DALLAS (AP) — New film footage showing President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade racing down a Dallas freeway to a hospital after he was shot will be auctioned later this month.
Experts indicate that such discoveries are not uncommon, even more than 60 years after the tragic event.
“These types of images, films, and photographs often remain hidden and are uncovered in places like attics or garages,” explained Stephen Fagin, a curator at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which documents the events surrounding the assassination on November 22, 1963.
RR Auction is set to auction the 8 mm home movie in Boston on September 28. The film starts with Dale Carpenter Sr. nearly missing the limousine transporting the president and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy but records other vehicles in the motorcade as it makes its way down Lemmon Avenue toward downtown. The footage continues after Kennedy was shot, capturing the motorcade speeding along Interstate 35.
“This footage is incredible, in color, and you really feel the speed—it’s like going 80 mph,” said Bobby Livingston, the executive vice president of the auction house.
The I-35 footage, which lasts roughly 10 seconds, features Secret Service Agent Clint Hill—who famously jumped onto the limousine when the shots were fired—standing over President Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, whose pink suit is visible.
“I had no idea there wouldn’t be any additional shots,” Hill remarked. “I thought there was a strong chance I might hear more shots as I approached,” he added.
The gunfire occurred as the motorcade traveled through Dealey Plaza, just outside the Texas School Book Depository, where it was later determined that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had taken position on the sixth floor. The actual assassination was famously recorded by a bystander, Abraham Zapruder.
Following the shooting, the motorcade veered onto I-35, racing to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy would be declared dead. This was the same route intended to take Kennedy to his next engagement, a speech at the Trade Mart.
Carpenter’s grandson, James Gates, noted that although family members knew about the footage, they rarely discussed it. When the film, stored in a milk crate with other family films, was passed down to him, he didn’t fully appreciate the gravity of what his grandfather, who passed away in 1991, had recorded.
In around 2010, when he projected the film onto his bedroom wall, he initially felt let down by the footage from Lemmon Avenue. However, when the I-35 footage kicked in, he described it as “shocking.”
The gunshots had been fired as the motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository. Later, it was revealed that Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin, had taken aim from a sniper’s location on the sixth floor. The harrowing event was also famously documented by a passerby named Abraham Zapruder.
After the shooting, the motorcade quickly shifted onto I-35, making a rush to Parkland Memorial Hospital where Kennedy would ultimately be pronounced dead. This route was also intended for Kennedy to reach his next scheduled appearance, a speech at the Trade Mart.
James Gates, the grandson of Carpenter, shared that while his family was aware of the film, it wasn’t discussed frequently. Therefore, when it came into his possession, he was uncertain of the contents captured by his grandfather, who passed away in 1991 at age 77.
When Gates projected the film onto his bedroom wall around 2010, he expected little from the footage recorded on Lemmon Avenue. But upon viewing the I-35 sequences, he was taken aback, remarking, “That was shocking.”
Fagin shared that the assassination was so shocking that it was a natural response for people to keep related materials, hence the likelihood of new discoveries surfacing.
He further noted that historians had long pondered about a man seen taking photos in one of the images from that day.
“For years, we had no knowledge of who that photographer was, where his camera was, or where the images could be,” Fagin noted.
In 2002, however, Jay Skaggs walked into the museum with a shoebox under his arm. He was the photographer captured in that infamous image, and the shoebox contained 20 photographs taken before and after the assassination, including the only known color images of the rifle being removed from the Texas School Book Depository, according to Fagin.
“He just handed that box to us,” Fagin concluded.
