The Trach Incision -

[Sandy Larsen]

Sorry guys, if you can't read my response to Tom, or if you see multiple responses from me to Tom.

There is apparently data corruption of some kind in Tom's post. I've found that if I quote his post, all kinds of problems ensue. And I am unable to edit or delete my responses that quote Tom's post.

I have once again re-posted my response, below, this time by manually copying & pasting Tom''s post. Doing so appears to have solved the problem.

Admin, feel free to delete my duplicate posts ABOVE this post. And the one directly FOLLOWING this post. The second post following this is the good one.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

5 hours ago, Tom Neal said:

Bob, as I have repeated all of the above to you too many times to count, I don't know why you would ever accept this horizontal trajectory, but since you came up with an actual angle (42-degrees) for the first time and are looking for possible paths on a diagram, I'll share the above. Obviously you haven't seen a tracheotomy performed. As I've stated before, I have. The above diagram only includes musculature, I have left off the subcutaneous layers and skin. The skin of the throat does NOT lie on top of the trachea, and the angle between the two wounds may be discerned. Sandy, You used the term "tangential" yourself, if you don't like it, don't use it. Note that I didn't say I object to using the phrase "tangential wound." I said we (plural) have to be careful using the word tangential with wounds because it might mean something different than what we might expect. For example, I've seen "tangential wound" used to describe the blowout at the top of Kennedy's head. Clearly a misuse of the word. As I read what you said in your post, I got the impression that your idea of a tangential wound is one from a glancing shot where just a tiny force is applied to the object being shot. I may be wrong, but I think that a tangential wound is one where the projectile hits at an angle and deflects (or skids) off the surface rather penetrating. The amount of force the projectile applies to the object can be considerable and it would still be considered a tangential wound because the projectile didn't penetrate. IMO it is far more accurate in describing the wound than any other term used. A "tangential wound" is not the same as a tangent line in geometry, but we are referring to wounds, so how could confusion result? e.g. Kemp Clark's description of a POSSIBLE cause of the missing occipetal bone was a "tangential wound" caused by a bullet traveling parallel to the missing dish-shaped skull piece. The bullet would have struck one edge of the "dish" first and then the opposite edge, removing the piece of skull. Clark is using correct terminology, and I will continue to use the word "tangential" as it applies to trajectory and/or wounds. I note that both you and BP are now stating that the skull deflection was only "a few degrees." That's quite a dramatic change from your previous beliefs. I've never thought that the change in direction was great. (I do recall you characterizing my hypothesis that way.) I've never given a detailed presentation of my hypothesis. I've only summarized my thinking. So I've never talked about degrees of deflection. Read the statement in the upper left corner of my diagram, including the source. Now explain or produce a diagram of a bullet or whatever that hits the skull near the EOP, is deflected only a few degrees downward and hits the trachea at the wound location. Include a further deflection off a vertebra if you still believe that would produce the LARGE angle required. That statement in the upper left corner of the diagram is wrong. If a projectile hits an object obliquely,  a deflection will occur in all but the most idiosyncratic cases. The only question is the degree of deflection. For Sandy and Bob, you can propose all the VAGUE theories you want regarding deflecting bullets and bone fragments, but neither one of you has produced a trajectory from a shooter to skull, to bone to trachea to exit wound. I've given rough ideas of the trajectories in my theory. Not rigorous to be sure. If you can't do this, you don't have a theory or whatever term you want to use. Now Bob, if your 42-deg angle traj from skull to vertebra is also the angle from shooter to skull, where is the shooter located that would produce this trajectory? As an example, the line of sight from the 6th floor was 20 degrees. If the angle from shooter to skull was on the order of 20-deg, what turned the trajectory from 20 to 42 degrees - scalp and skull shape? Scalp is not going to affect the direction of a high-velocity bullet, nor produce any noticeable velocity reduction. A high-velocity bullet on a downward trajectory is not going to follow the ascending curve of the skull. The force are all wrong here. The bullet would simply nick the skull (producing a hole in the scalp) and continue on its original trajectory. Sandy/Bob, which impact produces the most force on the bullet - a shot parallel to the ground that perforates the skull at a 90-deg angle, or a shot on a descending trajectory that inflicts a tangential wound at the skull? These forces are very difficult to solve. For example, in the case where the skull is hit straight on (90 degrees), how are you going to calculate the deceleration of the bullet upon hitting the skull? Deceleration depends upon a number of factors, like the resulting movement of the head, the flexing of the bone, deformation of the bullet, etc. And you need to know the deceleration in order to calculate the force (F = m a). As a general rule, of course, smaller forces are involved in tangential shots. Do the math, and it's not difficult in this case, to calculate the force of a direct head-on collision of bullet and occipital skull. Take this force ( F=mA, or even linear momentum) and apply it PERPENDICULAR to the velocity vector as it existed prior to the collision. Despite the unquestionably GREATER force here, the original trajectory is altered by less than one degree. Thus, the tangential collision would produce a considerably SMALLER deflection angle. Huh? If the straight-on bullet were deflected at all (because it didn't penetrate the target and didn't lose all its kinetic energy in the collision), the deflection angle would be 180 degrees! The tangential bullet with a smaller force would indeed produce a smaller deflection. But even, say, a whopping 20 degrees of deflection would be considerably smaller than the 180 degrees. If the skull can't turn the bullet even a single degree, how much of a change in the angle could the impact with a vertebra produce? There is considerable disagreement if there was any damage to a vertebra at all, and no one has proposed anything more than slight damage. No sharp turns were performed by any projectile PRIOR to the tracheal injury. Only bullets at the end of their trajectory, with velocity almost spent make sharp turns.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

