Original subtitles

[Gunshot]

- [Man]: It appears as though something has happened

in the motorcade route.

Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route.

There's numerous people running up the hill.

- What transpired that day in Dallas, Texas,

is one of the most contentious mysteries of our time,

setting off a hailstorm of criticism

and endless conspiracy theories...

- You don't smell gunpowder unless you're upwind of it.

- I was not struck by the first bullet.

- The first thing that flashed through my mind

was that he had fired.

- ...leading one man on a 25-year quest for the truth.

- You know what your critics say.

They say this is absurd.

They rank it with the Tooth Fairy,

"bottom of the barrel" kind of theory.

You know you're gonna get a lot of criticism

when you publish this theory.

- Of course, but those people don't know anything

about firearms, ballistics or bullet performance.

- Now a second investigator is determined to solve this murder.

- If you go into a crime scene,

and you're trying to work out what's actually going on,

invariably, you'll find out through your witnesses.

They'll solve it for you.

- Who killed President John F. Kennedy?

- [Man]: The policeman says:

"No, you cannot come here! You cannot come in here!"

- And have these 2 experts finally found the smoking gun,

hidden in plain sight all along?

[Crowd cheering]

The broad facts of the most famous assassination in history

are simple.

- [Man]: The usual welcoming committee presents Mrs. Kennedy

with a bouquet of red roses.

- It is a routine visit to Dallas

on the presidential campaign trail.

The sun is shining, the people are welcoming,

and the top of the presidential limousine is down.

- [Man]: The president's car is now turning onto Elm Street

and it will be only a matter of minutes

before he arrives at the Trade Mart.

- At 12.30 p.m., shots are fired.

[Gunshot]

[Gunshots]

President John F. Kennedy is mortally wounded,

and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded.

- [Man]: It was definitely the president's car.

We can see the First Lady's pink suit...

- Move, move, move!

- Both men are rushed

to nearby Parkland Hospital.

A half hour later,

President Kennedy is pronounced dead.

- [Man]: The president of the United States is dead.

- Just 45 minutes after the assassination,

Kennedy's suspected killer, Lee Harvey Oswald,

murders a police officer

before being arrested in a Dallas movie theatre.

President Kennedy's body is flown to Washington

for the autopsy.

- [Woman]: I solemnly swear...

- [Johnson]: I solemnly swear...

- Vice-President Lyndon Johnson takes the oath of office

onboard the plane.

Two days later, Dallas club owner Jack Ruby

shoots and kills Oswald in an underground parking lot.

[Gunshot]

- [Man]: He's been shot! He's been shot!

- The next day,

President Kennedy is buried at Arlington Cemetery.

That's where the accepted facts of the Kennedy assassination end

and the mystery of what actually happened begins.

In response to widespread suspicion

that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a greater criminal plot,

President Lyndon Johnson appoints

Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate.

- Lee Harvey Oswald's Carcano rifle...

- Over the next 10 months, in closed court sessions,

552 witnesses give testimony to the Warren Commission,

resulting in an 888-page report released to the public.

Yet 50 years later,

President Kennedy's murder is still shrouded

in suspicion, mystery and conspiracy theories.

The majority of Americans still do not believe

that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman.

How can a crime that is witnessed

by hundreds of people at the scene,

filmed by at least 30 of them,

watched by millions on television,

and more documented than any other assassination in history

remain so unresolved?

Many people have tried to come up with an answer,

but few with the crime-solving pedigree of Colin McLaren.

After spending 18 years in the Australian Police Force

investigating the country's most baffling crimes,

he makes a surprising discovery

when he turns his formidable skills on the JFK case.

- I learned that no other career detective

had ever undertaken a cold-case study,

a forensic analysis of all of the evidence,

all of the testimony,

and I wanted to be the first.

- Colin McLaren is one of

the most celebrated undercover detectives in Australia.

During the '80s and '90s,

He was responsible for one of the largest undercover stings

in Australia's history,

one that sent 11 mafia bosses to prison.

His time undercover has taught him

to solve crimes from the inside.

This makes him uniquely equipped

to see things other investigators may not.

He turns his attention to the most famous one in history.

- One thing I had to do is I had to see the crime scene.

Once I got there, it was quite like a time warp.

There was the book depository, the 6th floor window.

There was the underpass, the infamous grassy knoll.

They're all there.

Once you turn from Houston Street onto Elm Street,

which is the last of the motorcade,

it bends to the left

as you go down this quite pronounced gradient.

It sort of snaked along.

It was a seriously unusual and difficult terrain

to get off a shot or two or three.

I looked up at the 6th floor of the book depository.

I had great trouble understanding

why 2 dozen Secret Service agents

hadn't seen a man with a gun.

Other witnesses,

I'd found 10 that had seen a man with a gun

or a man or an image from that window,

yet the Secret Service agents missed it.

I then went into the book depository on the 6th floor.

It was eerie.

It was a bit daunting, really,

because as a detective, I've been to many crime scenes,

but this is the holy grail of all crime scenes.

This is the most unsolved of all crime scenes in the world.

To be standing within it,

I got an enormous sense of...

"understanding" is probably the best word,

and it was very unsettling,

but it was also very helpful for me to be there.

Oswald's perch was much smaller, much tighter

than I ever imagined from all of the photographs I studied.

All he had to brace himself was a couple of cardboard cartons

as he fed his clunky, World War II bolt-action weapon

with ammunition

and took aim.

[Gun cocking, bullet shell clinking]

Let's not forget one very important factor:

The adrenaline, the pressure,

the nerves he must of felt as he sighted up the president.

The thing that struck me most about this case,

that even after 50 years,

with the majority of the American people rejecting

the Warren Commission findings,

it's those findings that stand today,

and that is, that a lone nut named Lee Harvey Oswald

fired 3 shots in less than 6 seconds and killed JFK.

Then Jack Ruby kills Oswald.

There was no conspiracy, and both men acted alone.

- Colin is well aware he's not the first person

to seriously question the Warren Commission's findings.

In 1967, CBS put these findings to the test.

- [Man]: CBS News has a tower and target track constructed

to match exactly the heights and distances in Dealey Plaza.

The target, a standard FBI silhouette,

moved by electric motor at 11 miles an hour,

approximately the speed of the presidential limousine.

11 volunteer marksmen took turns

firing clips of 3 bullets each at the moving target.

- One of the main questions the CBS special asks:

Is it physically possible

to fire 3 rounds in 5.6 seconds or lessm

using the antiquated Manlicher Carcano bolt-action rifle

Lee Harvey Oswald had used?

- It is a clumsy weapon to bring to that sort of a fight.

Lee Harvey Oswald, let's be honest, he had a bit of junk.

It was army surplus, it's incredibly heavy,

and it's prone to jamming.

The sights, of course, weren't aligned properly.

- The credibility of the Warren Commission's findings

rest on this test.

- [Man]: A weapons engineer had the best score:

3 hits in 5.2 seconds.

- His name is Howard Donahue.

It takes him 3 tries,

but thanks to his efforts,

CBS concludes that it's plausible

to fire the 3 shots on target in less than 5.6 seconds.

- Here we have an outstanding ballistics man

who did that controlled test.

However, it was his 3rd attempt, so he has a few rehearsals.

Lee Harvey Oswald, he was on the fly.

He had his gun out and he was pointing it and he was shooting.

He had no rehearsals,

and he was riddled with, obviously,

adrenaline and pressure, nerves and probably fear.

So I can't accept

that he could get 3 away in that amount of time at all.

- Neither could Howard Donahue.

In addition to being the best marksman,

he was also a ballistics expert,

and his test on CBS news

launches him into a personal investigation

that would become an obsession.

Donahue's quest to re-examine the Kennedy assassination

forms the basis

of Colin McLaren's modern forensic investigation.

- Howard Donahue was a ballistics expert.

If he hadn't done what he did, I wouldn't be here today.

- After participating in the CBS rifle tests.

Howard Donahue doubts

that Lee Harvey Oswald could fire 3 shots in 5.6 seconds.

