Mary Moorman
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Mary Ann Moorman (born August 5, 1932) was a witness to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
Moorman was standing on grass a couple feet south of the south curb of Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, directly across from the grassy knoll and the North Pergola concrete structure that Abraham Zapruder and his assistant Marilyn Sitzman were standing on during the assassination.
Moorman was standing only 20 feet (6 meters) behind and to the left of President Kennedy with her friend, Jean Hill, and they are clearly seen in the Zapruder film.
Between Zapruder film frames Z-315 and 316, approximately 1/6th second after President Kennedy's head was shattered at frame Z-313, Moorman captured a Polaroid photograph (her fifth that day) of the presidential limousine and President Kennedy that also includes the grassy knoll area.
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What was captured in the background of the photo has been a matter of contentious debate. On the grassy knoll some claim to have identified as many as four different figures, while others dismiss these indistinct images as trees or shadows. Most often a figure is identified as the "badge man" because the figure is supposedly a uniformed police officer. Others claim to see Gordon 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 picket fence.
Moorman stated she heard a shot as the limousine passed her, then heard another shot or two after the president's head first 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.[1] Moorman was interviewed by the Dallas County Sheriff's Department and the FBI, but was not called to testify to the Warren Commission.
She sold her original Polaroid photograph of the assassination for $175,000 in a live eBay auction on January 20, 2008.[2][3]
Moorman was born Mary Ann Boshard. She divorced Donald G. Moorman in 1973. She later married Gary Krahmer.
She was played by Sally Nystuen in the 1991 film JFK.
[edit] References
- ^ FBI interview of Mary Moorman, taken Nov. 22, 1963, CE 1426, Warren Commission Hearings, vol. 22, pp. 838-839.
- ^ KXAS (Dallas/Fort Worth), Famous JFK Assassination Photo To Be Auctioned, April 12, 2007.
- ^ 160: MARY MOORMAN PHOTOGRAPH Kennedy Assasination [sic], eBay item #230211341215, auction ended Jan. 20, 2008.
[edit] External links
- (video) includes Mary Moorman statements to media on Nov. 22, 1963.
- Dallas Sheriff's Dept. Affadavit of Mary Moorman, Nov. 22, 1963.
- Testimony of Mary Moorman in the Clay Shaw trial, 1969.
- Spartacus Educational: Mary Moorman.
- Uncropped high quality version of the Moorman Polaroid.
- The five Moorman photographs.
- JFK Online: Badge Man and the Mary Moorman Polaroid.
- Mary Moorman's Polaroid camera - Polaroid Highlander model 80A - Camera overview and User's manual.
