James Jenkins -- his story

[Rick McTague]

6 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

It's irrelevant whether or not the shadows in the Zapruder film look natural. They could have been painted in natural looking.

And the other two films likewise could have been touched up too, and most likely were.

 

 

Sandy,

I think the strongest evidence of the Z file alterations is the Doug Horne - Dino Brugioni interview.  What Dino describes is so far out of agreement with the extant Z film that is available today seals the deal for me that it was altered, and Doug does a great job tracking that first day camera original through the Saturday night 11/23 NPIC briefing board event with Dino, then the Sunday night Homer McMahon NPIC event with an unslit 16mm film that produced a second set of briefing boards.  That second film is what we have today as the extant Z film IMO.

What are your thoughts?

[Pat Speer]

The brain weight problem may be a red herring. 

 

From patspeer.com, chapter 15

In The Assassinations (2003) Dr. David Mantik and Dr. Cyril Wecht argued that the brain weight on Kennedy's supplemental autopsy report was too large while supplying data suggesting it may very well have been correct. They wrote that the upper limit of normal for a an adult male brain is 1605 gms. Kennedy was a larger than average man, whose brain could very well have been at that limit, or perhaps even larger. (The brain of William Pitzer, a Bethesda Hospital employee whose death aroused much speculation, is reported to have weighed 1625 gms upon removal.) Mantik and Wecht then wrote that soaking the brain in formalin would increase its weight by a mean of 8.8%, and that injecting the brain with formalin would increase its weight by a mean of 5.7%. Both procedures were purported to have been performed on Kennedy's brain. 

Well, let's do the math. If these procedures increased the weight of the brain by 14.5% (8.8 plus 5.7), as seems reasonable, Kennedy's presumably 1605 gm brain would have weighed as much as 1837 gms. But it only weighed 1500 gms. This suggests then that roughly 18% of the brain was missing.

Now, this is where it gets tricky. The autopsists, when asked for an estimate, said that roughly 33 % of the brain was missing. Something seems to be awry. But then look again. Although the means of the weight increase from formalin soaking and infusion were 5.7 and 8.8%, respectively, the highs were 19.2 and 31.8%, respectively. That's a 50% increase, when taken together. A 1605 gm brain, if soaked and infused with formalin, then, could have weighed as much as 2400 gms, more than the 2250 gms needed to correlate to the 1500 gm weight of the brain with the doctors' recollection a third of the brain was missing. 

But was there so big an increase? Probably not. It seems likely that the two procedures would overlap somewhat, and that the largest increase from performing both procedures would be smaller than the sum of the largest increase from performing each of the procedures. The fact remains, however, that a perfectly reasonable combination of a larger than average beginning weight for Kennedy's brain, a  smaller than estimated 33% loss of brain matter from the shooting, and larger than expected weight increase from the formalin can be found, and that this combination of factors makes the 1500 gm weight provided for Kennedy's brain, well, perfectly reasonable.

Let's try these on for size. 

Suppose Kennedy's pre-mortem brain weighed 1500 gms. (This is not unreasonable in that the brains of Anna Nicole Smith, Vladimir Lenin, J.D. Tippit, Michael Jackson, Brittany Murphy, Martin Luther King, Whitney Houston, Marilyn Monroe, Lee Oswald, Dale Earnhardt, David Ferrie, Christopher Wallace, Janis Joplin, Dylan Klebold, and River Phoenix were reported to have weighed 1300, 1340, 1350, 1380, 1400, 1400, 1410, 1440, 1450, 1450, 1480, 1490, 1490, 1500, and 1540 gms, respectively.) 

Suppose the doctors over-estimated the amount that was missing, and that only 20% was actually missing. That's a 1200 gm brain. (James Jenkins, Humes' and Boswell's assistant, who handled the brain and infused it with formalin, told a 1991 conference hosted by Harrison Livingstone that the brain he infused was approximately the size of a woman's brain, and weighed 1200 or 1300 gms.) 

Suppose then that the formalin procedures added 25% onto this weight. 

These are all reasonable adjustments. And yet they arrive at the supposedly impossible number of 1500 gms. 

Now consider that 1500 is a nice round number and that it seems possible, even likely, that whoever weighed Kennedy's brain rounded up. 

Well, this means the formalin procedures would only have to have added 20% onto the weight of Kennedy's pre-formalin-infused brain. 

