Dealey Plaza

Dealey Plaza Witnesses

• Lee Bowers  ::  Lee Bowers was a railroad worker who, on the morning of the assassination, was working in a two-story signal box tower near the "grassy knoll" area of Dealey Plaza, having a clear, unobstructed view of the knoll and picket fence areas.  

Before the assassination, Bowers said that he noticed several unknown cars, including a station wagon, moving back and forth in the parking lot behind the picket fence.   He also noticed two men, standing 10-15 feet apart, during the time that the shots were fired, one was "middle-aged, or slightly older, fairly heavy-set, in a white shirt, fairly dark trousers" and the other was "a younger man, about mid-twenties, in either a plaid shirt or plaid coat or jacket."

There was "a puff of smoke or a flash of light."   Then, he testified that he  ". . . observed [these] two men running from behind the fence. They ran up to a car parked behind the Pergola, opened the trunk and placed something in it and then closed the trunk. The two men then drove the car away in somewhat of a peculiar method."

• Mark Lane, Rush to Judgment, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966, p. 31–32:   "His [Bowers'] description of the two men behind the fence was not unlike Miss Mercer's…"

• Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, Carroll & Graf, 1993, ISBN 978-0-88184-648-5, p. 75:    "Bowers told a fascinating story of suspicious cars moving in the sealed-off railroad yards minutes before the assassination, and of seeing strange men behind the picket fence."  

• Harrison Edward Livingstone, High Treason, Carroll & Graf, 1998, ISBN 978-0-7867-0578-8, p. 116: "Lee Bowers Jr. … was in the railroad control behind the grassy knoll and saw two men behind the fence, a puff of smoke during the shooting, and a lot of activity."  

• Anthony Summers, Not in Your Lifetime, Marlowe & Co., 1998, ISBN 978-1-56924-739-6, p. 36:   "Lee Bowers, the railway towerman who had seen two strangers behind the fence just before the assassination, had partially lost sight of them in the foliage."