Pat Speer

They watched the President go by, and heard the shots. They then walked/jogged around the west side of the building and re-entered the building by the west loading dock, because Shelley wanted to call his wife. This would have taken but a short time. It's a tight squeeze, but it seems likely they were at the back of the building when Adams came down, and that this was a few seconds before Baker and Truly arrived at the elevator.

Which witnesses? They didn't all point to the same location.

From Chapter 18d: Since those rejecting the possibility the Parkland doctors could be mistaken about the location of Kennedy's head wound cite Professor Elizabeth Loftus in support of their position, a short discussion of Professor Loftus' research is in order. First of all, here's their argument... On Table 3.1 of Loftus' 1979 book Eyewitness Testimony she presents a chart demonstrating memory accuracy in relation to saliency or importance. This shows that when it came to salient details, (what was determined after the event to be most frequently discussed or noticed) the recollections of the eyewitnesses to the event used as a test were 98% accurate, while the recollections of the details that were less widely noticed were only 61% accurate. Well, this suggests (at least to those citing this chart, e.g. Dr. David Mantik, Dr. Gary Aguilar) that it would be extremely unlikely for so many witnesses to be mistaken as to the location of Kennedy's head wound. But there are a number of problems with this conclusion. To begin with, this chart was based upon a 1971 study by Marshall et al (that was published in the Harvard Review) in which the "witnesses" were shown a short film, and then interviewed immediately thereafter. The interviewers had previously shown the film to another group of witnesses, who had listed what they had noticed in the film. And this list helped the interviewers determine what was "salient." The interviewers then asked the new group of witnesses a series of multiple choice questions, and from this they determined that the new group of witnesses was 98% accurate on the salient points. The problem, of course, is that this study bears no resemblance to what happened with the Parkland witnesses. 1. The Parkland witnesses were not bystanders observing everything as closely as possible in anticipation they would be tested on it, but participants in a fast-moving and traumatic event. 2. The Parkland witnesses' first recollections as to the wound location were not given immediately after leaving Trauma Room One, but an hour or more afterwards, on up to 30 years or more afterwards. 3. There is no reason whatsoever to assume the precise wound location was a "salient" detail. The salient details in the study cited by Loftus, after all, were determined by pre-screening the film and noting what details were most often listed. There is no reason whatsoever to assume the precise location of the head wound would have been one of the details most listed by those watching a film of the President in Trauma Room One. Now that might sound a bit silly. One should consider, however, that no one at Parkland Hospital had a clue where the shots came from, or where the limousine was on Elm Street when the shots were fired. As a result, there is no reason to believe the exact location of the President’s head wound was of interest to them, and should be considered a salient detail. So...what was a salient detail, then, if not the exact wound location? Well, one such detail was whether or not the wound was a survivable wound. The witnesses, after all, were 100% consistent on that point. They all said "no." And that's not the only point on which they were consistent. While recollections of the exact location of the President’s head wound varied from being on the top of his head to being at the very back of his head, all the witnesses remembered clearly and correctly that the wound was not on his face. It seems likely then that the main focus of everyone’s attention was the President’s face. Now, this realization--that the witnesses were focused on Kennedy's face--helps support what we've already discussed regarding rotation and perception. The witnesses were mentally rotating Kennedy's face while looking at his wounds and this led to some confusion as to the exact location of the head wound beyond that it was in his hair in back of his face. Or not. We will almost certainly never know exactly why so many doctors got it wrong. But it's enough to know that mistakes of this nature are actually quite common, and of no surprise whatsoever to the cognitive psychologists tasked with studying such mistakes. Don't believe me? Well, then, let's go back to Loftus. Yep, when I finally got around to reading Elizabeth Loftus' book Eyewitness Testimony for myself--as opposed to reading summaries of her work by those claiming it supported the accuracy of the Parkland witnesses--I realized just how WRONG it was for anyone to claim her work supports the accuracy of the Parkland witnesses. Sure, there's that chart citing a 1971 study in which witness recollections were 98% accurate on salient points when taken immediately following the viewing of a film, but what about the rest of the book? What about Loftus' own studies? Well, on page 54 she cites the negative effect of time on memory. She then proceeds to cite a number of studies in which certain kinds of behavior add to this decay. On page 55, she cites a 1927 incident in which a newspaper reporter misreported the substance of a college lecture, where the teacher then tested his students on the lecture, and found that those who'd read the incorrect article made many more mistakes than those who'd relied solely upon their attendance at the lecture. The teacher had discovered, to his dismay, that reading something that isn't true about something someone had witnessed for oneself could negatively impact one's memory of that event. And that's just the beginning. Loftus then proceeds to cite a 1975 study of her own in which subjects were shown a film of a car making a right turn without coming to a stop at a stop sign, and causing an accident. Half the subjects were then asked the approximate speed of the car when it ran the stop sign, with the other half being asked the approximate speed of the car when it made its right turn. All the students were then asked if they'd seen the stop sign. 53% of those reminded of the stop sign in a preceding question claimed they'd seen the sign, while only 35% of those not reminded of the sign in a preceding question claimed they'd seen the sign. Well, this shows how the questioning of a witness can inadvertently "enhance" their memory. And not just for the better. For another 1975 study she showed forty subjects a short videotape of a student demonstration. At the end of the tape, she handed out some questionnaires in which she asked half the students the sex of the leader of "the four demonstrators", and the other half the sex of the leader of "the twelve demonstrators." A week later the subjects returned to answer additional questions. At this time, they were asked the number of demonstrators they'd observed. The correct answer was eight. Even so, those who'd been asked the "four" question recalled seeing an average of 6.4 demonstrators (an apparent compromise between the four they'd been asked about and the eight they'd actually observed), and those who'd been asked the "twelve" question recalled seeing an average of 8.9 (an apparent compromise between the twelve they'd been asked about and the eight they'd actually observed). This tendency to compromise was further studied in 1977. In this study, the subjects were shown a series of slides depicting a car accident. They were then asked a series of questions about the slides. One of the questions dealt with the color of a