Two questions for Jim Marrs: The "sewer" shot and was JFK Jr. assassinated?

Jim, I'm not sure if you've ever watched the documentary called The Men Who Killed Kennedy, but in that documentary (the best ever on the JFK assassination IMO) there's a piece about the fatal head shot actually coming from the storm drain just to the right of JFK's limo. The size of that particular storm drain has changed over the years and some argue that shooting from there was just not feasible size-wise, but we don't know how big it was at the time of the assassination. Cover-up reasons perhaps?

What legitimized that particular theory for me was the ability for the shooter leave through the sewer pipe undetected and emerge some distance away near the Trinity River (if I remember correctly). I propose that the shot from the grassy knoll was actually a cover mechanism for the sewer shot. I believe those were the two shots that came right on top of one another.

Your opinions Jim?

Also, do you think JFK Jr. was assassinated?

Peace

Howdy Dr Love,

I have heard about the possibility of a shot from the storm drain for many years and even met the daughter of a woman who said she and friends witnessed someone firing from the drain opening. But the mother refused to be interviewed and I have been unable to substantiate this story. I have always hesitated to discuss the storm drain because many years ago one of the earliest and best researchers, Penn Jones Jr., editor of the Midlothian Mirror, was ridiculed incessantly. Debunkers said he was claiming that Kennedy was shot "from a sewer." I have myself stood down in the storm drain which is located a mere six feet from the point of Kennedy’s fatal head shot. I could comfortably stand in this drain (I’m not too tall being 5’7”) and it would have been an easy pistol shot to a person sitting upright in an open convertible. Some witnesses said that one of the shots sounded hollow, had a ringing sound to it. And it could have been possible to leave the storm drain via a large drain pipe which connected to an opening behind the wooden picket fence on the notorious Grassy Knoll. But did a shot come from this drain? At the moment, there is not enough evidence to state yes, but it remains an interesting premise.

An interesting sidebar to this speculation is the fact that in the 1980s a section running vertically down the Grassy knoll collapsed. The Dallas Street Dept. found that someone had dug up a section of this drain pipe and cut away a piece about 2 feet X 4 feet and replaced the cut section. But instead of welding the section back, whoever did this simply replaced the section on the pipe and over time it gave way causing a collapse at that point. There was some speculation that perhaps an assassin had stashed his weapon in the drain pipe and was retrieved surreptitiously at a later date. This drain was connected to the storm drain at the foot of the Grassy Knoll.

JFK Jr. had announced to close friends he was planning to enter politics and run for the Senate from New York but he had not made this public. This, of course, would have placed him head to head against Hillary Clinton, who just announced she was going to run for the New York Senate seat. Since, Hillary was the first American First Lady to attend the secretive Bilderberg meetings, she obvious was the choice of the New World Order gang. Against this backdrop we learn that JFK Jr, by all accounts an excellent pilot who had always flown with an instructor in previous flights, sudden flew alone that night, got lost and dove into the sea. However, an early Coast Guard press release stated the FAA had last heard from him when he was 13 miles out on approach to the airport. This means he was not lost and was descending for a landing. Moments later, his plane dropped off the radar screen and was not recovered for two days despite the fact that the type of aircraft he was flying had an emergency transponder. Something caused his plane to lose altitude very rapidly. And according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation report, the fuel switch on his plane was in the “off” position. Was he assassinated? The evidence to me indicates… most assuredly. How remains a mystery.

Jim Marrs

Great to read your reply Jim!



OK, so you've actually been in it.....excellent. That adds more legitimacy to the theory for me. For some reason I just automatically thought "rifle shot", but yeah at that range and at the speed the limo was travelling, it would almost be like shooting fish in a barrel, even with a handgun. The way Kennedy's head exploded also leads me to believe that the shot came from a lower trajectory.

On this same line of thought, in the documentary I was speaking of in my original post, there was a part about a bullet being removed from a curb close to the freeway underpass, to the left of the limo. Again, I think that this was the shot from the grassy knoll that was really just fired for cover purposes, not needing to hit Kennedy, afterall, there would be another hole in his body the Warren Commision would of had to account for if that bullet had hit him. Perhaps another crazy change of direction for the infamous "magic bullet".




So you're saying there was some sort of "T" off the main drain pipe that exited right behind the wooden fence? I wasn't aware of this. An exit can
also be an entrance. The grassy knoll shooter could have entered the sewer pipe as well and escaped undetected along with the sewer shooter. Do I have this correct?




Pretty doubtful any hard evidence still exists, other than word of mouth. It's sad really, because IMO this shot was "THE" shot, the tip of the sword so to speak, and it's been mentioned rarely in any kind of serious discussion about the assassination.