Sometimes what seems impossible is well within the grasp of the possible. 

Edited March 20, 2019 by Pat Speer

[Rick McTague]

Pat,

Is there / was there a standard in autopsy procedures to weigh each brain either before formalin infusion or after infusion so everything is consistent?  It seems like if the other brains listed are all valid weights, they would have all been weighed to the standard in place at the time, including JFK's brain.

Just a thought, thanks.

Rick

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, Rick McTague said:

Pat,

Is there / was there a standard in autopsy procedures to weigh each brain either before formalin infusion or after infusion so everything is consistent?  It seems like if the other brains listed are all valid weights, they would have all been weighed to the standard in place at the time, including JFK's brain.

Just a thought, thanks.

Rick

It's standard to weigh the brain at the autopsy before formalin infusion. For whatever reason (I suspect horror...trying to protect the president's legacy, blah blah blah) this was not done. 

[Sandy Larsen]

 

8 hours ago, Rick McTague said:

Sandy,

I think the strongest evidence of the Z file alterations is the Doug Horne - Dino Brugioni interview.  What Dino describes is so far out of agreement with the extant Z film that is available today seals the deal for me that it was altered, and Doug does a great job tracking that first day camera original through the Saturday night 11/23 NPIC briefing board event with Dino, then the Sunday night Homer McMahon NPIC event with an unslit 16mm film that produced a second set of briefing boards.  That second film is what we have today as the extant Z film IMO.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

 

Rick,

First, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that there was a rear blowout in the back of Kennedy's head. Twenty medical professionals at Parkland said so, some of whom got a very close view. Not a single one saw a wound above the ear.

Even the autopsy findings are consistent with a rear blowout. It wasn't till the HSCA that the wound was moved to be above the ear. And this was done by people who hadn't even seen or held the body.

So when I hear Dino saying that what he saw in the Zapruder film isn't the same as what we see now, I'm not at all surprised. In fact it's what I expect. But for me, it's the testimony of the 20 medical professionals at Parkland that convinces me more than anything else.

 

Edited March 21, 2019 by Sandy Larsen

[Rick McTague]

On 3/20/2019 at 8:20 PM, Sandy Larsen said:

 

 

Rick,

First, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that there was a rear blowout in the back of Kennedy's head. Twenty medical professionals at Parkland said so, some of whom got a very close view. Not a single one saw a wound above the ear.

Even the autopsy findings are consistent with a rear blowout. It wasn't till the HSCA that the wound was moved to be above the ear. And this was done by people who hadn't even seen or held the body.

So when I hear Dino saying that what he saw in the Zapruder film isn't the same as what we see now, I'm not at all surprised. In fact it's what I expect. But for me, it's the testimony of the 20 medical professionals at Parkland that convinces me more than anything else.

 

Sandy,

Thanks for your reply.  I think the other side of the coin that you mention - back of head blowout seen by those medical professionals and not in the extant Z film - is the giant orange blob wound that we DO see in the extant Z film being seen by exactly zero medical professionals at Parkland.  

It almost comes down to two options:

1. Believe the extant Z film is authentic and not altered = believing autopsy pictures and xrays are authentic = shots from the rear only = believe WC findings = LHO did it alone from TSBD. 
2. Believe the extant Z film was altered to remove the BOH blowout and add front of head orange blob = believe the Parkland medical professionals (including entry wound to the throat) = believe autopsy pictures and xrays are not authentic / body was altered = shots from the front = conspiracy in the assassination and conspiracy in the coverup.

Or is that too simplistic?

Thanks

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Rick McTague said:

Sandy,

Thanks for your reply.  I think the other side of the coin that you mention - back of head blowout seen by those medical professionals and not in the extant Z film - is the giant orange blob wound that we DO see in the extant Z film being seen by exactly zero medical professionals at Parkland.  

It almost comes down to two options:

1. Believe the extant Z film is authentic and not altered = believing autopsy pictures and xrays are authentic = shots from the rear only = believe WC findings = LHO did it alone from TSBD. 
2. Believe the extant Z film was altered to remove the BOH blowout and add front of head orange blob = believe the Parkland medical professionals (including entry wound to the throat) = believe autopsy pictures and xrays are not authentic / body was altered = shots from the front = conspiracy in the assassination and conspiracy in the coverup.

Or is that too simplistic?

