Linda Willis

Linda Kay Willis (born 1949) was a close witness during the assassination of President Kennedy.

Seen in the Zapruder film at the start of the assassination wearing a blue coat and a long gold skirt, located to the left of President Kennedy's limousine, on the south side of Elm Street, directly in front of the Texas School Book Depository.

Willis testified to the Warren Commission in 1964 that she remembered hearing three shots, with the last two shots bunched much closer together than the first two shots. Specifically, Willis testified that the assassination started when President Kennedy was already waving (his waving motion does not start until Zapruder film frame 174) when she heard the first shot that she remembered hearing (from Z-165 through Z-208 the president was hidden by a large oak tree from the view of anyone located in the Warren Commission lone snipers lair). Like many Dealey Plaza witnesses, the first shot she remembered hearing sounded to her like a firecracker. She testified that this first shot hit President Kennedy because she saw the president immediately and nearly simultaneously quickly raise both his arms and grab towards his throat as a result of the first shot she remembered. Willis testified that she did not know where the second shot that she remembered hearing came from or went to. Willis testified that it was the third shot that she remembered that hit President Kennedy in his head. In 1978 Willis testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations that she “had a distinct impression that the head wound to President Kennedy was a result of a front-to-rear shot“ when she saw his head “blow up.” In her 1989 video interview for The Men Who Killed Kennedy documentary, Willis stated that when she saw the president’s head explode in blood that she saw head matter came out the back of the president’s head, so, the head shot must have been fired from the front of President Kennedy.

Willis stated to assassination researcher and author Richard Trask (“Pictures of the Pain” 1994) that after the assassination she and her sister Rosemary also saw someone find a piece of the president's head that had landed in the grass located at least twenty-two feet to the left of the president.

After the assassination Willis, along with her sister, father (Phillip), and mother (Marilyn) were present at the Kodak photographic laboratory getting her father’s assassination related photo slides developed when the Zapruder film was first developed and first shown.

References

* [http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh7/html/WC_Vol7_0253b.htm Warren Commission; Witness Testimony; Volume 7, Page 498, Linda Kay Willis Testimony]
* [http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol12/html/HSCA_Vol12_0006b.htm House Select Committee on Assassinations, Volume 12, Section 2, page 7-8, "Presence of Possible Gunman on the Grassy Knoll", Linda Willis interview]

External links

* [http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/film/Zapruderstable.mov An Image-stabilized Version of the Zapruder Film, Running in a Loop] Users must initially wait a few seconds for the first quicktime version to download, after which the film runs continuously
* [http://members.aol.com/DRoberdeau/JFK/ROSEwillisANNOUNCEMENT.html Details and Zapruder frames showing the Rosemary Willis rapid headsnap towards the grassy knoll]