Tom Neal said:

Bob, as I have repeated all of the above to you too many times to count, I don't know why you would ever accept this horizontal trajectory, but since you came up with an actual angle (42-degrees) for the first time and are looking for possible paths on a diagram, I'll share the above.

Obviously you haven't seen a tracheotomy performed. As I've stated before, I have. The above diagram only includes musculature, I have left off the subcutaneous layers and skin. The skin of the throat does NOT lie on top of the trachea, and the angle between the two wounds may be discerned.

Sandy, You used the term "tangential" yourself, if you don't like it, don't use it.

Note that I didn't say I object to using the phrase "tangential wound." I said we (plural) have to be careful using the word tangential with wounds because it might mean something different than what we might expect. For example, I've seen "tangential wound" used to describe the blowout at the top of Kennedy's head. Clearly a misuse of the word. As I read what you said in your post, I got the impression that your idea of a tangential wound is one from a glancing shot where just a tiny force is applied to the object being shot. I may be wrong, but I think that a tangential wound is one where the projectile hits at an angle and deflects (or skids) off the surface rather penetrating. The amount of force the projectile applies to the object can be considerable and it would still be considered a tangential wound because the projectile didn't penetrate.

IMO it is far more accurate in describing the wound than any other term used. A "tangential wound" is not the same as a tangent line in geometry, but we are referring to wounds, so how could confusion result? e.g. Kemp Clark's description of a POSSIBLE cause of the missing occipetal bone was a "tangential wound" caused by a bullet traveling parallel to the missing dish-shaped skull piece. The bullet would have struck one edge of the "dish" first and then the opposite edge, removing the piece of skull. Clark is using correct terminology, and I will continue to use the word "tangential" as it applies to trajectory and/or wounds.

I note that both you and BP are now stating that the skull deflection was only "a few degrees." That's quite a dramatic change from your previous beliefs.

I've never thought that the change in direction was great. (I do recall you characterizing my hypothesis that way.)

I've never given a detailed presentation of my hypothesis. I've only summarized my thinking. So I've never talked about degrees of deflection.

