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James C Jenkins - JFK Autopsy Pathologist


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This is an amazing interview which explains and nails down several important acpects of the medical part of President Kennedy's death. First, the wound in the parietal region with a missing bone was, according to James Jenkins's report, practically the same as Parkland doctors had described. Second, there was a surgery on President's head possibly to cover the parietal wound with the scalp. Third, the situation in the neck wound was very unlikely the situation which Dr. Perry left after making his tracheotomy. According to Dr. Jenkins, a tracheotomy would never be done in a way possibly damaging other neck organs.  Fourth, Mr. Jenkins confirmed that President's body arrived in a shipping casket and early on, maybe 6.30PM and via the back entrance. 

Thanks for posting this link, and thanks to Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Bet-David for this revealing interview.

 

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A couple of quick questions after viewing the video.

Jenkins said he held JFK's brain in his hands and placed it in a sling.

Jenkins also said 1/3rd of the whole brain he held was missing.

Does Jenkins know what the official autopsy report states as the weight of JFK's entire brain upon removal?

Is this official autopsy listed brain weight number reflective of a brain that is missing 1/3rd of it's original undamaged mass, even relative to an average male brain weight?

Fellow Bethesda navy corpsman Paul O'Conner, who was right there with Jenkins the entire time they were dealing with JFK's body, said he saw no brain in JFK'S damaged skull.

Just small lacerated pieces.

How could Jenkins have held a 2/3rd intact brain in his hands and O'Conner state something hugely contrary to Jenkin's observation ?

Jenkins said he saw a surgical incision line ( or several ) in the top of JFK's brain which apparently he didn't see Humes or Boswell perform.

Jenkins is clearly inferring this had to have been done before he and Paul O'Conner unwrapped JFK's head.

In frame #313 of the Zapruder film we all see JFK's skull explode with a large pink spray of material ejecting outward and mostly upward.

This spray came from the side flap blow out area. Not the hole as described on the back of the skull. We know that spray contained blood, brain fluid and liquified and even solid  brain matter as several people in JFK's limo and the two motorcycle police just behind the limo described being hit with this material and it not being just liquid spray.

Pictures of the back seat of the limo just minutes after JFK and Jackie were removed, actually show solid brain matter chunks on the seat along with blood stains.

I may be wrong but I think I have read accounts ( from one or more of the attending Parkland ER doctors ) of brain matter and fluid falling out of the large hole in back of JFK's head while JFK was laying face up on the exam and treatment table.

My point is that from the huge brain fluid and matter spray we saw ejected when JFK was hit in his limo, the continued brain matter falling out while Jackie held her husband's head  ( Jackie held some of this in her hand until she arrived at Parkland hospital ) and more brain matter oozing out in the ER, that it is remarkable that Jenkins didn't describe a much more obliterated brain when he says he carried it and put it in a sling.

Did Jenkins ever say which doctor removed JFKs brain?

O'Conner described the procedure which sounded quite involved with cutting the skull to peel back this back, cutting the dura mater, cutting  the eye nerves and cutting the brain stem.

How did Paul O'Conner not see this when he was with Jenkins all during the critical time frame and instead said under oath ..." there was no brain to remove."?

 

Edited by Joe Bauer
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3 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Jenkins said he held JFK's brain in his hands and placed it in a sling.

Jenkins also said 1/3rd of the brain he held was missing.

 .....
 
Fellow Bethesda navy corpsman Paul O'Conner, who was right there with Jenkins the entire time they were dealing with JFK's body, said he saw no brain in JFK'S damaged skull.

 .....

How could Jenkins have held a 2/3rd intact brain in his hands and O'Conner state something hugely contrary to Jenkin's observation ?


Joe,

In the video, Jenkins said that he was with O'Conner when the body was taken out of the casket, while it was being unwrapped, and after the docs left the room for a while. I don't think he said they were together during the whole autopsy. The brain wasn't exposed during that period of time. So, up to that point O'Conner would not  have known whether the brain was present or not.

