PatSpeer.com: Fact Check

[Jon G. Tidd]

Thanks, Pat.

I'm in the body-alteration camp and the forged-autopsy photos and x-rays camp, but I like to read your arguments.

There are several reasons I'm in the two camps. The main one is that I believe the principal reason for the JFK debate today is the fact that there is widespread disagreement over the nature and extent of JFK's wounds. That fact is, I believe, indicative of a deliberate effort to obfuscate the nature and extent of the wounds in order to promulgate a false picture of the causes of JFK's wounding and death.

[Pat Speer]

Thanks, Pat.

I'm in the body-alteration camp and the forged-autopsy photos and x-rays camp, but I like to read your arguments.

There are several reasons I'm in the two camps. The main one is that I believe the principal reason for the JFK debate today is the fact that there is widespread disagreement over the nature and extent of JFK's wounds. That fact is, I believe, indicative of a deliberate effort to obfuscate the nature and extent of the wounds in order to promulgate a false picture of the causes of JFK's wounding and death.

Well, yeah. On first glance it would sure seem that way. On second glance, however, those viewing Kennedy's head wound are not nearly as compelling or consistent as some would like us to believe. At the most recent Lancer conference, for example, there was one Dealey Plaza witness, two Parkland witnesses, and one Bethesda witness, none of whom believed the low back of the head (the occipital area) was blown out, a la what many would like you to believe.

I've concluded that the "experts" were pressured into misrepresenting some of what they saw to support the single-assassin conclusion. But I don't believe the autopsy photos and x-rays were altered. These things were never supposed to be seen by the public. And besides, why change the evidence when you can just lie about it?

Edited February 10, 2016 by Pat Speer

[Thomas Graves]

Thanks, Pat.

I'm in the body-alteration camp and the forged-autopsy photos and x-rays camp, but I like to read your arguments.

There are several reasons I'm in the two camps. The main one is that I believe the principal reason for the JFK debate today is the fact that there is widespread disagreement over the nature and extent of JFK's wounds. That fact is, I believe, indicative of a deliberate effort to obfuscate the nature and extent of the wounds in order to promulgate a false picture of the causes of JFK's wounding and death.

Well, yeah. On first glance it would sure seem that way. On second glance, however, those viewing Kennedy's head wound are not nearly as compelling or consistent as some would like us to believe. At the most recent Lancer conference, for example, there was one Dealey Plaza witness, two Parkland witnesses, and one Bethesda witness, none of whom believed the low back of the head (the occipital area) was blown out, a la what many would like you to believe.

I've concluded that the "experts" were pressured into misrepresenting some of what they saw to support the single-assassin conclusion. But I don't believe the autopsy photos and x-rays were altered. These things were never supposed to be seen by the public. And besides, why change the evidence when you can just lie about it?

Pat,

Bottom line, where do you think the shot or shots that hit JFK in the head came from?

Sixth-floor southeast window (the "Sniper's Window")?

And / or somewhere else?

Thanks,

--Tommy

Edited February 10, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Jon G. Tidd]

I can't prove where bullets entered or exited JFK, but I can accept the possibility a bullet entered the low rear part of JFK's skull based upon Hume's statement that a low entry wound was discovered by placing a bone fragment adjacent to bone that had not been blown out.

Humes also said at the end of the autopsy, a hole remained in the skull that he helped cover with a rubber dam.

Humes lied multiple times, I believe; but I also believe his medical training compelled him to tell the truth to the extent he thought the truth wouldn't get him in trouble. Just an opinion.

[Greg Burnham]

Millicent Cranor responds to Pat Speer:

==============================

PS: “Wow. Someone's having a meltdown.”

MC: I’m just helping a psychologist who’s looking for specimens of disinformation. He plans to use these examples in a book he’s writing on cognitive processes. Someone alerted him to your website where he found certain typical patterns of deception, but he could not put his finger on the specifics since he doesn’t know the medical evidence. So he asked me to collect more specimens, and to explain them. It’s like sampling polluted water. I can only do so much at a time before the fumes get to me. This kind of work leaves me cold, way below melting temperature.

