Wooden fence picket from the infamous 'grassy knoll' at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, which separated the plaza from the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad yards, overlooked the route of Kennedy's motorcade, and figures prominently in many assassination conspiracy theories. The post measures 44˝ in length and 2.5˝ across and features a total of five nails to upper and middle sections. In very good to fine condition, with expected overall wear, and a sawed-off bottom section. This fence picket is indisputably from the grassy knoll. Over the years many of the original fence’s individual wooden pickets were removed by souvenir hunters and later replaced. This example boasts rusted nails of the correct vintage and traces of white paint with appropriate surface wear.
Accompanied by a letter of provenance from Kennedy collector Jay Estes, “I was on leave from the Marine Corps [in December of 1981]...I went to visit my Uncle and Aunt who lived close to Dallas. I decided to visit downtown. I happened to be near the School Book Depository [and] I noticed they were replacing part of the fence by the grassy knoll. I asked if I could have a piece of the fence. [They said] it was no problem because they were throwing it away. Knowing where the third shot might have come from, I took it from that area. When I was heading back to base days later, I had to cut part of the bottom to get it in the sea bag to be able to get it on the plane back to the Marine base. On the 40th anniversary of the assassination, a Daytona newspaper did an article about me.” Included with the fence picket is the referenced issue of The Daytona Beach News-Journal, which mentions the offered picket, and Estes’s original olive drab military bag.
In the aftermath of the assassination on November 22, 1963, many witnesses reported hearing at least one gunshot from the direction of the 'grassy knoll,' and Parkland Hospital surgeon Dr. Robert N. McClelland maintained that Kennedy had been shot from the front. Further, Mary Moorman's photograph taken moments after the shooting captured the purported 'Badge Man' behind the stockade fence, obscured by a reputed muzzle flash. An analysis of acoustical evidence and witness reports cited in the final report of the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1979 concluded that there was at least a 95% probability that a ‘gunshot was fired from a point along the east-west line of the wooden stockade fence on the grassy knoll, about 8 feet (+-5 feet) west of the corner of the fence.’ Though the HSCA's scientific evidence has since been discredited, the 'grassy knoll' theory lives on as an intriguing aspect of the JFK assassination conspiracy.
