Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs Read Free Book Online

man, but did not see the rifle due to
the growing crowd around them. Lawrence said the man gave him the
impression of being "a professional football player."
    This same man may have been seen later that day by Ernest Jay Owens,
who told sheriff's officers the afternoon of the assassination that he was
driving on Wood Street near Good-Lattimer Expressway when he saw a
white male of "heavy build" carrying a "foreign-made rifle" out of a
parking lot. Owens said the man was bare headed and wearing a dark
colored suit.
    Once Oswald was captured and proclaimed the assassination suspect,
there was no effort to investigate these stories further.
    A similar-and more ominous-incident involved Julia Ann Mercer.
Mercer, then twenty-three years old, later told authorities that shortly
before 11 A.M. the day of the assassination she was driving a rented white
Valiant west on Elm Street just past the point where Kennedy was killed
about two hours later. Just after passing through the Triple Underpass, she
found her traffic lane blocked by a green Ford pickup truck.
    While waiting for the truck to move, she saw a young man get out of the
truck, walk to a long tool compartment along the side, and remove a long
paper bag. She could see the outlines of a rifle in the bag. The man then
walked up on the Grassy Knoll carrying the package and was lost to her
sight. She described this man as in his late twenties or early thirties,
wearing a gray jacket, brown pants, a plaid shirt, and some sort of wool
stocking cap with a tassel on it. Mercer said as she pulled alongside the
truck, she locked eyes with the driver, whom she described as heavily built
with a round face and light brown hair.
    She said during this time, she saw three Dallas policemen standing by a
motorcycle on the underpass talking. In Warren Commission Document
205, a policeman did tell of seeing the truck, but believed that it had broken
down.
    When she was finally able to change lanes, Mercer drove on toward Fort
Worth, stopping at the halfway point of the Dallas-Fort Worth Toll Road
(now Interstate 30) to have breakfast. While eating, she told her experience to some policemen, commenting, "The Secret Service is not very
secret. "
    Later, as she drove on to Fort Worth, she was stopped by the policemen, who informed her of the assassination and took her back to Dallas for
questioning. She was held for several hours and questioned by both local
and federal authorities, although no one showed her a badge or identified
himself.

    Early the next morning, FBI men came to her home and took her back
to the Dallas Sheriff's Office where she was shown some photographs of
various men. She picked out two as the men she had seen in the truck the
day before. Turning one photo over, she read the name, "Jack Ruby."
During the TV coverage of the Oswald shooting the next day, Mercer
claims she again recognized Ruby as the man driving the truck and that
Oswald resembled the man carrying the rifle.
    Oswald's mother also claimed to have been shown a picture of Ruby
prior to the Sunday shooting of her son.
    Mercer later claimed that her story concerning the truck and its occupants was twisted and changed by both the FBI and the Dallas Sheriff's
Office.
    Mercer's experience may have been partly corroborated by another
Dallasite, Julius Hardie, who told The Dallas Morning News years later
that on the morning of November 22, he saw three men on top of the
Triple Underpass carrying longarms, although he could not tell if they
were rifles or shotguns. Hardie said he reported the incident to the FBI,
but no such report has been made public.
    As the motorcade arrived in Dealey Plaza, it passed almost twenty
sheriff's deputies standing at the intersection of Main and Houston in front
of the Sheriff's Office.
    The deputies almost unanimously agreed they thought the shots came
from the railroad yards located just behind the Grassy Knoll.
    They all began running in that