What happened to the man who recorded the famous JFK assassination footage that ‘haunted’ him for the rest of his life?

On November 22, 1963, the world was horrified by the news that US President John F. Kennedy had been killed while visiting Dallas with his wife.

The episode is one of the most devastating in US political history, with photographs from the day of the tragedy seen by millions of people across the world.

Abraham Zapruder, the man who captured some of the most vivid films of the assassination, may have been more familiar than anyone else with the recordings made that tragic day.

What is the Zapruder Film?

Ukrainian immigrant Zapruder, a supporter of the democratic president at the time, planned to film Kennedy’s procession through Dallas from a high position near Dealey Plaza. Zapruder was able to take a color photograph of the motorcade as it traveled down Elm Street.

However, the footage he would capture would be far more terrible than anybody could have anticipated.

While Zapruder was filming, Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone assassin, shot President Kennedy to death.

The terrible film reveals the moment JFK was shot in detail, as well as the devastating aftermath, in which his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, can be seen gathering shards of the president’s head while a Secret Service agent climbs into the automobile.

Given the clarity with which Zapruder’s video captures Kennedy’s death, it’s not unexpected that the 26 seconds of footage became critical to the later inquiry.

It was a vital piece of evidence during the 1963 Warren Commission, which determined Oswald acted alone and earned Zapruder the nickname ‘forefather of all citizen journalists’ in the press.

The Warren Commission and the Clay Shaw trial in 1969 both requested Zapruder’s testimony.

Zapruder is thought to have been greatly impacted by Kennedy’s assassination, with The Guardian reporting in 2013 that the photos have ‘haunted’ him in the years since.

“I’ve seen it so many times,” he stated in his evidence to the Warren Commission, adding, “I used to have nightmares.

“The thing would come every night—I would wake up and see this.”

In addition to turning over the footage to government authorities, he would sell it to LIFE magazine editor Dick Stolley, who recalled Zapruder’s concern that the tape would be ‘exploited’ if it fell into the wrong hands.

“[Zapruder was] very worried that [the film] would be exploited or used in a way that he would find tasteless and awful if it fell into the wrong hands,” Stolley told PEOPLE of the discussion.

“You could see it—this was a man in absolute torment.”

Zapruder, 65, died of stomach cancer in 1970, and he apparently never used a camcorder again.