Ashton Gray

My examination of the Zapruder film leads me to believe that John Connally's right arm/forearm is not "resting...along the top inside of the limo..." as you contend. I do agree that Connally has braced himself in an effort to aid his attempt at rotating to his right to better view happenings in the back of the limousine. However, I feel that this "bracing" is accomplished by the Governor as he positions his right elbow along the top of the back of the jumpseat he is occupying, a pivot point if you will, that may or may not have helped with this attempted maneuver.

Gary, I said in an earlier response this evening to this that I would try over the weekend to get an anim put together. Well, one of my sons came by, and it seems that your children, no matter how old they get, never tire of demonstrating that you couldn't possibly have had the sense necessary to raise them in the first place. And hearing of my little project that I wanted to crowbar somehow into an impossible schedule, he took far too much delight in showing me how to accomplish in mere minutes what would have taken me probably an hour or more with my archaic methods.

Below is a Quicktime movie made from the Photoshop enhanced zoomed MPI frames Z:241-Z:286. The person who did the enhancements intentionally brought them up a bit over-bright to bring out details that simply are invisible in the original frames. It's clear to me now that Connally's right elbow does, indeed, go up on the back of the jumpseat. This enhanced version is also making me rethink the location of what I believe is the back shot—moving it a bit later, to just as they are emerging from behind the Stemmons sign—but I want to study this more. For now...

Here is the Quicktime movie, Z201-286SMALL

Without trying to ride a hobby horse at all—because I have no vested interest at all in what the truth turns out to be—I yet wonder now how much this new view affects the hypothesis of a high-velocity bullet going through Connally's torso and his right wrist area, entering "top" (knuckles) side of arm, exiting palm side.

How long do we have to wait for this book of yours?

There are many interesting points coming to light in this enhanced set of frames, not only about Connally, about which more later.

Ashton

A question...would the ROOF of the Records building work as well as a window?

A very good point, Jack. The original ejecta-to-head experiment pointed to that window, but I think a very slight angle change indeed from ejecta to head would take it to the roof in one direction, and to lower windows in the other. Same principle rotating the trajectory on the vertical axis (meaning it would swing horizontally).

Last week I started a project to duplicate the views of the estimated motorcade shot locations from each of the windows in the top three floors of the County Records building but simply haven't had time to finish it. I will add the roof above each.

My longtime opinion, which I would like to see your graphics to show:

Connally chest shot, from Dal-Tex building; Connally wrist/thigh shot, from a

westmost TSBD sixth floor window.

I'm happy to do it just as soon as I can. Please give me a Z film frame to try to match the limo and occupants placement to for each shot as you envision it.

Ashton

Unfortunately I disagree with two key components of your advanced argument. [1] My examination of the Zapruder film leads me to believe that John Connally's right arm/forearm is not "resting...along the top inside of the limo..." as you contend. I do agree that Connally has braced himself in an effort to aid his attempt at rotating to his right to better view happenings in the back of the limousine. However, I feel that this "bracing" is accomplished by the Governor as he positions his right elbow along the top of the back of the jumpseat he is occupying, a pivot point if you will, that may or may not have helped with this attempted maneuver.

Hi Gary. Glad to have your shoulder at the wheel. I've just today received some Photoshop enhanced (Shadow and Highlight) zoomed stills of the Zapruder film, and have looked through them this afternoon, and I think you're entirely right on the above. Fortunately, there are no Back-to-the-Drawing-Board quotas imposed by the forum (yet) so it looks like I'll be going back there. Again. I'll try over the weekend to get that section of the enhanced stills put together as an anim. (It's also been called to my attention that the jumpseat backs are relatively too tall, but the person who's doing the limo modeling has lots of work to do on it, and only sent me this incomplete interim version because I bugged him to distraction for it.)

In any case, it's still my considered (and at least somewhat informed) opinion that people with sucking chest wounds don't normally turn around in automobiles and engage in discourse. The response to a sucking chest wound as I understand it is much more consistent with his gaping fall back onto his wife post Z:286, which is evident by 10 frames later, at Z:296.

[2]The missile that struck the distal end of the Governor's right radius did not strike this same anatomical feature on "the top side..." of this particular bone. Of this there is absolutely no doubt.

Hm. Okay. I'm not sure that I understand this. I don't want to encroach on any surprises that you're reserving for your book, but you seem to be saying that two separate projectiles (whole or partial) struck Connally's lower arm/wrist area.

