Mary Ann and June’s Downtown Excursion in Late ’63

I cannot say that I knew Richard Don Moorman during our three years at Bryan Adams High School; with a student body of 3,300, it was too big to be friends with everyone. He is among the class of 1971’s “fallen Cougars,” having died in 2003. Nor, until recently, was I aware that his mother, Mary Ann, had a role in the events of November 22, 1963 in Dallas. She is still alive at the age of 89.

Moorman and her friend Jean Hill were both DISD teachers, and although it was a school day they drove downtown to see the presidential motorcade. Moorman wore a blue raincoat and Hill a bright red one. Having recently purchased a Polaroid Highlander model 80A camera, she would later say she just wanted a photo of the president to give to her 11-year-old son—Richard. Moorman and Hill parked their car and walked a few blocks before positioning themselves just off the south curb of Elm Street with the towering Texas School Book Depository to their right. The ladies must have been excited when the black Lincoln-Continental convertible carrying JFK, First Lady Jackie Kennedy, and Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, made a sharp left turn from Houston Street and began a slow downhill glide through Dealey Plaza.

Moorman had already taken four photos, but they preceded the historic drama about to unfold. Between 15 and 20 feet from the limousine, she took the fifth about 1/6 of a second after Kennedy was struck in the head by one of the bullets which emanated from Lee Harvey Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano up on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository. Her photo shows the president leaning toward his wife, who is doing her best to comfort him in a shocking and chaotic moment; it was Oswald’s last and death-dealing shot. Few photos have been analyzed, dissected and interpreted more than this one.

On the other side of Elm Street, standing on a concrete pergola structure, was Abraham Zapruder. Rather than taking a single photograph, he was filming the motorcade as it passed by. Moorman and Hill are clearly visible between frames 315 and 316 of Zapruder’s 8 mm color motion picture sequence. Of course, neither knew about the other on that day, but both helped document the tragedy. Moorman’s snapshot has a motorcycle cop just off the left rear bumper of the limousine, the Kennedys (the Connallys, in the seats in front of them, are not visible, having crouched down for safety) and possibly a number of sinister things on the north side of Elm Street. Does her grainy black-and-white photo show four human figures on the so-called grassy knoll, or are they just trees or shadows? One has been labeled by conspiracy buffs—I do not count myself among them—“Badge Man.” This mirage-person is said to resemble a police officer with a badge on his chest. They assert that he is firing a gun, thus either helping Oswald or completely exonerating him. The conspiracy guys and gals claim there were other suspicious happenings on the grassy knoll, behind the picket fence and on the railroad overpass.

In the hectic aftermath of the shooting, Moorman and Hill went with Jim Featherston of the Dallas Times Herald to have her photo developed. Both gave statements to the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI. Oddly enough, Moorman did not testify before the Warren Commission. Of course, she has been interviewed by the media countless times. The mother of my high school classmate has vacillated, sometimes saying that she heard only three shots and sometimes that shots were still being fired after the fatal one that blew the president’s head open. She adheres to a vague conspiracy thesis.

Hill, who died in 2000, spoke with a louder voice. She did testify before the Warren Commission (and the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations) and was emphatic that Oswald was not alone. Some of Hill’s claims are outlandish, and yet others have the ring of truth—that she heard as many as six shots; that she saw Jack Ruby running at break-neck speed from the School Book Depository shortly after Kennedy was shot (he was in fact on the second floor of the Dallas Morning News building at the time); that none of the shots seemed to come from the rear; that Secret Service agents tried to silence her; that Gordon Shanklin of the FBI harassed her for 15 years; that she got numerous death threats; and so on. Hill and ghostwriter Bill Sloan produced a book entitled JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness and was a consultant on Oliver Stone’s woefully bad movie JFK. She is said to have loved being in the spotlight, and perhaps that accounted for the tension that developed between her and Moorman over the years.

Many people, however, defend and praise Hill and regard her as a courageous patriot for defying the conclusions of the Warren Commission. Kennedy assassination conspiracy buffs have no greater heroine than Jean Hill.