The JFK Back Wound

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Here is more proof, where I suspect that Pat is distressed by the Crenshaw diagram, because it so clearly shows that the wound was at the back of the head and slightly to the right, while he likes to insist that it was actually over on the right side of the head, where he mistakes the (pinkish) skull flap (shown below) for the blow out!

So here is David Mantik's study of the lateral cranial X-ray, where the "Area P" is for where the blow-out had been "patched"; and part of Frame 374, which confirms that location and BY ITSELF proves that the Zapruder film is inconsistent and has been "fixed" when you compare earlier frames where it has been blacked out.

Edited February 27, 2013 by James H. Fetzer

[Pat Speer]

[]

And yet... McClelland told Richard Dudman within a few weeks of the shooting that he'd seen nothing to indicate any shots came from other than the depository.

And yet... McClelland told an interviewer in 1969, in an interview available on the Weisberg Archives, that he thought Oswald acted alone.

So...the whole case for a wound LOW on the back of the head comes from the decades-after recollections of men who hadn't followed the case, who didn't realize what they were saying, and who, with the exception of Crenshaw, failed to be confident enough in their recollections to say the back of the head photos were fakes.

In short, there's no there there.

NOW, should those arguing the photos are fakes be willing to argue that the wound was further back on the TOP of the head than shown in the photos, they would at least have a leg to stand on. But they don't. They claim the wound was low on the far back of the head--where NONE of the witnesses originally commenting on the case, and only a handful of those to come later, thought they saw a wound.

Your selective use of McCllelland has and always will be disingenuous. Put all of his statements out on the table, and see what conclusion may be drawn. I know you must have Brad Parker's First on the Scene and of course Lifton's Best Evidence: two works which are full of early depositions of Parkland doctors and nurses. You're a smart guy, Pat. I can't believe you propound such nonesense. But alas, we've been through all this before....even arguing over McClelland's WC deposition which is about as clear as one can be on the head wounding. I am at a loss for words.

Yes, Daniel, we've been through this before. And you still don't seem to grasp what is obvious to others--that it is not I who have been disingenuous. Over the past 3 decades, researcher after researcher has pretended that the Parkland witnesses were conspiracy theorists--convinced by Kennedy's wounds he was shot from the front. Well, virtually none of them thought this. No, not even McClelland...

[Pat Speer]

Daniel, I agree with you completely. He suggests that the physician who approved this sketch saw no indications of any shots having been fired from other than the Book Depository? How absurd is that! If McClelland didn't say so later, it was because he had to have been advised that it was not in his best interests. And how many witnesses identified the wound at the same location? There is something wrong with Pat's reasoning, which displays itself intermittently, as again here.

As Daniel said, Jim, we've been over this. Many times. LOOK AT the hands of the people supposedly proving the wound was on the LOW back of the head. MOST of them thought the wound was above the ear, at or near the top of the head. Well, you can't have it both ways. Not, that is, without looking ridiculous. If these people--taken as a group--prove the wound was not where it is on the autopsy photos and x-rays (above the ear) then they ALSO prove the wound was not where you (and all too many others) claim it was, on the FAR back of Kennedy's head, at and below the top of his ear.

P.S. You, yourself, have disavowed this exhibit, on this very forum, due to its presenting Custer and O'Connor out of context. They said the wound stretched across the entire top of the head, and the snapshots presented by Groden show them pointing only to the back part of the head, without acknowledging this was the last part of a single-motion indicating the wound stretched all the way across.

You disavowed this when pushing Horne's book, and his claim Custer and O'Connor viewed a different wound than the wound viewed at Parkland. Have you changed your mind?

Edited February 28, 2013 by Pat Speer

[Pat Speer]

Here is more proof, where I suspect that Pat is distressed by the Crenshaw diagram, because it so clearly shows that the wound was at the back of the head and slightly to the right, while he likes to insist that it was actually over on the right side of the head, where he mistakes the (pinkish) skull flap (shown below) for the blow out!

So here is David Mantik's study of the lateral cranial X-ray, where the "Area P" is for where the blow-out had been "patched"; and part of Frame 374, which confirms that location and BY ITSELF proves that the Zapruder film is inconsistent and has been "fixed" when you compare earlier frames where it has been blacked out.

Wrong, Jim. Apparently, you've forgotten that I've already taken your argument and exposed it as nonsense.

[Daniel Gallup]

[]

And yet... McClelland told Richard Dudman within a few weeks of the shooting that he'd seen nothing to indicate any shots came from other than the depository.

