed that that was where the shot was fired from at that time. I kept watching the crowd. Then I came around the monument over to Main Street. I walked down toward where the President's car had stopped. I saw a Police Officer and some men in plain clothes. I don't know who they were. These Police Officers and the men in plain clothes were digging around in the dirt as if they were looking for a bullet. I walked back around the monument over to Elm Street where they were digging in the dirt. I went on across the street and up the embankment to where the fence is located. By this time almost all of the people had left. There were quite a few people down on the street and crowded around a motorcycle. I was looking around the fence as the rumor had spread that that was where the shot had come from. I started figuring where I was when I had taken the third picture and it seemed to me that the fence row would have been in the picture. I saw a group of men who looked like they might be officers and one of them turned out to be Deputy Sheriff Boone. I told him about the picture I had taken. Deputy Sheriff Boone contacted superiors and was told to bring me over to the Sheriff's Office. Deputy Sheriff Boone took my camera and asked me to wait. I waited in the Sheriff's Office and some time later, an hour or two, he brought my camera back and told me that as soon as they got through with the film and they were dry that they would give me the film. A little later he came in and gave me the negatives and told me that they were interested in a couple of pictures and implied that the negatives was all I was going to get back. To the best of my knowledge, this is all I know about this incident.
A damn good case if we must throw out the films, I would say: