The JFK Conspiracy: Breakthrough Evidence

The 26-year-old veteran assassin was working a job in Dallas, Texas. And judging from his nervousness, it had to be a very big job at that. Sal Romano stood behind a wooden picket fence, chest high, looking down the sloping grass hill to the cordoned off three lane highway below. The target run was the 80-yard stretch on Elm Street that lay beneath him. This portion of the thoroughfare, from the Stemmons Freeway sign continuing to the storm drain opening, had been chosen as the location for the crossfire. Hidden below ground, the tunneled rain catch basin was marked above by the walking path that led from the Pagoda down to the sidewalk manhole. That sniper’s nest and where he presently stood were the key spots. The stately elm trees from which the street was named were in full fall foliage. These, the overhanging branches of the few evergreens, along with the fence, itself, would provide him excellent cover. Sal and his ten-man security team had been there over an hour, nervously smoking cigarettes, milling about in their assigned sites, waiting. Then waiting some more. A few spectators, including a uniformed kid soldier who had minutes before been ordered down the knoll, had taken vantage sites sufficiently below him to be out of his line of fire. Dealy Plaza was quite empty, as per the plan. Still, there was an electric buzz of anticipation from the less than one hundred people present. It was twelve twenty and the parade would soon appear.

Sal wore a standard blue winter weight Dallas police uniform as his disguise. His left cordovan shoe was perched on the bottom rung of the fence, and he used it to slightly raise himself up. Every few moments, he would alternate between this wooden crossbar and stepping back, the passenger side front bumper of the station wagon, which was several inches higher but almost a foot from the fence.

Below him and to his right was his partner, Frank Sturgis, dressed in denim railroad workers’ jeans and an unbuttoned red and white striped flannel yard shirt. The faded uniform shirt hung loosely down over his trim waist. Underneath he wore a short sleeve white T-shirt. Sturgis knelt by the right front tire, next to a large leather case which held the sniper rifle.

Sturgis’ back and the soles of his work shoes faced the passenger side door. A standard yellow hard hat was strapped loosely below his chin.

Both men were partially hidden from view on the parking lot side by three vehicles, two sedans and the beat-up muddy station wagon parked in the middle. The autos had been moved there early Thursday evening in preparation. Sal took a final drag on the Camel, and then flicked the smoldering unfiltered butt over the fence.

To Sal's left, only partially visible as he knelt in the bushes growing up against the Pagoda wall, was a film photographer. He wore a similar police uniform, and held an 8mm. movie camera with a telephoto lens.

A casually dressed photographer stood next to a large mounted movie camera deep in the bowels of the marble monument on top of the Plaza. Both man and object were completely obscured by the deep shadows created by the overhanging roof of the Pagoda. The camera operator had just finished using the telescopic of the three lenses on the 16mm. camera, which rested on the heavy tripod. Switching to the medium range lens, he again panned the relatively sparse crowd on the opposite side of Elm, continuing down to the overpass. He now aimed the camera back to the corner where Houston Street intersected Elm and held it, ready and still filming.