Read the statement in the upper left corner of my diagram, including the source. Now explain or produce a diagram of a bullet or whatever that hits the skull near the EOP, is deflected only a few degrees downward and hits the trachea at the wound location. Include a further deflection off a vertebra if you still believe that would produce the LARGE angle required.

That statement in the upper left corner of the diagram is wrong. If a projectile hits an object obliquely,  a deflection will occur in all but the most idiosyncratic cases. The only question is the degree of deflection.

For Sandy and Bob, you can propose all the VAGUE theories you want regarding deflecting bullets and bone fragments, but neither one of you has produced a trajectory from a shooter to skull, to bone to trachea to exit wound.

I've given rough ideas of the trajectories in my theory. Not rigorous to be sure.

If you can't do this, you don't have a theory or whatever term you want to use. Now Bob, if your 42-deg angle traj from skull to vertebra is also the angle from shooter to skull, where is the shooter located that would produce this trajectory? As an example, the line of sight from the 6th floor was 20 degrees.

If the angle from shooter to skull was on the order of 20-deg, what turned the trajectory from 20 to 42 degrees - scalp and skull shape? Scalp is not going to affect the direction of a high-velocity bullet, nor produce any noticeable velocity reduction. A high-velocity bullet on a downward trajectory is not going to follow the ascending curve of the skull. The force are all wrong here. The bullet would simply nick the skull (producing a hole in the scalp) and continue on its original trajectory.

Sandy/Bob, which impact produces the most force on the bullet - a shot parallel to the ground that perforates the skull at a 90-deg angle, or a shot on a descending trajectory that inflicts a tangential wound at the skull?

These forces are very difficult to solve. For example, in the case where the skull is hit straight on (90 degrees), how are you going to calculate the deceleration of the bullet upon hitting the skull? Deceleration depends upon a number of factors, like the resulting movement of the head, the flexing of the bone, deformation of the bullet, etc. And you need to know the deceleration in order to calculate the force (F = m a).

As a general rule, of course, smaller forces are involved in tangential shots.

Do the math, and it's not difficult in this case, to calculate the force of a direct head-on collision of bullet and occipital skull. Take this force ( F=mA, or even linear momentum) and apply it PERPENDICULAR to the velocity vector as it existed prior to the collision.

Despite the unquestionably GREATER force here, the original trajectory is altered by less than one degree. Thus, the tangential collision would produce a considerably SMALLER deflection angle.

Huh? If the straight-on bullet were deflected at all (because it didn't penetrate the target and didn't lose all its kinetic energy in the collision), the deflection angle would be 180 degrees! The tangential bullet with a smaller force would indeed produce a smaller deflection. But even, say, a whopping 20 degrees of deflection would be considerably smaller than the 180 degrees.

If the skull can't turn the bullet even a single degree, how much of a change in the angle could the impact with a vertebra produce? There is considerable disagreement if there was any damage to a vertebra at all, and no one has proposed anything more than slight damage.

No sharp turns were performed by any projectile PRIOR to the tracheal injury. Only bullets at the end of their trajectory, with velocity almost spent make sharp turns.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

4. The largest bone fragment on the x-ray created on the night of the autopsy has a beveled edge,. It was presumed to have been part of an exit from the top of the skull. If I'm following this correctly, at least one person on this thread is proposing that there was NO exit from the top of the head on the body at the autopsy. So where did this bone come from? Mantik and Horne et al claim this bone [the large fragment at the top of the head] was blown from the top of the head, but that Jackie closed the hole up, or some such thing. So that it wasn't observed at Parkland. Does this make sense?

Pat,

You are wrong about what Horne believes. Horne believes what I keep telling you, about the gaping wound on the back of JFK's head that most Parkland witnesses initially testified to. And that there was no large wound at the top of the head in Parkland.

