President John F. Kennedy is seen riding in motorcade approximately one minute before he was shot in Dallas, Texas, in this Nov. 22, 1963, Associated Press file photo.

Brian Edwards, left, a Lawrence resident and author of “Beyond the Fence Line,” is pictured with Ed Hoffman, subject of the book. Hoffman says he saw a shooter near railroad tracks in Dallas, dispelling the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to kill President John F. Kennedy. Today’s is the 45th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination.

Brian Edwards has never been convinced.

Even in junior high school, when he wrote a 100-page paper on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, he doubted a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, was the sole person responsible.

“I can tell you one thing,” he says. “I know it wasn’t just one person. The eyewitness testimony confirms that.”

Now Edwards, a Lawrence resident and former Lawrence police officer, has co-authored a book telling the story of one of those eyewitnesses. The publication coincides with the anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, which occurred 45 years ago today in Dallas.

“Beyond the Fence Line,” which he wrote with Marysville teacher Casey J. Quinlan, is about Ed Hoffman, who cannot hear or speak and whose accounts were largely ignored for years because of his difficulty communicating.

Now, his story is told in detail in a 233-page book that includes many diagrams explaining his experience. Though he’s told his story through shorter publications and has presented at the annual conference on the assassination sponsored by JFK Lancer Productions and Publications, an organization that supports alternative theories to the assassination that also published the book, this is the first in-depth look at his experience.

“It is a wonderful feeling,” Hoffman says via e-mail. “I have been to the conference almost every year and have been able to tell my story, but I have often worried that when I am gone, the story will no longer be available for those interested. I now have it in print, and it will always be available for anyone to read and/or study.”

The incident

Edwards, who now works in security for Nebraska Furniture Mart in Kansas City, Kan., first met Hoffman almost 20 years ago after Hoffman’s story began circulating. Edwards has published several papers regarding the Kennedy assassination and was looking to do more research.

Hoffman’s story is this, according to Edwards:

Hoffman broke a tooth while working at his job at Texas Instruments in Dallas. While driving to his dentist, he stopped in the Dealey Plaza area to watch the president’s motorcade drive by.

He stood on a bridge near the plaza and saw a pair of men talking by a railroad switchbox.

He saw a man in a business suit and fedora raise a rifle, saw a puff of smoke and ran down a fence line. The shooter stopped and tossed the rifle to another man, who took the weapon apart, put it in a canvas bag and walked away.

A few seconds later, Hoffman saw the president’s motorcade drive by, with obvious wounds to Kennedy’s head.

Hoffman attempted to tell several police officers — including his uncle, who was on the force — about what he saw, but his inability to talk and hear made it difficult.

Also, his family wanted to protect him from scrutiny or physical danger. After all, the government concluded that Oswald acted alone in the assassination, and the case was closed.

Unusual book

Debra Conway, president of JFK Lancer Productions and Publications (“Lancer” was the Secret Service’s code name for Kennedy), says “Beyond the Fence Line” is rare in that it focuses entirely on one witness’ account.

“Typically in a book about witnesses, every chapter will have a different witness,” she says. “Whether we want to believe it or not, originally the witnesses were, and still are, very fearful about talking about what they had seen.”

Conway, who lives in a Dallas suburb, says she realizes some people view “conspiracy theorists” as being crazy.

“It’s hard,” she says. “And I always say I wear my tinfoil hat with pride. You have to get past that and wear it with pride. There are reporters (and) there are professional historians who won’t get near this case.”

The Internet, she says, has made it easier for anyone with a theory to publish his or her thoughts. But she says Edwards and Quinlan have done their homework.

“These authors did a tremendous job,” she says.

A story told

Edwards says Hoffman is a “sincere man” and that the details in his story can be corroborated by other witness accounts from Nov. 22, 1963. Much of the book is spent explaining those connections.

Edwards believes as many as a dozen potential shooters were at the site to kill Kennedy that day.

But he’s not confident the entire truth will ever be uncovered.

“I hate to use the cliché that it’s the crime of the century,” he says. “It’s killing the president in broad daylight, with hundreds and hundreds of witnesses. And the government seemed to brush it under the carpet.”

For his part, Hoffman says he’s always been angered that more people didn’t listen to his story, even 45 years later.

“It has always been frustrating to me that my story wasn’t taken more seriously. From the first few hours following the assassination, no one took me seriously,” he says. “I knew I had valuable information and tried in every way to tell those who needed to know.”

Now, the memories are as vivid as they were back then, he says.

“I am sure that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone assassin that day,” he says. “Without a doubt.”