One must consider, however, the testimony of the witnesses who described the head shot as the concluding event in the assassination sequence. Illustrative is the testimony of Associated Press photographer Altgens, who had an excellent vantage point near the President’s car. He recalled that the shot which hit the President’s head “was the last shot--that much I will say with a great degree of certainty.”[C3-349] On the other hand, Emmett J. Hudson, the groundskeeper of Dealey Plaza, testified that from his position on Elm Street, midway between Houston Street and the Triple Underpass, he heard a third shot after the shot which hit the President in the head.[C3-350] In addition, Mrs. Kennedy’s testimony indicated that neither the first nor the second shot missed. Immediately after the first noise she turned, because of the Governor’s yell, and saw her husband raise his hand to his forehead. Then the second shot struck the President’s head.[C3-351]
Some evidence suggested that a third shot may have entirely missed and hit the turf or street by the Triple Underpass. Royce G. Skelton, who watched the motorcade from the railroad bridge, testified that after two shots “the car came on down close to the Triple Underpass” and an additional shot “hit in the left front of the President’s car on the cement.”[C3-352] Skelton thought that there had been a total of four shots, either the third or fourth of which hit in the vicinity of the underpass.[C3-353] Dallas Patrolman J. W. Foster, who was also on the Triple Underpass, testified that a shot hit the turf near a manhole cover in the vicinity of the underpass.[C3-354] Examination of this area, however, disclosed no indication that a bullet struck at the locations indicated by Skelton or Foster.[C3-355]
At a different location in Dealey Plaza, the evidence indicated that a bullet fragment did hit the street. James T. Tague, who got out of his car to watch the motorcade from a position between Commerce and Main Streets near the Triple Underpass, was hit on the cheek by an object during the shooting.[C3-356] Within a few minutes Tague reported this to Deputy Sheriff Eddy R. Walthers, who was examining the area to see if any bullets had struck the turf.[C3-357] Walthers immediately started to search where Tague had been standing and located a place on the south curb of Main Street where it appeared a bullet had hit the cement.[C3-358] According to Tague, “There was a mark quite obviously that was a bullet, and it was very fresh.”[C3-359] In Tague’s opinion, it was the second shot which caused the mark, since he thinks he heard the third shot after he was hit in the face.[C3-360] This incident appears to have been recorded in the contemporaneous report of Dallas Patrolman L. L. Hill, who radioed in around 12:40 p.m.: “I have one guy that was possibly hit by a richochet from the bullet off the concrete.”[C3-361] Scientific examination of the mark on the south curb of Main Street by FBI experts disclosed metal smears which, “were spectrographically determined to be essentially lead with a trace of antimony.”[C3-362] The mark on the curb could have originated from the lead core of a bullet but the absence of copper precluded “the possibility that the mark on the curbing section was made by an unmutilated military full metal-jacketed bullet such as the bullet from Governor Connally’s stretcher.”[C3-363]