And yet... McClelland told an interviewer in 1969, in an interview available on the Weisberg Archives, that he thought Oswald acted alone.

So...the whole case for a wound LOW on the back of the head comes from the decades-after recollections of men who hadn't followed the case, who didn't realize what they were saying, and who, with the exception of Crenshaw, failed to be confident enough in their recollections to say the back of the head photos were fakes.

In short, there's no there there.

NOW, should those arguing the photos are fakes be willing to argue that the wound was further back on the TOP of the head than shown in the photos, they would at least have a leg to stand on. But they don't. They claim the wound was low on the far back of the head--where NONE of the witnesses originally commenting on the case, and only a handful of those to come later, thought they saw a wound.

Your selective use of McCllelland has and always will be disingenuous. Put all of his statements out on the table, and see what conclusion may be drawn. I know you must have Brad Parker's First on the Scene and of course Lifton's Best Evidence: two works which are full of early depositions of Parkland doctors and nurses. You're a smart guy, Pat. I can't believe you propound such nonesense. But alas, we've been through all this before....even arguing over McClelland's WC deposition which is about as clear as one can be on the head wounding. I am at a loss for words.

Yes, Daniel, we've been through this before. And you still don't seem to grasp what is obvious to others--that it is not I who have been disingenuous. Over the past 3 decades, researcher after researcher has pretended that the Parkland witnesses were conspiracy theorists--convinced by Kennedy's wounds he was shot from the front. Well, virtually none of them thought this. No, not even McClelland...

I don't know what to say, Pat. The throat wound was accepted as an entrance wound by all who saw it, including McClelland. See p. 63 BE for the citation. On p. 45 of BE, we have McClelland's two page hand-written report: "The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple." The left temple could not have been an exit wound. Perry ventured an opinion picked up by the LA Times on Nov 23 that possibly a bullet entered the neck and was deflected up and out the back of the head. So also Ronald JOnes, p. 42 BE, and yes, McClelland: "At the moment... it was our impression before we had any other information from any other source at all, when we were just confronted with the acute emergency...that this one bullet, that perhaps [had] entered through the front of the neck and then, in some perculiar fashion which we really han...to strain to explain to ourselves, had coursed up the front of the verterbra and intothe base of the skull and out the rear of the skull (BE, 42 footnote). The citation in the footnote is to the WC deposition. That he told Dudman something else later is irrelevant. By then the Dallas doctors had been made to change their opinion about the neck shot, and I am certain were browbeaten into accepting the official version. What counts are their first impressions.

On another matter, the placement of the exit wound in the back of the head is not relevant to the issue at hand: is the "back and back of the head photo " authentic? Especially if there was a large avulsive exit wound in the right rear TOP of the back of the head, that should be the dominant wound visible in that photo. But what to we see? It is the lower back of the head that appears darkened and hard to dicipher--right at the ear level and below. The top back appears intact. So if the exit wound was high in the back of the head, the photo has been faked; if it is lower, then the rendering of that part of the head shows attemtps to conceal this wound, which still should have been obvious in the photo. And if the photo is a fake, whatever it might say about the back wounds is meaningless as well. Worthless as evidence.

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Pat adopts the indefensible position he's THE ONLY ONE who understands COMPLETELY OBVIOUS EVIDENCE.

(Exhibit 1) The McClelland diagram:

Does anyone in their right mind suppose this diagram shows the wound AT THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HEAD?

(Exhibit 2) The Crenshaw diagram:

Does anyone in their right mind believe these diagrams show the wound AT THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HEAD?

Edited February 28, 2013 by James H. Fetzer

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Pat,

Something you seem to have missed about the medical evidence is that

THE WOUND WAS CHANGED OR SUBSEQUENTLY FAKED. Here is how

it looked at Parkland. And how it was described in the Bethesda autopsy

report. And how the HSCA then revised it completely, to my astonishment:

We know that Humes took a cranial saw to the skull and enlarged the wound to make it look

more like something that might have resulted from a shot from behind, but, as Doug Horne

explains, there were two witnesses, including Thomas Evan Robinson. I really believe that

you need to rethink your views about this wound, because you do not appear to understand

that it was changed. Whatever I may have said about Custer and O'Connor was not meant

to discount the evidence, but to explain that they must have seen it BEFORE Humes took his

saw to the skull, because after he had done that, it was MUCH, MUCH LARGER, as is shown.

I believe that you have also assumed that JFK's head was rotated too far to the right and that

it was actually more to the left, which brings these diagrams and Frame 374 into consistency.