PS: “It appears that Milicent has chosen to in interpret the autopsy protocol in a manner consistent with her favored scenario.”

MC: No, that is what you do. I have no “favored scenario.” I just believe in providing relevant information to readers so that they can make up their own minds.

PS: “…Which is pretty standard, I suppose. In particular, it seems that she has chosen to believe that the wound stretching "somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions" is the wound described by the Parkland witnesses, a wound primarily on the back of the head. Well, I reject this for a number of reasons. 1) The use of the word "somewhat" suggests to me that this wound barely extended beyond the parietal area.”

MC: This is probably what Humes hoped people would think. As I have written elsewhere, he was often vague when it came to reporting information that could contradict the desired conclusions. He used elastic language when describing the location of the back wound, and he feigned ignorance of a bullet wound in the throat on the night of the autopsy. In any case, no matter what a word “suggests” to you, you should never filter it out. You should report all relevant statements, and only then give your opinion.

PS: “2. The use of the term "regions" as opposed to bones. It is my understanding that doctors will call the back of the head (yes, even the top of the back of the head--which is the parietal bone) "the occipital region" and that they will similarly call the side of the head by the ear "the temporal region". Well, this suggests to me that the wound was centered on the top right side of the head, and not the far back of the head.”

MC: Regardless of your “understanding” – you should still report all relevant statements.

PS: “3. The scalp lacerations from this defect didn't stretch to the far back of the head.”

MC: That is irrelevant. What you left out is quite relevant: “In this region [parietal somewhat into temporal and occipital] there is an actual absence of scalp and bone…

PS: “4. We have no reason for believing the large head wound was measured prior to the scalp being reflected, and skull falling to the table. And yes, I know, the protocol says there was an actual absence of scalp and bone. But it doesn't specify that this bone was missing at the beginning of the autopsy.”

MC: Again, you should have reported these critical statements. Their wording indicated the scalp and bone were missing at the beginning. And where would you fit those three late-arriving bone fragments – including one that was 10 cm long, but not including the Harper fragment, which wasn’t turned in that night at all.

Prior to exploration that caused additional bone fragmentation, the hole had to be large enough to fit those late-arriving fragments. Even then, they said, there still wasn’t quite enough bone to fill the hole. But maybe you’re right. Maybe there was only a small hole on top – and those bone fragments belong to someone else.

But what about the “complete absence of scalp?” Is it your theory that scalp also fell to the table? Or do you believe that when the doctors said there was “a complete absence of scalp” they forgot they had it in their hands?

Thank you for this new collection of specimens.

[Ray Mitcham]

I can't prove where bullets entered or exited JFK, but I can accept the possibility a bullet entered the low rear part of JFK's skull based upon Hume's statement that a low entry wound was discovered by placing a bone fragment adjacent to bone that had not been blown out.

Humes also said at the end of the autopsy, a hole remained in the skull that he helped cover with a rubber dam.

Humes lied multiple times, I believe; but I also believe his medical training compelled him to tell the truth to the extent he thought the truth wouldn't get him in trouble. Just an opinion.

Jon, from the above it appear that you mean that Humes covered a "bullet wound" with a rubber dam.

His testimony to the ARRB doesn't appear to say that. I hope I am not misunderstanding what you meant.

Q. "When the embalming process was completed, approximately how much scalp was missing?"

A. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe three or four centimeters, something like that. Not much. We were able to--you can undermine the skin, you know, and we pretty much closed it. We didn't have enough bone to completely close that part of the defect, and we had--one of the people who was around and very helpful was our chief of surgery, Dr. David Osborne. And we went to--he went to the operating room and brought back some rubber dam, which is material that is used in surgery not infrequently to cover a variety of different kinds of defects. And we used a rubber dam to help us close the skull bone. But I don't think we had to add anything to the scalp."

Edited February 15, 2016 by Ray Mitcham

[Jon G. Tidd]

Ray,

I have no inkling as to the size or cause of the skull bone defect Humes closed with the rubber dam.

[Pat Speer]

Millicent Cranor responds to Pat Speer:

==============================

PS: “Wow. Someone's having a meltdown.”

