There Was No Bullet Wound in John F. Kennedy's Throat

[Tom Neal]

when you say "it would be impractical," what are you referring to?

I gave two examples in my post that you are responding to, and about a dozen in the other thread.

I'd like to see how Ashton responds.

As I have ALREADY said; don't keep asking me to do it. Ask him yourself.

Question: What would you estimate the distance to be from "behind the tie knot" to above the collar line?

1.4 inches. (That includes the radius of a bullet so that it doesn't touch the shirtline.)

The bullet radius is 6.5mm/2 = 0.128"

1.4" - 0.128" = 1.272" * 2 = 2.544"

Are you measuring from the CENTER of a vertical cross-section of the knot in the necktie, or from the BOTTOM of the knot up to the collar line?

If it's the CENTER, you are proposing a 2.544" diameter knot -- if you're measuring from the BOTTOM of the knot, what evidence indicates the throat wound is THAT low?

Edited March 25, 2016 by Tom Neal

[Robert Prudhomme]

Robert - I was asking if you thought it was between Z-225 and Z-313. I only had a minute to ask, as I was PAW (Posting At Work), so not the best questions were available. I couldn't wait to read more, though.

I still believe there is a lot to the witnesses that claimed to hear the last two shots fired right on top of each other, with possibly less than a second between the shots. This would open the possibility to two shots impacting JFK's head; one from behind and up high and one from the front.

To me, the most interesting source for medical information regarding these head wounds, as well as the back wound, comes from a lieutenant who had nothing to do with the medical profession. Lt. Richard Lipsey was a junior aide to Maj. General Philip C. Wehle, the commander of the military district of Washington, D.C. Although never having witnessed an autopsy, and having no medical training at all, Lipsey was assigned by Wehle to stay with JFK's corpse at Bethesda and to not allow unauthorized persons to enter the theatre the autopsy was performed in. From the students' gallery above, Lipsey watched the entirety of the autopsy, and, though perhaps not understanding everything he saw and heard, was privy to every detail of the autopsy he witnessed.

According to Lipsey's HSCA interview of 1978, the majority of the autopsy was spent in attempting to find the bullet that entered JFK's back. The chest and abdominal organs were dissected in a fruitless attempt to find this bullet, or fragments of it. Their very inability to locate anything more of this bullet than a few particles, or an exit wound for this bullet, is a strong indication of a frangible bullet that breaks apart and disintegrates as it travels through soft tissue.

Lipsey also reported, presumably after hearing it from the autopsy doctors, that the throat wound was believed to have been caused by a bullet, fired from high up at a steep downward angle, either entering low on the back of the skull, or simply grazing the base of the skull. This bullet supposedly impacted the vertebrae, and either a particle of that bullet, or a particle of vertebra bone broken off by that bullet, went on to pass through the right side of JFK's trachea and exit his throat.

This may sound farfetched, until we look at the HSCA interview of x-ray technician Jerrol Custer; also present at the autopsy. He claimed the x-ray of JFK's neck he was shown by the HSCA was not the one he recalled taking that night, and that the one he recalled showed "many" fragments in the vicinity of cervical vertebrae C3/C4.

While it is true that an FMJ bullet would have done serious damage to JFK's vertebrae, the same cannot be said of a frangible bullet, especially the very early and potentially crude and unreliable frangible bullets that might have been available in 1963.

Edited March 25, 2016 by Robert Prudhomme

[Sandy Larsen]

when you say "it would be impractical," what are you referring to?

I gave two examples in my post that you are responding to, and about a dozen in the other thread.

In your post I responded to, I looked for two example of something and still don't know what you are referring to. Why don't you just tell me?

Never mind, I don't care anymore.

I'd like to see how Ashton responds.

As I have ALREADY said; don't keep asking me to do it. Ask him yourself.

I was explaining why I had suggested you take up Ashton's challenge. What you quote here was part of my explanation, not another request.

So I've asked you only once. (Man you can be touchy.)

Question: What would you estimate the distance to be from "behind the tie knot" to above the collar line?

1.4 inches. (That includes the radius of a bullet so that it doesn't touch the shirtline.)

The bullet radius is 6.5mm/2 = 0.128"

1.4" - 0.128" = 1.272" * 2 = 2.544"

Are you measuring from the CENTER of a vertical cross-section of the knot in the necktie, or from the BOTTOM of the knot up to the collar line?

