Acquilla Clemons

Acquilla Clemons

Acquilla Clemons lived on the north side of Tenth Street in Dallas. On 22nd November, 1963, Clemons was sitting on the porch of her house when she saw Officer J. D. Tippit killed.

Afterwards she claimed that there were two men involved in the attack on Tippit. She later testified in a television documentary that the gunman was a "short guy and kind of heavy". The other man was tall and thin in khaki trousers and a white shirt. She also claimed that Dallas Police warned her not to repeat this story to others or "she might get hurt".

Anthony Summers, the author of The Kennedy Conspiracy (1980): "Obviously, Mrs. Clemons should have been questioned more thoroughly than in a television interview. She said she had been visited by the FBI, who decided not to take a statement because of her poor health. Mrs. Clemons suffered from diabetes, hardly a condition to deter efficient investigators from taking a statement. According to two reporters, who visited Mrs. Clemons several years after the assassination, she and her family still spoke with conviction of seeing two men at the scene of the Tippit shooting. Mrs. Clemons' story finds corroboration from another witness, and he too was ignored."

Acquilla Clemons was not called to give evidence to the Warren Commission.

Primary Sources

(1) Anthony Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy (1980)

Mrs. Acquilla Clemons, who was in a house close to the spot where Tippit was killed, told independent investigators she saw two men near the policeman's car just before the shooting. She said she ran out after the shots and saw a man with a gun. But she described him as "kind of chunky... kind of heavy," a description which does not fit Oswald at all. Much more disturbing, this was not the only man she saw...

Mrs. Clemons said the man with a gun went off in one direction and the second man in another. She described the man with the gun as "short and kind of heavy" and wearing "khaki and a white shirt" - a description which does not fit Oswald at all. The second man, she said, was thin and tall rather than short, a description which could refer to Oswald.

Obviously, Mrs. Clemons should have been questioned more thoroughly than in a television interview. She said she had been visited by the FBI, who decided not to take a statement because of her poor health. Mrs. Clemons suffered from diabetes, hardly a condition to deter efficient investigators from taking a statement. According to two reporters, who visited Mrs. Clemons several years after the assassination, she and her family still spoke with conviction of seeing two men at the scene of the Tippit shooting. Mrs. Clemons' story finds corroboration from another witness, and he too was ignored.