Ashton

Laughter is of course great! Resolving what this "shell game" is all about is even better though.

It won't ever be done with serious mien poised expertly and ponderously over a pack of conflicting lies trying to decide which lie to agree with. Ever. Guaranteed. May as well flip a coin that always lands on its edge. And be very, very serious about it.

The only value in contrary facts and glaring omissions is that wherever there is the greatest concentration there is always the most to hide. So smile.

Ashton

The ONLY FBI Agent from the Lab who is known to have examined the clothing of JFK, has stated:

1. Recalls absolutely no damage to the front of the shirt in the vicinity of the collar button, and conducted absolutely no examination of this area.

That is the fall-down funniest thing I have read in ages.

Can't thank you enough. This has gotten my new year off to a rollicking start.

(I think the dry delivery is what brought it to laugh-to-tears-level. Priceless. I hope the Brits are paying attention.)

Ashton

Dr Carrico told Weisberg that he was certain he saw a bullet hole above the level of the collar and there were no holes in the clothing.

Could you quote the relevant passage? Thanks.

Dr Perry told Weisberg that he wiped blood from the wound, noted a ring of bruising, and then began the tracheotomy incision. This differs from Perry's response to you many years later.

Perry was an avid hunter and experienced in firearms and ammunition.

There are many facets to Malcolm Perry.

Ashton Gray

Ashton, as you are aware the original FBI investigation came up with the following. Three shots thusly.

1, Hits JFK in the back.

Check. Personally, I currently think it likely that was the first shot, which SS Agent Kellerman and others described as sounding like a firecracker, coming when the limo was behind the Stemmons sign relative to Zapruder. Viewing such a shot from this top right County Records window:

Produced this as a close-up:

The FBI 302 on the autopsy said the angle of entry of the back shot was between 45 and 60 degrees. When I measured the angle of the back shot from that window I got:

2, Hits Connally in the back.

3, Hits JFK in the head.

Check. The head shot, and particularly the ejecta visible in Z:314, is what led to the angle of fire pointing to the upper right County Records window. Testing the head shot from there produced these images:

In these experiments with the 3D model, the Connolly shot and the Kennedy head shot would come very close together, with Connally collapsing back against his wife right after being hit, and Kennedy being shot in the head almost immediately.

I frankly was surprised to discover how these things came together with a great deal of testimony and evidence, particularly about the closeness in timing of the later two shots, and the fact that they both had a sound described as being like that of a bow wave from high-velocity shots, versus the first report, which has been described as more akin to a firecracker.

This curiously coincides with a back wound that didn't penetrate very far (firecracker-like sound), versus two later shots that, if the above has merit, both did extreme damage seemingly consistent with high-velocity bullets.

A lot of ducks start lining up into a row.

All shots originating from behind...

Ergo Oswald lone gunman, we can all go home.

At the risk of repeating myself: And that does seem to be where a patsy was set up: behind. Just behind on a different angle of fire.

Then two flies in the ointment appear, James Tague

and the Zapruder film.

Hm. Well, as I see it, the Zapruder film and the three shots illustrated above snap right together.

Enter Arlen Spector and his wall of nonsence.

Oh, let's leave that nut out of it. I've had about all of him I can take. Whaddaya say?

Ashton

The following cheerfully ignores (in giant economy-sized portions) countless theories and arguments concerning the wounds of John Connally, including exactly when and where they might have been delivered and received in relation to the wounds of John F. Kennedy.

What follows started, instead, with several medical charts and diagrams about Connally's wounds, plus testimony from Secret Service Agent Roy Kellerman about the tenor and spacing of shots, and testimony from Mrs. Connally about the sound of shots and when she felt her husband was hit. These data were compared to the Zapruder film without regard to earlier analyses of or speculations about that film in relation to John Connally's wounds.

