Oswald by Exclusion
Although witness testimony differed, the overwhelming consensus was
and is that only three shots were fired in Dealey Plaza on November
22, 1963. The second shot is now known to have struck both the
President and Governor Connally, and the third was fatal to the
President. This accounts for all of the victims' wounds, although
three shots were fired from the sixth floor window of the Book
Depository. The only real uncertainty on the part of the Warren
Commission was which of the three shots had missed; though it
correctly guessed it was the first shot. Fragments of one bullet --
probably the one that killed the President -- were later found in the
front of the limousine. This round spent itself in the car's
wind****eld before coming to rest. The other bullet, having struck
mostly soft tissue passing through the President's neck, the jumpseat
and Governor Connally's back and wrist before lodging in his thigh,
was found on Connally's stretcher at Parkland Hospital. No third
round was ever recovered; though there was reliable evidence that this
first shot probably ricocheted off the curb opposite the presidential
limousine down Elm Street.
Unlike the phantom second gunman, of which no real photographs exist,
film footage -- notably the Hughes film -- shows a form moving around
in the southeast sixth floor window of the Book Depository just prior
to the shooting, as the Presidential motorcade turns right onto
Houston Street toward Elm Street and the Book Depository. Several
witnesses saw a gunman before and during the shooting. Others saw a
rifle protruding from the window.
Two men watching the motorcade from a fifth floor window directly
below Oswald not only heard the three shots but also the sound of
three cartridge hulls hitting the wooden floor above them. Minutes
later, the three spent cartridges, all of which were later proved to
have repeatedly been dry fired through Oswald's rifle, were recovered
from the spot at the window where Oswald had been seen and captured on
film, and where the men on the fifth floor heard them fall. The
hastily stashed Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was recovered with a live
round in the breech minutes after that behind some boxes on the sixth
floor of the Book Depository.
Regardless of the nonsense spread by truthers over the years, there
was a clear chain of custody begun over the murder weapon, the spent
cartridges, and the sniper's nest, within minutes after the shooting,
all massively implicating Oswald. The Dallas Police Department's
records, and the Warren Commission's do***entation establi****ng the
chain of custody over these items are freely available online.
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