Yarborough was interviewed by the Houston Post and attributed this quote to him in a Nov 22/63 story:
"A few instants after the shots, Yarborough said, the President's car spurted ahead at a very high rate of speed, with a Secret Service agent lying on the back of it, and beating his fist on the back of the car, as if in great despair and anger. Yarborough said he could smell gunpowder in the area of the shooting. 'I could smell powder all the way into the hospital,' he said."
The ?smell of gunpowder? witnesses have to be considered the most unreliable of witnesses. The firing took place in the outdoors, with consist winds of 10 to 15 mph. One cannot expect anyone to smell gunpower, even if they were standing just downwind of someone firing a weapon, unless, perhaps, they were a Louisiana bloodhound.
Under some circumstances, gunpowder can be smelled. When shots are fired indoors, at an indoor firing range. Or outside, on a still day, when one is standing near the weapon being fired.
Some of the witnesses had been around gunfire before. And had smelled gunfire, under ideal conditions, outside, on a still day with little or no wind, while very near the person who had fired a gun. So, when they heard the shots on November 22, expected to smell the gun smoke. And did smell the gun smoke, in their minds.
Yarborough?s account is not to be believed, unless one thinks there was a constant gun battle all the way to the Parkland hospital several miles away over the course of several minutes.
And if Yarborough could smell the gun smoke from several miles away at the Parkland hospital, then I suppose one could smell the sixth floor from any location in Dealey Plaza. Although, of course, neither was possible.
With hundreds of witnesses at Dealey Plaza, we should expect several mistaken witnesses reporting the smell of gun smoke. It would be surprising if we had none. And a clue that this is so is that the witnesses who smelled gun smoke were far apart from each other, not concentrated at one spot, if there was a shot from somewhere that somehow caused gun smoke to be concentrated in one small area where it would be possible to smell gun smoke that was not too diluted.