Pat Speer

It's still the key. The specimen jar and drainage hole disprove most every orientation of the photo. People look at the photo and say "Hey, it looks like forehead" or "Hey, I think I can place the Harper fragment in the photo if it was oriented like this." But they never study the photo to see if they can figure it out separate from what they choose to believe. I did just that. And have been waiting almost two decades now for someone to perform a similar study, to see what they come up with.

The memo noting the bullet behind the ear was an FBI memo based on a call from Sibert and O'Neill. This call was made during the autopsy. It was second-hand reporting. As no one at the autopsy, including Sibert and O'Neill, recalled such a bullet, and they instead recalled a large fragment's being recovered from behind the eye, it is clear to me it was misreporting, or misremembering, akin to Hoover's early claim the rifle was found on the fifth floor, etc. To me, the claims the body was faked are a red herring. It leads people away from what we know, or at least what I know. I know the medical evidence, when taken at face value, is at odds with the single-assassin solution. And I know, for a fact, that the subsequent panels to inspect the evidence, from the Clark Panel on down, were designed to conceal the truth by pushing alternative single-assassin scenarios they thought would be more palatable. But were not. At least not to anyone who was paying attention. When I first started down this rabbit hole, most everyone, CT and LN alike, was still claiming that the bullet entered near the cowlick. LNs embraced the Clark Panel's movement of the entrance wound because it helped with the trajectory. And CTs embraced the Clark Panel's movement of the entrance wound because it "proved" to them that those darn military doctors were incompetent and that civilian Forensic Pathologists would have been so much better. Over the last 15 years or so, however, that ship sailed, whereas a large percentage of LNs have come to doubt the cowlick entrance, and virtually all CTs now think it was bs. I had something to do with that. Over the next decade more ships will sail.

I currently believe the skull was angled a bit backwards from this orientation and that the beveling is actually on the top of the head, just forward of the crown.

Yes, David, the Sibert and O'Neill report--the very report that started Lifton down the body alteration cul-de-sac, the mother lode of all documents supporting body alteration, was written to conceal that a bullet not reported by any eyewitness was found behind the ear...because we know, we just know, that an FBI memo reporting second-hand information could not possibly be incorrect. Right? Nope.

The fragment "trail" is actually on the outside of the skull and suggests the impact and break-up of a bullet at the supposed exit location. As pointed out by Mantik, long before I, there was no brain in the upper right quadrant of the skull. So how could there be a trail of fragments across the brain where there was no brain?

Pretty much everything you've presented was debunked years ago, and is explained on my website. Although David Lifton and I disagreed on much, we shared our disdain for this decades later insistence an entry wound on the forehead was observed at Parkland or at the autopsy. As pointed out to me..by Lifton...Dennis David, a star witness for the forehead entry people...never even saw the body. So why did Mantik prop him up as an important witness? Because he was desperate. At a quick gander I saw you resurrect the bullet behind the ear nonsense. This was included in an FBI memo written after they'd received a call from Sibert and O'Neill. Sibert and O'Neill wrote an actual report and there was no mention of such a thing. A large fragment was removed from behind the EYE at the autopsy and the writer of the memo obviously misunderstood, or perhaps even Sibert and O'Neill mis-reported this over the phone. In any event, there is no eyewitness evidence for such a thing, and no evidence for such a thing on the autopsy photos and x-rays. I think Mantik would agree that no such bullet was recovered, moreover. I know he thinks the x-rays have been tampered with in certain areas but the last I checked he believes they were Kennedy's x-rays. And I've never heard him say anything about the x-rays being tampered with to conceal a bullet behind the ear.

Crenshaw did not see an entrance wound. He surmised there was an entrance wound. As stated, we've been over this before ad nauseam. As far as the problems with the timeline...Jenkins et al insisted there was no pre-surgery or whatever. It did not happen. This was concocted by Horne to sell his evolution of Lifton's theory, which Lifton himself. rejected. In Horne's desperation to sell this theory, moreover, he cites Tom Robinson, who told the HSCA he saw an orange-sized hole on the back of the head...at the end of the autopsy. He did not specify this to the ARRB, however, and Horne pretends it was at the beginning of the autopsy. He even acknowledges that Robinson's co-worker saw an orange-sized hole on the back of the head at the end of the autopsy. But--oh my--it doesn't occur to him that they were talking about the same hole? I mean, what does he think happened to the bones brought in mid-way through the autopsy? The reconstruction of the skull by the Gawler's people, moreover, was a cosmetic one, not a forensic one. They arranged the bones to simulate an undamaged skull, and hid the remaining gap by placing it at the back of the head. They thought there might be a public viewing, and a giant hole on the top of the President's head would have been unacceptable.