In Best Evidence David Lifton reasons that different people saw different things because they were ushered in and out of the examination room for various reasons. For example, most were asked to leave while x-rays were taken. I've always thought that this explains why O'Conner saw the brain missing but others didn't. He must have been elsewhere when the scalp was reflected and the brain removed (or fell out). And when he returned he saw no brain.

Some witnesses said they saw a gaping wound in the back. Others gasped when they saw the top right half of his head was gone. Obviously the latter must have entered the room after the scalp was reflected and the fractured bones removed.

 

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3 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

O'Conner described the procedure which sounded quite involved with cutting the skull to peel back this back, cutting the dura mater, cutting  the eye nerves and cutting the brain stem.


I don't understand this statement. Paul O'Conner said that he saw no brain  in Kennedy's head. So how can it be that he did see the eye nerves and brain stem cut from the brain so that it could be taken out... when there was no brain?

I think you must be misremembering, Joe.

 

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Sandy, I was referring to Paul O'Conner's testimony in the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald where he was asked by attorney Gerry Spence to describe not only the procedure for removing a brain in an autopsy but what he ( O'Conner) personally remembered about seeing JFK's brain.

If you find this video on You Tube and view O'Conner's testimony I would think you will see that I am not mis-remembering the quotes I attribute to O'Conner in my earlier post.

I just reviewed the LHO trial video again and O'Conner also states in response to Gerry Spence's question  about whether JFK'S  brain was removed using the procedure O'Conner just described and O'Conner responded..."we didn't have to...there was no brain to remove."

I can see the points you bring up about O'Conner and Jenkins perhaps not always being next to or away from JFK's body at the same time. This could explain their different recollections.

However, my take on O'Conner's testimony about not seeing a solid brain in JFK's skull was that he made this observation when he first saw JFK's head after he and Jenkins first unwrapped it. I could be wrong on this point, of course.

I will now search for the answer to one of my other questions, but if you know where I can find the final JFK autopsy report that lists the measured weight of JFK's brain upon it's removal I would appreciate it.  I want to see if it corresponds correctly to Jenkin's interview statement of seeing 1/3rd of JFK's whole brain missing when he held this while placing the brain in some other location.

I think any weight listed that doesn't subtract this 1/3rd missing brain mass weight would indicate a false entry in the final autopsy report.

THE JFK BRAIN MYSTERY

by Jacob G. HornbergerMarch 29, 2017

Ever since the Kennedy assassination, a popular parlor game has been: What happened to JFK’s brain? The game has served as a useful distraction from the much more critically important issue, one that is still unexplained to this day by the Pentagon, which, strangely, was the entity that conducted the autopsy on President Kennedy’s body. This unexplained issue is: Why did U.S. military officials substitute another person’s brain for President Kennedy’s brain during their autopsy of the president’s body?

Notwithstanding all the controversy that continues to swirl around the assassination of President Kennedy more than 50 years ago, everyone agrees on at least one fact: There was a gunshot that hit President Kennedy in the head, one that blew out a large portion of his brain. There is no controversy or dispute about that fact.

Yet, take a look at this rendition of an autopsy photograph of what is represented to be Kennedy’s brain that is part of the official JFK autopsy records. The rendition was done by Ida Dox, a professional medical illustrator who was hired by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which reinvestigated the JFK assassination during the 1970s.

You will see that while the brain is split in two halves, it is fully intact. That is, it is not missing a quarter to one-third of its mass, which was the amount of the brain that was estimated to have been blown away by the shot that hit Kennedy in the head.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, when a brain has 1/4- 1/3 of its mass blown away, it is incapable of regenerating itself into a full-sized brain.

This brain mystery is reinforced by the official autopsy report, which reflects that the president’s brain weighed 1500 grams.

