Mr. SPECTER. Dallas Times Herald?
Mrs. HILL. That's right. I ran up there and told him we had to leave.
She had been impressing upon me for an hour and a half--we hadn't even
gone down to see the President that day--we had been doing other things
and we got down there and we just decided we would stay, but she had
been impressing upon me for an hour and a half, the whole time we had
been there, that we had to beat the traffic out of there, and she knows
her way around real well, so I knew she could get out and we could beat
the traffic, and we were just going to run for the car as fast as we
could. It was parked up here on Houston. We were going to run and get
out of there before the people started milling around so we wouldn't be
in that traffic, and I don't know--we had been talking about it so long
and she had drilled me so much, that we must get out of here, and when
I came back and I found her crying and him standing there holding her
camera, and holding her, I mean holding her by the arm and her camera,
and telling her she had to go with him, I started trying to shake his
hand loose and grab the camera and telling him that "No, we wouldn't
go, we had to leave," and I guess by that time I was beginning--until
then I have no conscious feeling of any scaredness or excitement or
anything. I mean, you know, it is just like something that's passing in
front of you, and I mean, I wasn't worried or upset in any way until
I got back there and then I had a sense of urgency. I just knew I
wanted to get out of there and all I could think of--and I don't think
the full impact of all that had happened really hit me then, because
I was just wanting to get out of there and to get away and he kept
telling me--he insisted we go with him and he just practically ran us,
and he got--they were throwing up a police net around that building
at the time, and he just practically ran us up to the court house, I
guess it is, and put us in this little room and I don't know why we
were so dumb that day unless it was just the sequence of events, that
everything was just happening so fast we really didn't even think, but
we couldn't leave. He kept standing in front of the door and he would
let a cameraman in or someone to interview us and they were shooting
things in our faces, and he wouldn't let us out.
Mr. SPECTER. Who was interviewing you--newspaper reporters?
Mrs. HILL. Newspaper reporters and radio and TV people and a man
from--a man named Coker John, or John Coker.
Mr. SPECTER. From where?
Mrs. HILL. As I get it, he is a sort of freelance writer, and I think
he was on an assignment then. He came out--I'm not sure--I thought it
was for Life or Post, but he came in there and he was shooting pictures
for--I think he was shooting them for TV, but he came out to the house
about 2 weeks later with this bunch of men, about four of them, three
or four came out, and that's the second time I saw him, because he
said, "You remember me, I saw you in the pressroom that day."
Mr. SPECTER. Is that Miss Hill or Mrs. Hill?
Mrs. HILL. It is Mrs. Hill, and he said "I saw you in the pressroom
that day," and I said, "Yes." I remembered him because I saw him more
than any--now, I don't remember where I am here.
Mr. SPECTER. You were telling me about what happened to you at the
county courthouse, and then you digressed from that to tell me about
John coming to see you in your home.
Let's go back to the county courthouse and let me ask you if you gave
an affidavit to the sheriff that day?
Mrs. HILL. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, did you talk to anybody from the Federal Government
that day?
Mrs. HILL. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Whom did you talk to?
Mrs. HILL. I don't know.
Mr. SPECTER. What agency was the man from, if you know?
Mrs. HILL. Secret Service.
Mr. SPECTER. How many times have you talked to somebody from the Secret
Service in this case altogether?
Mrs. HILL. I would say the only time I talked to the Secret Service men
was when I was down at the courthouse that afternoon, just before they
let us leave, and I think--now, we officially sat down and supposedly
were giving a story to the Secret Service men.
Mr. SPECTER. And, did they write down what you were telling them?
Mrs. HILL. I don't think they did.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you sign anything?
Mrs. HILL. Oh, well, I signed my statement that I made over in the
sheriff's office.
Mr. SPECTER. Then, how about for the Secret Service men, did you sign
anything?
Mrs. HILL. No, I don't think we signed anything over there, because
they just took us in a little room----
Mr. SPECTER. What did you tell the Secret Service men?
Mrs. HILL. As well as I remember, we talked to so many that day.
Mr. SPECTER. Well, did you tell everybody about the same thing you have
told me here today?
Mrs. HILL. Yes, except that I didn't go into that stuff with the shots
because no one ever asked me, no one ever detailed it like that, but
they were interested that day in those pictures and they got them all
from us.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you talk with the Secret Service men on any occasion
after the events on November 22?
Mrs. HILL. No.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you ever talked to anybody else from the Federal
Government?