All the data that was considered and compared isn't going to be put into this post, but the combined data seemed to indicate that John Connally was struck in the back, near his right armpit, at approximately Z:286, a portion of which is shown here (the blue at the bottom merely part of the Zapruder movie this was cropped from, showing how this was framed in the film):

Prior to that—from a point shortly after the limo emerged from the Stemmons freeway sign—Connally had been turned around looking at President Kennedy, apparently saying or shouting something, with Jacqueline Kennedy looking at him most of that time, and—importantly—John Connally's right arm was resting, or braced to help him turn around, along the top inside of the limo next to him, palm down, as shown in this sequence from the Zapruder film:

Consideration was given to where a shot might have come from that could have entered Connally's back while he was turned around, existed his chest, and struck the top side of his right forearm ("top side" being used here to indicate the side of the arm where the fingernails are on the hand) before exiting on the underside--or palm side—of the forearm near the wrist, then possibly richocheting off the inside of the limo to strike his left thigh.

Before attempting to create in the 3D model of Dealey Plaza a new possible trajectory, it was decided to view the estimated location of John Connally at Z:286 from a window of the County Records building that earlier had been found as a possible location for a shooter of the head shot to John F. Kennedy through an experiment described on forum page 15 of the thread called Who were the shooters.

Later, that same location had been tested as a possible location for a shooter of the back shot to John F. Kennedy, covered in the topic The Back Wound Considered.

In both cases that County Records window provided a clear and unobstructed shot that seemed consistent with other evidence.

Looking down from that same window in the 3D model on the estimated location of the limo and John Connally at the time of Z:286 produced this view:

The next step was to zoom in on the limo from that window and attempt, within severe technical limitations in the software being used on positioning the 3D human figure stand-ins, to at least approximate the position of John Connally's body, as well as that of John F. Kennedy. Given the limitations, the results are by no means conclusive, but also are considered not to exclude this location for a shot to the back of John Connally, and are considered of sufficient interest to post here.

There was no way to move or position the John Connally figure's right arm, so after the image was captured in the 3D program it was enhanced in Photoshop solely by the "painting in" of the arm along the inside of the limo, in a very rough approximation of what seems to be depicted in the Zapruder film before Connally's arm goes out of frame. Here is what was seen from the County Records window, zoomed in:

Several things were considered to be of significant interest in what emerged from this experiment:

• 1. It offers a possible and reasonable answer for how and why the bullet exiting the chest would hit the top side, not the underside, of Connally's arm.
  2. It comports with testimony of two shots in rapid succession (after an earlier shot more distantly spaced in time) if the first of the two closely-timed shots hit Connally in the back and the one immediately afterward was the head shot.
  3. It shows that the shot to Connally's back could have been a missed attempt at John F. Kennedy's head from that same window, followed almost immediately by the successful head shot.
  

This experiment was not done and is not being presented as any final answer or theory. It is data of interest that seems to align a great deal of heretofore unaligned data. It also aligns completely with the earlier experiments linked to above, one considering the head shot (which led to this County Records building window to begin with), the other considering the back shot.

Ashton Gray

The purported gunshot wound to the throat, which proponents claim was the earliest wound, did not bleed onto the shirt or tie.

There was no bullet hole in the shirt or in the tie.

All visual evidence show the tracheotomy hacking—where the alleged "bullet wound" purportedly had been—to be below the shirt collar line on the neck. Secret Service Agent Roy H. Kellerman testified that the tracheotomy opening was "below the shirtline."

There was no complementary wound to the purported throat gunshot wound: no exit wound to account for an entry wound, no entry wound to account for an exit wound.

No eyewitness ever saw a throat wound, or any indication at all that a bullet or projectile had passed into or out of John F. Kennedy's throat, until he was in Trauma Room One, his tie had been cut off of him, and his shirt front opened. The one and only "exception" is nurse Diana Bowron, whose story uniquely changed. She first testified under oath that she never saw any throat wound at all, having never gotten a look at Kennedy's neck until she removed the tracheotomy aparatus after the President had been pronounced dead. She later claimed, though, to have seen the throat wound at the limosine when she was helping to get John F. Kennedy out of the limosine and onto the stretcher she had brought out with someone named "Joe."

Once President Kennedy had been transported to Trauma Room 1, Secret Service Agent Clint Hill left Trauma Room One before SS Special Agent Kellerman, who came out shortly thereafter.

When Secret Service Special Agent Roy Kellerman last saw John F. Kennedy in Trauma Room One, Kennedy "had his tie and his collar still on."

Agent Kellerman left Trauma Room 1, and shortly thereafter Mrs. Kennedy was convinced by a person or persons unknown to leave Trauma Room One. According to Kellerman, "she sat outside the room while they were working over the President."