car passing the accident. This car was actually green. Half the subjects were asked about the blue car driving past the accident, with the other half being asked the same question, but without being told the car was blue. The subjects then engaged in another activity. When they returned to the study, twenty minutes later, the subjects were shown a color wheel containing thirty color strips and asked to match these to ten objects they'd observed on the slides. Those who'd been asked about a blue car "tended to pick a blue or bluish-green as the color that they remembered for the car that passed the accident. Those not given any color information tended to choose a color near the true green. Thus, the introduction of the false color information significantly affected the ability of subjects to correctly identify a color that they had seen before." On page 58 she cites another of her studies in which subjects were shown a series of slides depicting a car accident. (I think we can presume these were the same slides used in her earlier study...) Half were then asked if another car passed as the car stopped at a stop sign, with the other half being asked if another car passed as the car stopped at a yield sign. (There were, in fact, two different sets of slides, one showing it stop at a stop sign, and one showing it stop at a yield sign.) In any event, when shown slides a bit later in which the car was by one of the signs and asked if they'd seen this slide before, 75% of those who had been asked--but 20 minutes earlier--about the sign which they'd been shown answered affirmatively. Now, that's no surprise. But, here's the shocker: 59% of those who had been asked--but 20 minutes earlier--about a sign they had not been shown also answered affirmatively when shown a slide of that sign. This, to be clear, was a sign they had not been shown, but they claimed to recognize anyway, twenty minutes after being asked a question in which the nature of the sign--stop or yield--was misrepresented. Now, the control question for this study suggests that 25% of those shown an image of a sign they'd been shown will fail to recognize it. And this in turn supports that 25% of those claiming to have seen a sign they'd not been shown would have claimed they'd seen it even if they'd never been asked a misleading question. But this still suggests that 34% of the subjects were led to recall seeing something they'd never seen... from being asked a question that suggested they'd seen it. Loftus then cites a similar study in which her students served as subjects. She showed them a film of a car racing down a country road. Some of them were then asked about a barn on the side of the road. A week later, all of the students were asked if they recalled seeing a barn in the film. 17% of those asked about the barn the week before recalled seeing a barn, while only 3% of those not asked about the barn the week before recalled seeing a barn. No barn was shown in the film. It follows, then, that 14% of the students were fooled into thinking they saw a barn just by being asked about it. She then cites another less scientific study involving her students. In this one, her students staged a fake theft, in which a woman left her bag unattended in a crowded place and a man pretended to steal something out of her bag. The woman then returned to her bag and cried out that a tape recorder had been stolen. She and a friend then took the phone numbers of a number of witnesses. A student posing as an insurance agent called a week later. Well, more than half the witnesses claimed they saw the supposedly stolen (but actually non-existent) tape recorder, with some of them describing it in great detail. She then cites another study involving saliency, to which those citing her book should have referred. This one is from 1977, by Dritsas and Hamilton. For this study subjects were shown films of industrial accidents, and then asked a series of questions--some deliberately misleading--about the films. Well, to no one's surprise, they found that salient or central items or events were recalled more accurately--and were less likely to be altered by misleading information--than peripheral items. But look at these numbers. The subjects were but 47% accurate on peripheral items. Even worse, their recollections of peripheral items could be altered via misleading information 69% of the time. Now let's see how they fared on central items. The recollections of the subjects on central items were but 81% accurate. (That's a far cry from the 98% suggested by the study depicted in Loftus' Figure 3.1). More telling, though, is this. 47% of those correctly recalling a central item or event recalled it incorrectly after receiving misleading information. This all leads up to the largest study cited by Loftus, this one involving 600 subjects. For this study, she once again showed the subjects a series of slides involving a stop sign or yield sign, and once again asked some of the subjects a subsequent question in which they were given misleading information about the sign they'd been shown. But for this one, she asked some of the subjects what they saw immediately after viewing the slides, and asked some of them the same question one day, two days, or even a week later. The results were staggering. While those questioned immediately after viewing the slides--and not asked any misleading questions regarding the sign shown in the slides--correctly selected the slide they'd been shown 80% of the time, those questioned a week later--and asked a misleading question about the sign shown in the slides--correctly selected the slide they'd been shown but 20% of the time. Our memories are fragile. They are subject to change within moments of their creation, based upon subsequently received information. They also erode with time, and grow more subject to change as time goes by. The reception of misleading information can not only compromise our memories, where we remember things partly as they were and partly as we've been told they were, but lead us to recall seeing things we never saw, and remember things that never happened. But who am I to blather on? Here is Loftus' own summary of her findings, as published in her memoir, Witness for the Defense (1991): "As new bits and pieces of information are added into long-term memory, the old memories are removed, replaced, crumpled up, or shoved into corners. Memories don't just fade...they also grow. What fades is the initial perception, the actual experience of the events. But every time we recall an event, we must reconstruct the memory, and with each recollection the memory may be changed--colored by succeeding events, other people's recollections or suggestions...Truth and reality, when seen through the filter of our memories, are not objective facts but subjective, interpretive realities." As a result, I'm forced to reject the primacy of the Parkland witnesses. Their statements have been erratic from the get-go, and have only grown more erratic over time. Those holding them up as a "smoking gun" in the JFK case both misrepresent the location of the wound described by the bulk of these witnesses, and the consistency of these witnesses as a whole. There's just no "there" there. Of course, this is a double-edged sword. The memories of those deferring to the accuracy of the autopsy photos twenty-five years after the shooting are not necessarily more credible than the memories of those claiming they saw cerebellum, and that's it. While the one group is seemingly more malleable, the other is seemingly less reasonable. It's impossible to say who is right based upon words and words alone. So that's a choice I choose not to make. The autopsy photos, x-rays, and autopsy report are consistent with the recollections of the Dealey Plaza witnesses. And for me that is enough...