Mrs. HILL. The FBI men.
Mr. SPECTER. On how many occasions?
Mrs. HILL. Several.
Mr. SPECTER. How many, if you remember?
Mrs. HILL. I don't recall--I was called two or three times at least
after that.
Mr. SPECTER. Called on the telephone?
Mrs. HILL. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. You discussed the matter over the phone with somebody who
said he was from the FBI?
Mrs. HILL. No; I had that pulled on me and I didn't want to talk until
I called back down to check to see.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you talk to somebody from the FBI when you called them
back?
Mrs. HILL. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Over the phone?
Mrs. HILL. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. On how many occasions?
Mrs. HILL. I think two or three times is all I had.
Mr. SPECTER. Were you ever interviewed in person by the FBI?
Mrs. HILL. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. On how many occasions?
Mrs. HILL. After that day, I believe only once.
Mr. SPECTER. And about when was that?
Mrs. HILL. Well, it was the other day after I received this letter--no;
before I received this letter, and this was last Tuesday, I think, and
they came in reference to what Mark Lane had told the Warren Commission.
Mr. SPECTER. And what did they ask you when they came to see you last
Tuesday, that would be a week ago today or the 16th--or the 17th?
Mrs. HILL. They just had me start over with this story again and they
had Mr. Lane's copy and they asked me, you know, if I had said these
things and, I read it and told them that I had said it.
Mr. SPECTER. Was Mr. Lane's version accurate?
Mrs. HILL. It was accurate in that he took down what I said. It was
inaccurate in that he had taken it out of context, and the questions
he asked me weren't there, nor were they given. I can see how he could
have made what he made out of my statements.
Mr. SPECTER. When did you talk to Mr. Lane?
Mrs. HILL. I talked to him about--approximately 4 or 6 weeks ago.
Mr. SPECTER. Where did that take place?
Mrs. HILL. At New York.
Mr. SPECTER. Did he call you on the telephone?
Mrs. HILL. That's right, and he didn't tell me he was recording this at
the time.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you ever talk to Mark Lane in person?
Mrs. HILL. No.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you ever sign an affidavit for him?
Mrs. HILL. No.
Mr. SPECTER. The only contact you had with him was this one telephone
conversation?
Mrs. HILL. That's right, and he said he was coming to Dallas the next
week and would I talk with him, I said, I told him then--that I guessed
so. I didn't know. I mean, because I didn't fully realize what he was
doing in this case.
Mr. SPECTER. And what did you tell him over the telephone?
Mrs. HILL. I told him the same story I told you, with the exception
that he went further into the day's activities at the police station,
and at the courthouse.
Mr. SPECTER. What else did you tell him about your day's activities at
the courthouse?
Mrs. HILL. Well, he asked me, you know, he just asked me a lot of
questions about that, and I told him that we didn't know that we were
in a pressroom. We just knew we were in a courthouse and with police. I
mean, this was to us a police station.
Mr. SPECTER. Tell me all the things that you told him, in addition to
those which you have already told me, that is, tell me all the things
you told Mr. Lane, in addition to that you have already testified about.
Mrs. HILL. I will, but do you realize I have had to go over this so
many times that I don't know who I have told which part to? I really
don't.
Mr. SPECTER. Well, I'll bear that in mind, but do the best you can in
telling me all the things you told Mark Lane.
Mrs. HILL. Can't you just read my statement?
Mr. SPECTER. Feel free to smoke--just relax.
Mrs. HILL. I would except, I don't have one.
Mr. SPECTER. Just relax if you can.
Mrs. HILL. All right, if I can.
Mr. SPECTER. Off the record.
Let the record show that we were taking a brief recess to get the
witness a cup of coffee so that she may be more relaxed. May the record
show that we have just obtained some coffee and we are proceeding.
When we broke for the coffee, I had asked you to tell me all the things
you told Mark Lane other than those which you have already testified
about.
Mrs. HILL. Before we go into that--I do want to have you--because I
hope that by this time I am through with it, but I do want to tell you
about a camera team that came out there to my house that this John
Coker was with.
Mr. SPECTER. On which occasion was that?
Mrs. HILL. That is important to me and that is the reason why I
digressed and got on that.
Mr. SPECTER. This occurred, you say, about 2 weeks after the
assassination?
Mrs. HILL. Say--10 days.
Mr. SPECTER. What happened on that occasion?