Agent Clint Hill had left Trauma Room One before Kellerman—who last saw Kennedy with "his tie and his collar still on." Clint Hill also says that Mrs. Kennedy "was convinced to wait outside, which she did, remained there the rest of the period of time that we were there."

Ashton Gray

Was there a throat wound upon arrival at Parkland Hospital or not?

Here is relevant testimony of three Secret Service agent eyewitnesses:

SECRET SERVICE SPECIAL AGENT WILLIAM ROBERT GREER, DRIVER

• SPECTER: Were you able to observe any wound on the front side of the President?
  GREER: No, sir; I didn't, I never seen any on the front side of the President. The only thing I saw was on the head. I didn't know at the time of any other injuries on him.
  SPECTER: As to the front side of the President's body, were you able to observe any hole or tear in either his shirt or tie?
  GREER: No, sir; I didn't and I brought them back, those things, and didn't see them at the time.
  

SECRET SERVICE SPECIAL AGENT CLINT HILL

• SPECTER: Did you have any opportunity to observe the front part of his body, to see whether there was any tear or rip in the clothing on the front?
  HILL: I saw him lying there in the back of the car, when I was immediately above him. I cannot recall noticing anything that was ripped in the forward portion of his body.
  

SECRET SERVICE SPECIAL ROY H. KELLERMAN

• SPECTER: Do you have any knowledge of that wound on the front side [purported throat wound] aside from the written report of Dr. Kemp Clark?
  KELLERMAN: Except that in the morgue it was very visible that they had incisioned him here to insert the tracheotomy that they performed on him.
  COOPER: ...You are saying this, then: that you did not see, yourself, at any time the mark of any wound in his neck front?
  KELLERMAN: When we took him into the hospital in Dallas; that is right. ...when we took him in the hospital in Dallas, I did not.
  COOPER: Did you ever see it?
  KELLERMAN: ...I didn't see it, sir.
  COOPER: What you saw yourself?
  KELLERMAN: No; I didn't.
  SPECTER: ...You saw the President's face, though, at a later time as you have described?
  KELLERMAN: Yes, thank you. ...While he lay on the stretcher in that emergency room his collar and everything is up and I saw nothing in his face to indicate an injury, whether the shot had come through or not. He was clear.
  FORD: But while he was on the stretcher in the emergency room you saw his face?
  KELLERMAN: That is right.
  FORD: But he had his tie and his collar still—
  KELLERMAN: Still on.
  FORD: Still on?
  KELLERMAN: Yes, sir.
  SPECTER: ...Did you observe any blood on the portion of his body in the neck area or anyplace in the front of his body?
  KELLERMAN: I don't recall any.
  SPECTER: ...Did you observe any hole in the clothing of the President on the front part, in the shirt or tie area?
  KELLERMAN: No, sir.
  SPECTER: From your observation of the wound which you observed in the morgue which you have described as a tracheotomy, would that have been above or below the shirtline when the President was clothed ?
  KELLERMAN: It would have been below the shirtline, sir.
  

Ashton Gray

I think it's clear from her later disclaimer that Bowron did not see any

other wound when she was standing on the other side of the car.

It appears she was under the impression Specter was asking her if she saw

any other wound at that exact moment -- and the answer was, "No, sir."

Here is how she testified under oath on 24 March 1964:

SPECTER: How many holes did you see?

BOWRON: I just saw one large hole [referring to hole in head].

SPECTER: ...Did you notice any other wound on the President's body?

BOWRON: No, sir.

SPECTER: ...Did you ever see his [John F. Kennedy's] neck prior to the time you removed the trach tube?

BOWRON: No, sir.

There's more:

• SPECTER: While the doctors were working on President Kennedy, did you ever have any opportunity to observe his neck?
  BOWRON: No; I didn't, until afterwards..
  SPECTER: Until after what?
  BOWRON: Until after they had pronounced him dead and we cleaned up and removed the trach tube...
  SPECTER: Did you ever see his [John F. Kennedy's] neck prior to the time you removed the trach tube?
  BOWRON: No, sir.
  

Ashton

Richards is listed here as a Parklands Orderly:

http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v4n2/v4n2contents.pdf

Thanks, Greg. That table of contents its contents was in hand, and I see now that this odd confusion concerning the Bowron "Joe" and the Joe Richards in the "JFK Medical Reference" documents arises from this:

• 21 H 226: report of activities 11/22/63---shortly after helping place Connally on a stretcher: “Then someone asked me to get a bucket of water; I did.”
  