It's just not true that doctors would never mistake cerebrum for cerebellum. Outside of Clark, most of the doctors rarely, if ever, saw brain matter. It was not their specialty. They could no more differentiate between macerated cerebrum and cerebellum than your allergist could diagnose your leaky bowel. Once doctors move outside their specialty, they're just making educated guesses. And I know because I've had lots of doctors over the past few years. Far too many. Now, Clark, clearly, should have known the difference. And it's unclear if he ever came to believe he was wrong. But it seems likely he did, seeing as he denounced conspiracy theorists as money-starved wackos in the press, and buddied up to John Lattimer, single-assassin theorist extraordinaire.

As far as semantics... One does not say one is hallucinating when one is simply mistaken. People thinking a ball is in a magician's left hand when it is really in his right are not hallucinating. People thinking a runner is safe at first when he was really out by a step are not hallucinating. People seeing a woman dressed like their wife from a distance, and thinking it is their wife, are not hallucinating. Here's a quick definition of hallucinating. A hallucination is a false perception of objects or events involving your senses: sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Hallucinations seem real, but they’re not. Chemical reactions and/or abnormalities in your brain cause hallucinations. Hallucinations are typically a symptom of a psychosis-related disorder, particularly schizophrenia, but they can also result from substance use, neurological conditions and some temporary situations. A person may experience a hallucination with or without the insight that what they’re experiencing isn’t real. When a person thinks their hallucination is real, it’s considered a psychotic symptom. Conclusion: Pat Speer never said, nor implied, that witnesses seeing things incorrectly are hallucinating.

No, you HAVE been duped by the cover-up. The small EOP entrance/large top of the head exit NEVER made sense, but people bought into because they were familiar with hunting ammunition, and such a combination of wounds is possible with hunting ammunition. It's not tooting my own horn, because I'm sick and tired and consider my work on the JFK case largely a waste of time, but Chapter 16b on my website is probably the most important "book" on the case... Period. In this chapter, I present the history of the study of wound ballistics, and show how JFK's head wound only makes sense if it was a tangential wound of both entrance and exit--precisely as presumed by Dr. Clark. Over the course of this chapter, and then in the following chapters, I go on to show how the scalp wounds, skull fractures, tears to the dura, and tears in the brain ALL support that the fatal injury struck tangentially at the top of the skull. It is, in short, a scientific fact, that the fatal wound impacted at the supposed exit location, which means there were two head wounds, and thus--almost certainly--two shooters. Now, I've worked with a group of doctors who want to take this information, and use it to support a shot from the front. And I'm okay with that because to me the provenance of the shot comes second, and what matters is that people realize that the large wound in the films and photos is THE SMOKING GUN that proves a conspiracy, that was hidden in plain sight by the WC and government panels, and then buried under mountains of dirt by those claiming all the evidence is fake, because it must be fake because it supports the Oswald did it scenario. ONLY... they were wrong. It supported no such thing.

Nonsense. Pure nonsense. If you study human cognition you will find that people are often uniformly incorrect about certain things. They can 1) interpret things incorrectly, and 2) remember them incorrectly, and 3) be swayed by outside forces into changing their memories without their consciously doing so. As time passes, moreover, it only gets worse, and people's first impressions become lost, to the extent they no longer recall what they saw, but recall what they recalled they saw the last time they recalled it. Like a tape recording of a tape recording of a tape recording, the accuracy gets lost. But the emotional impact often gains focus. For this reason, a loud frightening sound will get louder over time, and a large angry man will get bigger and scarier over time. Now, all this goes to show how memories are unreliable. But more important in this instance is how images can be interpreted incorrectly, in a relatively uniform manner. Well, it has everything to do with how our brains organize information. Take, for example, South America. People have seen it on maps and globes since they were kids. It hasn't moved. And yet, when asked to draw the western hemisphere, people uniformly place South America directly beneath North America, when it is actually to the east of it. Or, take coins. It's not as common as it once was, but people used to handle coins every freaking day. And yet repeated studies found that when asked to draw a penny, the vast majority of Americans drew Lincoln's left profile, and not his right. This can be partially explained by the fact the penny is the only coin with a right profile. But still. Millions upon millions of people who've handled pennies tens of thousands of times in their lifetime...were unable to draw one. Now, why is that? Because we are piss-poor recording devices. It's not what we're built for. Our brains are wired to take shortcuts and simplify things, and our memories are sculpted to reinforce our emotional states, and not see things as they are. It's a constant struggle for those trying to get things right. But most don't even bother. Let's return to the back of the head witnesses. When asked to point out the location of the large head wound, the majority of the Parkland witnesses have pointed to a location at the top of the back of the head above the ear. Well, apparently, this triggered something in the research community, and people went hog-wild, and took from this that egads! the back of the head was blown and the Harper fragment really was occipital bone, and the doctors really did see cerebellum and so on. Only... they were looking at this stuff with their hearts and not their eyes. Well over a decade ago, I began pointing out that the witnesses presented in Groden's book did not support his thesis that the autopsy photos were faked to hide an occipital wound. At the time, this drew little support, aside from Tink Thompson. And since that time, roughly once or twice a year, someone joins the Ed Forum or publishes an article online to go after me, and call me a Warren Commission defender, whatever. They could not be more wrong. But they don't really care. It just feels so good to kick someone.