I've been through this stuff literally dozens of times on this forum, and cover it on my website. You seem to have mistaken what the doctors said...that pieces of bone fell to the table as they reflected the scalp--with the brain falling out on the table as they reflected the scalp. You also accept Mantik's orientation of the mystery photo, which is nonsense. There was no massive hole on the left side of the back of the head. He needs it to be there so he can pretend the Harper fragment is occipital. But there is no early eyewitness evidence for such a hole, and such a hole is most certainly not apparent on the photos and x-rays. I just skipped over it because well, like I said, I've been through this stuff dozens of times before, but it appears as well that you're pretending there are witnesses who saw an entrance wound above the right eye. This is just not true. McClelland maintained that he saw no such hole, but later came to suspect there was such a hole that was hidden in the hair. And he came to suspect this not because he thought the back of the head was blown out from a frontal entry, but because his viewing of the Zapruder film made him suspect there was a frontal entry. As far as the others cited by Mantik et al, they were witnesses trying to recall what they saw in the photos decades earlier, or were repeating what they were told decades earlier. There is not one mention of an entrance wound on the front of the head within the 1963-1964 reports and testimony, aside from Father Huber's comment about something he saw, that he later said was blood. There's no there there.

FWIW, I spent some time studying the 1954 coup in Guatemala, in which the CIA overthrew Arbenz. While researching this coup, I found a book about America's poor treatment of Latin America, and Guatemala in general. A few years after Arbenz fled, the general we picked to replace him, Castillo-Armas, was himself assassinated. His assassin was one of his bodyguards, who was killed as he tried to flee. Upon searching his body the other guards found a...wait for it...communist party membership card. He was a card-carrying communist! Only not everyone fell for it. Within one of the books I read on Guatemala was the notes to a U.S. National Security meeting in which the assassination of Castillo-Armas was discussed. One veteran intelligence expert voiced his belief the card-carrying communist bit was a fake, and that the murder was an inside job made to look like a commie hit. The nay-sayer as I recall was Allen Dulles!

I'm not sure what you're saying. The x-rays show that the skull was shattered on the back of the head. The only thing to keep it intact was the scalp. When Humes peeled back the scalp to remove the brain pieces of skull fell to the table. That the back of the skull was shattered but extant beneath the scalp was confirmed by supposedly CT witnesses Jerrol Custer and James Jenklins. This is what they said happened, and their statements are supported by the autopsy photos, which show the back of the head to be mobile, and the x-rays, which show numerous fractures on the back of the head.

As far as this drawing... I hope you realize that this and other similar drawings were created by Dr. McClelland towards the end of his life, and are grossly at odds with where he'd previously presented the wound. It seems clear, in fact, that he was trying to replicate the wound location presented on the so-called McClelland drawing, which he had repeatedly disavowed, but then come to believe he'd created. (I hope we can agree that he had nothing to do with that drawing.)

Oh my. Boswell's depiction of the damaged area on the skull includes his depiction of the area he thought was damaged beneath the scalp. A lot of the confusion about the head wounds stems from the doctors peeling back the scalp, and large chunks of bone falling to the table. Those desperate to believe there was a large wound on the back of the head frequently misrepresent the wound seen after bone fell to the table as the wound seen before the scalp was peeled back. if the Harper fragment was occipital the large defect would have been centered at and below the level of the ear and have stretched well over onto the left side of the head. No such wound was observed at Parkland or Bethesda. Some cherry-pick statements from minor players to make it seem like such a wound was seen, but it's sloppy at best AND at odds with the bulk of the witnesses, who placed the wound high and on the right side--further back than depicted in the photos, but well above where depicted in the so-called McClelland drawing. This is all stuff covered on my website and in my numerous presentations on the medical evidence. P.S. In support of his notion the Harper fragment is occipital, Dr. Mantik used to claim the orientation of the fragment pushed by Dr. Angel--the pre-eminent forensic anthropologist of his day--which is to say he was an expert at piecing skulls together--was obviously incorrect, because it would place the beveled exit at the midline of the top of the head--where no one saw an entrance. I then pointed out that Mantik was all turned around, and that Angel's orientation actually placed it by the right temple, where so many of Mantik's fellow CTs suspect a bullet entered. His sycophants then attacked and he went after me himself--even though he was 100% obviously in error. Within a few years our "feud" came to the attention of Dr. Wecht, and he invited us to debate this issue at the 2013 Wecht conference at Duquesne University Wary of being sabotaged by Mantik or his acolytes with questions about my medical background, etc, I asked if we could on the same bill discuss our disparate findings, and let the audience decide for themselves. On the day of the "debate" however, I received a surprise. Dr. Mantik admitted he'd been in error, and that the beveled exit in Angel's orientation was precisely where I said it was--just back of the right temple. Now, I was hoping this would make him realize that he was wrong about the Harper fragment, and realize that having a bullet exit by the temple was not such a bad thing. Instead, Mantik doubled-down on his claim the Harper fragment was occipital. In articles and books and more articles and books. More recently, I pointed out that the Harper fragment has no raised ridges on its inner aspect, when the occipital bone in the location from where Mantik claims it derived, is ruffled, and has a raised ridge. This was a point previously brought up by Dr. Riley. In response, Mantik claimed he still believes the fragment is occipital, and wonders if maybe just maybe Kennedy's Addison's disease had deformed his bones, so that his occipital bone no longer looked like occipital bone. Yep.

