The Gonzo Science Files: JFK Assassination: The Shooters
Written By: Jim Richardson and Allen Richardson
Posted: 3/9/2003
More of our interview with JFK assassination researcher Dr. Jim Fetzer. In this installment, Dr. Fetzer names some of those who may have been the actual gunmen.
Gonzo Science: So who were the shooters? Do you have names?
Fetzer: Well, they’re multiple ... (infamous mafia member) Johnny Rosselli claimed to have been one of them.
Gonzo Science: Do you think he’s credible?
Fetzer: Oh, Rosselli’s a pretty credible guy.
There’s quite a few candidates (for shooters).
The shooter on top of the County Records building may have been a deputy sheriff by the name of Harry Weatherford.
The guy who was in the Dal-Tex building may have been a guy named Eugene Brading, also known as Jim Braden. He might also have been this guy Chuckie Nicoletti. Nicoletti may also have been in the Dal-Tex building.
I believe the shooter in the Book Depository may have been a Cuban.
Why they were shooting (Texas Governor) Connally has not been obvious, but the fact that he was hit, you know, I don’t see it as just a miss, in particular if he was hit two or three times. … But I now believe you are right to suggest to me that the person who was supposed to be sitting in that seat was Ralph Yarborough, LBJ’s liberal political enemy, which explains not only why they were shooting at him but also why LBJ put up such a huge fuss over who should ride with JFK. When Jack insisted that the Chief Executive of the state should ride with the Chief Executive of the United States that morning, it must have been too late to change the arrangements that were in place. I am in debt to you, Jim, for this observation, which is simply brilliant!
Other shooters - one of the most distant, who fired through the windshield, the toughest shot - it looks like the best speculation would be Malcolm “Mac” Wallace. This was a very wonderful marksman, who apparently had killed other people for Lyndon Johnson.
Madeline Duncan Brown, Lyndon’s mistress, by whom he had a son, was a trap and game shooter. She used to go out to the local skeet club. She said the two weeks before the assassination she was out there and Mac Wallace was there almost every day and that he never missed anything he aimed at - he was really good! And she suspected - her conjecture was - that Mac Wallace was one of the shooters.
Charles Harrelson was there. Harrelson is serving a life sentence for the assassination of a federal judge with a high-powered rifle, having killed “Maximum John” Woods.
Gonzo Science: (Harrelson) is (actor) Woody’s dad, right?
Fetzer: Yeah, Woody’s dad. He was hired by a couple of drug dealers who were about to be sentenced and who didn’t want to be sent up for life. And he actually said …
Gonzo Science: He confessed.
Fetzer: Yeah, he said that he killed Jack, by which I interpret he meant he fired the shot that entered the right temple. Now, he was subsequently put on video, and he admitted that he said it, but said he was out of his mind at the time, and the very fact that he said it showed that he was out of his mind … isn’t that a clever thing to say?
One thing I’ve been struck by the people who’ve been involved in this thing is that most of them are highly intelligent. This guy, Woody’s dad, Charles ñ very intelligent guy. He also went on to add that the “agency” - his word - that was responsible for this would never let it be known who was involved, see? So he’s trying to step out of the noose, right? Step out of the noose. He may well have been one of the shooters.
But I mean, Rosselli approached Joe Bananno in a prison where Rosselli (and Bananno were) incarcerated. … This is a story coming from Bananno’s son, Bill Bananno, who said he had no reason to disbelieve Johnny, who had been one of the shooters in the St. Valentine’s Day massacre - on a radio talk show they’re talking about this - and how Rosselli was complaining to these other members of the mob how he’d been left out to dry in Dallas; that after he’d done the shooting, that there was no one there to help him get away; and that he had to walk a long time in the sewer to get to this area where he would be picked up. And in fact that’s how some of the shooters escaped - they went through the sewer and then were picked up by a small private plane and flown out, in a dry river bed -
Gonzo Science: Did David Ferrie do the flying?
