A potential explanation for the disappearance of the throat and back bullets.

[Sandy Larsen]

Is it possible that the bullet hitting the throat exited the back, thus creating both wounds and leaving no bullet to find in the body?

It seems that that is what Dr. McClelland had in mind when he drew this diagram:

(Source)

McClelland clearly made this drawing some time after the day of the shooting, after he learned that there was a back wound.

BTW, on the day of the shooting McClelland thought that the throat wound was due to a bullet fragment, as per the following note he wrote that day:

 

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PARKLAND MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

ADMISSION NOTE

DATE AND HOUR Nov. 22, 1963 4:45 P.M. DOCTOR: Robert N. McClelland

Statement Regarding Assassination of President Kennedy

At approximately 12:45 PM on the above date I was called from the second floor of Parkland Hospital and went immediately to the Emergency Operating Room. When I arrived President Kennedy was being attended by Drs Malcolm Perry, Charles Baxter, James Carrico, and Ronald Jones. The President was at the time comatose from a massive gunshot wound of the head with a fragment wound of the trachea. An endotracheal tube and assisted respiration was started immediately by Dr. Carrico on Duty in the EOR when the President arrived. Drs. Perry, Baxter, and I then performed a tracheotomy for respiratory distress and tracheal injury and Dr. Jones and Paul Peters inserted bilateral anterior chest tubes for pneumothoracis secondary to the tracheomediastinal injury. Simultaneously Dr. Jones had started 3 cut-downs giving blood and fluids immediately, In spite of this, at 12:55 he was pronounced dead by Dr. Kemp Clark the neurosurgeon and professor of neurosurgery who arrived immediately after I did. The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple. He was pronounced dead after external cardiac message failed and ECG activity was gone.

(Thanks go to Micah Mileto for posting this note elsewhere today.)

 

[Cliff Varnell]

21 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Is it possible that the bullet hitting the throat exited the back, thus creating both wounds and leaving no bullet to find in the body?

Sandy, the "transiting bullet" scenario is usually promoted by Lone Nutters, and deserves the same rebuttal -- the back wound was probed at the autopsy by the competent one, Col. Pierre Finck.

There was no lane of transit for the posterior wound.

SS SA Glenn Bennett accurately described the location of the back shot 4 inches down the shoulder well after the throat shot.

This scenario doesn't account for the hairline fracture at T1.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Cliff Varnell

[Ron Ecker]

I can't keep all the scenarios straight anymore. Just when I think I remember the most likely explanation (some kind of dissolving bullets, bullets removed, bullet fell out, etc.), I forget it.

 

 

[Cliff Varnell]

6 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:

I can't keep all the scenarios straight anymore. Just when I think I remember the most likely explanation (some kind of dissolving bullets, bullets removed, bullet fell out, etc.), I forget it.

 

 

I know!

It's a Pet Theorist field day.

The Zombie Parlor Game will never end, sigh...

[Sandy Larsen]

14 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

32 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Is it possible that the bullet hitting the throat exited the back, thus creating both wounds and leaving no bullet to find in the body?

Sandy, the "transiting bullet" scenario is usually promoted by Lone Nutters, and deserves the same rebuttal -- the back wound was probed at the autopsy by the competent one, Col. Pierre Finck.

Wasn't Finck the one who arrived late? Maybe he isn't the one who probed the neck.

But regardless of that, I don't trust much of anything "official" that came out of Bethesda

 

14 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

There was no lane of transit for the posterior wound.

 

It's possible that there WAS a throat-to-back transit, but it was intentionally ignored because it didn't support the official lone nut scenario.

 

14 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

This scenario doesn't account for the hairline fracture at T1.

 

Cliff,

I have come to the conclusion that the throat wound was located behind Kennedy's tie. The holes in the front of the shirt support this. Most of the eyewitness testimony supports this. The McClelland drawing that I posted above supports it. Even the autopsy photos support it.

When I look at the autopsy photos, and the chest x-ray, it appears to me that Kennedy's neck was quite long... so long that the bullet hole on the throat wasn't much higher than the T3 bullet hole on the back. You may ask, how could the throat wound be so low? Just look at JFK's chest x-ray:

 

 

Look at how far down Kennedy's clavicle bones meet the sternum. That is extremely low.

For those who don't know the names of the bones:

 

Between the clavicle bones, just above the sternum, is the "pit" that we can feel with our fingers. That is where the knot of a necktie typically rests. Therefore, the chest x-ray shows that the bullet hole on the throat was quite low relative to the rib cage and vertebrae.

That is why it appears to me that the throat's bullet hole is not much higher that the back's T3 bullet hole.

But my point, for you Cliff,  is that the throat bullet hole appears to be significantly lower than T1.*   Which would beg the question, how would a (melting) bullet to the throat cause the hairline fracture at T1?

 

* My other point is that, if the bullet to the throat exited the back, the shooter didn't need to be at a high elevation in order to make the throat-to-back bullet path. which is what this thread is about.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

27 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

It's a Pet Theorist field day.

Speaking of that...

