Ed,

I missed the earlier part of this exchange but have always believed the fatal shot came from the storm sewer on Elm Street to the right front of the motorcade. This was not from speculation or photo angling. The letter from Ed T, whoever that is, hits the nail on the head. I used to crawl down in the sewer with Penn Jones in 60s and it is quite different today. For one thing, the bottom has been filled in (note the flattening of the pipe opening at the bottom) and the opening that used to come up to my armpits now only reaches my waist. Oliver Stone repaved the street for his film and considerably reduced the size of the opening onto the street. It was more than ample and wide for the head shot. And Penn Jones, Jim Garrison and other critics placed the shot there from reports by witnesses and the physical evidence. It was Mark Lane in the late 60's who tried to move everyone up to the Grassy Knoll.

1. Earwitnesses heard a completely different sound from the last shot fired, one saying it echoed as if in a sewer.
   
   
2. Connally and others in the motorcade smelled gunpowder during the events. Smoke rose upwards from the fence area atop the Grassy Knoll, and would not have reached them. However, the passing of the first car in the motorcade would suck air and smoke out of the sewer hole and along the route of the motorcade.
   
   
3. A shot from the Grassy Knoll would have reached JFK's head at a downward angle, exiting from the base of his skull, and driving him down into the seat as it sent him backwards. A close examination of his reaction in both Zapruder and Nix films shows that he rises up from the seat as he is thrown back at over 100 mph. The fatal shot blew out the upper right portion of his skull. Both are consistent with a shot from below.
   
   
4. Brain matter and skull fragments explode upwards and travel back and to the left with great velocity at the moment of impact. Jackie later revealed that she picked up a portion of skull on the left rear of the car behind her seat, before being pushed back in by Clint Hill. A portion of skull was found near the curb on the south side of Elm, nearly 30 feet behind the position of the car at the point of the fatal shot and across the street.
   
   
5. Officer Billy Hargis was riding his motorcycle to the left rear of JFK's limousine and witnessed the head shot. He was quoted in the Warren Commission testimony saying that he was hit so hard with a skull fragment through his leather jacket that he thought he had been hit by a bullet. He looked down to see he was covered with blood, stopped and got off his motorcycle, and said "Am I hit?" He later parked the motorcycle over the opening of the sewer and ran up the Grassy Knoll with other witnesses. Quoted in the Dallas Morning News on the 30th anniversary of the assassination, Hargis recalled the event and said the brain and blood matter arced up and came down on him. Again, all this is more consistent with a shot from below and to the front.
   
   
6. The storm sewer is a good hidden location, one that a military sniper would choose. Penn Jones crawled through the pipes and discovered that going west along Elm leads to the vertical pipe that opens behind the Grassy Knoll fence near the overpass, and going across Elm and to the east leads to a grate in the basement of the Dallas jail. He yelled out when he got there, but no one responded.
   
   
7. The sewer shot was rarely mentioned by researchers or the public after Lane focused on the Grassy Knoll, but a few of us kept seeking the evidence. Subsequent "tell all" books by alleged participants usually repeat the standard locations, the TSBD window or the Grassy Knoll, for verisimilitude. A book published in the 1990's, long after it would have been fashionable to lie about the sewer location, titled Treason is My Daily Bread, by Mikhail Ledbedev, reveals his role in a plot involving Nazi intelligent agent Reinhard Gehlen to kill Kennedy in Dallas, and mentions that he was sent to shoot from the storm sewer. He may be covering for the real assassin in this, but by picking the sewer location he adds credibility to his account in my view. There are many other indications that Gehlen and his cold war spy network that formed our CIA were part of the JFK assassination conspiracy.

In the end though, it does not matter exactly where the shots came from or who fired them, even. None of that leads us back to the plotters, but the patsy Oswald does. Focusing endlessly on Dealey Plaza will never solve the crime. The bullets came from the Pentagon, no matter what direction they took.

John Judge