Edited February 28, 2013 by James H. Fetzer

[Pat Speer]

I don't know what to say, Pat. The throat wound was accepted as an entrance wound by all who saw it, including McClelland. See p. 63 BE for the citation. On p. 45 of BE, we have McClelland's two page hand-written report: "The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple." The left temple could not have been an exit wound. Perry ventured an opinion picked up by the LA Times on Nov 23 that possibly a bullet entered the neck and was deflected up and out the back of the head. So also Ronald JOnes, p. 42 BE, and yes, McClelland: "At the moment... it was our impression before we had any other information from any other source at all, when we were just confronted with the acute emergency...that this one bullet, that perhaps [had] entered through the front of the neck and then, in some perculiar fashion which we really han...to strain to explain to ourselves, had coursed up the front of the verterbra and intothe base of the skull and out the rear of the skull (BE, 42 footnote). The citation in the footnote is to the WC deposition. That he told Dudman something else later is irrelevant. By then the Dallas doctors had been made to change their opinion about the neck shot, and I am certain were browbeaten into accepting the official version. What counts are their first impressions.

On another matter, the placement of the exit wound in the back of the head is not relevant to the issue at hand: is the "back and back of the head photo " authentic? Especially if there was a large avulsive exit wound in the right rear TOP of the back of the head, that should be the dominant wound visible in that photo. But what to we see? It is the lower back of the head that appears darkened and hard to dicipher--right at the ear level and below. The top back appears intact. So if the exit wound was high in the back of the head, the photo has been faked; if it is lower, then the rendering of that part of the head shows attemtps to conceal this wound, which still should have been obvious in the photo. And if the photo is a fake, whatever it might say about the back wounds is meaningless as well. Worthless as evidence.

What you don't seem to get, Daniel, is that the recollections of emergency room doctors are not the final say-so in determining cause of death. They observe and make reports. The body is then taken elsewhere and STUDIED by a pathologist, or coroner. It is the pathologist or coroner whose impressions are paramount, both in a court of law and in the field of medicine.

So you see...THAT is why the Parkland witnesses deferred to the autopsy report.... They defer to autopsy reports ALL THE TIME; it's in their training. Their job is to save lives, and let the coroners and pathologists of the world--whom they consider to be ghouls, janitors, and geeks--figure out what happened.

As far as your contention the witnesses in Groden's book prove the autopsy photos fake, you do realize that a number of credible witnesses saw Kennedy when first hit in Dealey Plaza, or when first arriving at the hospital, and that these witnesses described the wound long before any of the Parkland doctors described the wound, and these witnesses described a large wound above the temple, exactly where it would later be depicted in the autopsy photos.

Unless you can explain why Newman and Zapruder and Burkley et al claimed the ONE wound they saw on Kennedy was a large wound above the temple, exactly where it is shown in the photos, you have no business claiming the ONE wound observed at Parkland was really on the back of the head.

Edited February 28, 2013 by Pat Speer

[Pat Speer]

Pat adopts the indefensible position he's THE ONLY ONE who understands COMPLETELY OBVIOUS EVIDENCE.

(Exhibit 1) The McClelland diagram:

Does anyone in their right mind suppose this diagram shows the wound AT THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HEAD?

(Exhibit 2) The Crenshaw diagram:

Does anyone in their right mind believe these diagrams show the wound AT THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HEAD?

Does anyone in their right mind think the majority of these witnesses were describing a wound low on the back of the head, behind the ear, a la Crenshaw?

OF COURSE NOT. Only 7 of 18 pointed to a location consistent with Crenshaw, and three of these saw the body a Bethesda, AFTER the body had supposedly been altered. So why not admit Crenshaw was mistaken?

Edited February 28, 2013 by Pat Speer

[Don Jeffries]

Pat,

Many of those who gave testimony that conflicted with the official story still managed to believe Oswald acted alone. John Connally is the most obvious example here; while steadfastly maintaining he was hit by a separate bullet, he never wavered from his view that Oswald acted alone. I think they simply weren't aware that what they were saying made the official story impossible.

We are faced with the question of whether that many witnesses could have been mistaken, in the exact same way, about the same thing. Just as I find it dubious that nearly 60 witnesses voluntarily, and independent of each other, declared that the motorcade had stopped or nearly stopped at the time of the shooting, I find it just as unlikely that all those doctors and nurses at Parkland would have mistakenly noted a huge, gaping wound in the back of JFK's head.

We don't see the limo stop or almost stop in the films. The back of JFK's head is intact in the autopsy photos. So, whether we accept it or not, it's quite logical to look into the legitimacy of the filmed record. Therein lies this debate.