Mrs. HILL. They came out and brought TV cameras and were going to take,
and they told me they were not going to tell me the questions that they
were going to ask me, that they wanted to get my reactions to their
questions, and they set up rather, I would say they set up hypothetical
situations like--could he have been shot from the window, if this is
the kind of wound that it would have made? Or, to make this kind of a
wound, he had to have been here, now which, you know--and so I told
them and from what I gathered that day, they did not think I had--I
had gotten the idea from them, that there was speculation or some
reasonable doubt that I--that Oswald did not do all the shooting and
that all these shots did not come from the window.
Mr. SPECTER. You told the newspaper and the television cameramen that?
Mrs. HILL. That's what I got from them from the questions they asked me.
Mr. SPECTER. What answers did you give them to those questions?
Mrs. HILL. Well, when they would set up a situation, I would tell them
what I thought would have had to happen in that situation.
Mr. SPECTER. Well, without formulating any questions which would
lead you in any way to any conclusions, let me ask you for your best
recollection as to what you think occurred, as to the point where the
assassin was, if you have any idea on that question?
Mrs. HILL. Well, as I said previously, to me at the time the shot came
from the knoll, you know.
Mr. SPECTER. And you have testified to that because of the sound of the
shots?
Mrs. HILL. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And also because you saw this man running away.
Mrs. HILL. That's right.
Mr. SPECTER. Do you think perhaps that you had the impression that that
came from the knoll exclusively because you saw the man running away?
And your reaction that that must have been the man who did the shooting?
Mrs. HILL. It could have been very well--it could have been.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, are there any other factors which led you to think
that the shots came from the knoll, factors other than those you have
already told me about?
Mrs. HILL. Except that I believe these men thought so that night.
Mr. SPECTER. Well, never mind the men, but focus just on what your
reaction was at the time.
Mrs. HILL. That's what I thought. At the time I thought that there was
more than one person shooting, as I said before.
Mr. SPECTER. Well, you have already told me about that and you told me
about the source of the knoll, and you told me why you thought that
was more than one person, and now, what I'm trying to get at is why
you thought they came from the knoll--was it first because the way the
shot sounded and secondly, because the man ran away, and then I asked
you the second question--did you think perhaps they came from the knoll
exclusively because you saw the man run away, and you said you thought
that might be the case.
Mrs. HILL. Could be.
Mr. SPECTER. And then I asked you were there any other findings
other than those we have already talked about, which would make you
think that the shots came from the knoll, based on your own personal
observations, recollections or impressions.
Mrs. HILL. Nothing that comes to mind.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, is there anything else about that television
interview which you consider important?
Mrs. HILL. Except for the fact it left me very doubtful and confused.
Mr. SPECTER. Because they gave you a lot of hypothetical situations,
and you didn't know which was which, if you listened to them?
Mrs. HILL. That's right--they had some very strange ideas which I have
heard here and there voiced by other people.
Mr. SPECTER. What were they doing basically, asking you to comment on
those various theories?
Mrs. HILL. I asked why were they coming out here, why would they come
to my home, why was that important, and they said, "Something big is
going to break in a little while and we want to put it on first. We
want to be ready for it."
Mr. SPECTER. Did they ever put that television interview on?
Mrs. HILL. I have never seen any, but then, I never saw myself on TV
either.
Mr. SPECTER. Is there anything else about that television interview
which you now consider important?
Mrs. HILL. Well, I know that it has bothered me ever since it happened,
and particularly since I have been questioned these other times.
Mr. SPECTER. By the FBI last week?
Mrs. HILL. Yes; and without things of comments, and speculation that
I have heard, and remarks that I've gone back over, of happenings
that have happened to me that day and as to the way it happened, and
frankly, I would either like to say it again or something----
Mr. SPECTER. Like to say what again?
Mrs. HILL. I would like to see this telecast or hear that questioning
again because there's something about it that keeps in the back of my
mind----
Mr. SPECTER. But you can't put your finger on what it is?
Mrs. HILL. No.
Mr. SPECTER. But you are annoyed or bothered or perplexed with it or
confused by that?
Mrs. HILL. Yes; I have been.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, have you told me everything that you have to say
about that television interview?
Mrs. HILL. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, moving on to the question about Mark Lane, what did
you tell him other than that which you have told me here today?
Mrs. HILL. He asked me where we were taken and I told him in the
pressroom, that we didn't know it was the pressroom at the time, and
that we didn't know we couldn't leave and because they kept standing
across the door, and the first time we really--we were getting tired of
it, I mean, we had been down there quite a while and we were getting
tired of it and we wanted to leave and this is what I told him, and
so some man came in and offered Mary a sum, I think--say--$10,000 or
something like this for this picture.
