Documentary on ‘Last Second in Dallas’

[Jake Hammond]

4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

It's GIGO. It is a forensic fact that blood spatters from the entrance as well as the exit, and if there's only one spatter it's presumed to be an entrance. And yet here we have a large section of the program based around the non-fact the blood and brain matter ALL went towards the left of the limo, and that this indicates a shot from the knoll. It does nothing of the sort. But even if it did, it would indicate the shot came from the left of the limo, not right.

There were numerous other non-facts in the program as well. It was so bad I had to speed through it. But the program pretended the Harper fragment was found to the left of the limo's location at 313, when Harper showed numerous researchers where he found the fragment, and it was 100 feet or so in front of the limo's location at 313. 

There was also of course the misrepresentation of what Lee Bowers said. In the transcripts for his filmed interview for Rush to Judgment, it is made clear the men he saw "behind the fence" were behind the fence from his location, i.e. Emmett Hudson and the man with him on the steps, who I've concluded is F. Lee Mudd. To continue pretending he said the men were on his side of the fence at this point in time is embarrassing, IMO. 

In short, this program was a long-overdue presentation of an old theory that has since been largely debunked. In that way it's not much better than another rehash of the Warren Report. 

I'm in your camp as regards the blood spatter Pat, and your excellent work in this area. I won't embarrass myself by commenting on the forensics but would just like to add something to the discussion. ... its something I see so regularly in JFK theory, an elephant in the room..... 

  Why do people make up theories without fleshing them out ? , without ' playing them through'  in another way to put it. If you buy into all the theories you have about 5 headshots, four of which were from silenced weapons and coming from the road in front of the car, or the back of the drivers head, Shots from ' badgeman' ?! Go to Dealey Plaza, look at the position of Kennedys head and look at the known wounds.  Why people don't think about the trajectory of the bullets and angle of JFK's head before suggesting scenarios to suit a pre determined narrative is beyond me. 

[Steven Kossor]

I've gone to DP twice, filmed the limo route while driving down Elm Street myself several times using a Go Pro camera mounted on the rear view mirror of the rental car, walked the ground there for several hours viewing it from all perspectives, watched all of the available footage of the limo's passage down Elm Street countless times, read dozens of books and consulted with Doug Horne and David Lifton directly and in-depth over a period of several years, and have come to conclusions that are thoughtful and complete syntheses of the available evidence. It's inaccurate and insulting to claim that all of this input is "garbage" and that the resulting conclusions are "garbage" as well.  Ad hominem attacks are never helpful or useful, and tend to cast the author in a negative light, despite any valuable contributions he/she might have made in the past.  The truth will out only if we continue to look for it, without being blinded by the confirmation bias that becomes all the more potent with each observation and conclusion that we publish. I'm thankful to have the opportunity to share insights and conclusions in this forum, no matter the insipid responses they may provoke from others from time to time.

[Steven Kossor]

A picture is worth 1,000 words, but I added a few to clarify the view that Bowers had at the time of the shooting, and what he was describing to Mark Lane in his interview.  This is the view Lee Bowers had from the switching station tower, looking toward Elm Street. The only part of the Grassy Knoll that he could see from his vantage point is the small section between the picket fence and the pergola where Zapruder was filming. This narrow area is where two men were standing at the time of the shooting, and where Bowers could possibly have seen a motorcycle officer riding about 2/3 up the "embankment" on the other side of the picket fence before dismounting and running to investigate the possibility of someone firing from the side of the fence that was facing Bowers. In his report to Mark Lane, Bowers described a commotion he noticed "on the embankment" but clearly, he was not able to see through the fence to see anything on the other side of it - he was referring to activity on HIS side of the fence. As an employee of the railroad yard, he would consider the area "behind" the fence to be the area of the railroad yard, and the area "in front of the fence" to be the GK and Elm Street, but the "embankment" was the location of the fence itself, not the area in front of it.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Steven Kossor

[Denny Zartman]

I just finished it. The best part was comparing Thompson's reconstruction photo of the Moorman photo to the actual Moorman photo. I feel that it's possible there was a person in that spot in the Moorman photo. The size and shape seem consistent. Part of my uncertainty about visual artifacts like"Badgeman" has to do with size, so I appreciate having an actual figure standing in the spot and being able to compare that shape to the Moorman picture.

