Is Jerrol Custer untrustworthy?

[Micah Mileto]

I've seen a lot of sources quoting Custer's allegedly accurate accounts of the autopsy, but William Matson Law's In The Eye Of History, published in 2004, has a bit where Custer claims to have seen a whole bullet fall out of the back wound. This is the first time he ever made this claim, right?

http://www.krusch.com/books/kennedy/In_The_Eye_Of_History.pdf

On page 132 (156 of the pdf)

 

 

Palamara: Were you aware of the allegations of—I don't know if it was Admiral

or Captain David Osborne—about the bullet falling out of the body? During the

autopsy? Did you see a whole bullet or a fragment fall out of President Kennedy?

 

Custer: Well, I wouldn't call it a fragment, I'd say it was a pretty good sized

bullet. Because it created such a fuss. They ran over with a set of forceps—and

they grabbed it, picked it up and put it in a little basin of water.

 

Law: Now is this the bullet—when you were doing the X-rays, and you had

him on the table and moving him around, didn't you tell me at some point in an

earlier conversation that a bullet fragment fell out of the president?

 

Custer: This was the time that they found that.

 

Law: Okay. And what happened? What was their demeanor? What happened

when that bullet fragment fell out?

 

Custer: I called one of the pathologists over and said, "Hey, we have a bullet

here." Soon as they heard that, they came down off the raised platform and they

ran over and they picked it up. Then Sibert and O'Neill also came over and said,

"Well, we want that, that's—""

 

Palamara: Yes, they wrote out a receipt for a missile so people think it's seman-

tics—was it a fragment? So you're saying it wasn't a whole bullet? It was a sizable

fragment of a bullet?

 

Custer: It was about—see, you're getting in semantics here about the size. It

was distinguishable enough to know it was a bullet. It wasn't complete because

there was some fragmentation. Some area of destruction on the bullet.

 

Law: Just for clarification, what area of the body did it fall out of?

 

Law: Just for clarification, what area of the body did it fall out of?

 

Custer: That was the upper thorax. The upper back.

 

Law: It literally fell out of the back wound.

 

Custer: Right.

 

Edited December 8, 2016 by Micah Mileto

[Sandy Larsen]

Micah,

Audience members at the autopsy were ordered to leave and return at various points in time. In Best Evidence, David Lifton reported this activity going on and explained how it enabled entrance of the ceremonial casket twice, both times with the body. Some witnesses saw the first entrance and others saw the second entrance, but nobody saw both entrances (except for the perpetrators of this fraud).

There are a number of major conflicting reports from witnesses that I believe resulted from this audience shuffling. For example, some witnesses saw a gaping wound only in the back of the head, whereas others saw the top of the head on the right side completely gone. Apparently the ones who saw only the latter missed the earlier part of the autopsy where the scalp was incised and retracted.

This report from Jerrol Custer conflicts with a report from Lt. Lipsey who said that the autopsists searched in vain for the bullet that entered the back. I suspect that the bullet was planted on the body during one of the casket entrances and it fell down when the body was lifted out. Custer witnessed this. (It didn't happen as part of the other casket entrance.) Custer must not have been present during the period of time when the autopsists were searching for the bullet but couldn't find it.

 

[Robert Prudhomme]

Hi Sandy

I believe you are correct about Custer et al being duped by the conspirators, and that the conspirators made a serious mistake by planting a damaged bullet in the shallow wound in JFK's back.

"It was distinguishable enough to know it was a bullet. It wasn't complete because

there was some fragmentation. Some area of destruction on the bullet."

 

If the bullet had lost so much velocity, or didn't have enough velocity originally, that it was only able to penetrate the flesh of JFK's back one inch, it was not going fast enough to cause it to fragment, or become damaged in any other fashion. What should have fallen out of JFK's back, if this charade was true, is a complete pristine bullet.

[Micah Mileto]

Custer never said anything about seeing a bullet in the back before this book interview, correct?

[Robert Prudhomme]

Good question, Micah. I'll have to go back and read his interview again.

[Vince Palamara]

I interviewed Jerrol Custer on 11/22/91 with Harrison Livingstone (for High Treason 2) and, again, twice in March 1998, with William Law for In The Eye of History, all  on video. Unfortunately, while Jerrol was a principal witness with some observations of value, he was tainted by his association with researcher Tom Wilson (from part 5 of The Men Who Killed Kennedy). Both Custer and Wilson died within a month or so of each other in the summer of 2000. Jerrol wasn't too bad in 1991 (the influence of Wilson, who was present for part of the interview, as well, wasn't profound yet). However, by the time 1998 rolled around, Wilson (a close neighbor and friend of his in a suburb of Pittsburgh, my hometown) had a firm grip on Custer and, thus, twisted his feelings and beliefs on certain things.

If you keep reading in Law's book from the above excerpt, you will come to Law's caveat about Custer (example: Custer was adamant that the back of JFK's head was gone up until 1992, yet, by 1998, he waffled on this notion). Custer was a down and out security guard in 1998 with some health issues. Sadly, the allure of (what he hoped from JFK Lancer would be) big money and some fame---and the association of Wilson---clouded his judgment. I would stick with what he had to say between 1977-1988 (maybe 1991) or so and take with a grain of salt any "new revelations" circa 1998. To his eternal credit, William duly noted his reservations in the text...they were my reservations, as well.

Edited December 9, 2016 by Vince Palamara

[Micah Mileto]

6 minutes ago, Vince Palamara said:

I interviewed Jerrol Custer on 11/22/91 with Harrison Livingstone (for High Treason 2) and, again, twice in March 1998, with William Law for In The Eye of History, all  on video. Unfortunately, while Jerrol was a principal witness with some observations of value, he was tainted by his association with researcher Tom Wilson (from part 5 of The Men Who Killed Kennedy). Both Custer and Wilson died within a month or so of each other in the summer of 2000. Jerrol wasn't too bad in 1991 (the influence of Wilson, who was present for part of the interview, as well, wasn't profound yet). However, by the time 1998 rolled around, Wilson (a close neighbor and friend of his in a suburb of Pittsburgh, my hometown) had a firm grip on Custer and, thus, twisted his feelings and beliefs on certain things.

If you keep reading in Law's book from the above excerpt, you will come to Law's caveat about Custer (example: Custer was adamant that the back of JFK's head was gone, yet, by 1998, he waffled on this notion). Custer was a down and out security guard in 1998 with some health issues. Sadly, the allure of (what he hoped from JFK Lancer) big money and some fame---and the association of Wilson---clouded his judgment. I would stick with what he had to say between 1977-1988 (maybe 1991) or so and take with a grain of salt any "new revelations" circa 1998. To his eternal credit, William duly noted his reservations in the text...they were my reservations, as well.

Thank you.

[Vince Palamara]

My pleasure.