Friday, May 27, 2011

50 Years Later, Eyewitness to Kennedy Assassination Remembers

KUSA-TV / Denver

She remembers the drizzle early on that November day. She remembers walking down to Elm Street with her friend. She remembers the sun shining when the motorcade was approaching. And she remembers hearing the shots.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

"I thought maybe they were fireworks," Mary Ann Krahmer said.

A split second later, she heard the president's wife cry out.

"I heard Jackie say, 'Oh my God! He's been shot.' I watched her get out of the back of the seat and reach for the back of the car," she said.

Nearly 50 years have passed since that day in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but Krahmer still remembers much of that day quite vividly.

"My thoughts, my memories are very clear," she said.

She was known as Mary Ann Moorman back then and was 31 at the time.

The picture she took with her Polaroid camera the moment one of the shots rang out has now become synonymous with the Kennedy assassination. The "Moorman Photo" shows a slumping John Kennedy next to the First Lady.

Of course, Krahmer never had any inkling back then that her day was going to end with her becoming an eyewitness to history.

"We got there about 10:30 in the morning," she said. "We had wandered up and down the street thinking about the best place [to be]. Where we were, there were no people around."

Krahmer was in Denver this week to take part in a webcast sponsored by the Brass Armadillo Antique Mall and iantique.com.

Krahmer wants to set some of the record straight when it comes to what happened to her after she took that now-famous Polaroid. She says she never felt threatened by any law enforcement officer that day and was never forced to give up any of her Polaroids.

While she's not a big believer of conspiracy theories revolving around any "second shooters," she does believe "there is more to the story than what we've been told."

She's made a point of not reading too much about the various theories either. She says the images of that day remain very fresh because of that.

"It was sad," she said, "to think that I witnessed a man - not just a president - but a man being murdered in front of me, in front of my eyes."

To see the entire interview, click HERE.

Source: KUSA-TV / Denver

2 comments:

John M said...

She comes across as calm, level headed and far less nervous than her interviewer. In the nicest possible way she undermines the post festum conspiracy theories of the late Jean Hill and by extension Oliver Stone.

Anonymous said...

Notes her timing at the shots...she said it was, paw....paw, paw.- and saying it was that quickly.
two shots heard that close together makes you wonder of a second shooter. Otherwise, a nice lady...l wish she would have come forward many years ago, though.