A former Secret Service agent, who was present with President John F. Kennedy during his tragic assassination in Dallas almost six decades ago, has stirred fresh inquiries regarding the notorious “magic bullet” theory and the possibility of multiple shooters.

Paul Landis, now 88 years old, served as a young agent assigned to protect First Lady Jackie Kennedy as the presidential motorcade made its way through Dallas in 1963.

Recalling the fateful day, Landis told The New York Times that he distinctly heard the gunshot echo through Dealey Plaza while he walked only a few feet from the president, the New York Post reported.

Subsequently, he heard two more shots and witnessed President Kennedy slump in the back of the open limousine. Landis recounted that he had to take cover to avoid being splattered with brain matter.

However, Landis’s narrative diverges from the official government findings: Amidst the ensuing chaos, he claims to have retrieved a bullet lodged in the car’s back seat, where President Kennedy had been seated, and placed it on the president’s hospital stretcher for investigators.

This 6.5 mm bullet had long been believed to have fallen from Texas Governor John Connally’s thigh wound and was famously labeled “the magic bullet.”

The Warren Commission, tasked with investigating the assassination, concluded that this shot, allegedly fired by lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald, had miraculously traversed through Kennedy’s throat from behind, then struck Connally’s right shoulder before inexplicably causing wounds to his back, chest, wrist, and thigh.

According to the commission’s findings, one shot missed the motorcade, another was deemed the “magic bullet,” and the final shot fatally struck Kennedy in the head.

Landis did indeed place the bullet on Kennedy’s stretcher at the hospital, but he now entertains doubts that, at some point, the bullet was transferred from the president’s stretcher to the governor’s as they were positioned close together during transport.

The Warren Commission had ruled out the possibility of the bullet originating from the president’s stretcher.

Though Landis was never interviewed by the Warren Commission, he has come to believe that the bullet struck Kennedy but was underpowered, failing to penetrate deeply into the president’s body before popping out as he was being removed from the vehicle.

Consequently, despite previously maintaining the belief that Oswald acted alone, Landis, now six decades later, finds himself questioning that conclusion.

Written by staff