What begins as a nagging doubt

turns into a 25-year obsession

to reveal the truth about JFK's assassination.

- He started to just dig.

He would find an inconsistency and didn't understand it.

He just had that kind of mind. He wanted to understand.

- Howard Donahue was a highly decorated bomber pilot

in World War II.

Born in Upstate New York,

he grows up in Baltimore, Maryland,

where he lives until his death in 1999.

- My father was around guns all his life,

from when he was 11 and got that first .22-calibre rifle,

he always had a gun.

- As a child, Colleen Donahue is immersed

in her father's enthusiasm for guns

and obsession with JFK's assassination.

- He was always hunting and fishing

and just loved the outdoor life.

And then, of course, as he got older,

he qualified as an expert marksmen and had a gun shop,

and he was a gunsmith and expert witness in court.

- After the CBS special airs,

a popular men's magazine of the era asks Donahue

to write an article backing the Warren Commission's findings.

- He was approached by True Magazine,

which was one of the top men's magazines

in the United States in the '60s.

It featured a lot of outdoor, hunting and fishing stories,

and true adventure.

And they wanted him to write a story

based on his involvement with the CBS special,

but basically looking at the Warren Commission

and concluding why it was accurate.

And so, Howard said: "Yeah, I'd like to do that."

- Bonar Menninger is a Kansas-based journalist

who chronicled Howard Donahue's search

to uncover what happened in Dallas.

- His mission was to focus on the empirical evidence,

to not concern himself with the various conspiracy theories,

but really bear down on the ballistics,

on the trajectory of the shots,

the way the bullets performed,

the wounds they caused,

and see where that led.

- First, Donahue looks at ballistics.

The Warren Commission found that Oswald fired 3 shots.

His first shot, which became known as the single bullet,

passed through Kennedy's neck,

wounding him and Texas Governor John Connally.

Oswald's 2nd shot missed entirely,

and his 3rd shot hit JFK in the head and killed him.

Donahue decides to examine each of the 3 shots.

What the commission determined to be Oswald's first shot

is probably the most contentious.

The Commission found that the bullet struck President Kennedy

at the base of his neck, just to the right of his spine,

exited his throat below the Adam's apple,

struck Governor Connally beneath and behind his right armpit,

shattered 4 inches of Connally's 5th rib,

exited below his right nipple

and crashed through his right wrist,

before finally lodging 2 inches deep in Connally's left thigh.

For many critics of the Warren Commission,

the 2 men's position in the presidential limousine

rule out the single-bullet theory.

The critics find it preposterous

that a bullet slanting down from the right rear of the President

could pierce his throat,

make a sharp right turn,

and enter the extreme right side of Connally's back.

Initially, Donahue is inclined to agree

that the Commission's single- bullet theory is improbable.

Then he discovers Connally and his wife, Nelly, are riding

in jump seats.

These seats were not in a direct line

with the president and Jackie's places

in the back seat of the limousine.

The jump seats were close to the centre of the car,

and much lower than the bench seats the Kennedys rode in,

which means that Governor Connally was sitting much lower

and farther inboard than it appeared.

Donahue places Connally where he was actually sitting.

With his body turned,

the bullet's trajectory lines up perfectly.

To Donahue,

the slug's seemingly impossible dogleg turn

now makes perfect sense.

Donahue makes an amazing discovery.

He proves that the Warren Commission's

often ridiculed single-bullet theory

is in fact correct,

despite the fact that

the commission got the shot's trajectory completely wrong.

But another inconsistency

in the Warren Commission's findings

continues to puzzle Donahue.

The commission's critics argued

that the bullet that hit Kennedy and Connally

was too pristine to have ripped through 2 men.

- A bullet in fact was found at Parkland hospital

which was considered likely

to have been from Governor Connally.

It was found on a stretcher,

and the bullet was relatively intact,

and critics said:

"Well, how could a bullet have gone through 2 men

"and caused so many wounds

"and not been damaged?"

Howard went down to the National Archives in Washington

and looked at the bullet with a jeweller's loop.

And to his trained eye,

the bullet, in fact, was deformed and not pristine.

This contention that the bullet was perfect was a fallacy.

- This is further proof to Donahue

that the Warren Commission's single-bullet theory

was correct.

But does the bullet match the gun?

Firearms expert FBI agent Robert Frazier answers that question

before the Warren Commission.

- Mr. Frazier, I now hand you Commission Exhibit 399

which is a bullet,

which was found at the Parkland Hospital

following the assassination.

Are you familiar with this exhibit?

- Yes, sir.

This is a bullet which was delivered to me

in the FBI laboratory on November 22.

- And did you examine this exhibit

to determine whether it been fired in Exhibit 139,

Lee Harvey Oswald's Carcano rifle?

- Yes, sir.

- And what was your conclusion?

- It was. Exhibit 399 was fired from the rifle, 139.

- The FBI test showed that the marks on the bullet

matched the chamber of Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle.

That's equivalent to fingerprints.

- That is to the exclusion of all other rifles?

- Yes, sir.

- Arlen Specter, assistant counsel

for the Warren Commission is credited

with conceiving the commission's single-bullet theory.

- Did you hear shots?

- Many critics of the report

believe Specter geared his questions

to continuously support this theory.

Donahue agrees that the single bullet struck the 2 men,

but he wonders

if that was actually the first of the 3 shots

as the commission found.

Donahue recalls

Governor Connally's frequent, public disagreements

with this key finding.

- I am convinced beyond any doubt

that I was not struck by the first bullet.

I know that I heard the first shot,

that I turned to my right to see what was happening.

Seeing nothing, I was in the process of turning to my left,

and I was struck by a 2nd shot.

The 3rd shot struck the president,

but did not strike me.

And as I said earlier,

this testimony was presented to the Warren Commission,

that they chose to disagree with my interpretation

and my memory of what had occurred.

- Donahue discovers that the testimony

of senior Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman

also contradicts the commission's order of shots.

Roy Kellerman was riding in the front seat

of the presidential limousine.

He describes what he heard after the first shot.

- There was a report like a firecracker, and a pop!

As I turned my head to the right

to view whatever it was or see whatever it was,

I heard a voice from the backseat,

and I firmly believe it was the president:

"My God, I'm hit!"

And I turned around and he's got his hand up like this.

- Indicating right hand up toward his neck?

- That is right, sir.

- How could President Kennedy say this

if that first shot had cut through his throat and windpipe

the way the commission said it did?

And if that first shot didn't strike the president,

where did it go?

- Why did the Warren Commission say

that the first shot hit JFK in the back of the neck?

There is ample corroborative evidence from many witnesses

that saw the first shot hit the pavement and ricochet off.

- Virgie Rachley was a bookkeeper

at the book depository.

In her Warren Commission statement,

she said she saw a bullet bouncing off the roadway.

- So you were standing directly in front

of the Texas School Book Depository Building?

- Yes.

- Tell me what you saw.

- Well, after he passed us,

then we heard a noise,

and I thought it was firecrackers,

because I saw a shot or something hit the pavement.

- What did it look like when you saw it?

- Well, as I said, I thought it was a firecracker.

It looked just like you could see the sparks from it.

- Is it possible that a fragment from this ricochet bullet

struck Kennedy,

causing him to exclaim: "My God, I'm hit!"

before he was shot through the neck by the 2nd bullet?

Donahue thinks so,

and is now convinced that the Warren Commission

got the order of the first 2 shots wrong.

- As he progressed, more and more inconsistencies emerged,

and he asked himself more and more questions,

and then he just...

You can't stop.

- In his forensic investigation of JFK's assassination,

Detective Colin McLaren examines the evidence

that ballistics expert Howard Donahue uncovered

some 40 years earlier.

Donahue believes

the Warren Commission's single-bullet theory is correct,

but that it got this bullet's trajectory wrong.

Donahue also believes that the Warren Commission was wrong

about the sequence of the shots.

[Three gunshots]

His investigation deepens.

He turns his attention to the bullet

that delivered JFK a fatal head shot.

