Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot

Several eyewitnesses see a man standing in a sixth-floor window holding a rifle. One later testifies that he thought the man was a Secret Service agent. Oswald has a bolt-action rifle, which means that he might be able to get off three shots in nine seconds. With the president in his telescopic sight, Oswald fires. He does not even know if the shot hit anything. He chambers another round and fires a second shot, then a third, all of which takes 8.4 seconds. Two bullets strike the president. One strikes him in the back of the neck, passes through the front of his throat, and into Governor Connally’s back. The other people in the limo, including the driver, have only seconds to react and have not yet processed what is happening. The president wears a back brace, which keeps his torso upright as Jackie turns toward him and moves closer to see what’s wrong. The third bullet strikes, and the president’s head explodes as the bullet “exits the front of his skull” (268). 

Jackie yells, “They’ve killed my husband” and “I have his brains in my hand” (270). She scrambles to the back of the car, instinctively grasping for the remnants of the president’s skull.