If it's the CENTER, you are proposing a 2.544" diameter knot -- if you're measuring from the BOTTOM of the knot, what evidence indicates the throat wound is THAT low?

I am measuring from where in the "shirt slits" I believe a shard of bone cut through (which is roughly the center of the slits vertically) to the center of a 6.5 mm bullet hole just above the shirtline. I used a button on Kennedy's shirt as a reference for measuring, and assumed the button to be 11 mm in diameter.

I have in front of me a tie with a knot that looks just like Kennedy's tie, including the way it was tied (with the back part of the knot visible above the top of the front part of the tie). On it, the holes in the shirt would line up approximately a third the way up from the bottom of the knot.

[Tom Neal]

Man you can be touchy.
Man, you can be aggravating. As I've said before, I don't think you even read the posts you are replying to because you always ask questions that have already been answered. Then when I don't want to repeat and re-repeat the same answer you label me as "touchy."

I am measuring from where in the "shirt slits" I believe a shard of bone cut through (which is roughly the center of the slits vertically) to the center of a
6.5 mm bullet hole just above the shirtline.

By choosing a location at the vertical center of the slit for your measurement, you are stating that is the location of the throat wound.
Can you post the shirt photo you performed these measurements on, and mark the vertical center of the slit you used, and place a horizontal line where you believe the wound is located?

THIS IS YET ANOTHER ONE OF THE MANY ISSUES THAT MAKE A DETERMINATION IMPRACTICAL -- WE HAVE TO AGREE ON THE WOUND LOCATION.

YOU'VE ALREADY STATED YOU BELIEVE BAXTER'S WOUND LOCATION BETWEEN TRACHEAL RING 2 and 3 AND THAT I HAVE PLACED IT AT THAT POSITION ON MYSELF
AND ON THE JFK PHOTO. YOU ALSO BELIEVE ME THAT THIS POSITION IS EITHER SLIGHTLY ABOVE OR SLIGHTLY BELOW MY COLLAR LINE.

IN CONTRAST, YOU NOW LOCATE *THIS SAME WOUND* 1.4" LOWER THAN THE POSITION I GAVE THAT YOU SAID YOU BELIEVED.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE THIS WOUND CAN EXIST IN BOTH LOCATIONS...

DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM??????????

Edited March 25, 2016 by Tom Neal

[Michael Walton]

I'm not sure why folks on this thread think that a bullet entered his back and terminated with no more than a half finger's worth of depth as stated by the autopsy doctors and somehow hit either a piece of bone (where?) or (alas!) broke up and had enough energy to travel through dense tissue, muscle, and clothes to pop out of his throat.

If you think the above sentence is long-winded, then I think this theory is equally so.

Perry described the hole he saw as a bullet hole an hour after he worked on him. This was raw and unfiltered information coming from a doctor who was inches away from the wound, who had worked on dozens of gunshot wound victims. Sorry to say but if I had a choice of Dr. Perry or Ashton Gray, I'm going to choose Perry every time.

Watch the Z film, which I believe is 100% authentic (see why I think it's 100% authentic in other posts I've made). The throat shot hit him in the throat, startling him, and his reaction is to throw up his hands. Yes, he doesn't grab his throat like you'd expect someone choking on something. But so what? Watch how two men react totally differently to being shot - JFK throws up his hands and starts to slouch to his left, while JBC hardly moves but moans and groans. Just because someone doesn't grab their throat because they were shot there doesn't make it so.

After the throat shot in the Z film, the back shot happens immediately after - watch the video below. You can see his head bob backward and then forward as the back shot slams into him. If you can accept that two shots hit him in the head, then it's easy to accept a front and back shot hitting him in the throat and back.

Throat Fragment Not Possible

There were no reports of anyone in the car seeing a piece of something fly out of his throat. There's no reaction in the Z film of people noticing anything. Nellie Connally said she saw no blood on his throat...so what? She was not back there staring at JFK the entire time - she glanced at him, then dealt with JBC.

I don't know why people keep saying "I have to check with Ashton Gray on this." I think his fragment theory is very flawed because mainly, his animated GIFs can be misleading. There are plenty of photos in this thread showing that a pro shooter who'd probably practiced numerous times elsewhere could lay a shot into his throat just above his clothes. Gray continues on by asking folks to "accept the challenge" of putting on a suit and tie and then measuring how a throat shot is impossible. I'm not going to do that because Gray's theory is too outlandish, right up there with Jackie shot JFK, the limo driver shot JFK, the Z film is fake, and someone blew a poisoned dart at JFK. It's ridiculous.

