Mary Moorman | |
|---|---|
 Mary Moorman in the Dallas County Sheriff's office on the evening of the assassination | |
| Born | Mary Ann Boshart (1932-08-05)August 5, 1932 (age 93) |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 1 |
Mary Ann Moorman (née Boshart; born August 5, 1932) is an American woman who chanced to photograph US president John F. Kennedy a fraction of a second after he wasfatally shot in the head in Dallas, Texas. TheBadge Man, whom conspiracy theorists claim to be one of Kennedy's assassins, is purportedly visible in another of her photographs taken that day.
Mary Ann Moorman was born Mary Ann Boshart. She married Donald G. Moorman in 1952 and divorced him in 1973.[1] She later married Gary Krahmer in 1980.
On November 22, 1963,U.S. president John F. Kennedy was assassinated inDallas, Texas.
Moorman stated that her 11-year-old son (Richard Don Moorman, 1952-2003)[2]had wanted to see Kennedy, but was unable to attend because of school. She said she promised to take a picture for him.[3]
Moorman was standing on grass about 2 feet (61 cm) south of the south curb of Elm Street inDealey Plaza, directly across from the grassy knoll and the NorthPergola concrete structure thatAbraham Zapruder and his assistantMarilyn Sitzman were standing on – during the assassination. Moorman stated that she stepped off the grass onto the street to take a photo with herPolaroid camera. Zapruder can be seen standing on the pergola in the Moorman photograph, with the presidential limousine already having passed through the line of sight between Zapruder and Moorman.
Both Moorman and her friend,Jean Hill, can be clearly seen in theZapruder film.[4] BetweenZapruder frames 315 and 316, Moorman took aPolaroidphotograph, her fifth that day, showing the presidential limousine with thegrassy knoll area in the background.
Moorman's photograph captured the fatal headshot that killed President Kennedy. When she took it – approximately one-sixth of a second after President Kennedy was struck in the head at Zapruder frame 313, Moorman was standing behind and to the left of President Kennedy, about 15 feet (5 m) from the presidential limousine.[5] Moorman said in a TV interview that immediately after the assassination, there were three or four shots close together, that shots were still being fired after the fatal headshot, and that she was in the line of fire.[6] She later stated in a 2013PBS documentaryKennedy Half Century that she was close enough to hear Jackie Kennedy exclaim that John had been shot.
In 1969 she testified at thetrial of Clay Shaw.[7] In 2013, Moorman attempted to sell the original Polaroid throughCowan's Auctions in Cincinnati.[8][9] The photo was expected to sell for between $50,000 and $75,000, but did not meet itsreserve.[9] Moorman had previously tried selling the photo toSotheby's in New York, but the auction house deemed it to be "too sensitive to auction".[9] That same year, she expressed her opinion on the assassination; she was convinced that Kennedy was killed as a result of aconspiracy. "I really don't know what exactly happened, but I do know there is bound to be a lot more to the story that hasn't been told," she said. "I was hoping it would come out in my lifetime, but who knows. So much has been hidden by the government; anything can take place and it can be hidden.Oswald probably wasn't a lone person, he probably had backers. I really do think it was a conspiracy".[10]
Whatever was captured in the background of Moorman's photo has been a matter of contentious debate. On the grassy knoll, some have claimed to identify as many as four different human figures, while others dismiss these indistinct images as either trees or shadows. Most often, one figure has been dubbed the "Badge Man" as it seems to resemble a uniformed police officer wearing a badge. Others claim to seeGordon Arnold, a man who claimed to have filmed the assassination from that area, a man in a construction hard hat, and a hatted man behind the stockade fence.[11]
Moorman stated she heard a shot as the limousine passed her, then heard another two shots, "pow pow", when the president's head exploded. She stated that she could not determine where the shots came from, and that she saw no one in the area that appeared to have possibly been the assassin.[12] Moorman was interviewed by theDallas County Sheriff's Department and theFBI. She was called by the Warren Commission to testify, but due to a sprained ankle, she was unable to be questioned. She was never contacted by them again.