If "Joe" is indeed Joe Richards, and he helped place Connally on a stretcher, then went to get a bucket of water, then he and Bowron parted ways upon arriving at the limo. If so, the question arises of who from Parkland, if anyone, helped Bowron put President Kennedy on the stretcher she had brought out with "Joe" and then take him inside to Trauma Room 1.

I'm wondering now what, if anything, that might have to do with this part of the Specter interview of Bowron, where he "corrects" her:

• SPECTER: And did you have a stretcher with you at that time?
  BOWRON: Yes, sir.
  SPECTER: ...And were you wheeling one stretcher by yourself, or was someone helping?
  BOWRON: No; the orderly from the triage desk was helping us.
  SPECTER: Was helping you?
  BOWRON: Yes.
  

Ashton

Ashton,

I believe the orderly's name was Joe Richards.

If you have a source, it would be of the greatest interest to several people pursuing this question, including yours truly.

(no relation)

That's what they all say.

Ashton

Ashton, could the eponymous "Joe" have been an orderly from another part of Parkland, who by chance, happened to be in the triage desk at the time.

Hi, Stephen. There's no way to know who he was. He apparently moved the critically wounded President of the United States from the limo to Trauma Room 1 at Parkland Hospital and disappeared from the face of the earth for all probative purposes.

As I said in the Throat Wound thread, Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission very thoroughly omitted any careful timeline or chain of custody of the President of the United States from the time the limosine arrived at Parkland Hospital until Dr. Carrico arrived in Trauma Room 1 where Kennedy had been taken.

Nurse Henchliffe testified that Dr. Carrico did not arrive in Trauma Room 1 until some indeterminate, if brief, amount of time after she helped roll the stretcher just the last few feet into Trauma Room 1.

Nurse Henchliffe left Trauma Room 1 to go to the blood bank in the hospital for blood.

Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission very thoroughly omitted any testimony concerning who removed John F. Kennedy's tie and opened his shirt, and when.

The omissions of Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission concerning these crucial moments make the Grand Canyon look like a gopher hole.

And don't stop even to consider the related FBI omissions.

There perhaps is no greater omission in all the annals of infamous crime than the Strange and Disorderly Case of the Missing Orderly. I personally don't believe that it was an oversight.

Who "Joe" might have been and what became of him is, as far as I can find, completely unknown.

Ashton

Arlen Specter delicately questions Nurse Diana Bowron on 24 March 1964 at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas:

• SPECTER: Did you have occasion to render assistance to President Kennedy back on November 22, 1963?
  BOWRON: I did; yes, sir.
  SPECTER: Will you relate briefly the circumstances surrounding your being called in to assist in that case?
  BOWRON: I was assigned to work in the minor medicine and surgery area and I was passing through major surgery and I heard over the intercom that they needed carts out at the emergency room entrance, so the orderly from the triage desk, which was passing through and he and I took one cart from major surgery and ran down the hall and by the cashier's desk, there were some men I assume were Secret Service men.
  SPECTER: Did you know at that time whom you were going to aid?
  BOWRON: No, sir.
  SPECTER: You later assumed they were Secret Service men?
  BOWRON: Yes, sir; and they encouraged us to run down to the door.
  SPECTER: And did you have a stretcher with you at that time?
  BOWRON: Yes, sir.
  SPECTER: ...And were you wheeling one stretcher by yourself, or was someone helping?
  BOWRON: No; the orderly from the triage desk was helping us.
  SPECTER: Was helping you?
  BOWRON: Yes.
  SPECTER: Who was that?
  BOWRON: Joe---I've forgotten what his last name is, I'm sorry. I know his first name is Joe and he's on duty today.
  

No orderly named "Joe" is in the record other than this claim by Nurse Bowron under oath. Bowron said that this "Joe" was on duty that very day of testimony, 24 March 1964, in the same location where Arlen Specter was taking her testimony—at Parkland Hospital. Yet Arlen Specter did not interview any orderly named "Joe" that day or ever.

There are only two Parkland Hospital orderlies in the record:

One is R.J. Jimison, who attended John Connally and says he did not see President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. Nor does the "J." in R.J. stand for "Joe" or anything else: they are "initial names" and nothing more.