I was confused at one point, then read back and realized what it was. The autopsy report says there was an entrance wound near the EOP, with beveling on the inside of the skull. This wound is apparent in the mystery photo. The large head wound, and whether or not there was a beveled exit there, is a separate matter. In 1966 Humes and Boswell saw a small entrance wound on the mystery photo. In 1967, Humes Boswell and Finck made no mention of this entrance, but noted the beveling by the large defect in the mystery photo, and placed it at the top of the head. In 1968, the Clark Panel moved the entrance wound up to the top of the head, and declared that the beveling by the large defect in the mystery photo was high on the forehead, meaning that this photo, previously believed to have been taken from behind, was actually taken from the front. The HSCA pathology panel, in 1978, confirmed the findings of their buddies on the Clark Panel. When shown the autopsy photos by the ARRB, the autopsy doctors sought to avoid further controversy, and said they just couldn't tell what was shown in the mystery photo. To me, it's obvious that they'd learned their lesson. They tried to tell the HSCA that the entrance was by the EOP and not the cowlick, and were threatened and badgered as a result. Better to just play stupid.

I created a whole video series demonstrating that it actually shows the back and top of the head, as initially described by Humes and Boswell. It is available on my website and on YouTube.

I trust you are aware, Gerry, of the history of this photo. It is what sucked me down the rabbit hole. The autopsy doctors upon first review said it showed the entrance wound on the back of the head. A few months later, in a review controlled by the Justice Dept., they said it showed the beveled exit on the top of the head depicted in the Rydberg drawings. Yes, it's true. Finck claimed at that time that the blurry beveling represented an exit at the top of the head. In 1968, however, the Clark Panel was formed. They were supposed to end all the questions. The photo previously determined to show the back and top of the head, was now claimed to show the front of the head, with a beveled exit high on the forehead. The HSCA then rubber-stamped these findings. Their trajectory analysis etc. were all built upon the presumption there was a beveled exit high on the forehead that went unnoticed at autopsy. Humes, Boswell, and Finck refused to play along, however. Not only did Finck refuse to accept there was an entrance high on the back of the head, he refused to acknowledge that the supposed exit on the forehead showed just that. The HSCA twisted Humes' arms into pretending he'd had a change of heart. But the fact is these guys knew the Clark Panel and HSCA's conclusions regarding the entrance wound and exit wound were doo-doo. So...let's be clear. If you accept Finck's latter-day claim that the beveling on this photo is unclear and proof of nothing, then you must also accept that the Clark Panel and HSCA pathology panel's findings are doo-doo. Do you accept that? I do. But I've encountered a lot of people who think they can agree with Finck on this and other issues without simultaneously admitting that the most recent panels to claim the medical evidence supports a single-assassin...were doo-doo.

A couple of points. 1. While I'm a bit shaky on his ever-changing claims, I'm 90% certain Mantik agrees there was an entrance by the EOP. If so, citing Mantik to shoot down that there was an EOP entrance makes no sense. 2. Only a few zealots continue to claim the Harper fragment was occipital. I demonstrate why on my website. It turned out that pretty much everything I said had been said years earlier by Dr. Joseph Riley, a neuroanatomist and thus one far more qualified to discuss this matter than Mantik. On top of the scientific problems with its being occipital, there is also a matter of the witnesses. The witnesses cited by Mantik et al routinely claim the large hole was on the right side of the head, above the ear. Mantik's placement of the Harper fragment puts it in the middle of the back of the head, including a large section of the left side of the head, and at the level of the ear. 2. Not one witness--Parkland or Bethesda--noted a small round entrance wound above the right eye.