It was also interesting to hear about witness Cheryl McKinnon, a journalism student that believed two shots came from the knoll.

The brief pieces of footage disproving the "jet effect" theory about JFK's rearward movement was good too.

I think anyone calling it "garbage" is being unnecessarily harsh. It's far better than any rehash of the Warren Commission version of events.

On the negative side, I'd love a music-free JFK documentary some day! At times the music here was so loud it was distracting. Lots of documentaries do the same thing too. It's just my preference to have the music lower for projects like this.

I also couldn't disagree more with what I feel was their incomplete take on Umbrella Man. Imho there are better things in Thompson's book that could have been featured instead.

[Pat Speer]

On 12/12/2021 at 7:51 AM, Steven Kossor said:

A picture is worth 1,000 words, but I added a few to clarify the view that Bowers had at the time of the shooting, and what he was describing to Mark Lane in his interview.  This is the view Lee Bowers had from the switching station tower, looking toward Elm Street. The only part of the Grassy Knoll that he could see from his vantage point is the small section between the picket fence and the pergola where Zapruder was filming. This narrow area is where two men were standing at the time of the shooting, and where Bowers could possibly have seen a motorcycle officer riding about 2/3 up the "embankment" on the other side of the picket fence before dismounting and running to investigate the possibility of someone firing from the side of the fence that was facing Bowers. In his report to Mark Lane, Bowers described a commotion he noticed "on the embankment" but clearly, he was not able to see through the fence to see anything on the other side of it - he was referring to activity on HIS side of the fence. As an employee of the railroad yard, he would consider the area "behind" the fence to be the area of the railroad yard, and the area "in front of the fence" to be the GK and Elm Street, but the "embankment" was the location of the fence itself, not the area in front of it.

Here are the relevant sections of the Bowers transcript created for Rush To Judgment:

(Unreleased segments of Bowers' 1966 interview with Mark Lane, from a transcript of the interview found in the papers of Rush to Judgment director Emilo de Antonio at the Wisconsin Historical Archives, and published online by Dale Myers, 2004)) (When asked if there were any pedestrians between his location and Elm Street) "Directly in line - uh - there - of course is - uh - there leading toward the Triple Underpass there is a curved decorative wall - I guess you'd call it - it's not a solid wall but it is part of the - uh - park....And to the west of that there were - uh - at the time of the shooting in my vision only two men. Uh - these two men were - uh - standing back from the street somewhat at the top of the incline and were very near - er - two trees which were in the area...And one of them, from time to time as he walked back and forth, uh - disappeared behind a wooden fence which is also slightly to the west of that. Uh - these two men to the best of my knowledge were standing there - uh - at the time - of the shooting...Ah - one of them, as I recall, was a middle-aged man, fairly heavy-set with - what looked like a white shirt. Uh - he remained in sight practically all of the time. The other individual was uh - slighter build and had either a plaid jacket or a plaid shirt on and he - uh -is walking back and forth was in and out of sight, so that I could not state for sure whether he was standing there at the time of the shots or not..." (When asked if he saw anyone suspicious in the area) "Other than these two and the people who were over on the top of the Underpass who - that were, for the most part, were railroad employees or were employees of a Fort Worth welding firm who were working on the railroad, uh - there were no strangers out in this area." (When returning to the question of whether or not anyone was shooting from behind the fence) "Now I could see back or the South side [Note: here MYERS adds "BOWERS is actually speaking of the north side of the fence] of the wooden fence in the area, so that obviously that there was no one there who could have - uh - had anything to do with either - as accomplice or anything else because there was no one there - um - at the moment that the shots were fired."

