Jean Hill - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Norma Jean Lollis Hill was a witness to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy assassination

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...

in Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

on November 22, 1963. She was known as the "Lady in Red" because of the long red rain coat she wore that day, as seen in the Zapruder Film

Zapruder film

The Zapruder film is a silent, color motion picture sequence shot by private citizen Abraham Zapruder with a home-movie camera, asU.S. President John F...

. She was portrayed in the film JFK
JFK (film)
JFK is a 1991 American film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover-up, through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison .Garrison filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay...

by Ellen McElduff.

She was present along with her friend Mary Moorman

Mary Moorman

Mary Ann Moorman was a witness to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. She is best known for her photograph capturing the presidential limousine a fraction of a second after the fatal shot.-Biography:...

across from the grassy knoll, and was one of the very closest witnesses to President Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

when the shots were fired at him. Moorman can be seen taking pictures in the Zapruder film, which Hill claims were taken and bleached out.

At Zapruder frame 313, when President Kennedy was shot in the head, Jean Hill was only 21 feet (6.4 m) away, leftward, and slightly behind President Kennedy.

She testified to the Warren Commission that after the assassination she watched a man running from near the Texas School Book Depository

Texas School Book Depository

The Texas School Book Depository is the former name of a seven-floor building facing Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas . Located on the northwest corner of Elm and North Houston Streets, at the western end of downtown Dallas, its address is 411 Elm Street. The building is notable for its connection to...

towards the picket fence area. After watching this man, Hill crossed the street and ran with many other witnesses and authorities who first ran towards the grassy knoll after the shots ended.

Mrs. Jean L. Hill stated that after the firing stopped she saw a white man wearing a brown overcoat and a hat running west away from the Depository Building in the direction of the railroad tracks. She has since stated when she saw a photo of Jack Ruby after his killing of Lee Harvey Oswald she now believes he was the man she saw running. You can see in the Zapruder film that she was clearly looking into the direction of the Texas School Book Depository while the president is right in front of her which appears to support her story of looking at someone running just after the assassination. There are no other witnesses who claim to have seen a man running toward the railroad tracks. Examination of all the available films of the area following the shooting, reexamination of the interviews with individuals in the vicinity of the shooting, and the interviews with members of the Dallas police department and the Dallas Country sheriff's office failed to corroborate Mrs. Hill's recollection or to reveal the identity of the man described by Mrs. Hill. (Warren Commission

Warren Commission

The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established on November 27, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963...

Report, p. 640)

In Jean Hill's Warren Commission

Warren Commission

testimony she stated that a Secret Service agent told her on November 22, right after the attack, that another Secret Service agent, watching from the court house, saw a bullet strike, "at my feet" and kick up debris.

Hill was also one of several witnesses who have stated that at the end of the assassination she saw smoke lingering near the grassy knoll picket fence corner, although she made no mention of this when discussing the grassy knoll in her Warren Commission testimony (testimony that she has since stated was fabricated by the commission in her book "The Last Dissenting Witness").

During her commission testimony she stated that as the limousine came abreast of her she saw what she thought was a small white dog between President Kennedy and his wife. As is documented in films and photos captured at Love Field, Mrs. Kennedy was also given a small bouquet of white chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemums, often called mums or chrysanths, are of the genus constituting approximately 30 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Asteraceae which is native to Asia and northeastern Europe.-Etymology:...

s that she held, and had laid upon the limousine seat during the motorcade.

Many of her claims have been officially disputed (though some researchers that doubt the Warren commission consider her a reliable witness). She claimed that Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby

Jacob Leon Rubenstein , who legally changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby in 1947, was convicted of the November 24, 1963 murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Ruby, who was originally from Chicago, Illinois, was then a nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas...

was in Dealey Plaza

Dealey Plaza

Dealey Plaza , in the historic West End district of downtown Dallas, Texas , is the location of the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963...

when witnesses placed him in the offices of The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...

.

Perhaps her most explosive claim, made in her book and in the video "Beyond JFK" (and other places) was that she actually saw a shooter on the grassy knoll. However, that was not part of her original testimony. On the day of the assassination, she was interviewed by Jimmy Darnell of WBAP-TV and asked "Did you see the person who fired the . . .?" Hill replied "No, I didn't see any person fired the weapon, I only heard it."

Hill always thought of herself as a survivor after some of the other witnesses to the assassination died shortly thereafter under supposedly mysterious circumstances. She has even claimed that she received death threats and that her brakes were cut shortly after the assassination. She co-wrote a 1992 book entitled The Last Dissenting Witness. In a June, 2000 interview with Len Osanic, Hill discussed her plans to publish another book in the near future. Hill died in November of that year, and the second book was not published.

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