[Men talking, indistinct]

Dr. James Humes is the pathologist in charge

at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

He conducts the President's autopsy

just a few hours after his assassination.

[Men talking, indistinct]

When Humes testifies before the Warren Commission,

he is asked to describe the damage the 3rd shot inflicted.

- The 3rd obvious wound at the time of the examination

was a huge defect over the right side of the skull.

This defect involved both the scalp and the underlying skull,

and the brain substance protruding.

- According to Humes' testimony,

the wound extended 10-12 cm back to front,

from just behind the president's ear to above his hairline.

This enormous wound is a total mystery.

One bullet pierces the bodies of 2 men and emerges in one piece,

yet the bullet that hit Kennedy in the head

explodes in a hail of lead.

Why did these bullets perform so differently?

- I will refer back to the X-rays,

which we had previously prepared.

These disclosed to us multiple minute fragments

of radio-opaque materials.

These tiny fragments were seen dispersed

through the substance of the brain.

- Approximately how many fragments

were observed, Dr. Humes, on the X-ray?

- I would say between 30 and 40 dust-like particle fragments.

- This is not the work of a full-metal-jacket bullet.

This more the work of a frangible bullet

that is designed to explode violently upon impact.

- If Oswald fired both shots, how can this be?

Why would he use 2 different kinds of bullets?

- My father knew as a ballistics expert

that you don't get one shot that goes straight through

and one shot that blows right up

from the same gun and the same ammo.

It's just that isn't how it works.

But this seemed to be something

that everybody was either overlooking

or just not talking about,

and that was a glaring omission to him

and he realized that this was the key to the whole thing.

- Colin McLaren wants to see

the difference in bullet performance,

starting with a full-metal-jacket bullet

that Oswald used in his Manlicher Carcano rifle.

- This is a full metal jacket round.

It's a Carcano 6.5-mm round.

It's designed for warfare. It's designed to travel.

That is, if a soldier gets hit with something like this,

it will go straight through the body of the soldier,

giving him a chance to go to hospital

and then eventually go home and be eliminated from the warfare.

- Ready to fire!

Firing!

- Straight through.

- Colin, I think we're seeing

a typical full-metal-jacket drive through.

Drills a hole, clean as a whistle.

- This is a .223 frangible hollow point round,

and being a frangible round,

it's designed to explode upon impact,

and the results are devastating.

- Range is going hot! Ears and eyes.

Ready to fire.

- Donahue has concluded

that the bullet which struck Kennedy in the head

is inconsistent with the ammunition used

in Oswald's rifle.

He now focuses on the size

of the entrance wound in Kennedy's skull.

- This wound in the right posterior region

was the measurement that I gave before,

I believe 15x6 mm.

- According to the autopsy report,

the diameter of the entrance wound is 6 mm,

and the bullet tunnels for 15 mm before fragmenting.

- Howard talked to pathologists,

who told him that a bullet wound in the skull always makes a hole

slightly larger than the diameter of the bullet.

- But Oswald's Carcano bullets are 6.5 mm in diameter.

If the shot had come from Oswald's Carcano rifle,

the entrance wound in JFK's skull would have to be

at least that diameter or bigger.

If the entrance wound is only 6 mm in diameter,

it's simply impossible for a 6.5 mm Carcano bullet

to have impacted JFK's skull.

- Once again, Howard had identified something

that nobody else seemed to tumble to,

in terms of the implications of this evidence,

but it's pretty significant.

- Donahue concludes that the kill shot was caused

by an exploding frangible bullet from another weapon.

If so, why were 3 spent Carcano shells found

at Lee Harvey Oswald's sniper perch?

- The advocates of the lone-gunman theory

will always mention the 3 spent casings

that were found in Oswald's perch.

One of them was away from the other two,

and Howard Donahue explains the single one perfectly.

It was dented and probably used as a chamber plug.

Could you just show us how that's done, Pierre?

- Sure.

- That is to stop moisture and grit

from getting into the chamber.

- Evidence from the crime scene indicates

that Oswald may have ejected this chamber plug

before taking his sniper position at the window.

[Bullet clinking]

It's compelling evidence that Oswald fired only 2 shots.

So if the fatal head shot didn't come

from Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle,

where did it come from?

Donahue now revisits the shot's trajectory

to see if he can find the answer.

The Warren Commission calculated the head shot came down

at a declination of just under 16 degrees.

- The trajectory from the book depository

was 16 degrees down

and about 6 degrees right to left,

based on the midline of the vehicle.

Even if the entrance wound

and Oswald's position lined up,

that right to left trajectory would have suggested

that the exit wound would have been

somewhere in his left side of his face,

maybe his forehead, his nose,

and not the upper right portion of his skull.

- Donahue decides to conduct his own trajectory tests.

He uses the Warren Commission's autopsy exhibits

to determine the bullet's entrance and exit points.

He drills the exit hole,

and hopes to trace the line of trajectory back to its source.

[Blowing]

Donahue slides a dowel through the skull

to line up the trajectory

with the position of President Kennedy's head

at the time of the 3rd shot.

He determines that the shot was fired behind JFK,

but from a much lower angle

than the 6th floor window of the book depository.

- Howard couldn't believe it.

Howard believed that it was absolutely impossible

for the trajectory from Oswald's sniper position

to have caused the wound that Kennedy suffered in his head,

based on where the autopsy physicians placed

the entrance wound

and where the exit wound was

on the upper right side of his head.

It didn't make sense.

- Donahue has applied basic ballistic science

to conclude beyond all doubt

that the Warren Commission is wrong.

He is now convinced that there must have been a 2nd shooter

in Dealey Plaza that day.

Based on his analysis of the head shot,

Howard Donahue believes that a 2nd gunman fired the shot

that killed John F. Kennedy.

He believes that the 3rd shot could not have come

from the 6th floor of the book depository.

The only explanation Donahue can accept

is that the head shot had to have come

from somewhere behind and to the left of the president.

[Talking, indistinct]

Seeking answers, Donahue meets pathologist Dr. Russell Fisher,

Maryland's chief medical examiner.

Fisher has been appointed by the Attorney General

to re-examine JFK's autopsy,

and he reveals startling new information

about the President's head wound.

- Dr. Fisher told him that the entrance wound as mislocated.

- It's much higher, maybe 4 inches in this area here.

- 4 inches higher? Huh!

- At the autopsy in Bethesda,

it was down here by the occipital protuberance,

which is that bony bump on the back of your skull,

but in fact, Dr. Fisher's panel found

that it was 4 inches higher

and an inch to the right of the midline.

- A big difference.

- The doctors in the autopsy

must have misplaced the location of the entrance wound.

There can be no other explanation.

- Armed with this new information,

Donahue can now trace back the trajectory of the fatal shot

based on the entrance wound's correct location.

[Blowing]

What he discovers comes as a complete shock.

- He got out his drawings and he traced that line back,

and he found that it went over the left rear seat

of the Secret Service follow-up car

that contained a number of agents riding closely behind

the presidential limousine.

- I'm standing in the exact spot

where JFK suffered his fatal head-shot wound.

And with fresh information and new photographs,

Howard Donahue made a sensational discovery

that helps you understand this case.

He followed the line of trajectory from that fatal wound

and he discovered that it didn't emanate

from high up on the 6th floor window of the book depository.

In fact, it was lower down behind me,

where the secret service follow-up car is.

- Donahue writes to the Secret Service

and asks for the names

of the agents who rode in the follow-up car,

what weapons they carry, and what calibre those weapons are.

The Secret Service replies

that they do not disclose the types of weapons they use,

other than agents are issued .38-calibre revolvers.

The letter writer adds

that Secret Service agents fired no shots

at the time of the assassination.

While Donahue looks at the Warren Commission report

from a ballistics viewpoint,

Colin McLaren studies it with a detective's eye,

and he finds eyewitness evidence of gunfire at street level.

- There was 10 witnesses that claim to have smelled gunpowder

at the time of the shooting at street level.

- Dallas Patrolman Earle Brown is standing on a railway bridge

looking down at the motorcade as it races to Parkland hospital.

- I heard those shots, and then I smelled this gunpowder.

