Date: 11/24/63

Mr. JACK FRANZEN, 10572, [sic] Cromwell Circle, telephone FL 7-3717, who is employed by the Fox and Jacob Construction Company, 9106 Soverign [sic] Row, was contacted in response to a telephone call received from him at 1900 Main Street.

Mr. FRANZEN advised he and his wife and small son were standing in the grass area west of Houston Street and south of Elm Street at the time the President's motorcade arrived at that location at approximately 12:30 PM on November 22, 1963. He said he heard the sound of an explosion which appeared to him to come from the President's car and noticed small fragments flying inside the President's car and immediately assumed that someone had tossed a firecracker inside the automobile. He heard a second and third and possibly a fourth explosion and recognized these sounds as being shots fired from some firearm. At the same time he noticed blood appearing at the top and sides of the head of President Kennedy. He noticed a colored family consisting of a man, woman and small child nearby and at the sound of these shots the man picked up the small boy and ran with the woman west on Elm Street toward the overpass. During the ensuing confusion he remembers looking at the side of the building occupied by the Texas School Book Depository, located across Elm Street from his position but does not remember seeing anything of a suspicious nature with regard to that building. He noticed the men, who were presumed to be Secret Service Agents, riding in the car directly behind the President's car, unloading from the car, some with firearms in their hands, and noticed police officers and these plain clothesmen [sic] running up the grassy slope across Elm Street from his location and toward a wooded and bushy area located across Elm Street from him.

Because of this activity he presumed the shots which were fired came from the shrubbery or bushes toward which these officers appeared to be running.

He looked over the crowd which had assembled along both sides of Elm Street in this block but noticed nothing which appeared unusual among these spectators.

Mr. FRANZEN advised he is aware that the information which he has furnished may not be of any particular significance but advised in view of his close proximity to the President's vehicle at the time of these shots, felt that he possibly should furnish whatever information he could.

on 11/22/63 at Dallas, Texas File # DL 89-43

by Special Agents Alfred C. Ellington and Joseph L. Loeffler [sp?]