Thanks

That's too simplistic. There are a number of researchers--myself included--who have come to conclude the medical evidence and Z-film are authentic, but have been misinterpreted and misrepresented. The medical evidence and z-film are fake argument arose many years after the earliest researchers had come to conclude a conspiracy was likely. They didn't need it then. We don't need it now. 

P.S. There was no "blow-out" on the far back of the head. It was on the top right side, above the ear, precisely as is shown in the z-film and medical evidence. Ask Bill and Gayle Newman. They were standing 15 feet away from Kennedy, looking straight at him, from behind and to the right, and saw an explosion on the side of his head, by his ear, and not on the back of his head. They said this on November 22. And they say it today. There can be no better witness. 

[Cliff Varnell]

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

That's too simplistic. There are a number of researchers--myself included--who have come to conclude the medical evidence and Z-film are authentic, but have been misinterpreted and misrepresented. The medical evidence and z-film are fake argument arose many years after the earliest researchers had come to conclude a conspiracy was likely. They didn't need it then. We don't need it now.

The Fox 5 autopsy photo is a provable fraud.

Those who deny the T3 back wound perpetuate this fraud.

[Sandy Larsen]

12 hours ago, Rick McTague said:

Sandy,

Thanks for your reply.  I think the other side of the coin that you mention - back of head blowout seen by those medical professionals and not in the extant Z film - is the giant orange blob wound that we DO see in the extant Z film being seen by exactly zero medical professionals at Parkland.  

It almost comes down to two options:

1. Believe the extant Z film is authentic and not altered = believing autopsy pictures and xrays are authentic = shots from the rear only = believe WC findings = LHO did it alone from TSBD. 
2. Believe the extant Z film was altered to remove the BOH blowout and add front of head orange blob = believe the Parkland medical professionals (including entry wound to the throat) = believe autopsy pictures and xrays are not authentic / body was altered = shots from the front = conspiracy in the assassination and conspiracy in the coverup.

Or is that too simplistic?

Thanks

 

Rick,

I roughly agree with your two options with the exception of the part I've stricken out. As Pat Speer has shown, it is possible to prove a conspiracy even if one accepts that there were no alterations. (Sometimes I wonder if that is the reason he chooses not to go down the alteration rabbit hole... it's not necessary to do so.)

 

[Sandy Larsen]

16 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

The medical evidence and z-film are fake argument arose many years after the earliest researchers had come to conclude a conspiracy was likely. They didn't need it then. We don't need it now. 

Whether or not evidence of alterations in the medical photos and Z-film is "needed" by researchers, then or now, is irrelevant. At least to those of us seeking the truth.

 

Edited March 23, 2019 by Sandy Larsen

[Cliff Varnell]

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Rick,

I roughly agree with your two options with the exception of the part I've stricken out. As Pat Speer has shown, it is possible to prove a conspiracy even if one accepts that there were no alterations. (Sometimes I wonder if that is the reason he chooses not to go down the alteration rabbit hole... it's not necessary to do so.)

 

What's the big deal about proving conspiracy?

Pat Speer acts like that's the salient issue.  It isn't.  The salient issue is what happened to the bullets causing the back/neck wounds?

Pat Speer's support of the provably phony Fox 5 photo muddies the water and prevents folks from even recognizing the salient issue.

He's worse than the worst LNer.

Edited March 23, 2019 by Cliff Varnell

[Joe Bauer]

On 3/20/2019 at 10:44 AM, Pat Speer said:

The brain weight problem may be a red herring. 

 

From patspeer.com, chapter 15

In The Assassinations (2003) Dr. David Mantik and Dr. Cyril Wecht argued that the brain weight on Kennedy's supplemental autopsy report was too large while supplying data suggesting it may very well have been correct. They wrote that the upper limit of normal for a an adult male brain is 1605 gms. Kennedy was a larger than average man, whose brain could very well have been at that limit, or perhaps even larger. (The brain of William Pitzer, a Bethesda Hospital employee whose death aroused much speculation, is reported to have weighed 1625 gms upon removal.) Mantik and Wecht then wrote that soaking the brain in formalin would increase its weight by a mean of 8.8%, and that injecting the brain with formalin would increase its weight by a mean of 5.7%. Both procedures were purported to have been performed on Kennedy's brain. 