You do know,  don't you Cliff, that you are one of the Pet Theorists?

I don't think I'm a Pet Theorist. Currently there are four theories that I think are possible. (If this thread excludes one of them, that will make me a happy guy. Because I also have a hard time remembering the merits of each theory.)

 

[Cliff Varnell]

5 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Speaking of that...

You do know,  don't you Cliff, that you are one of the Pet Theorists?

Nope.  The only theories I examine are already in the historical record.

5 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I don't think I'm a Pet Theorist.

You implicitly bash witnesses like it's going out of style.  That's the beating heart of Pet Theorism.

 

 

 

[Cliff Varnell]

28 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Wasn't Finck the one who arrived late? Maybe he isn't the one who probed the neck.

The neck wasn't probed.  The back wound was probed.  They called Finck in for his expertise.

Quote

But regardless of that, I don't trust much of anything "official" that came out of Bethesda

We know this from the testimony of Roy Kellerman for the WC and Finck himself for the ARRB.

Quote

 

 

It's possible that there WAS a throat-to-back transit, but it was intentionally ignored because it didn't support the official lone nut scenario.

Sandy, I can't do this...You can cherry pick anything you want to support your theories, and claim everything that doesn't fit a fugazi.

There is no basis for a reasoned discussion.

JFK had a bruised larynx, which was above the tie so your whole "low throat wound" theory is untenable.

 

Edited August 12, 2018 by Cliff Varnell

[Sandy Larsen]

37 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

49 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Speaking of that...

You do know,  don't you Cliff, that you are one of the Pet Theorists?

Nope.  The only theories I examine are already in the historical record.

Just because an autopsist at Bethesda wondered out loud if a bullet could be a dissolving one doesn't make it so. Yet you take it as gospel. And at the same time you are taking the autopsists musings as gospel, you reject their written report.

Yours is a theory, just like everybody else's. And since you're convinced your theory is correct, and you defend it as such, that makes you a pet theorist. (Not that being a pet theorist is bad.)
 

[Cliff Varnell]

29 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Just because an autopsist at Bethesda wondered out loud if a bullet could be a dissolving one doesn't make it so. 

Correct!

But it's a lead which deserves to be followed.

It's not my theory, I'm drawing attention to the historical record.

And it was all the autopsists, btw...

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Yet you take it as gospel.

Not at all. 

The back shot could have been a short load and the throat shot went thru the windshield and both rounds were removed prior to the autopsy.

Quote

Yours is a theory, just like everybody else's.

And at the same time you are taking the autopsists musings as gospel, you reject their written report.

Their written report didn't follow proper autopsy protocol.

I only weigh medical evidence prepared according to proper autopsy protocol.

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Yours is a theory, just like everybody else's.

It's not mine.    It's what the autopsists speculated.

Quote

 

And since you're convinced your theory is correct, and you defend it as such,

You're projecting.  I never declared anything certain in this regard.

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that makes you a pet theorist. (Not that being a pet theorist is bad.)
 

Being a Pet Theorist is finding Lone Nutter talking points and repeating them in a "CT" context.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Cliff Varnell

[Sandy Larsen]

56 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Quote

I don't think I'm a Pet Theorist.

You implicitly bash witnesses like it's going out of style.  That's the beating heart of Pet Theorism.

 

The Parkland doctors said they thought the throat wound was an entrance, not that it certainly was.

Exit wounds are sometimes small like an entrance wound. (Source)

So I don't "bash" the Parkland doctors. I just give an alternative explanation for the small wound.

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Quote

But regardless of that, I don't trust much of anything "official" that came out of Bethesda

We know this from the testimony of Roy Kellerman for the WC and Finck himself for the ARRB.

 

But did Finck say that it was he who probed the back? I don't think so. I recall that it was Humes who did that. And so this probing of the back was not done by expert Finck. Finck merely reported what Humes told him.

And Roy Kellerman just repeated what Humes said.

Humes went along with the "official" lone nut scenario.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Sandy Larsen

[Cliff Varnell]

12 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

The Parkland doctors said they thought the throat wound was an entrance, not that it certainly was.

The contemporaneous notes of Carrico and Jones described the wound as an entrance.

You're making up an equivocation.

12 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Exit wounds are sometimes small like an entrance wound. (Source)

So I don't "bash" the Parkland doctors. I just give an alternative explanation for the small wound.

Which involves them being wrong.

Passive-aggressive witness bashing.

 

[Cliff Varnell]

9 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

But did Finck say that it was he who probed the back? I don't think so.

Look up his ARRB testimony and get back to us.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Quote

  It's possible that there WAS a throat-to-back transit, but it was intentionally ignored because it didn't support the official lone nut scenario.

Sandy, I can't do this...You can cherry pick anything you want to support your theories, and claim everything that doesn't fit a fugazi.

 

And you don't cherry pick, Cliff? Of course you do, otherwise you'd believe the official story, that the shot to the head came from behind and blew out the top-right of the head.

You question what came from the autopsy just like I do. And you choose to believe only those things that support the theory of dissolving bullet. At least I am willing to consider other possibilities.