The bone flap ( was it hinged on the skull, or floating free )

[Robin Unger]

I had always assumed that the bone flap was actually hinged on the skull ( as shown in various autopsy photo's )

But now i am not so sure, after looking at this GIF made by Gerda

In this GIF it seems to me that the bone flap may be free of the skull, and dangling from the scalp ?

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Robin:

Seems I am not allowed to post images,

or else I just don't know how to do it.

Could you please post some autopsy photos

For comparison?.

[Bjørn Gjerde]

Robin,

I have posted on this on the Lancer Forum some weeks ago. The 'flap' is not a flap at all, it is a large piece of skull coming off from the right rear of the head and, but being temporarily still attached by a strand of the scalp or connective tissue. So it is dangling loose in the temple area in these frames until it finally becomes completely detached and is later seen by agent Hill in the back seat on the ride to Parkland.

Hill: "As I lay over the top of the back seat I noticed a portion of the President's head on the right rear side was missing and he was bleeding profusely. Part of his brain was gone. I saw a part of his skull with hair on it lieing in the seat."

It was probably the same piece that was subsequently found in the limousine by Agent Kinney and brought to the autopsy room at Bethesha late Friday night. It mesaured 10 x 6.5 cm.

The reason for this location of the skull fragent, is in my opinion that JFK was hit tangentially in the rear of his head by a bullet fired from the the top of the Criminal Court Building. This large piece of skull at the right rear of the head would then be chipped off as also told by Richard Lipsey. To Bill Newman, standing close by, it appeared as if JFK's right ear had been detached:

"The President all the time was staying in an upright position in his seat and it looked like he was looking into the crowd of people as if he was trying to see someone. I caught a glimpse of his eyes, just looked like a cold stare, he just looked through me, and then when the car was directly in front of me, well, that is when the third shot was fired and it hit him in the side of the head right above the ear and his ear come off.

Bjørn Gjerde

Edited September 8, 2013 by Bjørn Gjerde

[Pat Speer]

The large piece of bone found on the floor, and recovered by Kinney, can be seen traveling in that direction in the film.

The bone that is attached to the flap of scalp (and not skull) remained attached to the flap until the beginning of the autopsy.

As it overlay intact skull when Kennedy was lying on his back, it shows up as a "white patch" on the lateral x-rays taken at the beginning of the autopsy.

It can also be seen in the right lateral and top of the head photos taken at the very beginning of the autopsy.

It is not apparent, however, in the back of the head photos taken a bit later, after the hair had been rinsed and the search for an entrance wound on the back of the head had begun.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Pat Speer

[Bjørn Gjerde]

Your identification/interpretation of these anatomical structures is simply not correct. If such a scalp (or skull) lesion had been present in the temporal/frontal region of JFK’s head, the doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital would surely have discovered it and reported it. They were not idiots.

The autopsy photographs and x-rays of JFK are of no use whatsoever in describing JFK’s wounds. They have been made to show that he was hit in the back of his head by a bullet fired by Oswald. He wasn’t.

Bjørn Gjerde

[Pat Speer]

Your identification/interpretation of these anatomical structures is simply not correct. If such a scalp (or skull) lesion had been present in the temporal/frontal region of JFK’s head, the doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital would surely have discovered it and reported it. They were not idiots.

The autopsy photographs and x-rays of JFK are of no use whatsoever in describing JFK’s wounds. They have been made to show that he was hit in the back of his head by a bullet fired by Oswald. He wasn’t.

Bjørn Gjerde

I run through the Parkland witnesses ad nauseum in chapters 18c and 18d of my website, and show how they described the wound in the autopsy photos...on average...two inches or so further back on the head than as shown in the photos, and NOT on the far back of the head below the top of the ear, where some of the writers would have you believe they saw a wound.

I suspect they were confused by the rotation of Kennedy's body.

While many think it's impossible for doctors to make such a mistake, I've discussed this matter with some cognitive psychologists, and they thought it was entirely possible doctors would recall a wound's precise location incorrectly.