The other orderly in evidence is David Parkland Sanders (yes, middle name "Parkland") who is reported to have been in Trauma Room 1, but is referenced as being there only after John F. Kennedy had been pronounced dead to clean up. Was he there earlier? The record is silent.

Who is the orderly "from the triage desk" named "Joe" who purportedly helped Nurse Bowron roll John F. Kennedy from the limo to Trauma Room 1?

Nurse Bowron, who claimed that she was helped by someone named "Joe" to transport John F. Kennedy from the limo to Trauma Room 1, is the same nurse who lied about the purported throat wound:

Here is how she testified under oath on 24 March 1964:

• SPECTER: How many holes did you see?
  BOWRON: I just saw one large hole [referring to hole in head].
  SPECTER: ...Did you notice any other wound on the President's body?
  BOWRON: No, sir.
  SPECTER: ...Did you ever see his [John F. Kennedy's] neck prior to the time you removed the trach tube?
  BOWRON: No, sir.
  

In a 1993 letter, Nurse Bowron changed her story about what she had found when she got to the limosine:

• BOWRON: "I turned his head and seeing the size of the [head] wound realized that I could not stop the bleeding. I turned his head back and saw an entry wound in the front of the throat... ."
  

She repeated her new version in her interview with Harrison Livingston:

• LIVINGSTON: And, so did you see the wound in the throat before? When he was in the car?
  BOWRON: Yes.
  LIVINGSTON: And what did that look like?
  BOWRON: Well, that looked like an entry wound.
  

Ms. Bowron either lied under oath, or lied in her letter and interview, or she lied at all relevant times.

Why would Ms. Bowron lie about the throat wound at all?

If "Joe" was on duty in the hospital the day Arlen Specter interviewed Nurse Bowron at the hospital, why did Arlen Specter not interview "Joe"?

Why did Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission omit any and all evidence concerning the mystery orderly named "Joe" who purportedly helped Nurse Bowron wheel John F. Kennedy from the limosine to Trauma Room 1?

What became of the missing orderly?

Ashton Gray

THE STRANGE CASE OF THE MISSING ORDERLY

Arlen Specter delicately questions Nurse Bowron on 24 March 1964 at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas:

• SPECTER: Did you have occasion to render assistance to President Kennedy back on November 22, 1963?
  BOWRON: I did; yes, sir.
  SPECTER: Will you relate briefly the circumstances surrounding your being called in to assist in that case?
  BOWRON: I was assigned to work in the minor medicine and surgery area and I was passing through major surgery and I heard over the intercom that they needed carts out at the emergency room entrance, so the orderly from the triage desk, which was passing through and he and I took one cart from major surgery and ran down the hall and by the cashier's desk, there were some men I assume were Secret Service men.
  SPECTER: Did you know at that time whom you were going to aid?
  BOWRON: No, sir.
  SPECTER: You later assumed they were Secret Service men?
  BOWRON: Yes, sir; and they encouraged us to run down to the door.
  SPECTER: And did you have a stretcher with you at that time?
  BOWRON: Yes, sir.
  SPECTER: ...And were you wheeling one stretcher by yourself, or was someone helping?
  BOWRON: No; the orderly from the triage desk was helping us.
  SPECTER: Was helping you?
  BOWRON: Yes.
  SPECTER: Who was that?
  BOWRON: Joe---I've forgotten what his last name is, I'm sorry. I know his first name is Joe and he's on duty today.
  

No orderly named "Joe" is in the record other than this claim by Nurse Bowron under oath. Bowron said that this "Joe" was on duty that very day of testimony, 24 March 1964, in the same location where Arlen Specter was taking her testimony—at Parkland Hospital. Yet Arlen Specter did not interview any orderly named "Joe" that day or ever.

There are only two Parkland Hospital orderlies in the record:

One is R.J. Jimison, who attended John Connally and says he did not see President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. Nor does the "J." in R.J. stand for "Joe" or anything else: they are "initial names" and nothing more.

The other orderly in evidence is David Parkland Sanders (yes, middle name "Parkland") who is reported to have been in Trauma Room 1, but is referenced as being there only after John F. Kennedy had been pronounced dead to clean up. Was he there earlier? The record is silent.

Who is the orderly "from the triage desk" named "Joe" who purportedly helped Nurse Bowron roll John F. Kennedy from the limo to Trauma Room 1?