I'm a minimalist with the shooting portion of this case. The planners were banking on confusion and people looking around bewildered because 6 seconds is a very, very fast sequence of events after a long half-hour drive through the streets of Dallas with people smiling and waving. The shots started at Z225 and ended with the head shots. Shooters from behind and from the front - that's all. It was pull the guns, shoot, and then disappear forever.

The complexity of the case starts immediately afterwards with the government setting up a whitewash, forging evidence, intimidating and threatening witnesses, and so on. Oswald was supposed to be murdered in the theater but somehow it blew up in their faces. He was able to let us peek behind the curtain just a little bit - "he was a patsy" and he knew the backyard photos were forged - before they sent in Ruby to finish it off, on live TV no less.

Edited March 25, 2016 by Michael Walton

[Robert Prudhomme]

"I'm not sure why folks on this thread think that a bullet entered his back and terminated with no more than a half finger's worth of depth as stated by the autopsy doctors and somehow hit either a piece of bone (where?) or (alas!) broke up and had enough energy to travel through dense tissue, muscle, and clothes to pop out of his throat."

I believe you have misunderstood what I am saying. I, too, have long held that the "shallow" back wound was an impossibility. I believe the bullet that struck JFK's back entered the top of his right lung and stayed there, after disintegrating into minute particles. The throat wound was, according to information garnered from Lt. Richard Lipsey's HSCA testimony, related to a bullet that struck JFK low in the back of his skull, near the hair line.

[Tom Neal]

DUPE!

Edited March 25, 2016 by Tom Neal

[Sandy Larsen]

YOU'VE ALREADY STATED YOU BELIEVE BAXTER'S WOUND LOCATION BETWEEN TRACHEAL RING 2 and 3 AND THAT I HAVE PLACED IT AT THAT POSITION ON MYSELF

AND ON THE JFK PHOTO. YOU ALSO BELIEVE ME THAT THIS POSITION IS EITHER SLIGHTLY ABOVE OR SLIGHTLY BELOW MY COLLAR LINE.

From the very beginning of this specific topic, when I used the word "believe" I meant that I believed what you had said in your post about being able to find tracheal ring 3 and that it was above shirtline on some of your shirts and below on others. The reason I was saying I believed you is because you had had gone off on a rant in one of your posts saying (or implying?) that I didn't believe you when in reality I did. (At least that is way it appeared to me.)

I never meant to say or imply that I believed that what you found to be the case with your tracheal rings and shirts in any way reflected on a particular location on JFK. The only conclusion I made from your experiment is that a person's tracheal ring 3 indeed could be above his shirtline. And, of course, that could have been the case for JFK as well. (Prior to your experiment, I assumed it couldn't be the case because Ashton felt so strongly about it. I figured he must have some kind of inside knowledge he was relying on.)

IN CONTRAST, YOU NOW LOCATE *THIS SAME WOUND* 1.4" LOWER THAN THE POSITION I GAVE THAT YOU SAID YOU BELIEVED.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE THIS WOUND CAN EXIST IN BOTH LOCATIONS...

DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM?????????

The problem is that I was using the word "believe" to mean one thing, and you were using the word "believe" to mean something else. And that a miscommunication between us resulted from that.

[Tom Neal]

The problem is that I was using the word "believe" to mean one thing, and you were using the word "believe" to mean something else. And that a miscommunication between us resulted from that.

There was no rant. I pointed out that I HAD done everything but the selfie, and that would prove nothing, because I could put the dot anywhere on the my throat, and anyone could deny it, unless I cut my throat open and labeled it.

According to your explanation, you HAVE TO believe that my c2-c3, is 1.4" or more higher than JFK's.

You said you believed that Baxter was correct as to the c2-c3 location. I know what I mean when I say "BELIEVE" but I don't speak whatever language "BELIEVE" means to you...

Miscommunication???

So...Lose the word "believe":

1. Is Baxter correct with the c2-c3 location? Answer Yes or No.

2. Is the throat wound in the morgue photos located at c2-c3? Answer Yes or No.

Edited March 25, 2016 by Tom Neal

[Sandy Larsen]

So...Lose the word "believe":

Lose the attitude and I'll respond to your post.

[Tom Neal]

So...Lose the word "believe":

Lose the attitude and I'll respond to your post.