FWIW, Keven, I would be glad to accept that the black patch was painted in. But the Dealey Plaza witnesses--including and especially Hargis--are clear that the explosion of blood and brain occurred on the right side of the head, where it is shown in the films. It also makes little sense that they would paint over a hole on the back of the head but leave the gigantic exit defect alone. As stated ad nauseum, I combed through the history of wound ballistics and proved that M/C bullets don't go in small and explode skull into the sky, and that the only plausible explanation for a wound that massive was that is was not an exit related to the EOP entrance, but a tangential wound of both entrance and exit.

Cut the B.S. I have never said anyone mass-hallucinated anything. I have said over and over again that the location of the head wound in the photos is deceptive, as there is a big flap at the crown of the head that may very well have flapped open when JFK was on his back at Parkland. As another flap, by the ear, was almost certainly closed at Parkland, the net effect would be to shift the appearance of the wound back two inches or so, when compared to the photos. I have also said, and no one has countered this, that people routinely make mistakes when trying to remember the appearance of rotated images. As JFK's head, normally viewed in the upright position, was viewed by all at Parkland in a prone position, and for at least part of the time tilted backwards, it is clear this would effect the ability of those viewing a hole surrounded by a bloody mess of hair from precisely recalling its location There are numerous articles on this in psychology magazines. It is not my theory. It is a scientific fact. So I believe that contributed to the confusion as well. While I think the flaps, and the rotation of the head, were factors in so many misidentifying the wound's location upon recall hours months and decades after the body was viewed, it seems clear to me the main factors were social factors. Kennedy's time at Parkland was stressful for everyone involved, and probably felt like a blur. Within a short time, before anyone had written a report, two esteemed doctors, Clark and Perry, held a press conference, in which they described the wounds. A few weeks later the reports of the doctors who'd written reports were published in a Texas medical journal, which was undoubtedly widely circulated within the hospital. As a consequence most everyone working there would have become familiarized with what the official story was and what they "should"have seen. And, being humans, they would accommodate this in their memories. Now, here, once again, I didn't make this up. This kind of stuff has been studied hundreds of times in hundreds of ways, and the result is always the same...people's memories change when exposed to the statements of others, true or not. One such study, for example, had people answer questions regarding a video they'd watched of a blue car running a stop sign, only the questions referred to the car as green. A week later, in a follow-up series of questions, the subjects were asked the color of the car in the video, and many said green. The asking of an inaccurate question had led them to recall something inaccurately. In any event, the witness pool at Parkland has been tainted from almost the start. Which brings me to a second point, Sandy. You keep saying that 20 witnesses said "early on" etc etc etc. What do you mean by that? What is early on? Most people selling the back of the head myth in books and articles have mixed in people who were barely involved who saw the body for a few seconds, and said nothing about it for decades, and present them as credible. Perhaps you could create us a list of the statements regarding the head wound in chronological order. Now that might prove helpful. Oh, wait, I already did that. It's in chapter 18c.

Oh my. For those confused by all this, this character is citing a James Jenkins drawing showing a wound on the back, top and side of the head which stretches to the front...as evidence for a comparatively small blowout wound on the far back of the head. No matter what you think the head wound looked like when first viewed at Bethesda, this is clearly the wound as observed after the removal of the brain, and not the wound as first viewed. The least bit of research, moreover, would have proved what I have claimed for roughly a decade...that Jenkins told Livingstone and later Law and eventually a roomful of researchers, including myself, that the far back of the head at the level of the ear--the occipital bone--was shattered but still extant beneath the scalp. Still, he doesn't dispute that, really, does he? No, he makes out instead that the only evidence for this is my say-so. That's not research. That's whining. "I don't like what you say, so I'm gonna tell everyone you're a xxxx, without even checking out what you've said against the multiple sources you provide." What a crock.

