Phillip LaFrance Willis (2 August 1918, Kaufman County, Texas – 27 January 1995, Dallas, Texas)[1][2][3] was a close witness to the assassination of President Kennedy.
Willis served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, and as a young lieutenant he was present at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Because of a back injury he suffered when he was shot down over the Pacific, Willis retired in 1946 as a highly decorated Major. He earned a bachelor's degree in government at North Texas State Teachers College in 1948. He was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1946 and 1948. He later became a Lincoln automobile dealer, and an independent real estate broker.[4][5] He moved to Dallas in 1960.[3]
Clearly seen in the Zapruder film at the start of the assassination, Willis was wearing a dark colored suit and tie, standing at the Elm Street south curb to the presidential limousine's left, directly across from the Texas School Book Depository.[6]
During the assassination, Willis snapped a 35mm color slide (the fifth of twenty-seven he captured in Dealey Plaza that day)[7] showing the presidential limousine and its occupants, the United States Secret Service agents' follow-up car and occupants, parade onlookers, and the grassy knoll visible in the background.[8]
Willis testified to the Warren Commission that his fifth photo[9] was inadvertently snapped when, just after he had prepared his 35mm Argus camera to capture a photo, he was suddenly startled by a gunshot related noise (the first of three shots he remembered hearing), and his finger that was already on the camera shutter button reacted to the gunshot related noise, then, he quickly depressed the button and the fifth photo was captured.[10] As documented by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, this fifth photo was captured concurrent with Zapruder film frame 202.[11][12] (The Warren Commission and subsequent investigations have all determined that President Kennedy was hidden by a very large oak tree from the view of anyone firing a weapon from the sniper's lair on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository from Z-160 through Z-206.)[13]
In his fifth photo, some conspiracists allege that the image of a still-unknown person can be seen located up on the grassy knoll, seen near a 3-foot-tall concrete wall and near the 5-foot-tall stockade fence. The angled shape of this still-unknown person's outline has led to that person's image being labeled by authors in books and persons working in the Kennedy assassination research community the "black dog man."[12]
In 1978, when Willis's daughter Rosemary was interviewed by investigators from the House Select Committee on Assassinations, she stated to the HSCA that her father became upset when the Dallas policemen, sheriffs, and detectives—who first quickly ran onto the grassy knoll where Phillip thought the shots came from—then ran away from the grassy knoll.[14] In Willis's Warren Commission testimony he stated that shots came from the Texas School Book Depository.[15]
In 1988 Willis stated on camera in the UK 1988 Independent Television Company [ITV] documentary, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy," that during his Warren Commission testimony all the Commission wanted to hear about was that Willis heard three shots that probably originated from the depository, but that for President Kennedy's fatal head shot Willis stated, "So I am very dead certain that, at least, one shot, including the one that took the president's skull off, had to come from the right front, and, I'll stand by that to my death."[16]
When Willis died in 1995, the Texas House passed a resolution to honor him.[17]