Here's a quote from this article written by Horne, with my added emphases in bold:

ALL of the photographs in the official collection at the National Archives are in serious disagreement, in one way or another, with the wounds to President Kennedy universally observed at Parkland Hospital in Dallas the day of his assassination.  But it gets worse: many of the “autopsy photos” in the official collection are also at odds with what many autopsy witnesses recall.  The most significant missing images include those of metal probes (denoting points of entrance and exit, and trajectories) in the body; numerous images taken of the large exit wound in the right rear of JFK’s head (which was recalled by everyone at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, and by most autopsy witnesses); photographs of a bruise in the interior chest, purportedly at the apex of the pleural dome above the right lung; and close-ups of the exterior and interior of an entrance wound in the rear of the skull.   The most controversial autopsy images are those showing the rear of President Kennedy’s head to apparently be intact; they are not only contradicted by all of the Parkland Hospital treatment reports from the day of the assassination, but they were disowned—impugned—under oath, by both of the former FBI agents present at the autopsy (James Sibert and Francis O’Neill) during their 1997 ARRB depositions.   The extensive damage shown in the autopsy photographs to the top and right side of President Kennedy’s cranium bear no relation whatsoever to the localized, avulsed wound (interpreted as a blowout, or exit wound) in the right rear of his head seen in Dallas; no one at Parkland Hospital who wrote a report the day of JFK’s assassination described any damage to the top, or right side, of his head.  ARRB interviews of Nurse Audrey Bell and Dr. Charles Crenshaw in 1997 definitively established that they saw no visible damage whatsoever to the top or right side of his head at Parkland Hospital.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

5. As far as the suspicion the Harper fragment was examined on the night of the autopsy, and then flown back to Dallas so it could be discovered in a location forward of the limousine at the time of the shooting, wow... That's a new one. With huge holes.

1. How did they know [the Harper fragment] would get discovered?

Pat, go to a park that has people wandering about. Drop something that is easy to see and would be curious to those people. Wait a while. Someone will find it.

Harper was a medical student.

Coincidence.

He knew it was bone. Was Harper part of the plot,....

Nope. They wouldn't have wanted a medical student to find it. Just someone who knew that Kennedy had been shot in the head.

....or was it just dumb luck that he stumbled across the bone and knew it might be skull? And then turned it over to the FBI? And wait, if it was arranged that he find the fragment, why did "they" let him have it studied and photographed by others who believed it to have been occipital bone?

Just bad luck. Who would have thought a medical student would find it? One who would have it analyzed?

2. And, oh yeah, if it really was occipital bone, as has hereby been proposed, then why doesn't it look anything like occipital bone? As demonstrated multiple times on this very forum, the inner aspect of the Harper fragment bears no resemblance to the inner aspect of the occipital bone. Dr. Mantik, moreover, now admits this, and has taken to claiming it coulda been occipital bone, because, y'know, Kennedy's Addison's disease coulda just deformed his skull, so that the inner ridges were no longer visible. Does anyone here believe that?

Dr. Mantik may very well be right. After all, there WAS a piece of skull bone somewhere, one that had been blown out the lower back of JFK's head. And the medical student DID find piece of skull bone. Surely they were the same.

The only twist my hypothesis adds is that the fragment was flown back from Washington to Dallas and was dropped on the grass in Dealey Plaza for someone to find. There's nothing difficult in that.

(As a reminder, the necessity of my hypothesis is that there is testimony from two autopsists that indicate an occipital fragment was handled by them at the autopsy. How could they have the fragment if it wasn't found till the following day? My hypothesis explains how.)

 

[Sandy Larsen]

4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

6. At one point on the other thread Ray Mitcham presented a quote from Audrey Bell in which she said the head had to be turned to the side so she could get a look at the wound on the back of the head. This statement was in total contradiction to Bob Prudhomme's claim the wound could be seen with the body laying flat on its back. I don't think  anyone picked up on this. So, which is it? Was Audrey Bell telling the truth? (If this was discussed on the other thread, I apologize.)

I'll bet I could explain how this came about if I could see that quote again. After all, the degree to which one could see the wound would be enhance by tilting the head.