As I recall, this transcript was discovered by Gary Mack while he was looking for evidence for Badgeman. Instead, he found evidence that Mark Lane had deceived the public when he made out Bowers had seen men on his side of the fence. This was discovered more than 17 years ago. Plenty of time for people to get up to snuff. Now I adore Tink and am friends with Aguilar and DeSalles, who were shown in the program. But there's no excuse for them repeating and pushing things that they feel are true rather than what the evidence suggests. I asked one of them why the program showed the Harper fragment to the left of the limo's location at 313 when as far back as 1969 Harper showed researchers where he found it and it was a hundred feet or so down the road, just past the steps. And he said that he thought Harper was mistaken. Similarly, David Mantik has claimed that someone must have moved it before Harper discovered it. 

That's what I mean by GIGO. Instead of following the evidence, people are choosing to cherry pick the evidence and follow what they want to believe. And then putting what they want to believe on TV to sell their theories. That's what the LN'ers have done when it comes to the SBT and bullet trajectories. And that's what our friends and colleagues are doing now that they've been given access.

I'd like to believe we deserve better. 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

Here are the relevant sections of the Bowers transcript created for Rush To Judgment:

(Unreleased segments of Bowers' 1966 interview with Mark Lane, from a transcript of the interview found in the papers of Rush to Judgment director Emilo de Antonio at the Wisconsin Historical Archives, and published online by Dale Myers, 2004)) (When asked if there were any pedestrians between his location and Elm Street) "Directly in line - uh - there - of course is - uh - there leading toward the Triple Underpass there is a curved decorative wall - I guess you'd call it - it's not a solid wall but it is part of the - uh - park....And to the west of that there were - uh - at the time of the shooting in my vision only two men. Uh - these two men were - uh - standing back from the street somewhat at the top of the incline and were very near - er - two trees which were in the area...And one of them, from time to time as he walked back and forth, uh - disappeared behind a wooden fence which is also slightly to the west of that. Uh - these two men to the best of my knowledge were standing there - uh - at the time - of the shooting...Ah - one of them, as I recall, was a middle-aged man, fairly heavy-set with - what looked like a white shirt. Uh - he remained in sight practically all of the time. The other individual was uh - slighter build and had either a plaid jacket or a plaid shirt on and he - uh -is walking back and forth was in and out of sight, so that I could not state for sure whether he was standing there at the time of the shots or not..." (When asked if he saw anyone suspicious in the area) "Other than these two and the people who were over on the top of the Underpass who - that were, for the most part, were railroad employees or were employees of a Fort Worth welding firm who were working on the railroad, uh - there were no strangers out in this area." (When returning to the question of whether or not anyone was shooting from behind the fence) "Now I could see back or the South side [Note: here MYERS adds "BOWERS is actually speaking of the north side of the fence] of the wooden fence in the area, so that obviously that there was no one there who could have - uh - had anything to do with either - as accomplice or anything else because there was no one there - um - at the moment that the shots were fired."

As I recall, this transcript was discovered by Gary Mack while he was looking for evidence for Badgeman. Instead, he found evidence that Mark Lane had deceived the public when he made out Bowers had seen men on his side of the fence. This was discovered more than 17 years ago. Plenty of time for people to get up to snuff. Now I adore Tink and am friends with Aguilar and DeSalles, who were shown in the program. But there's no excuse for them repeating and pushing things that they feel are true rather than what the evidence suggests. I asked one of them why the program showed the Harper fragment to the left of the limo's location at 313 when as far back as 1969 Harper showed researchers where he found it and it was a hundred feet or so down the road, just past the steps. And he said that he thought Harper was mistaken. Similarly, David Mantik has claimed that someone must have moved it before Harper discovered it. 

That's what I mean by GIGO. Instead of following the evidence, people are choosing to cherry pick the evidence and follow what they want to believe. And then putting what they want to believe on TV to sell their theories. That's what the LN'ers have done when it comes to the SBT and bullet trajectories. And that's what our friends and colleagues are doing now that they've been given access.

I'd like to believe we deserve better. 

Pat S.

I admire your intellectual honesty for posting this. 

However, this does not rule out a shot from the Grassy Knoll area, particularly from the small area between the pergola-colonnade and the famed picket fence. 