MC: I’m just helping a psychologist who’s looking for specimens of disinformation. He plans to use these examples in a book he’s writing on cognitive processes. Someone alerted him to your website where he found certain typical patterns of deception, but he could not put his finger on the specifics since he doesn’t know the medical evidence. So he asked me to collect more specimens, and to explain them. It’s like sampling polluted water. I can only do so much at a time before the fumes get to me. This kind of work leaves me cold, way below melting temperature.

PS: “It appears that Milicent has chosen to in interpret the autopsy protocol in a manner consistent with her favored scenario.”

MC: No, that is what you do. I have no “favored scenario.” I just believe in providing relevant information to readers so that they can make up their own minds.

PS: “…Which is pretty standard, I suppose. In particular, it seems that she has chosen to believe that the wound stretching "somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions" is the wound described by the Parkland witnesses, a wound primarily on the back of the head. Well, I reject this for a number of reasons. 1) The use of the word "somewhat" suggests to me that this wound barely extended beyond the parietal area.”

MC: This is probably what Humes hoped people would think. As I have written elsewhere, he was often vague when it came to reporting information that could contradict the desired conclusions. He used elastic language when describing the location of the back wound, and he feigned ignorance of a bullet wound in the throat on the night of the autopsy. In any case, no matter what a word “suggests” to you, you should never filter it out. You should report all relevant statements, and only then give your opinion.

PS: “2. The use of the term "regions" as opposed to bones. It is my understanding that doctors will call the back of the head (yes, even the top of the back of the head--which is the parietal bone) "the occipital region" and that they will similarly call the side of the head by the ear "the temporal region". Well, this suggests to me that the wound was centered on the top right side of the head, and not the far back of the head.”

MC: Regardless of your “understanding” – you should still report all relevant statements.

PS: “3. The scalp lacerations from this defect didn't stretch to the far back of the head.”

MC: That is irrelevant. What you left out is quite relevant: “In this region [parietal somewhat into temporal and occipital] there is an actual absence of scalp and bone…

PS: “4. We have no reason for believing the large head wound was measured prior to the scalp being reflected, and skull falling to the table. And yes, I know, the protocol says there was an actual absence of scalp and bone. But it doesn't specify that this bone was missing at the beginning of the autopsy.”

MC: Again, you should have reported these critical statements. Their wording indicated the scalp and bone were missing at the beginning. And where would you fit those three late-arriving bone fragments – including one that was 10 cm long, but not including the Harper fragment, which wasn’t turned in that night at all.

Prior to exploration that caused additional bone fragmentation, the hole had to be large enough to fit those late-arriving fragments. Even then, they said, there still wasn’t quite enough bone to fill the hole. But maybe you’re right. Maybe there was only a small hole on top – and those bone fragments belong to someone else.

But what about the “complete absence of scalp?” Is it your theory that scalp also fell to the table? Or do you believe that when the doctors said there was “a complete absence of scalp” they forgot they had it in their hands?

Thank you for this new collection of specimens.

Well, this only proves my point. She admits she was encouraged to go after me (but refuses to name who this was). It seems clear, moreover, that she read one chapter of my website and decided to attack me for what she thinks I left out without having the slightest freakin' clue what my position is. No one in the research community has hammered home that the wound was of scalp AND skull more than I. I do this on my website and have done so in hundreds of posts and emails over the years.

Why? For two reasons.

1. Many CTs have tried to close the Parkland/Bethesda divide by claiming there was a scalp flap on the top of the head that went unseen at Parkland and another scalp flap on the back of the head that went unseen at Bethesda. Dr. Clark's claim the large defect in Parkland was missing scalp and skull essentially destroys this argument.

2. Medicolegal Investigation of Death, by Fisher and Spitz, specifies that scalp is missing at entrance wounds but not at exits. Now, this is considered forensic pathology gospel. So much so that the HSCA pathology panel--no doubt fueled by Spitz--expressed doubt that the autopsy protocol was correct in stating the large wound was missing scalp and skull. They left out, of course, that this impression was shared by Clark in Dallas, and that he wrote this before the commencement of the autopsy.