[Pat Speer]

3 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I forgot the key part, Sandy. If "they" had went to the trouble of flying the bone back to Dallas, so they could put it in front of where the limo was at the time of the shooting and pretend it blew forwards, then why did "they" let the FBI write up a report on Harper in which it was suggested the bone was found behind the limo's location at the time of the shooting. Didn't that defeat the purpose? I mean, there was nothing in the WC's records to indicate the fragment was found in front of the limousine. Harper was asked to identify the exact location years later, and his recollection is supported by the Zapruder film, which shows a large bone fragment circling through the air in the direction of where Harper found it.

As far as Horne, he and Mantik will talk your ear off about the blow-out on the back of the head, and that the Parkland doctors' initial assessment of the wound location must have been correct, but they quietly acknowledge that the large triangular fragment came from the front of the head, and that there was a wound in this location unobserved by the very same "trained observers" they claim could not have been mistaken about the wound on the back of the head. Mantik discusses this in his book, and it was discussed in Horne's segment of A Coup in Camelot as well.

 

[Michael Walton]

I know this thread started off about the throat incision and now it's about the bone fragments.  So I'd like to ask my own "body" question.

Can someone point me to the autopsy write up or description, or share your own thoughts, on what that dark circle is in the forehead of this photo? I'm sure it's probably not, but it looks almost like a photo anomaly:

[Ray Mitcham]

Pat, which of the photos showing the various people indicating where they thought the hole was, shows one of them agreeing with Robertson's view, that the piece of skull came from the top of the head?

 

This was Dr Dulany's opinion.

 

Edited December 16, 2016 by Ray Mitcham

[Sandy Larsen]

5 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I forgot the key part, Sandy. If "they" had went to the trouble of flying the bone back to Dallas, so they could put it in front of where the limo was at the time of the shooting and pretend it blew forwards, then why did "they" let the FBI write up a report on Harper in which it was suggested the bone was found behind the limo's location at the time of the shooting. Didn't that defeat the purpose? I mean, there was nothing in the WC's records to indicate the fragment was found in front of the limousine. Harper was asked to identify the exact location years later, and his recollection is supported by the Zapruder film, which shows a large bone fragment circling through the air in the direction of where Harper found it.

 

No Pat, the FBI did not write a report suggesting the fragment was found behind where the limo was at the time of the shooting. They wrote a report suggesting the opposite.

There are two FBI reports published in the WCR regarding this, this one dated 11/28/63, and this one dated 7/13/64. Both of them state that the fragment was found about 25 feet to the south of where the limo was. Since the limo was traveling southwest, that means the fragment was found ahead and to the left of the limo.

And BTW, Billy Harper was asked by Milicent Cranor to point on a map of Dealey plaza where he found the fragment, and this is where he pointed:

 

This image was posted in a forum by Robin Unger, so I assume it is correct.

This is what Richard Gilbride wrote in Matrix for Assassination, which supports the  location on the  map:

"William Harper was given a map of Dealey Plaza in 1997 by researcher Milicent Cranor, who asked him to mark just where he found the fragment. Harper placed the 'approximate location' well forward of the limousine's location during the head explosion (as determined from Zapruder frame 313."

(BTW, Gilbride's theory is that the fragment rode the trunk of the limo for a ways before falling off. And then some person found it and threw it up on the grass.)

[Sandy Larsen]

6 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

As far as Horne, he and Mantik will talk your ear off about the blow-out on the back of the head, and that the Parkland doctors' initial assessment of the wound location must have been correct, but they quietly acknowledge that the large triangular fragment came from the front of the head, and that there was a wound in this location unobserved by the very same "trained observers" they claim could not have been mistaken about the wound on the back of the head. Mantik discusses this in his book, and it was discussed in Horne's segment of A Coup in Camelot as well.

