In 2006, I took a cross country trip and did a blog about it for Traffic.com. That blog has long since disappeared, but I was able to find the cache online, and was able to locate one of the highlights of that trip, an interview I did with a conspiracy buff named Sherman, a scraggly 50-something man who hung around outside the Book Depository building to give “unsanctioned” tours to tourists wandering around Dealey Plaza.  After I did both the museum tour and his tour, I spoke with him about the job and about JFK’s assassination. With the anniversary upon us, I thought a few of you might enjoy that interview. (The cache didn’t save the photos of him, sadly. He was a sight to see.)

It’s hard to miss Sherman Hopkins if you go down to the Texas Schoolbook Depository.  He’s about 6’7″ and maybe 170 pounds soaking wet.  He wears a camouflage hat over his grey mullet, and his dark eyes could pierce concrete.  His bottom teeth are worn down from years of smoke, and the only clue that he might be anything other than just another person hanging around Dealey Plaza in the afternoon is an apron and a loud, smokey, southern drawl that he utilizes to gather people around him as he tells tales of gunmen lurking all around Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.  Sherman talks about the witnesses and reporters who have been killed, the last minute turn the limo took, and how it would have been impossible for Oswald to do all the things the Warren Commission claims he did.  All the while, he is scoping the scene, making sure his tour hits places where there are people, so that they might hear what he’s saying and tag along. 

After the JFK movie came out, I did a fair amount of research on the assassiation, but Sherman was able to provide numerous antecdotes that I had never heard and which, incredibly, check out.  For example, Woody Harrelson’s father does claim to have something to do with the assassination, and a lady who interviewed Jack Ruby in 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen, died soon after her interview under mysterious circumstances. 

So is Sherman a sidewalk charlatan, trying to make a quick buck by spouting off crackpot theories?  Or is he a purveyor of truth, trying to tell you what the government doesn’t want you to hear?

JGT:  Where ya from, Sherman?

Sherman:  I’m from Florida.

JGT:  When did you move to Dallas?

Sherman:  I’ve been here about 23 years.

JGT:  Why did you decide to move to Dallas?

Sherman:  I came here to visit my sister and my brother-in-law and met my wife.

JGT:  Now, where were you when JFK was assassinated?

Sherman:  I was five years old, sittin’ on my dad’s knee, watchin’ tv, and Walter Cronkite came on the tv.

JGT:  Do you remember what your family’s reaction was when they heard what had happened?

Sherman:  It was the only time I ever saw my father cry. I’ve been interested in it ever since.

JGT:  Do you think that has something to do with it?  The emotion you saw as a youngster, do you think that got you interested in doing something like this for a living?

Sherman:  Sure.  Because when you’re young, something like that really gets your attention.  For that to be the only time I ever saw my father cry, it had to be something pretty important.

JGT:  When did you decide that you wanted to do these tours outside the Book Depository?

Sherman:  About 11 years ago, my wife talked me into doing it and I’ve been doing it ever since.

JGT:  Where do you do most of your research?

Sherman:  I’ve done a lot of research in the archives, and hands on.  I’ve met pretty much everybody involved in the investigation.  Eyewitnesses, police that were here, I’ve talked to Oswald’s wife.

JGT:  What did Oswald’s wife say?

Sherman:  Well, she said she doesn’t think her husband did this.  And I believe her.

JGT:  Who do you think did it?

Sherman:  I think that the Mob had Kennedy shot.

JGT:  Why would they have done that?

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