- You did?

- It come on, oh, I'd say a couple minutes later or so.

At least, it smelled like it to me.

- That day, the wind was blowing at 15 miles an hour

away from Patrolman Brown,

that is, toward the book depository.

So for him to have smelled gunshot residue,

it would have had to have drifted up

as the motorcade went underneath him,

and that's what he told the Warren Commission, exactly that.

Dallas mayor Earle Cabell and his wife, Elizabeth,

are sitting in a convertible

4 cars back from the presidential limousine.

- Well, I turned around to say to Earle:

"Earle, that was a shot!"

And just as soon as I got the words out,

the two 2nd shots rang out.

- Do you remember anything else?

- I was acutely aware of an odour of gunpowder.

- With the wind at 15 miles per hour from the southwest,

as it was exactly on the November 22, 1963 --

and I was really pleased to have that

as part of my crime-scene analysis --

I came to fully appreciate

how people in the motorcade at street level were adamant

that they smelled gunpowder.

More, I could even understand completely

that the gunpowder couldn't have come from the 6th floor window,

not with the wind blowing in Lee Harvey Oswald's face.

- To Colin McLaren, the testimonies from witnesses

who smelled gunpowder at street level

are strong evidence of a 2nd shooter.

One of these witnesses was Senator Ralph Yarborough,

riding with Vice-President Lyndon Johnson

in an open Lincoln

directly behind the Secret Service follow-up car.

Yarborough is a war veteran

with over 50 years' experience with firearms.

- I've hunted all my life,

and I've handled all kinds of weapons in the army.

I knew they were rifle shots, and there were three of 'em.

A second or two later, I smell gunpowder.

I always found that strange,

because, being familiar with firearms,

I never could see how I could smell the powder from a rifle

in that high building.

You don't smell gunpowder

unless you are upwind of it, and it blows in your face.

- The trajectory of the 3rd shot leads back

to the Secret Service follow-up car.

The Secret Service denies

that any of their guns were fired that day,

yet 10 witnesses smelled gunpowder at street level.

- I was acutely aware of an odour of gunpowder.

- If a 2nd gun was fired, whose was it?

Veteran police detective Colin McLaren researches this mystery.

He discovers that in the wake of the shooting,

Dallas policemen interview witnesses at Dealey Plaza.

- Any detective who's worked a lot of crime scenes

will tell you the really best way to solve any crime

is through your witnesses.

Don't look too far, look on the ground,

keep it on the ground, keep it at street level

and keep working your witnesses.

They'll solve it for you.

- Sheriff Bill Decker is a Dallas law enforcement legend.

Decker is one of the cops

who ran down the glamorous bank robbers, Bonnie and Clyde,

in the 1930s.

He's a Texas maverick,

and he runs a crack team of detectives his way.

After the shooting,

Decker orders his men to scour Elm Street and Dealey Plaza

for witnesses.

By day's end,

Decker's men pull in several dozen witnesses,

many claiming to have seen the shooting.

- If you go into a crime scene

and you're trying to work out what's actually gone on,

invariably, you'll find out through your witnesses.

Of course, you've gotta grab them at the very start

while they're hot, and commit them to paper.

The Dallas sheriff's office

found the best type of witness,

those that saw something on the day

and were prepared to make statements

before they could be corrupted from outside influences.

- For Colin McLaren, the eye-witness testimony

is the key to solving the most famous crime in history.

- I heard at least 2 shots fired.

- 22-year-old Hugh Betzner

is standing alongside the motorcade,

taking photographs.

- I also saw a man in either the president's car,

or the car behind his,

pull out what looked like a rifle.

- Hugh Betzner is just one of the people

to see a gun at the scene.

McLaren discovers that there are others.

Senator Ralph Yarborough is in the motorcade.

He also states

that he saw a Secret Service agent pull out a rifle.

- I heard 3 shots, no more.

All seemed to come from the right rear.

Some of the Secret Service men looked backward

and to the right,

in the general direction

from where the explosions seemed to come from.

One Secret Service man sitting down in the car ahead of us

pulled out an automatic rifle or weapon

and he looked backward.

- McLaren wonders why this evidence

of a rifle a mere 4 metres behind the president

was not investigated.

He digs deeper.

Dallas mayor Earle Cabell is travelling in a convertible,

4 cars behind the presidential limousine.

- Would you describe what you saw or heard, please, sir?

- I heard the shots.

There was a longer pause between the first and 2nd shots

than there was between the 2nd and 3rd shots.

- You didn't in fact know who had been hit, I take it?

- No, we couldn't tell.

We could tell, of course,

that there was confusion in the presidential car, activity.

The Secret Service men ran to that car.

From out of nowhere, appeared one Secret Service man

with a submachine gun.

His attention seemed to be focused up toward the building.

- All of these witnesses see a rifle at the crime scene.

So why did the Secret Service not disclose its presence

in their letter to Howard Donahue?

Even Secret Service Agent Winston Lawson testifies

that he saw a fellow agent holding a rifle.

- But I also noticed right after the reports

an agent standing up with an automatic weapon in his hand,

and the first thing that flashed through my mind

was that he had fired,

because this was the only weapon I had seen up to that point.

- Who is that agent?

What Howard Donahue now realizes

is that his suspected 2nd shooter

has been hidden in plain sight all along,

inside the Secret Service follow-up car.

Only one camera captures that agent at the scene

with an assault rifle in his hands.

His name is mentioned several times

during the Warren Commission.

- Howard came to a passage

that describes an Agent Hickey

with the AR-15,

pointing it around aimlessly around the plaza,

or something to that effect,

and Howard saw that reference, and he was stunned.

- Agent Winston Lawson rides in front of the president

in the lead car.

He gave a sworn statement about what he saw.

- I noticed Agent Hickey standing up in the follow-up car

with the automatic weapon.

I first thought he'd fired at someone.

- From other Warren Commission testimonies,

Donahue identifies that weapon as an AR-15 assault rifle.

- The AR-15 fired the kind of bullet

that he believed hit Kennedy in the head,

that ruptures and cause a massive lethality.

- When Donahue went through the Warren Commission reports,

he found 11 witnesses

that could put the AR-15 in the hands of George Hickey,

two of them at the time of the 3rd shot, the final shot.

- Did you hear shots?

- Yes, sir.

- How many?

- Three shots.

And then we saw the car coming with the president,

and as it passed underneath me, I looked right down,

and I could see this officer in the back.

He had this gun and he was swinging it around.

It looked like a machine gun.

And the president was all sprawled out.

- Howard Donahue believes

he's finally identified the 2nd shooter.

He decides to take his controversial discovery public.

- Howard had been approached

by a reporter with the Baltimore Sun

about doing a story.

It appeared as a 2-part Sunday magazine article

in the spring of 1977.

- In the article,

Donahue reveals his groundbreaking theory,

but does not name George Hickey as the 2nd shooter.

- For the first time in years,

the Baltimore Sun Sunday edition sold out.

But at the same time, there was a blip and then...

Poof! It was gone.

Now it's back into the ether.

And I think there was the anticipation

that once this cat's out of the bag,

there's no turning back,

but it didn't happen that way.

- Ballistic science expert Howard Donahue believes

he has proven that the 2 bullets which struck JFK

could not have come from the same gun.

He identifies Secret Service Agent George Hickey

in the presidential follow-up car

as the 2nd shooter.

Through forensic analysis of the witness statements,

Colin McLaren agrees with Donahue's theory.

He now examines the behaviour of the Secret Service

at Parkland Hospital directly after the shooting.

- [Man]: Just now we've received reports here at Parkland

that Governor Connally was shot in the upper left chest,

and the first unconfirmed reports say

the president was hit in the head.

- By all accounts,

the 2 hours at Parkland hospital were sheer pandemonium.

- The lead car, the president's limousine,

and the Secret Service follow-up car arrive at Parkland

at 12:36 p.m.,

6 minutes after the 3 shots were fired.

Senator Ralph Yarborough is among those

in this bloody motorcade.