ATTITUDE? I'm preventing what you regard as a mis-communication... Man, I can't BELIEVE how TOUCHY you are.

YOU responded to MY post - not the other way around.

I couldn't care less if you respond or not...

[Tom Neal]

I'm not sure why folks on this thread think that a bullet entered his back and terminated with no more than a half finger's worth of depth as stated

by the autopsy doctors and somehow hit either a piece of bone (where?) or (alas!) broke up and had enough energy to travel through dense tissue, muscle,

and clothes to pop out of his throat.

I personally believe a bullet struck quite low on the base of the rear of JFK's skull, after being fired from an upper floor of the TSBD or the Dal-Tex

Building, and that this bullet was a frangible bullet; designed to fragment and disintegrate while travelling through flesh or organs. This bullet either

grazed the base of JFK's skull or entered the rear of his skull and passed through the floor of the skull before contacting the vertebrae at about C3/C4,

where it broke up. The exit wound in the throat would have been caused by a small particle of bone that likely broke off of one of the vertebrae.

This bone particle travelled through the so called "slits" in the collar and nicked the left side of JFK's tie as it passed through.

Michael,

Directly above, is a cut and paste from his post in this thread. Robert is stating that the bullet entered low in the skull, and propelled a piece of bone

through the throat creating an exit wound.

Robert,

I too, have considered this possibility, but...

1. What evidence is there that an entry wound exists at the base of the skull?

2. the angle of depression of a shot from a building would have to increase greatly to follow the steep trajectory line between your entry point to C3/C4

if it's even possible to achieve this great of an angle change, there would be only a small fraction of its velocity remaining

3. the bullet would fragment after traveling a short distance within the neck

considering the low mass of the fragments they would decelerate rapidly

Referring specifically to this throat wound, Perry states that 'Secondary missiles do not normally acquire enough velocity to cause this kind of damage.'

4. if a fragment was traveling vast enough to break off a piece of C3/C4; this bone fragment would lose most of its velocity as it would depart at a sharp angle from the trajectory of the bullet fragment

5. in your proposed trajectory wouldn't the bullet fragment encounter the undamaged C1 and C2 prior to reaching C3 and do considerable damage traveling down through the neck?

6. your bone fragment would require enough velocity to tear the tracheal cartilage through 1/3 of its circumference, pass through multiple layers of skin, tear a slit in the shirt that is aligned with the tie's mid-line and exit without damaging the back of the tie. The nick in the tie is on the left side of the front, not the side

7. the 1/4" exit hole is round with a clean or mostly clean edge

this would require a circular bone fragment 1/4" in diameter and sharp enough to cut through the tracheal cartilage and skin

8. before they were "gotten to" the Parkland Doctors including Perry and Baxter who performed the trach, stated this was an entry for a bullet wound, and the two nurses have always stood by their id as a bullet entry wound

the exit of bone fragments of JBC's shirt do not look like a bullet entry wounds, IMO it seems unlikely that they would all mistake a bone exit for a bullet entry

Tom

Pardon the formatting this DAMN editor keeps adding additional terminating quote tags...

Edited March 25, 2016 by Tom Neal

[Sandy Larsen]

So...Lose the word "believe":

Lose the attitude and I'll respond to your post.

ATTITUDE? I'm preventing what you regard as a mis-communication... Man, I can't BELIEVE how TOUCHY you are.

YOU responded to MY post - not the other way around.

I couldn't care less if you respond or not...

Perhaps I sensed a hostile attitude where there was none. If so, I apologize.

[Tom Neal]

So...Lose the word "believe":

Lose the attitude and I'll respond to your post.

ATTITUDE? I'm preventing what you regard as a mis-communication... Man, I can't BELIEVE how TOUCHY you are.

YOU responded to MY post - not the other way around.

I couldn't care less if you respond or not...

Perhaps I sensed a hostile attitude where there was none. If so, I apologize.

I did my best to AVOID that, AND I went out of my way to further avoid what you are calling a miscommunication.

If you choose to answer my questions I will respond...

[Sandy Larsen]

Perhaps I sensed a hostile attitude where there was none. If so, I apologize.

I did my best to AVOID that, AND I went out of my way to further avoid what you are calling a miscommunication.

If you choose to answer my questions I will respond...

Okay, good. I'm truly sorry.

I have to leave, but might have time to respond before leaving.

Edited March 25, 2016 by Sandy Larsen