Charles Brehm
Witness to the President John F. Kennedy assassination, November 22, 1963. (born 1925, died 1996)
Charles F. Brehm, and his 5-year-old son, Joe, were standing across from Abraham Zapruder in the Dealey Plaza "north infield grass," south of the south curb of Elm Street, across the street from the Dealey Plaza grassy knoll. They can both be clearly seen in the Zapruder film.
Brehm was a battles/gunfire experienced World War II veteran, serving in the United States Army Rangers, who had also fought on D-Day, and later fought in the Korean War.
When the Presidential limousine turned from Main Street onto Houston Street Brehm and his son watched from that intersections northwest side. After watching the turn, Brehm and his son quickly ran northwestward across the "north infield grass" towards the south curb of Elm Street to catch another glimpse of the President. They were standing directly acoss the street from Bill and Gayle Newman and their two boys, about 20' northeast from assassination witnesses Jean Hill, and Mary Moorman as the limousine rounded the 120 degree slow turn from Houston Street onto Elm Street. The movie-filming "babushka lady" was standing to Brehm's right backside.
Brehm said President Kennedy was only 30' away when his son then started to wave to President Kennedy, and the President started to wave back when Brehm heard the first shot he remembered hearing. President Kennedy did not start waving until Zapruder film frame 173/174, after a live oak tree had already hidden the President at Z-162 from being seen by anyone in the Texas School Book Depository's sixth-floor, far-eastern window, a.k.a. the Warren Commission theorized lone assassin's "snipers lair."
Brehm stated to the FBI that "he could see the President's face very well, the President was seated, but was leaning forward when he stiffened perceptibly" and "seemed to stiffen and come to a pause."
When the President was 15' to 25' away, and had just passed, Brehm remembered hearing a second shot which struck President Kennedy in the head. Brehm watched the President's "hair fly up," "ripple," and "bits of brain and bone went flying" and "then roll over to his side" then President Kennedy "slumped all the way down."
Brehm?s 11-22-63 written Dallas police affidavit has disappeared from the evidence.
Speaking of the matter in the air he saw when the President's head exploded, in the 1966 video documentary "Rush to Judgement," Brehm stated he was specifically attracted to watch a piece fly towards himself, "over in the area of the curb where I was standing." ... "It seemed to have come left, and back." ... "Sir, whatever it was that I saw did fall, both, in that direction, and, over into the curb there."
Charles Brehm was behind President Kennedy, and to President Kennedy's left when the President's head first exploded.
On 11-22-63, while still in Dealey Plaza, and only minutes after the assassination, Brehm was quoted by a reporter as saying, "(B)rehm seemed to think the shots came from in front of, or, beside the President."
In his 11-24-63 F.B.I statement, and re-emphacised during the 1987 Showtime cable-tv mock trial, The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, Brehm testified that the shots came from either the Texas School Book Depository or Dal-Tex building.
In 1988, Brehm told author Larry Sneed, "After the car passed the building coming toward us, I heard a . . . surprising noise, and (the President) reached with both hands up to the side of his throat and kind of stiffened out . . . And when he got down in the area just past me, the second shot hit which damaged, considerably damaged, the top of his head. . . . That car took off in an evasive motion . . . and was just beyond me when a third shot went off. The third shot really frightened me! It had a completely different sound to it because it had really passed me as anybody knows who has been in down under targets in the Army or been shot at like I had been many times. You know when a bullet passes over you, the cracking sound it makes, and that bullet had an absolute crack to it. I do believe that that (third) shot was wild. It didn't hit anybody. I don't think it could have hit anybody. But it was a frightening thing to me because here was one shot that hit him, obviously; here was another shot that destroyed his head, and what was the reason for that third shot? That third shot frightened me more than the other two, and I grabbed the boy and threw him on the ground because I didn't know if we were going to have a 'shoot-'em-up' in this area."
Just like many other supporting witnesses, Brehm stated he remembered hearing another shot after the President's head had already exploded.
Charles Brehm was not called to testify publicly in front of the Warren Commission.