Well, then, please explain what his point is. Is it that the body was altered, or that the photos were faked? P.S. I saw that Bobby Hargis was included in Keven's bogus list of back of the head witnesses.Well, here's what Hargis really had to say... Bobby W. Hargis rode to the right of Martin and to the left of Mrs. Kennedy. (11-22-63 article in the Dallas Times-Herald. Note: in 1995 Hargis would tell researchers Ian Griggs and Mark Oakes that he didn't write this article and that it must have been based on a conversation he'd had with a reporter in a hallway) “About halfway down between Houston and the underpass I heard the first shot. It sounded like a real loud firecracker. When I heard the sound, the first thing I thought about was a gunshot. I looked around and about then Governor Connally turned around and looked at the President with a real surprised look on his face…The President bent over to hear what the Governor had to say. When he raised back up was when the President got shot…I felt blood hit me in the face and the Presidential car stopped almost immediately after that…I racked (parked) my motorcycle and jumped off. I ran to the North side of Elm to see if I could find where the bullets were coming from. I don’t think the President was hit with the first shot… I felt that the Governor was shot first." (Undated typescript of interview with Hargis found within the Dallas-Times-Herald's photograph collection, as reported by Richard Trask in Pictures of the Pain, 1994. This is almost certainly the basis for the 11-22 article) "I felt blood hit me in the face, and the presidential car stopped almost immediately after that and stayed stopped about half a second, then took off at a high rate of speed. I racked my cycle and jumped off. I ran to the north side of Elm Street to see if I could find where the bullets came from. I don't think the President got hit with the first shot, but I don't know for sure. When I heard the first shot, it looked like he bent over. I feel that the Governor was shot first. I could be wrong. Right after the first shot, I was trying to look and see if the President got shot. When I saw the look on Connally's face, I knew somebody was shooting at the car...The fatal bullet struck the President in the right side of the head. I noticed the people in the Texas School Book Depository were looking up to see the top. I didn't know if the President stopped under the triple underpass or not. I didn't know for sure if the shots had come from the Book Depository. I thought they might have come from the trestle." (11-23-63 UPI article found in the Fresno Bee) “I saw flesh flying after the shot, and the president’s hair flew up,” Hargis said, “I knew he was dead.” (11-23-63 article in the Houston Post) "A Dallas motorcycle officer who was riding two feet from the presidential car described to the Houston Post Friday what he saw when a sniper fired the shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Gov. John B. Connally. 'When the first rifle bullet spewed into the open limousine,' said Patrolman J.H. Hargis, 'The President bent forward in the car.' Hargis, a nine-year veteran of the force, said the first shot hit the governor. 'Then immediately after that,' Hargis said, 'the second shot was fired, striking the President in the right side of the head.' The Secret Service man driving the car immediately picked up the phone inside the car and said "Let's go to the nearest hospital.' Hargis said he jumped off his motorcycle and began a search of the building from which the shots were fired. 'I knew it was high and from the right. I looked for any sign of activity in the windows, but I didn't see anybody.'" (11-24-63 article in the New York Sunday News) "We turned left onto Elm St. off Houston, about a half block from where it happened. I was right alongside the rear fender on the left side of the President's car, near Mrs. Kennedy. When I heard the first explosion, I knew it was a shot. I thought that Gov. Connally had been hit when I saw him turn toward the President with a real surprised look. The President then looked like he was bent over or that he was leaning toward the Governor, talking to him. As the President straightened back up, Mrs. Kennedy turned toward him, and that was when he got hit in the side of his head, spinning it around. I was splattered with blood. Then I felt something hit me. It could have been concrete or something, but I thought at first I might have been hit. Then I saw the limousine stop, and I parked my motorcycle at the side of the road, got off and drew my gun. Then this Secret Service agent (in the President's car) got his wits about him and they took off. The motorcycle officer on the right side of the car was Jim Chaney. He immediately went forward and announced to the chief that the President had been shot." (4-3-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, 6H293-296): “I was next to Mrs. Kennedy when I heard the first shot, and at that time the President bent over, and Governor Connally turned around. He was sitting directly in front of him, and (had) a real shocked and surprised expression on his face…I thought Governor Connally had been shot first, but it looked like the President was bending over to hear what he had to say, and I thought to myself then that Governor Connally, the Governor had been hit, and then as the President raised back up like that the shot that killed him hit him.” (When asked about the blood) "when President Kennedy straightened back up in the car the bullet him in the head, the one that killed him and it seemed like his head exploded, and I was splattered with blood and brain, and kind of bloody water, It wasn't really blood. And at that time the Presidential car slowed down. I heard somebody say 'Get going' or 'get going.'" (When asked about the source of the shots) "Well, at the time it sounded like the shots were right next to me. There wasn't any way in the world I could tell where they were coming from, but at the time there was something in my head that said that they probably could have been coming from the railroad overpass, because I thought since I had got splattered, with blood--I was Just a little back and left of--just a little bit back and left of Mrs. Kennedy, but I didn't know. I had a feeling that it might have been from the Texas Book Depository, and these two places was the primary place that could have been shot from." (8-7-68 interview with Tom Bethel and Al Oser, investigators working on behalf New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, NARA #180-10096-10005) (When discussing how he could have been sprayed with blood, if the shot came from behind) "Well, that right there is what I've wondered about all along, but see there's ah -- you've got to take into consideration we were moving at the time, and when he got hit all that stuff went like this, and of course I run through it." (When discussing his interpretation of the direction of the shots) "Well, like I say, being that we know that the shot came from the School Book Depository, right then it was kind of hard to say what run through your mind. You know you pick up these little things. You don't know why you do it. You don't know why you do 'em, you just do 'em. It's just kind of instinct. But I had in my mind the shots you couldn't tell where they was coming, but it seemed like the motion of the President's head or his body and the splatter had hit me, it seemed like both the locations needed investigating, and that's why I investigated them. But you couldn't tell, there was -- it looked like a million windows on the Book Depository.You couldn't tell exactly if there was anyone in there with a gun." (When asked if the shots could have come from anywhere) "Uh huh. That's correct." (When asked if he saw the President's head jerk as a response to a bullet's impact) "Yes. Uh huh...To the left forward. Kind of that way...I couldn't see what part of it got hit...If he'd got hit in the rear, I'd have been able to see it. All I saw was just a splash come out on the other side." (a 1971 interview of Hargis by "Whitney," someone working for researcher Fred Newcomb, as presented by Larry Rivera and Jim Fetzer on the Veterans Today website, 4-3-14) (When asked how long the limo stopped) "Oh – you mean after that first shot?...Only about uh, oh 3-4 seconds. Maybe about 5-6. That’s all...but you won’t find that in the Warren Commission report." (When asked if it said the limo stopped) "Ah no I don’t