That poses a big problem because the brain of a normal, undamaged person weighs about 1350 grams. JFK’s brain supposedly weighed 150 grams more than the average-sized brain. Ordinarily, that might not be too surprising. But it becomes quite impossible when one considers that 1/4-1/3 of the JFK’s brain had been blown away before it was weighed.

Take a look again at the artist’s rendition of the brain photograph in the official autopsy records. Notice the middle, bottom section of the brain — the part that has horizontal lines across it. That’s the cerebellum. Notice that according to the rendition, it is fully intact.

Now, consider these statements by physicians who treated President Kennedy in Dallas:

Dr. Robert McClelland: “some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out.”
Dr. Kent Clark: “Both cerebral and cerebellar tissue were protruding from the wound.”
Dr. M.T. Jenkins: “the cerebellum had protruded from the wound.”
Dr. Paul Peters: “You could … see cerebral injury to the cerebral cortex and I thought at the time to the cerebellum”

... 

 

Edited by Joe Bauer
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From memory it was listed as approximately 1400 grams which is what the average weight of a fully intact male 40-45 year old brain should be.  Therefore they are saying it had little to no significant tissue loss or was basically intact.  

Edited by Adam Johnson
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Adam, correct. 

It's obvious beyond doubt the final official autopsy brain weight measurement was falsified.

A hugely important fact.

For those who claim conspiracy believers in the JFK assassination have no solid evidential proof to back their belief...WHAT IN THE  WORLD...THE REAL WORLD...would you call this?

 

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58 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Sandy, I was referring to Paul O'Conner's testimony in the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald where he was asked by attorney Gerry Spence to describe not only the procedure for removing a brain in an autopsy but what he ( O'Conner) personally remembered about seeing JFK's brain.


Oh, I see.  When O'Conner described the brain removal procedure, he wasn't talking about the removal of JFK's brain. He was talking about the removal of brains in general. I didn't know you were referring to the trial when you made that comment.

 

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Andrej, yes, nice entry.

Humes astoundingly clueless answers as to the missing brain weight documentation would rattle any murder trial jury and give them huge and logical concern and suspicion.

Mistakes under highly stressful conditions such as what Humes was under would be expected, but this one involved one of the most important evidential aspects of the autopsy and investigation into how JFK died and by what means.

Didn't Humes go over the autopsy form before signing off on it?

I could understand Humes possibly forgetting to weigh the brain to an iffy degree, but not him missing seeing  this glaring empty blank space on the form for brain weight.

Humes went over his autopsy notes at home before deciding to physically burn them so we know he did review them after the autopsy.

A general question - how often do pathologists forget to weigh removed brains during autopsies, even routine mundane ones?

And since there were other doctors and assistants involved with JFK's autopsy who knew the brain removal procedure themselves, their missing the unperformed brain weighing procedure as well, especially in such a momentous autopsy like JFK's, makes it even harder to accept this huge mistake as a result of just simple and innocent forgetfulness.

How long was it before this brain weight blank entry was noticed? Even if this was weeks, couldn't Humes have ordered what they had saved of JFK's brain to be weighed then?

How many people looked at the autopsy form during that time, including the FBI which was investigating JFK's murder and would need this vital information right away?

Edited by Joe Bauer
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Brain weight ultimately recorded as within normal range.  Implication, a jacketed bullet could have passed through it.  Not hardly.  As Jenkins says, entry wound in right temple hairline, 3" exit wound in back of head, 1/3 of brain missing.  Jackie on the trunk retrieving her husbands "scalp".  Hargis sprayed with dura matter.  Back and to the left. 

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While I have no doubts that the fatal head shot came from the front, I am not sure where from it actually came. President had his head turned slightly towards his left, and a shot from the front from Grassy Knoll would likely exit from the left part of the brain. There would be a risk to Jackie Kennedy too. The trajectory would rather point to the South Knoll as the late Sherry Fiester suggested. There could be a shooter in Grassy Knoll area, however, that could either deliver a different front shot (neck?) or serve as a decoy.

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