The hits just keep on coming. Of course it would make sense for the shooter/s to dump his/their weapon/s before exiting the sewer, wherever that might be. Somebody might see a guy with a gun exiting the sewer, then that person would have to be suicided, just making more work for 'them'.

Edit to add: Any apparent stonewalling or threats against you in any of your investigations Jim?

Peace


[edit on 8-11-2007 by Dr Love]

reply to post by Dr Love

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There's one or two reasons why a street level stormdrain shot is compelling and one or two reasons it is not.

In favor of a street level storm drain shot:
In favor, it gives a good shot angle, being below and to the same side as Kennedy's seating, and would preclude Jackie being hit accidentally, either from the shot itself, or from ejecta. It's also a good choice because of the high concealment aspect and if true, a good escape route, coming out in the railyard behind the GK. No one would think of looking in the drain, unless there was a direct and obvious trail of smoke.

Opposed to a street level storm drain shot:
Not in favor is the extremely brief shot picture. In order to aim, track and fire, even for an expert, would require almost supernatural luck to hit anything. The sight picture, even at 12mph would be very brief, and would not seem to allow time, though it's not impossible, I suppose. Also, if the limo was too close to the curb, there might not have been a trajectory, being the side of the car would be too close and too high.(*)

Handgun?
In addition, I doubt anyone would have tried to get the shot with a handgun, though there was a report of a .45 round found in the grass across from the knoll.

GK shot a decoy?
I agree with your assessment of the GK shot. IMO, if there was a shot from there, I think it was a decoy shot, and purposely missed.

Trajectory of any Grassy Knoll shot:
However, I don't think the trajectory was ideal. For one thing Jackie would have been directly in the line of fire from a shot there. For another it would have required a side-to-side tracking and the potential for a miss would be great even with an expert.

Grassy Knoll too exposed?
Seems to me that the position was also too exposed, though if it were done as Lee Bowers said (a fast hand off and use of costumes) it's not impossible.

In favor of a bridge level Storm Drain shot:
At any rate, are you aware that there was another 'storm drain' up by the overpass? Some have said that though this would have been a good trajectory, that it was obscured by trees and bushes. I'm not so sure of that.

Car parked on top of bridge/overpass:
Did you know of the rumor that someone parked a car on the overpass so that the tires rested on a manhole cover that would have given access to that storm drain? (it was well above street level just to the right of the bridge railing, iirc)

Excellent trajectory from bridge storm drain side opening:
But the biggest reason to have the 'real' shot from such a perspective would be the excellent trajectory.

1. being in front, there would be no side-to-side tracking necessary. One could hold on the sight picture for quite a while (many seconds).

2. being in front, the target would not be moving away (as in a TSBD shot) and the sight picture would be getting bigger as the motorcade neared.

3. all other things being equal, if one had to pick an ideal position, then that would be it (unless you stood someone right on the bridge, which wasn't really possible).

4. it would have given all the other favorable aspects of the street-level storm drain - concealment and escape, in addition to the favorable trajectory.

5. it would explain the presence of the blood and ejecta that hit Bobby Hargis on the flanking motorcycle as he reported. If you draw a line from him, past Kennedy's head, it pretty much lines up with that stormdrain.

6. Several people reported they thought a shot came from the bridge area and a policeman reportedly ran up there and looked on the bridge.

Hole in the Windshield?
If there really was a through-and-through in the windshield, which many think there was, then that's where that bullet would have had to come from. So it's almost a certainty that there was a shooter in the overpass area. It's academic whether that was indeed the head shot we seem to see in the Zapruder film.

NOTE: (*) If you look at the Z film, imo, there is some suspicious cropping of the lower frame as it goes by the first lamp post almost in front of Zapruder. The frame edge seems to rise up obscuring the side of the car and part of the shoulders of the occupants for several frames. I've often wondered if there didn't show a reflection in the side panel of the car which might have exposed someone in the drain, which was being passed in that area of the film.



[edit on 8-11-2007 by Badge01]

Great post Badge.

I'm assuming that all the storm drains in that area are interconnected, leading to one main drain. As far as the car being parked on the manhole cover, that's an interesting rumor. Regardless of what drain the shot might have come, I'm sure most manhole cover access points would have been blocked in that general area simply from a standpoint of 'their' manpower being able to more easily manage the aftermath.

Question for you Badge, I'm not sure of where that bridge-level storm drain was situated, so I have to ask you, would Gov. Connelly have been in the line of sight of that shot?

You brought up a good point for me and the street-level storm drain shot as far as Jackie being completely removed from the line of fire. I hadn't thought of that.