think it didn’t – you’ve seen a rolling stop have you? It’s going less than one mile an hour?...Well that’s what he was doing he wasn’t completely stopped or dead still." The next three reports were posted on the Education Forum by Chris Scally, 6-21-11. (Interview by HSCA investigators James Kelly and Harold Rose on 10-26-77, notes transcribed 11-16-77, JFK document #003300, RIF 180-10107-10243) ""When they turned left on Elm from Houston, he was watching the President's car. Shortly afterwards, he heard a shot. He saw President Kennedy slump forward and Governor Connally turn. He felt at the time that Connally might have been hit and the President was leaning forward to find out what happened. He said the first shot sounded to him like a firecracker. The second shot hit JFK in the head. The presidential car had slowed almost to a stop. After the second shot, the car accelerated rapidly and sped to Parkland Hospital. Hargis said he pulled over to the curb at the grassy knoll. He got off the bike and went up the hill on the grass. He didn't see anyone with a gun, so he went over to the Texas School Book Depository at 411 Elm Street and helped other police officers seal it off." (Interview by HSCA investigator Jack Moriarty dated 8-8-78, notes transcribed 8-23-78, JFK document #014362, RIF 180-10113-10272) "When the first report sounded, he was "about one-third of the way down Elm", having made the last turn from Houston. It sounded like a firecracker, but he was unable to tell where it came from. He looked to his right and saw Connally turning and the President appeared to be leaning forward as if he was trying to hear what the Governor was saying. He had seen JFK lean forward in like manner during the motorcade as he and Connally had been conversing. This time, though, the President had an expression of pain on his face. When the second shot was fired - no doubt gunfire this time as it hit the President's head - the limousine slowed so much it practically stopped and he had to put his feet down to maintain balance. Then the driver accelerated and several motormen started the escort. Hargis remained behind parking his bike where it stood in the left side of Elm now about one half way down the hill. He ran to the grassy knoll and continued until he had reached the top section of the underpass. Finding nothing significant, he returned to his bike - still on the stand with the radio on (and working) and the engine off. He started the bike and drove back up Elm and parked just west of the front door of the TSBD where he joined Brewer as they became part of the effort to seal off this building, although, he adds, at that time no-one was certain just where the shots had come from." (Interview by HSCA investigator Jack Moriarty, 12-29-78, JFK document # 014224, RIF 180-10109-10354). "Reached Mr. Hargis at his new residence... today and developed the following additional information. At the sound of the first shot, he was "in position" - some five to six feet from the left corner of the rear bumper of John F. Kennedy limousine. At the sound of the second shot, he was a bit closer (the limousine slowed and nearly stopped) - perhaps four feet. By the third shot (although he doesn't recall the actual, but saw John F. Kennedy's head explode), he was "almost even with Jackie - no more than two or three feet, if that." (Interview with NBC broadcast on the 1988 program That Day In November) "It sounded like a firecracker to me and I thought 'Oh Lord, let it be a firecracker. And it looked like the President was bending over, forward. And then when he raised back up is when that second shot hit him in the head." (5-14-92 video-taped interview with Mark Oakes) "I was trying to catch up to my assigned station when the first shot rang out...I saw Connally turn around...I thought he had been shot. It sounded like a firecracker but then when I saw Connally's face I thought he'd been shot. Which he had...The second shot made his head like a ripe tomato when you shoot it with a gun on the ground. It explodes. That's how his head did. It exploded. Now you got brain matter, blood, and everything else on you" (6-26-95 video-taped interview with Mark Oakes and Ian Griggs) (On the explosion of Kennedy's head) "It didn't only hit me...It showered everything in the car behind it...You put a ripe tomato, and you shoot it with a gun and it splatters. That's what it was...But the first shot sounded like a firecracker...I've been fired at like five times and every one of them sounded like a firecracker--to me..." (Later, after voicing his support for the single-bullet theory) "There was not three shots; there was only two. I only heard two. One got him through the back and one got him through the head. That's it...The facts was there was two shots--one that hit him in the back and one that hit him in the head. And the one that hit him in the head just busted his head wide open. That's it." (On William Greer, the driver of the limo) "That guy slowed down, maybe his orders was to slow down, slowed down almost to a stop." (11-23-95 Dallas Morning News article found in the Herald Journal) "'I'm the only one living who was beside the car,' said Detective Hargis, now 63. 'When he was shot in the head, it splashed up, and I ran into all that brain matter, and all that. It came up and down, all over my uniform." (November 1998 interview with Texas Monthly) “About ten seconds after we made that left-hand turn, that first shot rang out…I remember Kennedy leaned forward to listen to what he had to say. And then when he raised back up, that second shot hit him in the head. But we figured out that he had got shot—that first bullet had gone through the upper part of his back, well through the seat, and hit Connally’s wrist and glanced off and went into his thigh.” (Interview within an 11-22-03 WBAP radio program found on Youtube) "Yeah I looked toward the President and I thought maybe John Connally was hit because he turned around to look at the President. He had a real surprised look on his face. Kennedy was bending over like he was listening to what Connally had to say. When he raised back up, that second shot hit him in the head. That's what killed him, There was only two shots fired." (11-22-03 article in the Dallas Morning News) “Hargis differs with the Warren Commission and most eyewitnesses, insisting that only two shots were fired. With the first, “a thousand million things went through my mind,” he says. After the last, “there was a plume of blood and brains and plasma. It was just like a fog, and I ran right through it.” (Oral History interview performed for the Sixth Floor Museum, 9-24-10) (When asked if his observations suggested that the fatal shot came from in front of Kennedy) "No." (When asked if it bothered him that people use his statements to suggest there'd been a conspiracy) "Yeah, it does...There was no conspiracy, whatsoever. There was two shots fired, and both shots, we found the bullet." (On the possibility there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll) "To me it sounds ludicrous." (11-22-13 article in The New York Post) "Few people were closer to President Kennedy’s assassination than the Dallas motorcycle cop who got splattered with his blood and gore. Bobby Hargis was riding a Harley-Davidson just behind and to the left of the Lincon Continental convertible that carried Kennedy through Dealey Plaza. The motorcade was moving so slowly, Hargis said, that “I had a hard time holding my Harley up. I never let it fall, but I had to use my kickstand quite a bit.” “People were so happy and they were crowding into the street,” Hargis said — until the shots that killed Kennedy cracked the air. “I saw him being struck. Big plume of brains and blood. I rode right through the plume. I didn’t even notice it,” said Hargis, 81. As chaos erupted, Hargis parked the bike and ran into the Book Depository looking for the shooter. Later, he recalled, “Another officer said to me, ‘You’ve got something on your lip.’ It was part of (Kennedy’s) brains.” Hargis said the shooting left him feeling guilty that and his colleagues had failed to protect the president. “Until then, I was real proud to be a police officer,” he said. “It seemed like we didn’t have it all together. We could have done better.” He also can’t forget how quickly things changed when Oswald opened fire. “One minute (Kennedy’s) so happy. They’re smiling and everybody’s happy. The crowd was happy,” he said. “And it was all just destroyed.”

