Never-before-seen JFK assassination footage: Motorcade seen speeding to hospital
Newly emerged footage of President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade speeding down a Dallas freeway towards Parkland Hospital after he was fatally wounded has been uncovered and will go up for auction later this month.
Although it might seem like a shocking find decades after the assassination, experts are saying the find isn’t necessarily surprising.
"These images, these films and photographs, a lot of times they are still out there. They are still being discovered or rediscovered in attics or garages," Stephen Fagin, curator at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, told CBS News. The museum is located inside the old Texas Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald was positioned to shoot Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
Boston-based RR Auction will offer up the 8-millimeter home film on Sept. 28. According to Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of the auction house, they have been selling items related to the Kennedy assassination for almost 40 years, including Oswald’s wedding ring and gunnery book, among other items.
New JFK assassination footage details a frantic scene
The film was shot by Dale Carpenter Sr., a concrete company executive, who lived in Irving, Texas about 12 miles northwest of Dallas.
Although not having an affinity for JFK, he was drawn to the scene by the pomp of the president's visit, according to the New York Times, which spoke with Carpenter's family. Carpenter kept the film in a round metal canister labeled “JFK Assassination”, one of his sons, 63-year-old David Carpenter told the Times. He said rarely showed others the footage, likely due to its grim nature.
The film shows two parts of the incident. First, people can see Carpenter just missing the limousine carrying the president and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Instead, he captured other cars in the motorcade as it rolled towards downtown Dallas.
It then picks up again after Kennedy was shot, with the president's motorcade rolling down Interstate 35 toward the hospital.
“You see those American flags fluttering and the lights flashing,” Livingston told USA TODAY. “That limousine is so ingrained in my mind as being in Dealey Plaza, that as soon as I saw it, I recognized immediately what it was.”
The second part of the footage, which lasts around 10 seconds, shows Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, who is famously photographed jumping onto the back of the limousine as the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza, standing over the president and Jacqueline Kennedy, who can be seen in her famous pink suit.
“The second thing that is absolutely chilling to me is to see Mrs. Kennedy’s pink suit as the car passes by, it's so distinctive, it's so iconic,” Livingston said.
The most famous film footage of the event was captured by Abraham Zapruder. After the shooting, Kennedy’s motorcade sped down I-35 towards Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead later that day.
An assassination filled with doubt
To this day, the killing of John F. Kennedy remains a common target of conspiracy theories. By December 2022, the National Archives and Records Administration had released more than 14,000 documents related to the JFK assassination.
An additional 515 documents have been withheld by the archives in full and 2,545 documents partially withheld. Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary said at the time that 97% of the almost 5 million pages in their possession related to the killing of JFK have been released to the public.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.