The Warren Commission Skeleton by John Hunt

[Larry Hancock]

JFK Lancer had just posted some fascinating research from John Hunt. You can view it at:

http://jfklancer.com/hunt/WCSkeleton/Warren_Commission_Skeleton.htm

[James R Gordon]

Larry,

thanks for posting a link to John Hunt’s essay. I am going to study the in more detail.

It is a fascinating read. Reading how the Clarke Panel - or whoever it was - tried to medically find an answer to the SBT is really interesting. The fact that anyone would seriously consider image 9 or figure 13 just shows the lengths they would go to establish a narrative for the SBT.

The importance of the Suprasternal Notch to establish the position of the throat wound is something I had never considered.

Something definitely happened in the neck area as the image below can be seen. This X-ray was taken prior to the autopsy and not during - as some were. The neck has clearly collapsed to the right. At the time I created the image I suggest that Intervertebral disk C06 C07 had collapsed. I am not quite so sure now, however something was damaged that caused the neck to collapse on its right.

I do not have the answer, but what is clear to me is that something happened in the neck area. Because this X-ray was taken prior to the autopsy, means the damage cannot be ascribed to what Humes did.

Interesting though these images are, what is clear is that basically all that was being attempted was to find an acceptable straight line trajectory. They do not appear to appear to be examining the medical implications of the SBT.

Either way it is an interesting article and a fascinating set of images.

Link to Xray:-

James.

[Cliff Varnell]

While this is an interesting article I have to take exception to the following (emphasis added):

Critics of the official version had serious reservations about the WC’s conclusion that the bullet that entered JFK’s back emerged from his neck below the Adam’s Apple. The problem was that the hole in the back of the jacket is substantially lower than the hole in the neck band at the front of the shirt. The question became, "How does a bullet fired from the 6th floor of a building produce a sharply upward trajectory in the victim?" The short story is that it is my conclusion that the jacket and shirt were bunched up when the shot struck. An essay I authored in 1999 makes that case and so we will not rehash the issue here.

Here's the money quote from Hunt's essay, "The Case for a Bunched Jacket" (emphasis added):

The limits of space, combined with the clear and convincing photographic evidence yet to come, obviate the need to elaborate on all of the eyewitness testimony. This testimony is both contradictory and subject to interpretation. Further, my research indicates that the difference between the impact point of a "smoothly oriented" jacket shot and a "bunched up" jacket shot is little more than two inches. The reader is invited to contact me via e-mail if he or she is curious as to how I arrived at the aforementioned figure. That essay, explaining in detail my methodology, is not yet finished.

15 years later -- and still no explanation of his "methodology".

This isn't research, it's propaganda in support of another Single Bullet Theory Hunt proposes (one without CE399).

[Don Jeffries]

I agree with Cliff. Anyone who gives the slightest credence to the "bunched up" theory is not a researcher to take seriously, imho. How many times does the evidence have to be examined before we can just admit that the SBT is completely, utterly impossible?

I exchanged posts with John Hunt years ago on another forum. The topic was JFK's autopsy, and his inference that the Kennedy family was, in effect, responsible for at least some of its defects because they tried to limit it. I mentioned that Harold Weisberg had destroyed this notion years before, when one of his countless FOIA requests produced the actual autopsy paperwork, signed by Robert Kennedy, which documented that he (speaking for the family) was not asking for any limitations.

Hunt ignored the fact that the documentation showed that the Kennedy family was not in "control" of the autopsy. On the contrary, it certainly appears that military officers present that night were controlling it. Blaming the Kennedys for losing JFK's brain, or the inexcusably shoddy autopsy itself, led directly in my view to the later (and ongoing) efforts to blame JFK for his own assassination, and to diminish him as a person and a political leader.

[Mark Knight]

If the shirt and jacket were "sufficiently bunched" to allow the SBT to have occurred...then the Figure 13 wound trajectory photo wouldn't have been necessary.

Figure 13 DOES seem to more correctly align with the wounds seen in the autopsy photos. But that would mean that the back/neck wound(s), if connected, were actually made by a bullet fired by someone at ground level. Not saying that is either right or wrong; just saying that this conclusion is what the trajectory indicated in Figure 13 implies.]