What??? Of course they had an interest in what was going on in the railroad yards. They started to go over there but were stopped by a policeman who told them to go back in the building.

If she'd claimed they went to the passenger elevator first, as you assume, the WC representative, presumably Belin, would have been delighted. Ball and Belin were looking for ways to discredit Adams. It follows then that Styles' discussion with a WC representative, a discussion for which this representative failed to write a memo, moreover, was supportive of Adams' story.

I agree. Well after Adams, Lovelady, and Shelley had testified, Ball wrote a memo saying they needed to call Eddie Piper back and ask if he saw Adams come down the stairs. He was clearly looking for more ways to discredit her. IF he thought Styles might do the trick, he would most certainly have called her. But he didn't. Which should lead us to believe he KNEW she wouldn't undermine Adams. And this raises a question... Did Ball or Belin call her or have the DPD call her, and ask her some questions, and then fail to take her testimony, because of how she answered these questions? P.S. I just noticed that Styles told Murphy in 2008 that she met with a WC representative briefly in her office, and was confused as to why they didn't call her as a witness. I think we know the answer.

At quick glance it looks like you are doubling down on all your nonsense, including that I am a LN. If you'd been following this forum for more than a minute before you decided to fly in and litter it with your propaganda, you'd know that I am long-time CT, who is respected by many on both sides of the fence...because I refuse to swallow and recycle garbage. Now, I'm still waiting... You seem to be one who exists primarily to attack, and pretend everyone who disagrees with you is part of some conspiracy. Since it appears you believe the images have been faked, it appears you believe the photographic evidence has been altered and not the body. Or is it both? In any event, what do you make of Aguilar's dismissal of Horne and body alteration? Do you agree with him that all this talk of body alteration has been a huge distraction? P.S. You owe Clint Hill an apology. It is unfair to claim he changed his opinion about the head wound location, when he continued to use the same words when describing it, and was simply pointing out what he meant. IF he was part of a conspiracy to support the Oswald did it crowd, moreover, he would have said he now accepted the single-bullet theory, or some such thing, and would have described the brain wound as a hole in the brain substance, and not in the manner he did.

She was very much alive at the time. I don't actually know. Is she still with us? In any event, it would have been quite easy for her to put out the word that she thought her words had been misrepresented, if she thought they had been misrepresented. When Max Holland put together that awful program suggesting the first shot was fired before Zapruder started filming, and hit the traffic light, Tina Towner and James Tague both let it be known they thought the premise of the show was horse-poop. If Styles had thought she came downstairs much later than presumed, it seems clear she would have said as much. As it is, she refused to be tied down, and said for all she knew Oswald raced down before her, or raced down after. IOW, she didn't have a clear recollection...50 years after the fact.

