Marilyn Sitzman

Who was Marilyn Sitzman?

Marilyn Sitzman was a witness to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. She was with her boss, Abraham Zapruder, as he made the Zapruder film, the most studied record of the assassination.

Zapruder's clothing company, Jennifer Juniors, was one block from Dealey Plaza, through which the presidential motorcade would be passing on November 22. When Zapruder arrived at work that morning without his 8 mm movie camera, his secretary Lillian Rogers encouraged him to go home to retrieve it. Zapruder, with Sitzman, his receptionist, standing behind him to steady him, filmed the presidential motorcade as both were standing on a 4-foot high pedestal which extends from a retaining wall that was part of the John Neely Bryan concrete pergola on the grassy knoll north of Elm Street, in Dealey Plaza. The fatal head shot struck President Kennedy as his limousine passed almost directly in front of their position, 65 feet from the center of Elm Street.

Sitzman went on record about the direction of the shots she heard, stating that they came from the direction of the Texas School Book Depository.