So, now, let's go back. IF Ms. Cranor is simply critiquing one chapter of my website based upon what she thinks it ought to include, then why the heck hasn't she pointed out that the absence of scalp and skull she finds so compelling, and seems to believe was on the back of the head, was proof for an ENTRANCE on the back of the head, and NOT an exit.

And why has she chosen to cite some perceived inconsistency in my writings--where I fail to regurgitate every alternative viewpoint that I've previously rejected--when she STILL won't admit she thinks Mantik's conclusions are nonsense. I mean, really. It's not okay for me to write something on my website which leaves out HER argument, but it's perfectly okay for her to cherry-pick the questions I write in response to her attack, so that the reader won't know that she essentially agrees with me on a number of key points, and is only attacking me to win brownie points with some unnamed person.

So, let's keep this real simple. Was the Harper fragment occipital bone, Ms. Cranor, yes or no?

http://www.patspeer.com/chapter16b%3Adigginginthedirt/mantikssemantics.jpg

Edited February 15, 2016 by Pat Speer

[Michael Walton]

The following image (it may take a moment to load as it's a quite-large animated GIF) gives you a pretty good estimate of the back of the head wound showing a beveled wound of exit.

Animated GIF of back of head wound

Granted, it's not perfect because the two photos used were taken at different angles and at different times. If you watch the Z-film and the Nix film you can clearly see when this right frontal shot hits JFK's head, propelling his entire body back and to the left. This is why the cyclist to the left rear was covered with blood, and it's why Mrs. Kennedy, in shock, climbed out to retrieve a piece of the skull landing on the back of the limo.

In the above GIF, I've often wondered why the first photo showing an intact rear head is wet and shiny (where the wound would be) where as the surrounding area is dull and dry. I'm not saying that photo is a forgery - perhaps that part was just covered up by the medical people before the photo was taken.

One final thought is I'll never understand why it seems like the CT community can never seem to agree on anything, where as the LN commnity has a single modus operandi - come at you with factoids and quotes from the WC. I've read Pat's website several times and you can tell the man is thoughtful and put a lot of analysis and foresight into his work. The same with Jim Di Eugenio. I also like Gil Jesus's work. Then on the other side of the coin you have people who have come up with some pretty far out (i.e., crazy) theories like the Secret Service shot JFK, the Z-film was faked, and on and on.

I've been reading and learning about this case since I was 12 years old back in 1975. I remember when I read Lifton's book - and believed it then - but as time has gone on, I've learned to just keep it simple with this case and to not believe anything and everything you read or see.

[Chris Davidson]

52.78 - 23.7 = 29.08inches

52.78-16.6 -7.7 =28.48inches

29inches from the seat of a person 72 1/2 inches tall (in my case) = finger pointing location, not top of head.

Difference in height (slight angle created) between seat bottom front edge to rear = ?

chris

[Greg Burnham]

Millicent Cranor's reply to Pat Speer:

===========================

You must think your readers have the attention span of a flatworm, and will therefore not notice the extent of your scams. Let’s start with this one:

PS: “And why has she chosen to cite some perceived inconsistency in my writings--where I fail to regurgitate every alternative viewpoint that I've previously rejected…”

MC: By using the expression “alternative viewpoint”, you imply theories – which were clearly not what I was talking about. What you fail to include are relevant statements from the official record that contradict your interpretation of other statements from that very same record. It’s cherry picking. You are highly manipulative and untrustworthy for this reason. You know your arguments would not be very compelling if you laid out all the facts. This does not mean that I necessarily believe what is on record, but I try to quote it completely and accurately before arguing against it.

I am the opposite of you. I believe in providing readers what they need to know in order to make up their own minds. For example, when I wrote about Kennedy’s throat wound, I expressed my opinion that it was probably an entrance. But I also provided references and photos proving that exit wounds can be small. So size is not a good enough reason to consider the wound an entrance. (I have better reasons.) Some people were not happy when I reported this, but I don’t believe in suppressing information. Here are a few more facts concerning wounds by jacketed bullets from centerfire rifles, facts that Lone Nutters try to suppress: ( a ) entrance wounds need not have abrasion collars, and ( b ) they need not be necessarily round and smooth. They can be somewhat jagged.