Fetzer: Ferrie might have been someone who was going to, but in fact Didn’t actually. I mean, he would be a, you know, backup - Ferrie knew a lot about this. He might have been an alternative escape. That was kind of the reason why, I think, he was standing by this ice rink telephone (in Houston, as chronicled in The Man on the Grassy Knoll): he was supposed to fly in and bring somebody out. But I think in the end they didn’t need him - like that. I think Ferrie was definitely involved in the plot.
You can find this riveting interview at Paranormal News.
Des, my head is spinning. If Wallace shot through the windshield, from the front, how is a print of his found on the 6th floor the School Book Depository?
He can't bi-locate, can he?
As for the indictment. You are right it was not technically an indictment.
In 1961, Henry Marshall was found shot to death on his remote Texas farm. He had been shot five times with a .22 caliber rifle and, since the rifle was lying beside his body, the coroner had no problem coming up with the probable scenario: Suicide. The only problem was the type of rifle - it was a bolt-action, and in non-shooter lay man's terms, this simply meant that Marshall would had to have manually worked the bolt four times (up, back, forward, down, fire - up, back, forward, down, fire, etc.) in order to shoot himself. At the same time he would have had to turn the rifle around at an awkward angle, pointing it into his side, stretching his arm and squeezing off each shot with his thumb. Five times. In addition to the obvious difficulties for a man to have committed suicide in this fashion, were the outcries of Marshall's family, who fervently disagreed with the suicide verdict. There appeared to be no good reason for Marshall, a successful farmer, with money in the bank and a solid record with his employer, the U. S. Department of Agriculture, to have committed suicide. But despite the strange appearance of things, the cause of death was officially listed as suicide by gunshot.
Things started to change a few months later when Secretary of Agriculture, Orville Freeman, released information pertaining to an investigation that Marshall had been participating in at the time of his death.
Billie Sol Estes, now known as the Texas wheeler-dealer and con-man supreme was, in 1961, at the peak of his agricultural career. He had become a multimillionaire and a virtual icon in Pecos, Texas. His success was due, in great part, by his solid connections in government - and one of his primary connections was Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Things started to fall apart when Estes' cotton allotment scheme began to be scrutinized by Agriculture officials. Estes had master minded a bizarre method of having the government transfer other farmer's cotton allotments to his own cotton acreage. In this way all of his land could be used to grow the tightly regulated crop. Such a scheme would have been impossible without help from high officials, either inside the U.S.D.A., or Washington, or both. Henry Marshall, in reviewing the cotton allotment irregularities connected with Billy Sol Estes, evidently uncovered a warm path that led to Vice President Johnson, but also to his own untimely death.
Billie Sol went to trial and then prison, never once breathing the name of Lyndon Johnson - until his release in 1984. A Texas Ranger, Clint Peoples, had befriended Estes and convinced him that he should come clean with the whole truth. True to his word, Estes agreed to appear before a Robertson County grand jury and clear the record concerning the cotton allotments, the death of Henry Marshall and the involvement of LBJ and others.
He recounted the whole ugly picture - from the millions he had funnelled into Johnson's secret slush fund, to the illegal cotton allotment scheme, to the murder of Henry Marshall. Estes testified that Lyndon Johnson, Cliff Carter, Malcolm Wallace and himself met several times to discuss the issue of the "loose cannon" - Henry Marshall. Marshall had refused a LBJ-arranged promotion to Washington headquarters, and it was feared that he was about to talk. Johnson, according to Estes finally said, "Get rid of him," and Malcolm "Mac" Wallace was given the assignment. According to testimony, Wallace followed Marshall to a remote area of his farm and beat him nearly unconscious. Then while trying to asphyxiate him with exhaust from Marshall's pickup truck, Wallace thought he heard someone approaching the scene, and hastily grabbed a rifle which customarily rested in the window rack of the truck. Quickly pumping five shots into Marshall's body, Wallace fled the scene. Suicide.
That 1984 grand jury testimony accomplished only one official action. Marshall's death certificate was finally changed to read: "Cause of death - murder by gunshot." All of the guilty participants were dead - Johnson, Carter and Wallace. The only one left was Estes, and the U. S. Justice Department, getting wind of the Robertson grand jury testimony, wanted to talk to him.