If "Joe" was on duty in the hospital the day Arlen Specter interviewed Nurse Bowron at the hospital, why did Arlen Specter not interview "Joe"?

Why did Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission omit any and all evidence concerning the mystery orderly named "Joe" who helped Nurse Bowron wheel John F. Kennedy from the limosine to Trauma Room 1?

What became of the missing orderly?

Ashton Gray

Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission very thoroughly omitted any careful timeline or chain of custody of the President of the United States from the time the limosine arrived at Parkland Hospital until Dr. Carrico arrived in Trauma Room 1 where Kennedy had been taken.

Nurse Henchliffe testified that Dr. Carrico did not arrive in Trauma Room 1 until some indeterminate, if brief, amount of time after she helped roll the stretcher into Trauma Room 1.

Nurse Henchliffe left Trauma Room 1 to go to the blood bank in the hospital for blood.

Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission very thoroughly omitted any testimony concerning who removed John F. Kennedy's tie and opened his shirt, and when.

The omissions of Arlen Specter and the Warren Commission concerning these crucial moments make the Grand Canyon look like a gopher hole.

Ashton Gray

Nurse Diana Bowron was the person who took a stretcher out to the presidential limosine and, with an orderly whose name she just, you know, couldn't recall, brought John F. Kennedy into the emergency room to prepare him for treatment.

Nurse Bowron had come all the way from England in early August 1963, less than four months prior to the assassination, for a fateful one-year stint in the Parkland Hospital emergency room.

Here is how she testified under oath on 24 March 1964:

• SPECTER: How many holes did you see?
  BOWRON: I just saw one large hole [referring to hole in head].
  SPECTER: ...Did you notice any other wound on the President's body?
  BOWRON: No, sir.
  SPECTER: ...Did you ever see his [John F. Kennedy's] neck prior to the time you removed the trach tube?
  BOWRON: No, sir.
  

In a 1993 letter, Nurse Bowron changed her story about what she had found when she got to the limosine:

• BOWRON: "I turned his head and seeing the size of the [head] wound realized that I could not stop the bleeding. I turned his head back and saw an entry wound in the front of the throat... ."
  

She repeated her new version in her interview with Harrison Livingston:

• LIVINGSTON: And, so did you see the wound in the throat before? When he was in the car?
  BOWRON: Yes.
  LIVINGSTON: And what did that look like?
  BOWRON: Well, that looked like an entry wound.
  

Ms. Bowron either lied under oath, or lied in her letter and interview, or she lied at all relevant times.

Why would Ms. Bowron lie about the throat wound at all?

Who is David Parkland Sanders? (Yes, that's right: middle name "Parkland," which is noted here for serious students of CIA psy-ops.)

More anon.

Ashton Gray

Nurse Diana Bowron was the person who took a stretcher out to the presidential limosine and, with an orderly named Joe—whose last name she couldn't recall in testimony—brought John F. Kennedy into the emergency room to prepare him for treatment.

Nurse Bowron had come all the way from England in early August 1963, less than four months prior to the assassination, for a fateful one-year stint in the Parkland Hospital emergency room.

Here is how she testified under oath on 24 March 1964:

• SPECTER: How many holes did you see?
  BOWRON: I just saw one large hole [referring to hole in head].
  SPECTER: ...Did you notice any other wound on the President's body?
  BOWRON: No, sir.
  SPECTER: ...Did you ever see his [John F. Kennedy's] neck prior to the time you removed the trach tube?
  BOWRON: No, sir.
  

In a 1993 letter, Nurse Bowron changed her story about what she had found when she got to the limosine:

• BOWRON: "I turned his head and seeing the size of the [head] wound realized that I could not stop the bleeding. I turned his head back and saw an entry wound in the front of the throat... ."
  

She repeated her new version in her interview with Harrison Livingston:

• LIVINGSTON: And, so did you see the wound in the throat before? When he was in the car?
  BOWRON: Yes.
  LIVINGSTON: And what did that look like?
  BOWRON: Well, that looked like an entry wound.
  

Ms. Bowron either lied under oath, or lied in her letter and interview, or she lied at all relevant times.

Why would Ms. Bowron lie about the throat wound at all?

Who is David Parkland Sanders? (Yes, that's right: middle name "Parkland," which is noted here for serious students of CIA psy-ops.)

More anon.