[Pat Speer]

My responses in BOLD.

Pat,

Something you seem to have missed about the medical evidence is that

THE WOUND WAS CHANGED OR SUBSEQUENTLY FAKED. Here is how

it looked at Parkland. And how it was described in the Bethesda autopsy

report. And how the HSCA then revised it completely, to my astonishment:

No, Jim, it is you that have missed the obvious. The autopsy report's measurements were of the wound AFTER the scalp had been peeled back and skull removed...so that the brain could be removed. These measurements were totally consistent with the tracings published by the HSCA.

We know that Humes took a cranial saw to the skull and enlarged the wound to make it look

more like something that might have resulted from a shot from behind,

We "know" no such thing. Why do you always write "we know" when what follows is some wild speculation made up someone whose theories you accept, and whose brilliance you adore...until you don't, and denounce them as simply uninformed or a charlatan?

but, as Doug Horne

explains, there were two witnesses, including Thomas Evan Robinson.

Horne's twisting of Robinson is a huge embarrassment, IMO. He says Robinson saw an orange-sized hole at the beginning of the autopsy. He later says Robinson's fellow mortician noted an orange-sized hole at the end of the autopsy. Uhhhh...HELLO,,, they traveled together, they sat together, they described the same thing---why is it again that we're supposed to believe they noticed the wound at different times? Oh yeah, without Robinson as a "witness," Horne has no support for the pre-autopsy autopsy he would like us to believe happened.

I really believe that

you need to rethink your views about this wound, because you do not appear to understand

that it was changed. Whatever I may have said about Custer and O'Connor was not meant

to discount the evidence, but to explain that they must have seen it BEFORE Humes took his

saw to the skull, because after he had done that, it was MUCH, MUCH LARGER, as is shown.

Custer and O'Connor DID describe the large wound you describe, but Groden and Aguilar twisted their words and images into making it seem as though they were describing the same wound described by those seeing the wound at Parkland.

I believe that you have also assumed that JFK's head was rotated too far to the right and that

it was actually more to the left, which brings these diagrams and Frame 374 into consistency.

Crenshaw's diagram and your interpretation of 374 are reasonably consistent. It is Mantik's "white spot" that bears little or no resemblance to your interpretation, or Crenshaw's diagram. Are you now willing to admit as much?

Edited February 28, 2013 by Pat Speer

[James R Gordon]

I am not sure whether there has been any meddling with the autopsy images or not. When the Parkland doctors when they visited NARRA for the program Nova they did not believe there had been alteration.

I understand that we do not have the complete autopsy image set in the public domain, and maybe that is where the contradiction resides.

I have already placed a link to that section of NOVA where the Parkland doctors visit NARRA. It may well be of use to repeat that link.

https://www.transfer...CPP58Q7sCA4T3w2

There are a number of points I would make about this section of the program. It really is worth a close examination. Walter Cronkite, the narrator, certainly ignored much of what these doctors say. The pertinent points, to my mind, are as follows:-

1. The section takes place after an examination of David Lifton’s theory about body alteration. Indeed it appears that is why both doctors were invited to visit the archives in the first place.

2. Although the Parkland doctors agree to visit, the Bethesda doctors refused to visit.

3. At the beginning all the Parkland doctors explain what the wound to the head looked like. McClelland even is seen drawing the shape of the wound.

4. After they come out from having seen the images, all the doctors state, on record, that what they saw was exactly as they had remembered. What is often overlooked is what those statements mean. Walter Cronkite certainly dismisses it and assumes that the idea of the hole at the back was wrong.

What the doctors actually said was that what they saw in those images was what they described prior to going in to view the images. And that means that what they saw was also this wound to the rear of the head that they all point to at the beginning and what McClelland even drew before going into the room.

5. Again, an often overlooked point made by Dr. Peters. After leaving the room Peters says that the pictures show exactly what he remembered seeing. If you go back to the beginning of the clip you will see that he has his hand over the very area that is in dispute in this conversation. He has to be suggesting that somewhere in the collection is an image that supports the idea of a hole in the back of the head.

Dr. Peters also goes on to comment about a surgical incision in the temple area. Now I do not know when these images were taken, i.e. had any work been done prior to them being taken. Dr. Peters suggests that maybe the incision was to enable better access to the wound. He draws a diagram to explain what he means. Cronkite pounces on this to suggest that is the explanation for David Lifton’s theory. But I am not so certain. Although, again an overlooked moment, this may well be what David Lifton talked about all those years ago. What we do not know is when this incision took place and why.