There was an investigation as to how Ruby gained access. They ended up blaming one guard who they said got distracted and let Ruby sneak down the ramp. He insisted till his dying day that Ruby did not go down the ramp. It would later come out that the officer in charge of security, Patrick Dean, had failed a lie detector test about what had happened. The DPD failed to notify the WC of this, of course, and sat by when Judge Warren apologized to Dean (who had been scolded by WC counsel Griffin). I met Griffin at the 2014 Bethesda conference. While he is an ardent defender of the WC, he remains outspoken about Dean, and continues to believe Dean committed perjury. Some think that Ruby actually came in through an unlocked door, and some think Dean (perhaps not knowing what was to come) personally allowed Ruby access.

The first quote is nonsense, IMO. Bugliosi makes the most obvious of mistakes--assuming he is correct and that it is up to others to prove him wrong. He knows damn well that's not how it works in court or in life. Take the case of Jimmy Hoffa. Let's say a panel got together and wrote a report saying his nephew set him up, and was responsible. Believers in the nephews' innocence could argue against the panel's report without claiming they knew who was responsible. Methinks Bugliosi reveals his hand here. He admitted that he liked simple explanations. Well, it appears that his lust for such an explanation in the Kennedy case led him to dismiss arguments challenging the official evidence. It would be interesting, moreover, to find out if in his years as a prosecutor, Bugliosi ever questioned the evidence provided him by law enforcement. I would suspect not. His job as a prosecutor, and later as a writer, was to lay out the case against those he considered guilty, and never question the pieces of the puzzle that failed to fit. As far as the second quote, I think there's some truth to it, but reject his use of the term "conspiracy community."

Eegads! I am forced to agree with Bugliosi. I've read dozens of books and articles on evidence and criminal procedure, and most any piece of evidence that pertains to innocence or guilt for which someone can say "I found this evidence, or developed this evidence," etc, will be admitted. The autopsy photos are the most glaring example. Stringer would say he took them and Humes and Boswell would testify that the photos are accurate depictions of the wounds. They would then be introduced. The same is true for the gun, and all paperwork related to the gun, and the fingerprints, etc. Someone would claim they found it and someone would say the rifle in evidence is the rifle that was found. That the validity of a particular piece of evidence is open to question does not (and should not) prevent its being introduced at trial. It is up the defense to challenge such evidence, just as it would be up to the prosecution to challenge any evidence (such as a witness saying the defendant was elsewhere) that might help clear the defendant.

I think you know from my writings and presentations that I strongly suspect Oswald did not shoot Kennedy. In coming to this conclusion, I doubt a lot of "official" evidence, including the sworn testimony of a number of witnesses and experts. Well, to be fair, then, I have to accept that some of the evidence that makes me doubt Oswald's guilt, such as the statements of men like Holland, Williams and Frazier, and the results of tests like the NAA test performed on Oswald's cheek, might be equally unreliable. One can not reasonably assert that the people you agree with are all truth-tellers and that the people with whom you disagree are all XXXXX. I accept that it's possible Oswald killed Kennedy. But the mountain of evidence I've studied strongly suggests otherwise. To put odds on it, I'd say that the odds of Oswald pulling the trigger are less than 1%. I would bet my life against it, but not my son's life.

Anyone who watches the films of Oswald and says he can't help smirking and is obviously enjoying himself is blinded by...something. I accept the possibility Oswald killed Kennedy. But the frequent claim his own behavior demonstrates his guilt is 100% horse puckey.

Mary Bledsoe said Oswald was not wearing a jacket when she saw him on the bus. So it would appear he left the jacket at work. Sure enough, a week or two later, someone realized that a jacket sitting on the ledge in the domino room was Oswald's jacket. This was discovered by an employee, not by a dogged FBI trying to reconcile that Frazier had said Oswald went to work in a jacket, and that Bledsoe had said he was not wearing a jacket. This is one of the reasons I put little stock in the "no one found curtain rods in the TSBD" blather. The DPD and FBI failed to recover Oswald's jacket and clipboard until it was handed to them. So what else was missed?