James...with your 3D computer-generated models...can you approximate what vital spots may have been hit, or missed, if the Figure 13 trajectory is the correct one?

[Cliff Varnell]

More nonsense from Hunt (emphasis added):

THE ISSUE OF THE THROAT WOUND

Where did the bullet that entered the back go? Without getting into the nitty gritty (which is covered at length in the JFK assassination literature and documentaries), Kennedy had a small bullet wound in his throat below the Adams Apple when he arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. It was visually identified as a wound of entry by Dr. Malcolm Perry but might not have been. JFK was noted to be experiencing extreme agonal respiration [involuntary, spasmodic gasps of breath, the body’s instinctive attempt to breathe under duress]. By a monumentally unfortunate twist of fate, the wound was located at the exact point where tracheotomies are performed. Dr. Malcolm Perry made the tracheotomy incision right through the bullet hole.

A half-dozen Parkland personnel other than Perry described the wound as "punctate" or "a wound of entrance".

The T3 back wound removes any doubt whatsoever -- too low to have been associated with the throat wound.

Therefore, the throat wound was an entrance with no exit.

[Paul Brancato]

Exactly.

[Gary Murr]

I preface my response to this thread, and in particular to the comments offered by those who have chosen to do so, by indicating that though I have known and exchanged materials with John Hunt for close to a decade he does not need me to defend any of his work - it stands on its own merits. Having said this I must admit that I am surprised at the responses offered by those who obviously cannot comprehend what is involved when one attempts true research. I fail to see, after repeated readings of this essay, where John Hunt presented any of us with either "nonsense" or "propaganda." And to further indicate that John "is not a researcher to be taken seriously", or is an individual who threatens the cocoon of Camelot is truly nonsense. Far too often this forum, like many others, is flooded with garbage that makes a mockery of the word "research", more often than not threads started by individuals who don't have the first clue about research beyond the ability to type the word "Google" into their computers - once they figure out how to turn them on! And if you truly want a sentence that epitomizes the concept of nonsense, start with this one: "Therefore, the throat wound was an entrance with no exit." On the other hand, as James Gordon indicated, the essay is a fascinating read even if it does make some individuals uncomfortable.

[Mark Knight]

The material Mr. Hunt found, and it's obvious ties to the Clark Panel, indicates to me that not ALL of the medical community believed the open-and-shut Warren Commission Report conclusions. After seeing the medical evidence, the fact that alternative wound trajectories were considered indicates to me that the evidence was not as cut-and-dried as the Clark Panel's conclusions would have us believe.

I would like to see someone map out all the alternate wound trajectories with a 3D model, as James Gordon did on a previous thread. I believe that seeing how these proposed wound trajectories do, or do not, interfere with major arteries and muscles might be enlightening.

[Cliff Varnell]

I preface my response to this thread, and in particular to the comments offered by those who have chosen to do so, by indicating that though I have known and exchanged materials with John Hunt for close to a decade he does not need me to defend any of his work - it stands on its own merits. Having said this I must admit that I am surprised at the responses offered by those who obviously cannot comprehend what is involved when one attempts true research. I fail to see, after repeated readings of this essay, where John Hunt presented any of us with either "nonsense" or "propaganda." And to further indicate that John "is not a researcher to be taken seriously", or is an individual who threatens the cocoon of Camelot is truly nonsense. Far too often this forum, like many others, is flooded with garbage that makes a mockery of the word "research", more often than not threads started by individuals who don't have the first clue about research beyond the ability to type the word "Google" into their computers - once they figure out how to turn them on! And if you truly want a sentence that epitomizes the concept of nonsense, start with this one: "Therefore, the throat wound was an entrance with no exit." On the other hand, as James Gordon indicated, the essay is a fascinating read even if it does make some individuals uncomfortable.

Gary, real researchers don't publish their conclusions without explaining their methodology.

The thrust of Hunt's claims here are that the posterior wound was "high." Hunt can't defend this stuff to save his life. Neither can you, Gary.

You write:

And if you truly want a sentence that epitomizes the concept of nonsense, start with this one: "Therefore, the throat wound was an entrance with no exit."

Are you challenging the throat entrance and the T3 back wound?