6. Dr. McClelland explains why, in the images that are in public domain, we do not see the wound to the back of the head. He suggests that the scalp, that is lying down the back of the body in other pictures, has been pulled over the head and thus disguises the wound.

Not having seen the full collection, I do not know whether that explanation is correct.

7. Dr. Jenkins explains the confusion over the comment about the Cerebellum. Dr. Peters goes on to comment how this demonstrates that errors can easily be made during a moment of confusion.

It is a very rational explanation. However, since all the doctors agree, even though we do not see the evidence of it in the Fox images, that there was a significant wound to the back of the head, Dr. Peters explanation does not make much sense. At the beginning of the section he places his hand over the very area of the head where it ought to be possible to see the Cerebellum. And when he comes out from viewing he says that what he saw was exactly what he saw in Parkland and how he described the wound before entering the viewing area.

In is an interesting program section that has its own contradictions as well as apparently supporting the idea that indeed there was a hole in the back of the head and the complete set of autopsy images support that.

It is interesting that the Bethesda doctors refused to visit. Now I wonder why that was?????

James.

[Ray Mitcham]

I don't know what to say, Pat. The throat wound was accepted as an entrance wound by all who saw it, including McClelland. See p. 63 BE for the citation. On p. 45 of BE, we have McClelland's two page hand-written report: "The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple." The left temple could not have been an exit wound. Perry ventured an opinion picked up by the LA Times on Nov 23 that possibly a bullet entered the neck and was deflected up and out the back of the head. So also Ronald JOnes, p. 42 BE, and yes, McClelland: "At the moment... it was our impression before we had any other information from any other source at all, when we were just confronted with the acute emergency...that this one bullet, that perhaps [had] entered through the front of the neck and then, in some perculiar fashion which we really han...to strain to explain to ourselves, had coursed up the front of the verterbra and intothe base of the skull and out the rear of the skull (BE, 42 footnote). The citation in the footnote is to the WC deposition. That he told Dudman something else later is irrelevant. By then the Dallas doctors had been made to change their opinion about the neck shot, and I am certain were browbeaten into accepting the official version. What counts are their first impressions.

On another matter, the placement of the exit wound in the back of the head is not relevant to the issue at hand: is the "back and back of the head photo " authentic? Especially if there was a large avulsive exit wound in the right rear TOP of the back of the head, that should be the dominant wound visible in that photo. But what to we see? It is the lower back of the head that appears darkened and hard to dicipher--right at the ear level and below. The top back appears intact. So if the exit wound was high in the back of the head, the photo has been faked; if it is lower, then the rendering of that part of the head shows attemtps to conceal this wound, which still should have been obvious in the photo. And if the photo is a fake, whatever it might say about the back wounds is meaningless as well. Worthless as evidence.

<snip>

What you don't seem to get, Daniel, is that the recollections of emergency room doctors is not the final say-so in determining cause of death. They observe and make reports. The body is then taken elsewhere and STUDIED by a pathologist, or coroner. It is the pathologist or coroner whose impressions are paramount, both in a court of law and in the field of medicine.

<snip>

Pat, the doctors weren't trying to ascertain the cause of death. They gave their views on the wounds. Yes they changed their minds after hearing what was said by the Bethesda autopsy, probably because of professional consideration, but that doesn't negate their first opinions.

Edited February 28, 2013 by Ray Mitcham

[Robin Unger]

Not sure how close these x-ray orientations are ?

click on image to view FULL SIZE

Edited February 28, 2013 by Robin Unger

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

Robin,

Excellent! The imposition over the Groden image a the top doesn't work, because that image is faked.

I know that you and others don't like to admit that any of these images are fake, but compare these two

with the two below. Is there any doubt that both sets cannot be authentic but that both could be fake?

The discrepancy was so great that, when the ARRB deposed Humes, he was asked whether the subject

had been given a shampoo and a haircut during autopsy, since the images are so blatantly inconsistent.

He replied, "No, no, no, no, no, . . . ." (See transcript in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), Appendix G.)

Your second imposition is exactly right and represents your work at its best! I also reveals the complete

indefensibility of the claim that the wound was on the right side of the head, where we can see the skull

flap extending to the right in the right-hand image. Here the blow-out has been blatantly covered up.

The image on the left is important, not only as proof that the throat wound was greatly enlarged to make

it resemble what it might have looked like had it actually been a wound of exit but for the eyes. Charles

Crenshaw closed his eyes just before the body was wrapped and placed in the casket. This is strange.

Edited February 28, 2013 by James H. Fetzer