- I walked up to the car,

where Mrs. Kennedy was still there on the back seat,

lying there with her head bowed over,

covering her husband's head,

his blood running down her leg and on her clothes,

and twice saying:

"They've murdered my husband. They've murdered my husband."

It's the most tragic sight of my life.

- Move, move, move!

[Lamp buzzing]

- Secret Service agent George Hickey,

armed with his AR-15 rifle

receives orders to protect Vice-President Johnson

at the hospital.

- Which room?

- One.

[Sobs]

- Go here.

- [Doctor]: Now, lift.

We need blood pressure!

- Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman calls Washington.

- We have an incident here now, sir.

The president and the governor have been shot.

We're at the emergency room at the Parkland Memorial Hospital.

- Once Hickey helps to secure Johnson in the hospital,

he returns the AR-15 to the follow-up car.

He is then asked by one of the President's aides

to find a priest.

- [Man 1]: A priest has been ordered.

Emergency supplies of blood also being rushed to the hospital.

[Sobbing]

- [Man 2]: Just a moment.

We have a bulletin coming in.

We now put you directly to Parkland hospital

and KBLX news director Bill Hampton.

- [Hampton]: The President of the United States is dead.

President Kennedy has been assassinated.

It's official now. The president is dead.

[Women sobbing]

Women here in shock, some have fainted.

[Elevator bell dinging]

There's only one word to describe the picture here,

and that's grief, and much of it.

- Texas law requires that an autopsy be performed

before the body can be shipped out of state.

Dr. Earl Rose is the Dallas County Medical Examiner.

He is well aware of the law

and is adamant about protecting all evidence

from the crime scene.

But Agent Roy Kellerman wants to take JFK's body

to the president's hospital near Washington.

- The body cannot leave this hospital

until after an autopsy has been performed.

- This is the body of the President of the United States,

and we're gonna take it back to Washington.

- No, that is not the way things are done.

When there's a homicide, we must have an autopsy.

- Well, he's going with us.

- The body stays.

- My name's Roy Kellerman.

I'm Special Agent in charge

of the White House detail for the Secret Service.

We're taking President Kennedy back to the capital.

- You are not taking him anywhere.

There's a law here, and we are going to enforce it.

- Kennedy's personal doctor, Admiral George Burkley,

also argues with Dr. Rose.

- Mrs. Kennedy is gonna stay exactly where she is

until this body is moved.

We can't have that. We are removing this body.

Now, this is the President of the United States,

and there should be some consideration

in an event like this.

- Now, that doesn't matter.

You can't lose the chain of evidence.

- My friend, that part of the law can be waived.

Now either you move or we run it over you.

- The Secret Service escorts the president's body

from Parkland Hospital

and loads the casket aboardAir Force One.

On the plane,

Lyndon Baines Johnson is sworn in as president.

- [Woman]: ...the Office of the President of the United States.

- [Johnson]: The Office of the President of the United States.

- I was struck by the heavy-handed manner

in which the Secret Service and the presidential aides

removed the body from Dallas.

Was it simply a panicked reaction

to the chaos of the moment

or was it more a deliberate attempt of a cover-up

of what happened earlier that day in Dealey Plaza?

- To get inside the motives

behind the secret service's actions,

McLaren retraces their steps leading up to the assassination.

As Kennedy and his entourage drive through Dallas,

Secret Service agents are entrusted

to protect the president and the First Lady at all costs.

President Kennedy has made 83 trips in the past year alone.

It had become common on the Kennedy detail

to log an average of 80 overtime hours each month.

During the Texas trip,

the Secret Service detail is working double shifts.

The past 3 days have been brutal with no end in sight.

[Laughing]

The night before the assassination,

a number of the Secret Service agents go out on the town.

Secret Service agents are a dedicated,

close-knit band of brothers.

The downsides of the job are long hours, endless pressure

and lots of time away from home.

Heart attacks, alcoholism

and even suicide are occupational hazards.

[Talking, indistinct]

- The Secret Service agents put JFK to bed just after midnight,

and then, for some strange reason,

they went bar hopping,

and they were seen to be in the company

of "scantily clad women",

as the Warren Commission called it,

strippers, in other words,

and the drinking went on till just after 5:00 a.m.,

before they went back to their rooms

to prepare themselves for a 7:00 a.m. start.

The bar hopping must have added some serious overture

to the following shift.

Probably hungover,

certainly not in their best performance.

- When later questioned by Chief Justice Warren,

the head of the Secret Service, James Rowley,

defends his agents.

- Some people in the crowds saw a man with a rifle

up in this building from which the President was shot.

Now, don't you think that if a man went to bed reasonably early

and hadn't been drinking the night before,

he would be more alert to see those things

as a Secret Service agent,

than if they stayed up

until 3:00, 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning?

- Yes, he would.

But there are situations

where a man comes in from a trip at 1:30 in the morning,

and he has to be up at 3:30 or 4:00

and be ready to go out at a 5:00 o'clock departure,

then would go that whole day

until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.

- Don't you think that

they would've been more alert, sharper,

had they not been doing these things?

- Yes. Yes, sir,

but I don't believe

that they could've prevented the assassination.

- Agent George Hickey, whose primary role was as a driver,

was already in Dallas preparing the cars for the motorcade.

- George Hickey was a 40-year-old

who started at the Secret Service

only 4 months previous to the fatal day at Dealey Plaza.

He in fact was gazetted or attached to the garage,

that is, to polish the cars, check the oil and water

and prepare it for the President and the motorcade.

- George Hickey was not in the bar,

getting drunk the night before.

- That had to have been the reason that George Hickey,

who was, at that stage, just a driver,

to have to step up, take the AR-15

and take the sniper role on the follow up car.

A set of responsibilities totally foreign to him.

- In the days immediately after the assassination,

the Secret Service agents are ordered to write statements

about their actions that day, including George Hickey.

- The last shot seemed to hit his head

and cause a noise at the point of impact,

which made him fall forward and to his left again.

At the end of the last shot,

I reached to the bottom of the car

and picked up the AR-15 rifle, cocked and loaded it,

and stood partway up in the car and looked about.

At this point the cars were passing under the overpass,

and as a result, we had left the scene of the shooting.

I kept the AR-15 rifle ready

as we proceeded at a high rate of speed to the hospital.

- George Hickey's version of what happened is interesting.

He claims that he had hold of the AR-15

just as they were going underneath the underpass.

Yet, you've got 11 different witnesses who gave testimony

that say very clearly he had hold of the weapon

at the time of the 3rd shot.

That is, of course, back on Dealey Plaza.

Interestingly again, is that of those 11,

7 of them are Secret Service agents.

- Another eyewitness saw a completely different picture

than the one Hickey portrays.

Sam Holland is standing on top of the underpass

at the time of the shooting.

[Telephones ringing]

Holland gives a sworn statement to the Dallas Sherriff's office.

- Yeah, after the first shot,

the Secret Service man raised up in the seat with a machine gun

and then he dropped back down in the seat.

- Agent Roy Kellerman confirms

that this weapon is in the motorcade

in his Warren Commission testimony.

- We have an AR-15. It's out of its case.

It won't be shown,

It could be laying on the floor, but she is ready to go.

- "Ready to go" means that the assault weapon

is cocked, loaded, one up the spout

and safety on.

In the case of George Hickey,

all he would've had to have done

was flip the safety, point and shoot.

- But that's not what Agent Hickey claims

in his written statement.

- I reached to the bottom of the car

and picked up the AR-15 rifle, cocked and loaded it,

and stood partway up in the car and looked about.

- Why did Hickey say he cocked and loaded the AR-15

when Kellerman testifies it was ready to go?

Earl Warren confronts Secret Service Chief James Rowley

about the use of assault rifles in the motorcade.

- Well, I am thinking this:

as you go along in the motorcade,

you have men who are scanning the buildings along the route,

don't you?

- Yes, sir.

- They have sub machine guns in one of their cars?

- No.

- Warren knows from other testimony

that this is not true.

- For security reasons, I'd like to....

- Rowley evades the question.

- We have no machine guns now.