PS: “I mean, really. It's not okay for me to write something on my website which leaves out HER argument.”

MC: Again you try to give the impression I am talking about mere opinion, my “argument” – when I am clearly referring to your misleading reporting.

PS: “… she STILL won't admit she thinks Mantik's conclusions are nonsense… So, let's keep this real simple. Was the Harper fragment occipital bone, Ms. Cranor, yes or no?

MC: You can try to change the subject, but I won’t play. Right now, it is specimens from you that I am collecting. (And the person who wants them will have other scholars independently vet everything I write.)

PS: “… she essentially agrees with me on a number of key points, and is only attacking me to win brownie points with some unnamed person.”

MC: I believe in neither the Lifton Hole – nor the Speer Hole.

I believe the strange large hole in Kennedy’s head was the result of two or three perforating shots. Cavitation explains only part of the damage. Exploding bone fragments cut scalp on the way out, etc. (Two of them were reported to have semi-circular notches on the periphery of each, indicative of the passage of a bullet. This is impossible to confirm.)

MC: When you try to interpret Fisher and Spitz, you sound about as logical as Sarah Palin:

PS: “Medicolegal Investigation of Death, by Fisher and Spitz, specifies that scalp is missing at entrance wounds but not at exits…..So … why the heck hasn't she pointed out that the absence of scalp and skull she finds so compelling, and seems to believe was on the back of the head was proof for an ENTRANCE on the back of the head, and NOT an exit.”

MC: No one -- not even Spitz -- would consider the reported large defect an entrance wound!

When I first read the nonsense you wrote about the large defect being an entrance, I thought maybe you were trying to be funny. But when I read your comment about what Clint Hill saw, I realized the joke is on you:

PS: “…Hill, who'd climbed onto the back of Kennedy's limo just after the fatal shot was fired, wrote a report that included an often-overlooked detail. He wrote: "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." Hmmm... This bone fragment, which had quite clearly been sprung from the large defect on the right side of Kennedy's head, had hair on it. This marked it as an entrance.”

MC: I have often complained about that fragment being “cleaned” of clinging scalp before it was brought to the autopsy. The skin, often called “the body’s historian” could have told part of the story. And the length of hair could have helped orient it. But, never mind that. Back to you…

Above you say the “absence of scalp and skull…was proof for an entrance.” Now you are saying the presence of scalp (with hair) is proof of an entrance? You’re calling a hairy bone fragment – the whole thing -- an entrance? Surely not. Maybe you’re just being sloppy. Maybe you’re trying to say the fragment contained a bullet hole? Even so, you are still not making sense. The scalp supporting the hair would have a hole in it – a round hole with NO hair or anything else. Obviously you have not grasped what Spitz was talking about, even though it is very basic:

Why scalp is missing from bullet entrance wounds: the skin is crushed between bullet and bone and what’s left of it is carried into the wound along with a plug of bone. The amount of skin missing due to this process is very small -- about the size of the diameter of the bullet if it strikes nose-on, longer if hits on a tangent.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Greg Burnham

[Pat Speer]

Yikes. I wrote a long response to Ms. Cranor's latest diatribe that got eaten by the internet just as I was set to post.

What it came down to was this. She accuses me of leaving stuff out of my arguments in order to deceive readers. And yet she has just presented her spin on what Fisher and Spitz wrote in their book re missing scalp, as opposed to presenting their actual words. And this, even though she quoted a section from my website just below their words.

Now, it should also be noted that I am far from alone in my understanding of their words. I discovered the passage in their book, and its relevance to the Kennedy assassination, 10 years ago or so. At that time, no one but no one was talking about the large head wound being a tangential wound of both entrance and exit, let alone claiming it as a scientific fact. But then, voila, Thompson and Groden both claimed the wound was a tangential wound in their 2013 Pittsburgh presentations, and Horne and Mantik have more recently followed suit. I can only assume, then, that they find my interpretation of Fisher and Spitz's words convincing.

From chapter 16b:

The “Missing” Scalp

Some things are best defined by what they're missing. Accordingly, the evidence that ultimately convinced me the large head wound was tangential in nature was something that was missing: scalp.