Ashton Gray

Asthton Gray

Warren Commission testimony on size of the throat wound as reported by medical personnel who were present:

• DR. PERRY: This was situated in the lower anterior one-third of the neck, approximately 5 mm. in diameter. (3H372) ...I determined only the fact that there was a wound there, roughly 5 mm. in size or so. (6H9)
  DR. CARRICO: This was probably a 4-7 mm. wound, almost in the midline, maybe a little to the right of the midline, and below the thyroid cartilage. (6H3) ...There was a small wound, 5- to 8-mm. in size, located in the lower third of the neck, below the thyroid cartilage, the Adams apple. (3H361)
  DR. JONES: The wound in the throat was probably no larger than a quarter of an inch in diameter. ... t was a very small, smooth wound. (6H54)
  NURSE HENCHLIFFE: It was just a little hole in the middle of his neck. ...About as big around as the end of my little finger. (6H141)
  

A curiosity that some may find of passing interest:

Ashton Gray

Anyone else here from the "Old School" in which one was expected to gain "First Person" information and knowledge for their research to carry any validity?

I wore a tie once.

Ashton

At no time have I said, hinted, or even suggested that if a puncture wound in the throat was created by a person or persons unknown after John F. Kennedy's arrival at Parkland Hospital, then any such puncture wound was "nonlethal." This straw man was introduced into this thread by someone whose tireless energy and industry at attempting to beat this down using any means and to continue to sell the bullet wound to the throat story is marvelous.

I also at no time have said, hinted, or even suggested that a puncture wound alone was the sole purpose of any such puncture wound.

Just for the record.

Ashton Gray

film matte painting, glass painting and pin-registered rotoscoping are covered extensively in The Technique of Special Effects Cinematography, Raymond Fielding, 1964-65. The techniques date back to the early 1930's

Yes. And in my eclectic collection I have a useful little trade paperback, copyright 1966, that describes some similar techniques in a chapter on optical effects. The book is "Special Effects in Motion Pictures—Some Methods for Producing Mechanical Special Effects," by Frank P. Clark, "Reviewed by the Advisory Committee on Special Effects in Motion Pictures of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers." Their names are listed, so I may as well add them in the unlikely event that a name hit might someday emerge:

Herbert Meyer, Chairman

Russell Brown

Thomas G. Fisher

Jack Froehlich

Max Hankins

Ub Iwerks

Ivan Martin

Bob Mattey

Frederic L. Ponedel

John Roche

J. Edward Stembridge

Edward Stones

Virgil Summers

If, f'r'instance, CIA had films manipulated, I somehow doubt they would have gone to the local college film school to pluck out a candidate.

Ashton

I'm going to say this once:

I made a concerted and good-faith effort to find photos that would depict JFK's adam's apple at rest, the way it is in the post-mortem photo—not bobbing in mid-speech—and a good-faith effort to duplicate the way his collar and tie rode in realistic relationship to the length of his neck.

I really could care less about the number of specious and disingenuous snide allegations made against me in attempts to smear and discredit me. I yawn. I've put the visual evidence into the record in the best way available to me, and to the best of my good-faith abilities.

Here is that evidence again, just as presented originally.

Submitted for your consideration, here are two photos of John F. Kennedy at Love Field in Dallas, Texas on the morning of 22 November 1963, the day he was murdered. Note the ride of his shirt collar and tie:

In the animation below, the photo of the tracheotomy (sometimes "tracheostomy") opening—which destroyed all the evidence of a reported throat wound—is overlaid with the same shirt and tie from the black-and-white photo above. The clothing has been adjusted to overlay it on the reclining body in the best approximation of the photos above that could be attained. The suit jacket has been made black only because the play of shadows on the jacket in the above image made the overlay confusing to the eye, and the jacket is largely irrelevant to what is being demonstrated:

I believe any man who has tied and worn a tie, and any woman who ever has helped a man in that part of his wardrobe and accoutrements each is perfectly capable of making his or her own observations and determinations about any possibility of a well-tailored man wearing a tie so low that it could admit a bullet to pass into the location where the tracheotomy opening is without penetrating the tie, or the collar (and shirt below both tie and collar—two layers each), or both.

I have made my own determination.

And that is my last word on it. (For the reading-challenged who pass this way, "it" in the previous sentence is a pronoun reflecting on the subject of this message. If for any reason you cannot determine what the subject of this message is, please do us both the merciful kindness of not reading any of my posts.)

Ashton Gray