- I thought I just heard this in the record here

that they had some kind of guns.

- We had some weapons, new weapons, yes, sir.

- So, here we have a situation

where the latest weapon in the Secret Service arsenal,

the AR-15, is withdrawn immediately after.

- By his own admission, Secret Service Agent George Hickey

had a powerful assault rifle in hand

as shots rang out in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

- At the end of the last shot,

I reached to the bottom of the car

and picked up the AR-15 rifle.

- But eyewitnesses contradict this statement.

- You've got 11 different witnesses who gave testimony

that say very clearly he had hold of the weapon

at the time of the 3rd shot.

- If the fatal shot was fired by Hickey,

the behaviour of the Secret Service becomes more intriguing.

Why did they refuse to allow an autopsy

to be performed at Parkland hospital in Dallas?

Air Force One touches down

at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington

at 5:58 p.m.

The streets have been cleared

for a beeline run to Bethesda Naval Hospital 28 miles away.

JFK's personal physician, Dr. George Burkley,

is also the head of Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Burkley has arranged for the hospital's chief pathologist,

James Humes,

to conduct the autopsy.

Humes and his team know their efforts here tonight

will be critical to any criminal proceedings

against the crime's perpetrator.

J. Edgar Hoover has appointed two FBI agents

to stay with the body through to embalmment.

Both James Sibert and Frances O'Neill know

their controlling boss expects a thorough report

on everything that happens in the autopsy room.

The medical investigators must log all forensic samples

and maintain a sound chain of custody of the exhibits.

Typically, autopsies are conducted

by a small pathology team,

but this is no ordinary autopsy.

- Here we have an autopsy

where there's at least 30 people inside the suite --

representatives of the army,

the navy, the air force, the FBI, technicians, pathologists,

all working in this massive crush to get the autopsy done,

arguing, talking over each other.

The head pathologist, Dr. Humes, even stated in evidence

that he wished he could have chucked them all out.

- Just stay back a little bit please.

- It was like trying to do delicate neurosurgery

in a three-ring circus.

- 30 years after the JFK assassination,

the Clinton administration

initiates the Assassination Records Review Board

to release documents relating to the shooting

and conduct interviews about JFK's autopsy.

Colin McLaren has access to vital information

that was not yet declassified

during Howard Donahue's investigation in the 1970s.

By the early '90s, most Americans still believe

the truth about the assassination had not been told.

This public sentiment

increased with the release of the filmJFK by Oliver Stone.

In response, Congress passed the JFK Records Act,

which led to the ARRB interviews.

- In 1995, the ARRB subpoenaed all records

to do with the Dallas trip from all agencies involved.

They wanted to inspect all the books.

Unfortunately,

the Secret Service destroyed their documents,

all their records, the week earlier.

Of course, why would they do that?

- Did the Secret Service have something to hide?

From the outset,

McLaren sees basic forensic practices being ignored.

Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman's clothes

are spattered with JFK's brain matter.

- Their clothing should have been bagged up

and treated as exhibits.

They were witnesses to one of the worst crimes in history,

and they should have been treated as witnesses.

They should never have been there,

yet they stayed for the duration.

- Despite the chaos in the autopsy room,

the pathologists agree that a bullet

penetrated the lower region of the president's neck,

just below the collar line, at the shoulder.

- JFK's neck wound was very neat.

The entry was only 7 mm in diameter,

which suits a 6.5 mm full-metal-jacket round.

- At the Parkland Hospital in Dallas,

Governor Connally receives treatment

for a similar neat, clean wound.

- Dr. Humes, you should take this.

- News reaches the Bethesda autopsy room

that a 6.5 mm full-metal-jacket bullet

has been found on Governor Connally's hospital trolley.

Humes and his team mentally tick off their first missing bullet.

JFK's headshot wound is a different story altogether.

The round responsible for it

clearly hit the president in the back of the head,

causing a massive wound 130 mm in diameter.

Humes concludes the head wound

is the result of a bullet that's exploded.

- The left cerebrum was disrupted

by the explosive force of the missile

as it entered near there.

I didn't need a neuropathologist

to see that the man's brain was blown.

- Do you have any recollection now

about radio-opaque objects

being in or appearing in the X-rays?

- Yes, in the skull.

There were some little, tiny fragments

of radio-opaque material,

which we thought to be bullet fragments.

Very fine, sort of, granular-looking material,

went almost as far forward as the frontal bone.

- [Man]: We need to clear the room!

- X-ray technician Jerrol Custer

carries out the instructions of Dr. Humes.

- [Man]: Thank you, Custer. It's all yours.

- Thank you!

Good!

Clear!

- Once Custer has taken an X-ray,

he rushes upstairs to his photographic laboratory

to process the exposures

and bring them back for the pathologists to view.

Jerrol Custer testifies that the autopsy room

was the scene of loud debate

and that he witnessed the doctors being harassed.

- The commotion level was astronomical.

The decibel level was extremely high.

You had to scream at people at times.

[Men talking loudly, indistinct]

- Custer's superior, Dr. John Ebersole approaches him.

- [Gunn]: The first time you were asked

not to discuss the autopsy,

that was which time?

- [Custer]: In the morgue. - OK, in the morgue.

And that was on the night of the 22nd?

- On that night.

- OK, and who was it who asked you not to speak of...

- Dr. Ebersole.

He made it clear I was not to speak of this.

- If you could,

convey the sense of the words that he gave you

as best as you can.

- "Keep your mouth shut."

- OK, that's perfectly blunt.

- Investigator Colin McLaren has uncovered testimony

supporting ballistic expert Howard Donahue's theory

that Secret Service Agent George Hickey

fatally shot President Kennedy in the head.

He's revealed astonishing evidence

of a cover-up by the Secret Service.

Now, with access to declassified records,

McLaren discovers the true extent of the Secret Service

interference in the autopsy.

- John Stringer was in charge of all the photographers.

It was his job to keep it under control,

yet what he saw was a complete mess.

He was complaining of all of the chatter,

the talking, the pushing, the crush.

- Stringer takes multiple photographs,

mostly of JFK's head wound.

A young photographer named Floyd Reibe works with Stringer.

Reibe testifies that he took around 100 shots

on 8 or 9 separate film rolls.

They are crucial evidence.

- When you finished with one roll of 35-mm film,

what did you do with that?

- I took it out of the camera

and gave it to one of the Secret Service agents there.

- Did you ever see that film subsequently?

- No.

- As far as you are aware,

did either you or Mr. Stringer

leave the autopsy room with any exposed film?

- No. No, you couldn't have got out of there with that.

They even took-- We had one or two cassettes,

they weren't even exposed yet, and they took that too.

I had a film, a 35-mm film roll in my pocket.

It wasn't even used, and they took that as well.

They took every bit of film we had.

[Men talking, indistinct]

- The FBI records

show that 22 colour rolls

and 18 black-and-white rolls were taken.

Their care is entrusted to the Secret Service.

FBI Agent Frank O'Neill

recalls handing the film to Roy Kellerman.

O'Neill later testifies that the Secret Service head

promised to forward a copy of all photographs to the FBI,

but never did.

The chain of evidence stops with Agent Kellerman.

Reibe himself never saw the photographs he took.

- He mentioned at the ARRB

that he believed that images went missing.

Even though he attended a public hearing on that,

he couldn't find those images or photographs ever.

He mentioned how the Secret Service

and different people in that room were interfering.

- All right, I'm gonna check the...

- [Custer]: There was a 4-star general in there and a civilian,

who I took to be Kennedy's personal physician.

- And were this general and this person in civilian clothing

giving directions to Dr. Ebersole?

- Correct. Absolutely!

- What kind of directions were they giving to him?

- In a sense, the Kennedy family

would not like you to pursue this path any farther.

- Would you like her to come in? - No, wait!

- I'm just saying in a couple of minutes they'll be here.

- I've got the White House on our backs.

What are we supposed to do?

- All right! You have 5 minutes!

- Let me put it this way, plain and simple.

The autopsy was something that had to be done.

It didn't have to be done correctly.