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27353-gunsmoke-gunfire-in-dealey-plaza-a-diversion/

Dallas Police Officer Joe Smith encountered a woman screaming "They are shooting the President from the bushes.” 

This is where Smith said he encountered a man who flashed Secret Service ID.

These bushes (I think from context) are in the small area between the colonnade and the picket fence, and which Bowers seems to be describing.  

Also, Bowers commentary seems muddy. He says he may have lost sight of one of the men during the actual shooting.  Bowers also said he noted a commotion at the time of the shooting, and this lines up with the railroad workers seeing smoke and running down to the area, and with Officer Smith smelling gunsmoke in that same area. 

In addition, Bowers is human, and may have been distracted if a man fleetingly shot at JFK from behind the fence and then ducked behind a car to load a weapon into the vehicle, thus obscured from Bowers. 

I disagree with anyone who knowingly cuts corners in JFKA research, whether CT, LT or otherwise.  

I don't know what to say about the Harpers fragment.  

 

 

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by Benjamin Cole
add on

[Micah Mileto]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

 

There are way more goodies in the book Beyond The Fence Line. Somebody should digitize those.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Micah Mileto

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Pat S.

I admire your intellectual honesty for posting this. 

However, this does not rule out a shot from the Grassy Knoll area, particularly from the small area between the pergola-colonnade and the famed picket fence. 

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27353-gunsmoke-gunfire-in-dealey-plaza-a-diversion/

Dallas Police Officer Joe Smith encountered a woman screaming "They are shooting the President from the bushes.” 

This is where Smith said he encountered a man who flashed Secret Service ID.

These bushes (I think from context) are in the small area between the colonnade and the picket fence, and which Bowers seems to be describing.  

Also, Bowers commentary seems muddy. He says he may have lost sight of one of the men during the actual shooting.  Bowers also said he noted a commotion at the time of the shooting, and this lines up with the railroad workers seeing smoke and running down to the area, and with Officer Smith smelling gunsmoke in that same area. 

In addition, Bowers is human, and may have been distracted if a man fleetingly shot at JFK from behind the fence and then ducked behind a car to load a weapon into the vehicle, thus obscured from Bowers. 

I disagree with anyone who knowingly cuts corners in JFKA research, whether CT, LT or otherwise.  

I don't know what to say about the Harpers fragment.  

 

 

 

To be clear, I wanted to believe someone was behind the fence. It seems near certain, based upon the earwitnesses and smoke witnesses, that some sort of diversion (or even a shot) came from there. As far as the glint or whatever Bowers saw, it could have come through the gap as the limo drove by. I don't object to someone thinking someone had crept up behind the fence without Bowers noticing. My objection is to people continuing to pretend the men Bowers saw were not the men on the steps in the Muchmore film, when his description is a perfect match. 

And this underlies my objection to much of what's passed as "research" from (literally and figuratively) both sides of the fence. If an x-ray shows you something you disagree with or don't understand, claim it's been faked. If an autopsy photo shows you something you disagree with or don't understand, claim it's a fake. If the Z-film shows you something you disagree with or don't understand, claim it's a fake. If you don't like what the witnesses say, say they are lying because they're scared. And conversely, if the back wound doesn't line up with the throat wound, move it. If the entrance wound on the head doesn't line up with the supposed exit wound, move it. If the Z-film, autopsy photos and x-rays show you something you disagree with or don't understand, hire some expert to present a bs theory that explains why... And that's not even to mention the preparing of witnesses and parsing of testimony prepared by Ball, Belin, and Specter, to keep the record "clean" per Warren's request.

It's like everyone, even today, is afraid to look at what actually happened, based upon the actual evidence. I set out to do so roughly 19 years ago, and came to some surprising conclusions, some of which have crept into the community. But the bulk of what I've discovered has remained buried under a mountain of bs piled on from both sides of the fence, from people more interested in defending the status quo or having fun with theories than actually looking at evidence. 

Edited December 14, 2021 by Pat Speer

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Micah Mileto said:

There are way more goodies in the book Beyond The Fence Line. Somebody should digitize those.