[Gary Murr]

No - what I am challenging is the conceptual nuance that a bullet - and I assume you are of the belief that a bullet of some sort entered the throat of JFK - that this same bullet some how magically disappeared, has or left apparently no visible point of "exit." And since I am not the individual proposing that "the posterior wound was high" I feel no reason to defend this position. Indeed, I don't believe I indicated anywhere within this thread that I need defend even John Hunt's position, in particular his "money quote". What I am curious about, however, is just where you think the bullet that entered JFK's throat went - and please feel free to "defend" your answer to this question with research and documentation. I would really be intrigued to see what this bullet looks like.

[Cliff Varnell]

No - what I am challenging is the conceptual nuance that a bullet - and I assume you are of the belief that a bullet of some sort entered the throat of JFK - that this same bullet some how magically disappeared, has or left apparently no visible point of "exit." And since I am not the individual proposing that "the posterior wound was high" I feel no reason to defend this position. Indeed, I don't believe I indicated anywhere within this thread that I need defend even John Hunt's position, in particular his "money quote". What I am curious about, however, is just where you think the bullet that entered JFK's throat went - and please feel free to "defend" your answer to this question with research and documentation. I would really be intrigued to see what this bullet looks like.

Thanks for your collegial response.

Given my rep as a thread hijacker, which I'd like to kick, I'll start another thread on this subject in a day or so.

Edited December 13, 2014 by Cliff Varnell

[Larry Hancock]

I'd really hoped that with the expertise available on the forum we would see some serious discussion of the material John Hunt found and described. Since this is far outside my line of expertise I would like to see thoughts on who was doing these path studies when, why they would be considering the path in item number 9 at all and in general what these photos and skeleton probes might suggest. Of course its also strange that we have photos of probles in pristine skeletons and nothing of the sort from the actual autopsy - although one or more witnesses has described the use of probes. And if they were not used then...why not?

Rather than focus on John Hunt or everybody's individual theory, how about some critique of the actual items he discovered.....

[Don Jeffries]

Gary,

I'm not blindly enamored with the "cocoon of Camelot." But I don't like unjust criticism of the Kennedy family, which Hunt was guilty of years ago, when he continued to maintain that they "controlled" the autopsy when Harold Weisberg's documentation proved that, to the contrary, RFK made no stipulations whatsoever.

Perhaps John Hunt has done some great work. Those of us who have studied this subject for decades have lost all patience with anyone who gives the least bit of credence to any "bunched up" coat theory. What kind of methodology rejects the fact that Boswell's original autopsy face sheet, the death certificate signed by Burkley, and the testimony of Sibert & O'Neill, all placed the back wound exactly where the holes in the clothing are?

As Cliff points out so often, there is no rational reason for moving the back wound location up, even if the HSCA spot still makes the SBT nearly impossible. The location of the holes in the clothing-which should be categorized as "best evidence" if anything is, makes it completely and utterly impossible. Your question about where the bullet went that entered JFK's throat has been asked by lone nutters for a long time. How do we know where anything went? The limousine- the literal "crime scene"- was corrupted before any "evidence" was collected from it. There is no reason to trust anything that came out of the limo, given the circumstances, much as there is no reason to trust in the legitimacy of the photos and x-rays that came out of Bethesda.

Sorry- I apologize for steering this thread off course.

[Gary Murr]

Don -

No apologies necessary. I am fairly certain that I would fall into your categorization of one of those "who have studied this subject for decades" and as anyone who knows me well realizes, I am not a "lone nutter" by any definition one would wish to apply. There is no question that John Hunt has done some excellent research work and until such time as he sees fit to release, in total, what he has accumulated on this subject matter, if he ever makes that decision, we are only left with what he "publishes" for our consumption. Whether it is "right" or "wrong" is left up to the individual to decide. I did not intend to hi-jack this thread and I do believe somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of pages that I have accumulated since 1966 I believe I have some material that relates to the construction of the "dummy" pictured in the photographs John displayed in this article. Of course, I am not the neatest of researchers when it comes to cataloging this same collection, something I keep promising myself will be my retirement project! I appreciate your comments, as I do those of Cliff and others and suffice to say I know as well as anyone that evidence was corrupted. That being the truth of the matter, the job before us then becomes the search for what we can trust and most importantly, at least from my perspective, to do so with an eye toward historical accuracy, at the very least.