It just had to be done for record purposes only.

Finding out the facts... Forget it!

- Dr. Humes completes the autopsy,

dissatisfied with the result,

his work interrupted by all the commotion.

He stores the president's brain in a stainless-steel pail

for further forensic analysis,

but that never happens.

- [McLaren]: The pathology slides

that were created by Dr. Humes

were handed up to the Secret Service,

and he stated he never saw them again.

If everything in the autopsy suite was on the up and up,

you would have had a cause of death sorted out

within about 3 or 4 hours.

The pristine bullet

would have been matched to the neck wound of JFK.

The head wound, well,

there would have been a greater understanding of that.

All the exhibits would have been bagged, labelled

and a proper continuity

and signatures would have taken place.

But unfortunately, none of that happened.

- Dr. Humes?

- Yes?

- Do you mind if I have a quick word with you?

- Well, I do mind if...

- Shortly after the autopsy, Dr. Humes' boss, George Burkley,

informs him that Robert Kennedy wants his brother's brain.

- He asked me would I give him the brain,

which I promptly handed to him in a pail.

Then the mystery really begins,

because what happened after that, I don't know.

What George Burkley did with the brain

is the mystery of the century.

And why I so easily acceded to his wishes, I don't know,

other than he was talking about Bobby and the family

and what they want.

- I need you to make X-rays

of fragments of the president's skull with those...

- Days after the autopsy,

Dr. Ebersole returns from a meeting at the White House

with the Secret Service.

He has a strange request for Jerrol Custer.

- Did Dr. Ebersole say anything to you about metal fragments?

- He gave me 3 or 4 different metal fragments varying in size,

and he asked me to tape them to the bones.

- And did you tape them to the bones?

- Yes, sir.

- Custer's explosive testimony

is evidence of a complex cover-up

orchestrated by the Secret Service.

He says that he was asked to manufacture an X-ray

that would obscure detection of an explosive, frangible bullet

by placing full-metal-jacket bullet fragments

on JFK's remains.

- Did Dr. Ebersole ask you

to tape the metal fragments to the bones

after he returned from the White House?

Are you able to say with certainty?

- Absolutely. When he walked in, it was the first thing he said:

"I want these bone fragments

"X-rayed with these metal fragments taped."

- There was no doubt that Jerrol Custer

was asked to falsify an X-ray.

And he did what his boss had asked him to do,

even though he would regret it for the rest of his life.

- Well, that was the most traumatic.

After I signed the gag order,

I was told that if anything, no matter what got out,

it would be the sorriest day of my life,

and I would spend most of my time behind prison walls.

- A few days later,

photographers Floyd Reibe and John Stringer

are approached by a Secret Service agent.

- You mentioned something related to a secrecy oath?

- Well, we were told that this was classified information

under the National Security Act,

and we had to read it and sign it.

And if we talked about it to anybody at all,

well, we'd be court martialed.

- John Stringer, whose exposures were confiscated at the autopsy

by the Secret Service,

is also forced to sign a gag order.

- Virtually everybody in that autopsy suite that day

was forced to sign a gag order.

- For top-detective Colin McLaren,

the Warren Commission's investigation

of the Kennedy assassination

raises more questions than it answers.

- From what I'd learned about the goings on in Dealey Plaza

and the autopsy suite and the Parkland hospital,

I wanted to go through

the Warren Commission reports once more

just to see if there was anything that I'd missed,

and there was.

- As McLaren scours the Warren Commission,

he discovers that some vital witnesses

from the autopsy were never called,

and that in his view, pivotal evidence was disregarded,

most crucially the autopsy notes

of FBI agents James Sibert and Francis O'Neill.

McLaren discovers that Assistant Counsel Arlen Specter

meets with the 2 agents,

and asks them if they had made any notes in the autopsy suite.

The agents reveal that they did,

and that senior Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman

took possession of all photographs and X-rays.

He promised they would be made available to the FBI

upon request.

Almost all of these X-rays and photographs

are never seen again.

- Did you see any FBI or Secret Service agents taking notes?

- Oh, that's right: Sibert and O'Neill.

I could swear they were writing a book that night,

writing it down.

- But Assistant Counsel Arlen Specter tells a different story.

- In a memo written by Specter,

he stated there was no notes made by Sibert and O'Neill.

Was this a misunderstanding by Specter or was it in fact a lie?

Either way, Sibert and O'Neill

weren't called to the Warren Commission or their notes.

Why?

- Two months into the commission hearings,

X-ray technician Jerrol Custer

has a preliminary interview with Counselor Specter

outside the courtroom.

- There's little doubt

that Custer's observations in the autopsy

and his story of falsifying an X-ray for the Secret Service

would have been explosive evidence

at the Warren Commission.

- Custer tells Specter his story and waits to be summoned.

Specter never calls him.

Senator Ralph Yarborough

is also keen to testify at the Warren Commission.

He was directly behind Secret Service Agent George Hickey.

- One Secret Service man sitting down in the car ahead of us

pulled out an automatic weapon or rifle,

and he looked backward.

I smelled gunpowder.

It clung to the car nearly all the way to the hospital.

- In the commission's executive-sessions memorandum,

Chief Justice Warren demanded

that Yarborough be called to testify.

He never did.

- Why Warren's order was not obeyed is a mystery.

Although he was the head of the inquiry,

McLaren believes he was not always in control,

and that the commission willfully avoided

interviewing key eyewitnesses.

- It's not known

whether Arlen Specter spoke to any of the agents

from the follow-up car.

Only one of those agents in the car

gave evidence to the Warren Commission.

Depending on your point of view,

that is either very neglectful or very telling.

- After a 9-month investigation,

the Warren Commission is drowning in paper.

With no modern criminal analysts

and no computer systems,

it is possible that some evidence goes unnoticed.

But Colin McLaren

has access to modern cross-referencing databases.

With his detective expertise,

he uncovers several witnesses

whose crucial testimony has gone unanalysed until now.

- [McLaren]: If an analyst had reviewed the witness statements,

he would have seen how often 3 shots had been mentioned,

also how often "smelling gunpowder"

was said by the witnesses

especially close to the motorcade.

He would have linked these snippets

with other evidence from witnesses

that saw a Secret Service agent stand up with a firearm,

and then fall backwards.

Unfortunately, this all went unnoticed

by the Warren Commission.

I came to realize that the Warren Commission themselves

weren't interested in finding the truth.

In his examination of the massive Warren Report,

Colin McLaren sees an investigation

that is uninterested in finding the truth.

It's the only logical conclusion McLaren can make,

given the exclusion of so many eyewitnesses

who gave testimony at the Dallas sheriff's office.

- The 2 men in the front of the car stood up,

and when the second shots were fired,

they all fell down, and the car took off.

- Was Marvin Faye Chism talking about the follow-up car

when she saw 2 men stand up and then fall backwards?

We'll never know. She was never asked to testify.

- I saw a flash of pink,

like someone was getting up

and then sitting back down in the car.

- Well, the flash of pink

could have been the AR-15 muzzle blast

or gunshot residue, a number of things,

but nobody asked.

- I also saw a man in either the president's car

or the car behind his

pull out what looked like a rifle.

- Mr. Betzner took 3 photographs

which were seized and sealed by Decker's men,

however Betzner himself was never called to the commission

nor were his photographs.

- Jean Hill is a bystander

who is only 6 metres away from JFK

at the time of the assassination.

- I saw the president grab his chest and fall forward,

and I think I saw a few men in plain clothes shooting back.

- Jean Hill was called to testify

at the Warren Commission.

She mentioned that she thought the agents were firing back.

Arlen Specter never persevered,

never asked her why or what made her think that.

He changed the subject.

Why wouldn't he want to know what she meant by that,

that the agents were firing back?

Sheriff Decker was in the lead car

looking back towards the follow-up car.

His observations could have been very important

to the Warren Commission.

Unfortunately, he was never called.

If ever there was a blatant omission of evidence

by witnesses,

the motorcade itself would be it.

Behind the follow-up car,

was another 12 vehicles at the tail end of the motorcade.