As far as left to right tracking from the street-level storm drain, didn't the limo come almost to a stop at that point? Slower than 12mph I thought.

Edit to add Badge, the left to right tracking window increases the farther back and to the right (or left for that matter) a shooter could stand. I'm not sure of the storm drain depth exactly. Maybe Mr. Marrs could fill us in on that because he has firsthand knowledge of the size.

Peace

[edit on 8-11-2007 by Dr Love]

just to add a small piece of info to this thread, in the biography Bound By Honor by Bill Bonnano, son of Joe Bonnano of Mafia fame, claims that Johnny Roselli shot kennedy from a storm drain. i read about this in the mid to late 90's...so its intersting that isee it crop up here.

Howdy Badge01,

Many good points in your posting. Keeping in mind that we are just hypothesizing here, consider these points to your statements.

A storm drain shot was very possible because the presidential limousine was in the center lane of three lanes meaning it was about six feet from the curb, so the trajectory would not have been that high. Mrs. Kennedy and Connally would not have been in the line of sight. When the first shots were fired, contrary to Secret Service regulations, the driver hit the brakes and the car came to almost a complete stop, a stationary target. The depth of the storm drain was about six feet. I am 5’7” and I could stand in it and my eyes were about even with the drain opening. The shot would have been easy with a handgun. When I attended the House Committee’s shooting reenactment in 1979, government investigators test fired a handgun from the Grassy Knoll area yet no one could or would explain to me why this was done. Obviously, someone suspected a handgun was used. I think that the earlier shots, especially one from either the TSBD building or the Dal-Tex Building were the diversions since this caused the limo to slow to a stop and most people looked back behind them in that direction. Plus, of course, this laid the groundwork for claiming that all the shots came from above and behind. The Grassy Knoll was not too exposed. In fact, it was a perfect spot, as a shooter had cover behind the wooden stockade fence plus that day was bright sunlight while the area along the fence was in deep shadow from the overhanging trees. I am well aware of the pit or drainage hole at the conjunction of the Triple Overpass and the wooden fence. There was a small slit at this point that provided a straight clean shot right up Elm Street. It is entirely possible that this could have been the location from where JFK’s penetrating throat shot came from. This also may account for the hole in the front windshield although it is just as likely this was an exit hole. We’ll never know because they still deny any hole there, only a non-penetrating scratch from a bullet fragment. I spoke with the son of a Dallas Deputy Sheriff who was told by his dad that he stuck a pencil through this hole. It sure sounds like a hole to me.

Jim Marrs

Many years ago, before I ever saw the documentary that presented the idea that a shot could have come from the storm drain, I came to the same conclusion while in Dallas. (After I watched the documentary, I did take the opportunity to call everyone I knew and say "See? I'm not an idiot!". I felt vindicated.)

I was in Dallas for a convention as an exhibitor. Over a lunch break 3 of us visited the Book Depository and the Grassy Knoll area, looking over the area, talking about the assassination. It was afternoon on a beautiful day, and there seemed to be spray painted Xs in the street, after examination, they seemed to be at least close approximations of the location of JFKs car when the bullets hit. I do not know who painted them, but after the fact I was able to look them up and confirm that they were indeed close to the locations of the actual bullet strikes.

While coming down from the Grassy Knoll area, I went to step on a cigarette I was dropping and noticed that I was standing on top of a storm drain. I kind of cocked my head to the side like a cocker spaniel and thought "Hello, whats this?" Looking up the road, this particular location seemed to have a vantage point straight up Elm Street, which JFKs car came down. As I watched the cars come down, I realized that as vehicles come down from the top, it is slightly steeper up there and then flattens out a bit.

Now, Elm street is still an integral part of the city and the volume of cars on it during a business day is rather high. But there I found myself, in a black business suit, laying flat in the gutter as cars whizzed past me.

From what I could see as traffic came down and made the curve, it looked as though a shot could have been placed past the windscreen of a slow moving oncoming vehicle, but then, I'm not a marksman, I don't know how hard that shot would be. While I was down in the gutter, I asked one of my associates if they had picked up one of the "freebie" tape measures (with a corporate logo on it) at one of the booths we passed ( I had left my "freebie" at the exhibit, along with a bag of assorted pens, sand filled squeeze balls, sunglasses, and business cards). So I measured the general interior ( do not recall the results) but judged it to be large enough for a man to squat in and point a rifle out of.

So that is my experience there. I do not know if the road has been reworked and the storm drain moved, so I never did anything publicly with the idea, but you can be darn sure it made for some great stories at the bar and at parties.






[edit on 17-1-2008 by Reality Hurts]