The autopsy protocol describes Kennedy’s large head wound as follows: “There is a large irregular defect of the scalp and skull on the right involving chiefly the parietal bone but extending somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions. In this region there is an actual absence of scalp and bone producing a defect which measures approximately 13 cm in greatest diameter.” And this wasn't a one-time claim. In his 3-16-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, Dr. Humes repeated his claim that scalp was missing. He testified that 1) the large "defect involved both the scalp and the underlying skull...;" 2) "there was a defect in the scalp and some scalp tissue was not available;" and 3) that the largest part of the bullet which broke up on impact "accounted for this very large defect, for the multiple fractures of the skull, and for the loss of brain and scalp tissue..."

There can be no doubt then that Dr. Humes felt scalp was missing, and that Dr.s Boswell and Finck agreed. Or, at least agreed enough to sign the autopsy protocol in which it was described...

But there's more to this missing scalp than one might suspect...

Medicolegal Investigation of Death addresses missing scalp as follows: “A point frequently ignored, or forgotten, in comparing entrance and exit wounds is that approximation of the edges of an entrance wound usually retains a small central defect, a missing area of skin. On the other hand, approximation of the edges of the exit re-establishes the skin’s integrity.” The authors of Medicolegal Investigation of Death were Dr. Russell Fisher, of the Clark Panel, and Dr. Werner Spitz, of the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel. The pathology panel’s report was most likely accommodating Spitz, then, when it critiqued the autopsy report’s description as follows: “It is probably misleading in the sense that it describes “an actual absence of skin and bone. The scalp was probably virtually all present, but torn and displaced…” This, disturbingly, ignores that Dr. William Kemp Clark, the one Parkland doctor to closely inspect Kennedy’s head wound, shared the observations of the autopsists, and independently observed “There was considerable loss of scalp and bone tissue” in a summary of the reports written by the Parkland staff on the day of the shooting. (Wasn’t this required reading?)

And it also ignores that Dr. Malcolm Perry, the doctor most intimately involved in the efforts to revive Kennedy at Parkland, similarly claimed that "both scalp and portions of skull were absent" when testifying before the Warren Commission on 3-30-64.

And it also ignores that Dr. James Carrico, the first doctor to inspect Kennedy's wounds at Parkland, confirmed Clark's and Perry's accounts to the HSCA's investigators on 1-11-78. He told them that the large head wound "had blood and hair all around it." All around it, and not above it. And should one wish to believe Carrico thought the scalp attached to this hair could be pulled back over the wound, he clarified his position on this, once and for all, in an 8-2-97 oral history with the Sixth Floor Museum, when he described the right side of Kennedy's head as having "a big chunk of bone and scalp missing."

And that's not even to mention what Secret Service agent Clint Hill saw. On 11-30-63, Hill, who'd climbed onto the back of Kennedy's limo just after the fatal shot was fired, wrote a report that included an often-overlooked detail. He wrote: "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." Hmmm... This bone fragment, which had quite clearly been sprung from the large defect on the right side of Kennedy's head, had hair on it. This marked it as an entrance.

In any event, this “missing” scalp returned to center stage on 1-21-00, when the government released a report on tests conducted on CE 567, the nose of a bullet found on the driver’s seat of Kennedy’s limousine. Although the FBI's Robert Frazier, in his 3-31-64 testimony before the Warren Commission, claimed that when he inspected CE 567 and 569 on 11-23-63 "there was a very slight residue of blood or some other material adhering" to the fragments that "was wiped off to clean up the bullet for examination," it had long been observed that some foreign material remained within the crumpled ridges of CE 567, and the HSCA asked that tests be conducted on this material. These tests were not conducted, however, until after the uproar surrounding Oliver Stone’s film JFK brought the ARRB into existence. The results of these tests, initially reported on 9-16-98, were that 3 of the 4 pieces of foreign material were human SKIN, and that the fourth was human tissue. As CE 567 was linked via the neutron activation analysis to the bullet fragments found in Kennedy’s brain, and as there was little scalp missing at the small entrance near the EOP, this finding undoubtedly suggests the tangential entrance I’ve theorized. Those wishing to read the complete report on the CE 567 foreign material should go here

http://www.jfklancer.com/LNE/fragments/fragreport.html

The significance of this skin is further amplified when one considers that, according to Dr. Vincent J.M. DiMaio, in his standard text Gunshot Wounds, that, of all the tissues likely to be found on a bullet, "Skin was the least commonly encountered." DiMaio further specifies that "In regard to gunshot wounds of the head, bone chips, skeletal muscle, connective tissue, and strips of small vessels were commonly identified. Fragments of brain were present but were not readily recognizable as neural in origin." Skin didn't even make the list.