As far as Oswald's having come downstairs, I say he was undoubtedly downstairs because a number of witnesses saw him downstairs and because Williams failed to see him upstairs when he arrived on the sixth floor. As far as his not returning to the domino room... To go to the Domino room after encountering Baker and Truly, Oswald would have went to the stairs in the NW corner. Instead, he went towards the front of the building, as witnessed by Mrs. Reid. It only makes sense, moreover, that he would have picked up his jacket along with his shirt, should he have circled back to the domino room to pick up his shirt. As far as sports shirt.... Check that link I posted. Long-sleeved shirt after long-sleeved shirt is listed as a sports shirt, even today. In looking back through old articles and magazines, sport shirts were shirts that could not be considered "dress shirts." IOW, they were not shirts one would wear with a suit and tie. I would suspect they could be long or short sleeved, but the fact is that none of the witnesses said anything about seeing the arms of the shooter. So we can presume those claiming he was wearing a sport shirt were specifying that he was not wearing a t-shirt. When I fought with the archives and pressured them into supplying me with color pictures of the buttoned-down shirt Oswald said he was wearing, FWIW, I asked them to send me photos of a shirt which the FBI described as a sport shirt and Marina described as pajamas. Here it is:

A couple of problems with your timeline. We have footage of a lot of Oswald's co-workers in the aftermath of the shooting. It appears they all put their shirts back on at lunch. Oswald undoubtedly came down for lunch. So he would have put his shirt back on at that time. He couldn't have put it on later because he never returned to the domino room after encountering Baker and Truly. He did leave his jacket there, after all. So he must have put it on when he first came down at lunch...when he spoke with Piper. He could have taken it off while firing the shots, of course. That may have even been the smart thing to do. But the witnesses do not suggest that the shooter was wearing a white t-shirt. A number of them said he was wearing s sport shirt. "Sport shirts" are long-sleeved shirts. Oswald's t-shirt was not. https://www.menswearhouse.com/c/shirts/sport-shirts

I have the whole story on my website. I'll rake my memory and give you a synopsis. Oswald was wearing his dark brown shirt at the midnight press conference, and then again when he was booked around 1:00. Lt. Day of the DPD and FBI agent Vince Drain, however, claimed numerous times that the DPD transferred all the evidence to the FBI at 11:15, if I recall. So it seems that they were hiding something about the shirt. There were also many statements about packing up the evidence and racing it over to the airport, but the plane didn't leave for 3 or 4 hours. Bottom line. The DPD and FBI both hid that the shirt had not been packed up with the other evidence and that Drain and the FBI had hours with all this evidence before it was flown back to Washington. At this time, of course, they had nothing to tie Oswald to the rifle. So I suspect it was at tis time that the fibers were pulled from the shirt and added to the rifle. The FBI crime lab found these fibers the next day, and voila! they had their man. But Oswald wouldn't cooperate. He clarified for the DPD later on that day that he'd changed shirts at the rooming house. And a reddish shirt like the one he'd described had been recovered from his room just where he said he'd left it. (The color of this shirt is thereafter obfuscated and the captions to the black and white photos of this shirt always call it a brown shirt...It seems possible, then, that this was done to make it appear there was no basis for Oswald's story about a reddish shirt.) But it gets worse. Within hours of the DPD's finding out the fibers on the rifle were possibly from the wrong shirt, Oswald gets murdered in their custody, under their protection. The case then gets transferred to the FBI, and the FBI attempts to prove that Oswald really was wearing the dark brown shirt whose fibers were found on the rifle. They have a witness, Mary Bledsoe, who has said she got a good look at Oswald's shirt after the shooting and it was filthy. The shirt found at the rooming house is indeed filthy, but the shirt Oswald was wearing when arrested was not. Big problem. But she also said she thought the shirt could have a had a hole in the elbow. So they fly the shirt out to show her, and she has problems IDing, but does so because it has a hole in the elbow. She thinks it may be the wrong elbow. But IDs it anyway. Only...photos of the shirt when Oswald was first arrested show no such hole in the elbow. And the nature of the hole in the elbow of that shirt reflects that it was torn, and not worn through. (And yes, I actually read articles and studied photos on the expected wear on clothing.) Bottom line: it appears the DPD and FBI (or at least agent Drain) collaborated on the addition of the fibers onto the rifle, and that the FBI later tore a hole in Oswald's dark brown shirt to help sell that that was the shirt he'd actually been wearing.