We realized that--they said, "Don't sell the picture." He was a
representative of either Post or Life, and they said, "Don't sell
that picture until our representatives have contacted you or a
lawyer or something." Anyway, we realized at that time we didn't
have that picture, that it had been taken from us. I mean, we had
let Featherstone look at it, you know, but we told no one they could
reproduce it. They said, "Would you let us look at it and see if it
could be reproduced?" We said, "Yes; you could look at it," we thought
it was--you know, it was fuzzy and everything, but we were wanting to
keep them and we suddenly realized we didn't have that picture, and
that was quite a bit of money and we were getting pretty excited about
it, and Mary was getting scared----
Mr. SPECTER. Did she eventually sell the picture, by the way?
Mrs. HILL. She sold the rights, the publishing rights of it, not the
original picture, but they had already--AP and UP had already picked it
up because Featherstone stole it.
Mr. SPECTER. Do you know what she sold those rights for?
Mrs. HILL. I think it was $600.
Mr. SPECTER. What did you tell Mark Lane besides about the picture?
Mrs. HILL. This is it.
Mr. SPECTER. Fine, go ahead.
Mrs. HILL. Anyway, when I realized we didn't have that picture and
Mary was getting upset about that--by that time I had realized we
were in a pressroom and that he had no right to be holding us and he
had no authority and that we could get out of there, and they kept
standing in front of the door, and I told him--I said, "Get out." We
kept asking him for our picture, and where it was, and he said, "We'll
get it back--we'll get it back. And so I jerked away and ran out of
the door and as I did, there was a Secret Service man. Now, this I was
told--that he was a Secret Service man, and he said, "Do you have a red
raincoat?" And, I said, "Yes; it's in yonder. Let me go." I was intent
on finding someone to get that picture back and I said as I walked out,
"I can get someone big enough to get it back for us." He said, "Does
your friend have a blue raincoat?" And I said, "Yes; she's in there."
He said, "Here they are," to somebody else and they told us that they
had been looking for us.
Mr. SPECTER. Who told you that?
Mrs. HILL. This man.
Mr. SPECTER. All this you told Mr. Lane?
Mrs. HILL. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Go ahead.
Mrs. HILL. And so, then they took us into the police station. Just
about that time Sheriff Decker came out and the man was with us and
we were telling him why we were in there, why we had been in the
pressroom, you know, and why they hadn't been able to find us, because
they had thought that Mary had been hit and they were looking for the
two women that were standing right by the car with the camera. At that
time they didn't know what we were doing down there and why we were
right at the car. So, there followed questioning all afternoon long,
and he asked me at one time--well, in fact he asked repeatedly if I was
held and I told him, "Yes."
Mr. SPECTER. Who asked you that?
Mrs. HILL. Mark Lane.
Mr. SPECTER. If you were held?
Mrs. HILL. Yes; you know if I were held, if I had to stay there and I
told him, "Yes," but I told him when we were in the pressroom it was
just our own ignorance, really, that was keeping us there and letting
the man intimidate us that had no authority.
Mr. SPECTER. That was a newsman as opposed to the police official?
Mrs. HILL. Yes; and I gave Mark Lane his name several times--clearly. I
remember clearly that I gave him his name.
Mr. SPECTER. And what name did you give him?
Mrs. HILL. Featherstone of the Times Herald, and so after we got out of
there and I talked with a man----
Mr. SPECTER. Now, you are continuing to tell me everything you told
Mark Lane?
Mrs. HILL. That's right, and I talked with this man, a Secret Service
man, and I said, "Am I a kook or what's wrong with me?" I said, "They
keep saying three shots--three shots," and I said, "I know I heard
more. I heard from four to six shots anyway."
He said, "Mrs. Hill, we were standing at the window and we heard more
shots also, but we have three wounds and we have three bullets, three
shots is all that we are willing to say right now."
Mr. SPECTER. Now, did that Secret Service man try to suggest to you
that there were only three shots in any other way than that?
Mrs. HILL. That's all he said to me. He didn't say, "You have to say
three shots"--he didn't tell me what to say.
Mr. SPECTER. He didn't try to intimidate you or coerce you in any way?
Mrs. HILL. No; that's all he said.
Mr. SPECTER. All right. Go ahead and tell me what you told Mark Lane.