Is that the book on Bowers' traffic accident? I once met a woman who'd spent years studying his accident, only to come away concluding it was an accident, and not a murder. She was a CT, who thought she'd cleared up one piece of the puzzle. Of course, most everyone ignored her at the conference afterwards. 

[Gary Murr]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

It's like everyone, even today, is afraid to look at what actually happened, based upon the actual evidence. I set out to do so roughly 19 years ago, and came to some surprising conclusions, some of which have crept into the community. But the bulk of what I've discovered has remained buried under a mountain of bs piled on from both sides of the fence, from people more interested in defending the status quo or having fun with theories than actually looking at evidence. 

Thank you for this statement, Pat. As you well know I have been at this a tad more than 19 years and it was precisely because of theoretical "research" such as that you have outlined here that I did not post for perusal my final [3rd] volume on the Connally wounding several years ago. I also happen to know, because of access to his research materials, that the late John Hunt tried to warn certain individuals in this community about their approach to among other things the Harper fragment, in particular their insistence that it was found left/south of the Z313 impact point, when as you have pointed out that is absolutely not true.

Gary

[Pete Mellor]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

Is that the book on Bowers' traffic accident? I once met a woman who'd spent years studying his accident, only to come away concluding it was an accident, and not a murder. She was a CT, who thought she'd cleared up one piece of the puzzle. Of course, most everyone ignored her at the conference afterwards. 

Pat, Are you referring to Anita Dickason?  She was at Lancer in 2013 with her book 'The Real Facts of Lee Bowers' Death'.  If I recall correctly she was ex law enforcement.  I spoke to her & bought her book, which she signed.  Her verdict on Bowers' death was 'accident'.   

[Chris Davidson]

7 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

 I asked one of them why the program showed the Harper fragment to the left of the limo's location at 313 when as far back as 1969 Harper showed researchers where he found it and it was a hundred feet or so down the road, just past the steps. And he said that he thought Harper was mistaken. Similarly, David Mantik has claimed that someone must have moved it before Harper discovered it. 

The stairs are a little more than 50ft past extant Z313.

Station# 465.3 - 517.5 = 52.3ft

If Harper showed the location some 100ft farther down Elm, please provide the documentation for this.

Because, somewhere from 1969 until a more recent video(where he is walking to the discovery location), he places his find approx 10ft farther down or over from the extant z313 location.

I posted that video awhile back showing Harper stopping to describe his discovery, a LOS can be drawn back to the Bronson flash.

Which is between 5.5ft and 11.1 ft after the extant z313 shot.

 

 

 

[Chris Davidson]

42 minutes ago, Chris Davidson said:

The stairs are a little more than 50ft past extant Z313.

Station# 465.3 - 517.5 = 52.3ft

If Harper showed the location some 100ft farther down Elm, please provide the documentation for this.

Because, somewhere from 1969 until a more recent video(where he is walking to the discovery location), he places his find approx 10ft farther down or over from the extant z313 location.

I posted that video awhile back showing Harper stopping to describe his discovery, a LOS can be drawn back to the Bronson flash.

Which is between 5.5ft and 11.1 ft after the extant z313 shot.

 

 

 

This is where he stops.

So, something like this:

 

 

[Micah Mileto]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Is that the book on Bowers' traffic accident? I once met a woman who'd spent years studying his accident, only to come away concluding it was an accident, and not a murder. She was a CT, who thought she'd cleared up one piece of the puzzle. Of course, most everyone ignored her at the conference afterwards. 

It has Bowers' priest saying that he told him he saw a gun in one of their hands.

[Micah Mileto]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Is that the book on Bowers' traffic accident? I once met a woman who'd spent years studying his accident, only to come away concluding it was an accident, and not a murder. She was a CT, who thought she'd cleared up one piece of the puzzle. Of course, most everyone ignored her at the conference afterwards. 

See the little joust in the review section, lol https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Assassination-Eyewitness-Conspiracy-Bowers/dp/1480803359/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=lee+bowers+book&qid=1639510630&sr=8-1