From this it becomes clear that 1) a lack of skin at a bullet wound can be taken as a sign it's an entrance; 2) skin was missing from the large defect; 3) skin is not normally found on bullets; 4) a significant amount of skin was found on a bullet fragment linked to the fragments in Kennedy's brain; and 5) the amount of skin on this fragment is best explained by accepting the proposition this bullet busted up at the site of the large defect after striking the skull at an angle.

It all adds up. It simply makes NO SENSE to believe this skin got attached to the nose of the bullet as it entered the back of Kennedy's skull, and then stayed attached to the nose as it tumbled through his brain, as there was very little skin missing from the supposed entrance on the back of the skull. Simultaneously, it makes NO SENSE to believe this skin attached itself to the bullet upon exit after transiting the skull, as the bullet would have little or no contact with the skin exploding outwards from the skull at the exit. No, the discovery of this skin on the bullet is best explained--no, scratch that, can only be honestly explained--by the bullet's having impacted Kennedy's skull at the large defect, where skin was actually missing. Yes, the skin on the bullet nose proves it. The large defect was a tangential wound, precisely as proposed by Dr. Clark on 11-22-63.

[Jon G. Tidd]

Michael Baden said that if the SBT was false, JFK was shot at least six times from three different directions.

I have a low opinion of Baden but do believe many more than two bullets pierced JFK's body.

The killers were firing at a distance, in a first for a political assassination I believe. They wanted JFK dead, not simply wounded. They would have preferred redundancy in wounding, therefore.

I suspect, but this is merely a suspicion, that JFK's skull was so shot to pieces that Humes and Boswell didn't know what to do. Perhaps even a Cyril Wecht would have been perplexed by the condition of the skull.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Jon G. Tidd

[Ollie Curme]

I find Ms. Cranor's criticism of Pat Speer's arguments quite surprising. Ms. Cranor published an excellent article entitled The Third Wound in the Kennedy Assassination Chronicles. In that article she entertained the possibility that a bullet entered near JKF's hairline and travelled down his neck to exit the front of his throat. She also mentions the semicircular bevelled hole near the top of the head which can be seen in the mystery photo and suggests that it is either an exit wound or perhaps a tangential entrance wound. This is almost exactly what Speer describes on his web site; the only difference that I can see is that Ms. Cranor suggests the entrance was below the EOP in the neck, while Pat Speer, relying on the obviously visible EOP hole in the skull in the mystery photo places the entrance exactly where the autopsy doctors first located it. The only other major difference is that Mr. Speer emphasizes the bevelled hole as a tangential entrance wound while Ms. Cranor suggests it could be either a tangential entrance wound or an exit wound. Perhaps there are other differences with respect to the degree of scalp absence but these seem to be secondary considerations.

I appreciate Michael Walton's GIF published above and I'm pleased to see that many researchers are starting to come around to the scenario as outlined by both Ms. Cranor and Mr. Speer.

[Michael Walton]

I wanted to add a quick reply here. I hate to speculate - and we'll never know of course - but now that Clint Hill's testimony here is mentioned about seeing the scalp and hair piece on the seat. Perhaps this was the same piece that flew onto the trunk and is what Mrs. Kennedy was trying to retrieve. As gruesome as all of this sounds, it does seem to show that a shot had to have come from the front right in order to force this hair piece backward onto the trunk.

I also think this because it obviously had to take a tremendous amount of force (2,000 mph) to have blown a hole in a human head, ripping out this piece, especially with the way skin is elastic. In other words, it couldn't have just merely fallen onto the seat where Hill saw it.