I read a book once on the history of Presidential maladies, and it made the point that RFK hadn't lied, technically, as JFK's adrenal insufficiency wasn't technically Addison's, but a related complication. As far as interference at the autopsy... while someone in attendance, not necessarily Burkley, told the doctors to not inspect the neck, there's no evidence anyone told them to not inspect the adrenal glands, which are in the abdomen. So...there's not much support for the family interfering in the autopsy. Of course, that hasn't stopped people from claiming as much. Dr. Werner Spitz, has spread all sorts of nonsense over the years, including that the autopsy doctors mis-remembered the location of the entrance wound because the Kennedy family wouldn't let them cut the hair. But that was just evil nonsense designed to cover up that he and his buddies cut off speculation of a second shooter by pretending the bullet entered near the top of the head, and not 4 inches lower, where it was inspected and observed by numerous witnesses during the autopsy.

There may be some confusion. As I recall, Johnson made the "call" and refused to leave without the President's body, but I don't think he made an actual phone call. He simply told the SS he wouldn't leave without Jackie, as he thought it would look bad if he did, and he knew full well she wouldn't leave without JFK's body. In his book, Valenti cuts through the crud and spells out that Johnson was mostly interested in the body, and not Jackie. In any event, it's clear when one reads the statements of those involved that the SS desperately wanted Johnson to get into the air, but that he refused to leave without the body. And...huh...the SS took the body.

Styles was featured on an episode of America Declassified: JFK Exclusive Access, in 2013. This was broadcast on the Travel Channel. In this episode, she basically served as a stand-in for Adams, i.e. she was there to raise doubts about Oswald's running down the stairs. She wouldn't have done that, IMO, if she was convinced Adams was wrong about the timing of their race down the stairs.

There is a point in the interview where she is discussing the re-enactment that never happened, and says it would have shown whether her actions took five minutes or 30 seconds and a minute. Which I assumed was a weird way of saying ninety seconds. In any event, I took this as her recognizing that for her to beat Baker and Truly to the bottom of the stairs, she would have to have been downstairs within a minute and a half. I don't recall her ever giving an estimate for how long she stayed at the window.

I agree. I don't think I've seen so many images in one post before. I thought there was a limit. As far as the content... Any post arguing that Bill Newman is a back of the head witness is nonsense. I've transcribed numerous interviews of him, and talked to him myself on several occasions, and he is consistent as can be that he was looking at the President as he passed, and saw but one explosion on the President's skull, that was by the ear, essentially where it is in the Z-film. Neither Newman nor his wife saw an explosion from the back of the president's head, even though they were looking right at it. Bobby Hargis, moreover, pretty much said the same thing. He said the skull exploded on the far side of the president's head from him (which would be the right side, where Newman placed the wound) and that brain and blood went up into the air, that he then drove through. Clint Hill also is a problem. Although he said the wound was on the right rear etc, he has for many years pointed out where he means when he says this, and places his hand at the top of his head above his right ear and slightly behind. He has also described the nature of the injury to the brain. He says it looked like someone had taken an ice cream scoop, and scooped out the brain beneath the skull defect. This is not the description of a brain whose back quadrant had been blasted from the skull, etc. And then there's Marilyn Willis, who is presented as a witness for a frontal entrance and an explosion from the far back of the head, even though she viewed the incident from almost a hundred yards behind, and did not see the front of Kennedy at the time, and even though she pointed out on her own skull where she thought there was a wound, and pointed to the top of her head. So...the post is misleading at best, and confusing as heck to boot.

FBI reports don't get into the psychology of the witness. That is not in their training. They write down their words and report their demeanor. That's it. If you choose to believe Akin's latter day words, when they are clearly in opposition to his original testimony, then that's your choice. But there's a reason he is rarely cited as a key witness.

Oh my!!! Are you really saying the FBI was making stuff up and smearing minor witnesses in the 1980's??? Hoover was long dead. Who was overseeing this full-frontal assault on at best a minor witness? If YOU are gonna assume or even claim the FBI was just making all this stuff up about Akin, then YOU need to perform a deep dive, IMO. It sounds like he had an interesting life. If you write a book about him, I'll buy it.

He lost his license. He's changed his name. He's been arrested multiple times, and says he thinks the government has been harassing him since the Kennedy assassination, when he was a minor witness at best. AND, to top it off... He was verbally abusive to the FBI. Even if what he said made perfect sense, he does not sound like a stable man. As he told the Warren Commission he did not see an entrance wound, and as none of the other doctors reported such harassment, ,moreover, it is really very silly to assume he was being harassed for what he told the Warren Commission. There's just no there there. His latter-day statements regarding an entrance wound are not credible.

Yes, thank you, Gary. I thought I'd already said so, but see now I did not. Presumably, I was distracted by my frustration with the tech world. A few months back, my 2 year-old MacBook Pro fizzled and died without any warning. It took me awhile to get all my back up files into the new one. Then, when I went to download your chapter, I discovered that the new one didn't have Microsoft Office, which meant I'd lost access to my many word files and power point files and presentations. I then discovered they'd changed Office from a one-time purchase to a hundred buck a year commitment. Like Bill Gates isn't rich enough!!! Anyhow, I find that kind of stuff extremely upsetting.