Of the 12 vehicles, all but one was open top.

They contained members of the press as well as dignitaries,

and they're all facing forward.

However, the Warren Commission didn't call them all.

They only called six,

and of that six, four smelled gunpowder at street level.

Why didn't the Warren Commission call them all?

- For McLaren,

the Warren Commission Report is a document of omission,

witnesses who aren't called, testimony that isn't heard,

questions that aren't asked and evidence that is ignored.

McLaren concludes that the US government is covering up

Secret Service Agent George Hickey's fatal shot.

But why did Hickey shoot the president of the United States?

Ballistic expert Howard Donahue has a simple answer.

- Agent Hickey reached down on the seat beside him,

grabbed the AR-15 to bring it to his shoulder,

he flipped off the safety,

and at that time he fell over backwards

and the gun went off,

striking President Kennedy in the back of the head.

- Was there a conspiracy to kill JFK?

Howard was agnostic about that.

What he did do

was show that it couldn't have come from the grassy knoll

because there's no entrance wound

on the front of Kennedy's face

and no exit wound on the back.

And it couldn't have come from the overpass

because there was 12 other people up there.

What Howard proved, in my view,

was that Oswald didn't fire that shot,

and most likely it was fired by Agent George Hickey

from the follow-up car, accidentally,

in the panic of the moment.

You know, in the chaos of combat, he's trying to respond.

He's trying to do his job.

He's probably already acquired Oswald visually.

He's gonna return fire and fate intervenes.

[Exhaling]

It's sad.

I mean, it's sad for him, and it was sad for the country.

It was a tragedy.

- What good would it do admitting

that one of the Secret Service agents

had fired a shot accidentally and hit the president?

- Because it would clear up what is the great national mystery,

and it would be a simple explanation

to what is a very complex question

that still bedevils every American.

- Well that's the reason

that we have produced the book Mortal Error.

- 25 years after Donahue began his investigation,

author Bonar Menninger

discovers the ballistic expert's controversial theory.

He writes a book

based on Donahue's scientific, but provocative conclusions.

Mortal Error is published by St. Martin's Press in 1992.

The book names George Hickey as the second shooter,

who accidently, tragically, shot the president.

- When Howard and I started on this project,

the first thing I did

was write a certified letter to George Hickey,

and I never heard from him.

And then, when we were getting close

to finishing the book,

I wrote him again,

and I explained to him that, you know:

"You really need to talk to me

"because this thing, it's coming."

And then the publisher wrote him and, again, zero back.

- George Hickey's signature on the registered mail receipts

proves he received the letters, but he does not respond.

- My reaction to reading Mortal Errorwas profound,

and it was one of the finest,

if not the finest true crime book I've ever read.

His ballistics was outstanding.

It was faultless and beautifully explained.

It actually caused me to want to jump in with Howard Donahue

at some point in my future and help him out.

- ButMortal Error does not fly off the shelves,

does not cause a public uproar, and quickly fades into oblivion.

- He was disappointed, I believe,

that the book didn't do better than it did,

but people were more interested

in the Umbrella Man and ice bullets and grassy knolls.

People seemed to want something

that was still mysterious and unknown,

and his theory was ballistics and math,

which is not very sexy.

- Three years after the publication ofMortal Error,

George Hickey files 4 lawsuits

against Howard Donahue, Bonar Menninger

and St. Martin's Press.

Why he waited so long is a mystery.

- If I was so maligned by an allegation of using an AR-15

and causing a mortal error

to the president of the United States,

I'd be on to it in days, but he waited over 2 years.

And that, in itself, is interesting.

- The suit was ultimately dismissed

because of the statute of limitations.

He had waited too long to file, and the judge threw it out.

- In 1996, a paperback version is released,

Hickey sues again.

In 1998, the lawsuit is settled out of court.

- In lawsuits, no matter how frivolous a claim,

you have to answer it.

And it just kept going on and on and on

and costing my father and St. Martin's

a lot of money and a lot of time.

- They just made a business decision:

"We've spent too much money fighting these lawyers.

"We're just gonna end this thing."

- If it did go to court,

the whole process would have been open to discovery.

The entire file on the AR-15, even incident reports,

Secret Service documents for that particular shift,

that particular crew.

That could have been devastating

for the Secret Service and for George Hickey.

- [Bonar]: Howard continued to pursue an audience

for his story and the book

and continued to look for evidence that would support it,

but for all intents and purposes,

it was the end of the road.

- Howard Donahue dies one year later,

his theory all but forgotten.

Howard Donahue's 25-year quest to expose the truth

inspires Colin McLaren

to investigate this famous murder mystery

and prove Donahue's remarkable theory.

Both men agree that the third shot that hit Kennedy

was the result of a tragic accident.

- I really believe this is what happened.

- Three shots are fired.

The first is by Lee Harvey Oswald.

It misses, but a ricocheting fragment of the bullet

hits the president,

causing him to say: "My God, I'm hit."

At the sound of gunfire,

Agent George Hickey turns to look up at the 6th floor window.

Oswald fires again.

The second bullet enters the president's back

and exits his neck,

hurtling forward into Governor Connally's back

and exiting through his chest.

Hickey picks up the AR-15 to return fire

and flicks off the safety.

As the follow-up car lunges forward,

he loses his balance and accidentally pulls the trigger.

The presidential car is rushed to Parkland hospital

and a massive cover-up begins.

This forensically constructed account

has long been supported

by previously ignored eyewitness statements.

- I saw the president grab his chest and fall forward,

and I think I saw a few men in plain clothes shooting back.

- After the first shot,

the Secret Service man raised up in the seat with a machine gun.

- Both Donahue and McLaren find that 11 people

are able to put the assault rifle in George Hickey's hands

at or before the time of the third shot.

Seven of the eleven are Hickey's fellow Secret Service agents.

- McLaren and Donahue also identify 10 people

who testify that they smelled gunpowder at street level

at or around the time of the shooting.

- You don't smell gunpowder unless you're upwind of it,

and it blows in your face

- To McLaren, the behaviour of the Secret Service agents

at Parkland hospital

is evidence they knew one of their agents shot JFK.

Documented accounts of physical and verbal threats,

and the determination to prevent an immediate autopsy,

despite the law, speak to a cover-up.

- Now, either you move, or we run it over you.

- The autopsy in Bethesda, Maryland

is also suspicious to McLaren.

- Mind your own business!

- Overcrowding in the room,

the Secret Service's constant interference,

the pressure-cooker autopsy,

lost photographs, falsified X-rays,

and the missing brain

of one of the most famous men in history

all point to conspiracy.

- If we talked about it to anybody at all,

well, we'd be court martialed.

- Finally, there is the Warren Commission itself,

with its unsummoned witnesses, unheard testimonies,

unanswered questions and unpresented evidence.

Colin McLaren believes the Warren Commission

had their shooter conveniently dead.

They had their murder weapon.

They had a plausible forensic account

of a 3-bullet assassination.

Case closed.

George Hickey never takes the stand

to be cross-examined about his statement.

He never speaks publicly about the assassination.

He dies in 2005.

- I think, if my father could see George Hickey now

and say something, he would say:

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what happened to you."

He arrived at this conclusion through facts, evidence,

and just his knowledge of ballistics,

and unfortunately it lead to Mr. Hickey.

But it was never his intention to paint him as a bad guy

or disparage him in any way,

and he had great sympathy for Mr. Hickey.

- It's tragic that John Kennedy's life

had to end in that way.

And in a way,

it's almost like he's continued to die through the years,

because he just hasn't been able to rest in peace.

And I would, for his sake --

'cause I admired him very much --

for his sake,

I would like to be able to see this thing resolved

once and for all and put to rest.

- Understanding the real cause into the death of JFK,

isn't about blackening the name

of any individual or organization,

it's about the truth,

and supplying a definitive answer to the American people,

an answer no more complex than a tragic accident colliding

with a foolhardy assassination attempt.

Maybe it's time to see the smoking gun,

and then to quietly close the door

behind history's most talked about and debated crime scene.