Well of course the large triangular fragment came from the front top of the head. Nobody disagrees with that. It's just that it wasn't visible till the secret "medical procedure" to the top of the head -- as recorded in the Sibert / O'Neill report -- was performed. Which was done after the body departed Dallas.

The scalp on top of the head was cut open during this procedure, exposing the fragments there.

[Chris Davidson]

58 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

No Pat, the FBI did not write a report suggesting the fragment was found behind where the limo was at the time of the shooting. They wrote a report suggesting the opposite.

There are two FBI reports published in the WCR regarding this, this one dated 11/28/63, and this one dated 7/13/64. Both of them state that the fragment was found about 25 feet to the south of where the limo was. Since the limo was traveling southwest, that means the fragment was found ahead and to the left of the limo.

And BTW, Billy Harper was asked by Milicent Cranor to point on a map of Dealey plaza where he found the fragment, and this is where he pointed:

 

This image was posted in a forum by Robin Unger, so I assume it is correct.

This is what Richard Gilbride wrote in Matrix for Assassination, which supports the  location on the  map:

"William Harper was given a map of Dealey Plaza in 1997 by researcher Milicent Cranor, who asked him to mark just where he found the fragment. Harper placed the 'approximate location' well forward of the limousine's location during the head explosion (as determined from Zapruder frame 313."

(BTW, Gilbride's theory is that the fragment rode the trunk of the limo for a ways before falling off. And then some person found it and threw it up on the grass.)

Sandy,

Since the yellow dot matches another graphic I have, which is where the Harper fragment is also located, the distance streetwise is approx 90ft.

Over to the grass area, add another ? in distance.

The Southside "inlet" is a common landmark.

 

 

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Pat, which of the photos showing the various people indicating where they thought the hole was, shows one of them agreeing with Robertson's view, that the piece of skull came from the top of the head?

 

This was Dr Dulany's opinion.

 

This photo, for one. Robertson claims the large triangular fragment came from the back of the top of the head, where Dulaney has his hand. A number of other witnesses have placed their hands in a similar location. This is is a HUGE problem for those claiming the wound was in the middle of the upper occipital bone, such as Mantik. Such a wound would be centered on the back of the head, not on the right side, and extend but a short ways above the top of the ear. There is little to no overlap of such a wound with the wound described by Dulaney and others.

Around the beginning of the year, Milicent Cranor wrote an article in which she attacked me for arguing against those claiming the wound was low on the back of the head. She considered this to be a strawman in that no one really believed such a thing. I thank those participating in this thread for reaffirming that I was right and she was wrong.

The widespread belief that the only head wound observed at Parkland Hospital was low on the back of the head is pretty wacky, IMO. Most of those who've pointed out the wound location have pointed to a higher location, and the Harper fragment bears no resemblance to occipital bone.

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Well of course the large triangular fragment came from the front top of the head. Nobody disagrees with that. It's just that it wasn't visible till the secret "medical procedure" to the top of the head -- as recorded in the Sibert / O'Neill report -- was performed. Which was done after the body departed Dallas.

The scalp on top of the head was cut open during this procedure, exposing the fragments there.

So, you're saying this fragment was not missing in Dallas? And that it was removed by the doctors during the "pre-autopsy"? And then switched out with the actual fragment flown in from Dallas, the Harper fragment?

[Michael Walton]

There is no way I piece of bone could have flown that far ahead in front of the limo.  No way.  I have a video showing a man being shot from behind by a high-powered gun.  The muzzle is about 5 feet at most from the back of his head.  As soon as the bullet strikes, an eerie thing occurs - a piece of flesh colored bone goes spinning from the back of his head.  The execution was filmed in slow motion so you can really see a lot of detail.  But this piece of spinning bone flies at most 5-6 feet to the side of the poor man's head.

Anyway, I know that every head shot is going to be different, but we're expected to believe that a piece of bone from Kennedy flew 90 feet *ahead* of him?  Perhaps this bone landed on the trunk and it was knocked off or somehow deposited in that vicinity when the car sped on.