Well, let's do the math. If these procedures increased the weight of the brain by 14.5% (8.8 plus 5.7), as seems reasonable, Kennedy's presumably 1605 gm brain would have weighed as much as 1837 gms. But it only weighed 1500 gms. This suggests then that roughly 18% of the brain was missing.

Now, this is where it gets tricky. The autopsists, when asked for an estimate, said that roughly 33 % of the brain was missing. Something seems to be awry. But then look again. Although the means of the weight increase from formalin soaking and infusion were 5.7 and 8.8%, respectively, the highs were 19.2 and 31.8%, respectively. That's a 50% increase, when taken together. A 1605 gm brain, if soaked and infused with formalin, then, could have weighed as much as 2400 gms, more than the 2250 gms needed to correlate to the 1500 gm weight of the brain with the doctors' recollection a third of the brain was missing. 

But was there so big an increase? Probably not. It seems likely that the two procedures would overlap somewhat, and that the largest increase from performing both procedures would be smaller than the sum of the largest increase from performing each of the procedures. The fact remains, however, that a perfectly reasonable combination of a larger than average beginning weight for Kennedy's brain, a  smaller than estimated 33% loss of brain matter from the shooting, and larger than expected weight increase from the formalin can be found, and that this combination of factors makes the 1500 gm weight provided for Kennedy's brain, well, perfectly reasonable.

Let's try these on for size. 

Suppose Kennedy's pre-mortem brain weighed 1500 gms. (This is not unreasonable in that the brains of Anna Nicole Smith, Vladimir Lenin, J.D. Tippit, Michael Jackson, Brittany Murphy, Martin Luther King, Whitney Houston, Marilyn Monroe, Lee Oswald, Dale Earnhardt, David Ferrie, Christopher Wallace, Janis Joplin, Dylan Klebold, and River Phoenix were reported to have weighed 1300, 1340, 1350, 1380, 1400, 1400, 1410, 1440, 1450, 1450, 1480, 1490, 1490, 1500, and 1540 gms, respectively.) 

Suppose the doctors over-estimated the amount that was missing, and that only 20% was actually missing. That's a 1200 gm brain. (James Jenkins, Humes' and Boswell's assistant, who handled the brain and infused it with formalin, told a 1991 conference hosted by Harrison Livingstone that the brain he infused was approximately the size of a woman's brain, and weighed 1200 or 1300 gms.) 

Suppose then that the formalin procedures added 25% onto this weight. 

These are all reasonable adjustments. And yet they arrive at the supposedly impossible number of 1500 gms. 

Now consider that 1500 is a nice round number and that it seems possible, even likely, that whoever weighed Kennedy's brain rounded up. 

Well, this means the formalin procedures would only have to have added 20% onto the weight of Kennedy's pre-formalin-infused brain. 

Sometimes what seems impossible is well within the grasp of the possible. 

One could imagine the facial expressions and eye movements of a court trial jury that was presented with the above formulaic scenario used to explain the JFK brain weight discrepancy issue.

My guess is that most of the jury would be lost to a point of blank stare confusion and fighting back yawns and heavy eyelids.

Edited March 24, 2019 by Joe Bauer

[James DiEugenio]

The other  question is why was it not weighed that night?

[Ron Bulman]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The other  question is why was it not weighed that night?

Because roughly half of it was gone that night?  Depends on whose version or interpretation of events one believes I guess.  Didn't the wait until Monday to examine it, then did so again on Friday or Saturday with different assistants to I think Humes and Finck and different findings? And both of these "teams" evaluated fuller brains?

Edited March 24, 2019 by Ron Bulman

[Pat Speer]

On 3/23/2019 at 10:11 AM, Joe Bauer said:

One could imagine the facial expressions and eye movements of a court trial jury that was presented with the above formulaic scenario used to explain the JFK brain weight discrepancy issue.

My guess is that most of the jury would be lost to a point of blank stare confusion and fighting back yawns and heavy eyelids.

You may very well be correct. But the point nevertheless needs to be made. The brain weight problem is a red herring. No one disputed that the brain was heavily damaged. So what difference does it make what weight they wrote down?

The most logical assumption is that they wrote down what they thought his brain would have weighed when intact. They were pathologists, not forensic pathologists. They had almost certainly never written down a brain weight for a partial brain before. They almost certainly found doing so distasteful. They avoided discussion of Kennedy's thyroid to protect his family. They may very well have felt they were protecting his family by fudging the brain weight as well.