Zapruder's demonstration of JFK's head wound before his film had been developed

[Steven Kossor]

I updated the video that I shot, recreating the Zapruder film for research purposes and adding some content that summarizes the problem with the 26 second running time of the finished version of the Zapruder film.  Here is the new URL:  https://youtu.be/7-kzRXjuoYs

It's clear that there is a great deal of consistency in the photo, X-ray and autopsy records that were recorded at Bethesda -- it might be considered as "set 1" of the body evidence collection), and a great deal of consistency in the reports of the doctors at Parkland hospital (especially the early ones, before they were visited in person by SS agent Elmer Moore and cajoled over the telephone and otherwise by others who successfully influenced them to change their testimony), which might be considered as "set 2" of the body evidence collection.  Some of the people at Bethesda (Saundra Spencer, for example) seem to have corroborated the "set 2" evidence, but they're definitely in the minority and conscientiously swept under the carpet.  The sometimes very strident objections to existence of disparities between the President's appearance in Dallas and his appearance at Bethesda that some researchers have voiced over the years notwithstanding, those disparities are real and need to be accounted for in the time line of events between 12:00 noon and 11:30 pm on 11/22/63.

[Sandy Larsen]

Those who witnessed the shot in Dealey Plaza weren't prepared to pay close attention when the shot hit Kennedy's head. And what they did see, unprepared, lasted for a brief moment.

What they saw was brain matter exiting in the direction of the right side of the limo. That would be right side of Kennedy's head had he been sitting up straight. And that is how the Dealey Plaza witness's brains processed the information -- blowout on the right side of the head.

Problem is, Kennedy had turned the back of his head to the right. So what the witnesses thought they saw was really a blowout on the back of the head.

Kennedy was also slumping forward. Thus the blowout looked like it occurred on the top of the head instead of the back.

Remember, the Dealey Plaza witnesses were unprepared and then had no time to study what they saw.

In contrast, the Parkland professionals had plenty of time to observe the blowout wound on the back of the head. Virtually all of them said it was on the back of the head. Some saw cerebellar tissue oozing out, something that could only happen if the wound was on the back of the head.

The 20 Parkland professional cannot be wrong. The odds of their being wrong are 1 in 1,048,576.

A back-of-head blowout wound pointed to a conspiracy, which was unacceptable to the government. So the government altered Kennedy's head, his photos, and x-rays in order to cover that up.

It's merely an unfortunate coincidence that the way the Dealey Plaza witnesses miss-saw the wound just happens to match the location of the coverup alterations.

 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Andrej Stancak]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Problem is, Kennedy had turned his head to the right.

Sandy: are you sure about the right-side turn? I thought there was a slight forward slump of the head and then violently to the back and left.  

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Those who witnessed the shot in Dealey Plaza weren't prepared to pay close attention when the shot hit Kennedy's head. And what they did see, unprepared, lasted for a brief moment.

What they saw was brain matter exiting in the direction of the right side of the limo. That would be right side of Kennedy's head had he been sitting up straight. And that is how the Dealey Plaza witness's brains processed the information -- blowout on the right side of the head.

Problem is, Kennedy had turned his head to the right. So what the witnesses thought they saw was really a blowout on the back of the head.

Kennedy was also slumping forward. Thus the blowout looked like it occurred on the top of the head instead of the back.

Remember, the Dealey Plaza witnesses were unprepared and then had no time to study what they saw.

In contrast, the Parkland professionals had plenty of time to observe the blowout wound on the back of the head. Virtually all of them said it was on the back of the head. Some saw cerebellar tissue oozing out, something that could only happen if the wound was on the back of the head.

The 20 Parkland professional cannot be wrong. The odds of their being wrong are 1 in 1,048,576.

A back-of-head blowout wound pointed to a conspiracy, which was unacceptable to the government. So the government altered Kennedy's head, his photos, and x-rays in order to cover that up.

It's merely an unfortunate coincidence that the way the Dealey Plaza witnesses miss-saw the wound just happens to match the location of the coverup alterations.

 

Oh my. Without getting into the much-traveled muck of whether or not the Parkland witnesses thinking it was on the far back of the head could have been wrong, can we at least agree that your stating the odds of them being wrong are "1 in 1.048,576" is a gross overstatement? I mean, where did you get such a number? I personally contacted two of the top cognitive psychologists--one of whom was the single-most prominent expert on eyewitness testimony in the country--and asked them about this, and they both said it was easily conceivable that the witnesses could have been wrong. For a number of reasons.

Such as:

1. They could have had only vague recollections, and then engaged in group-think, where they let what others told them afterwards or what Clark said at the press conference color their thoughts. 

2. They could have had only vague recollections, and then been swayed by the drawings in Thompson's and Lifton's books.

3. They could have had strong recollections, but been fooled by perspective or the rotation of the skull--the very thing you're claiming for the witnesses in the plaza.

As previously stated, I spent a considerable amount of time looking into this question, and it is beyond dispute that those citing Aguilar's account of Prof. Loftus on this question have not done the reading to actually know what they're talking about, and that Aguilar (a friend) misrepresented Loftus' findings regarding the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. 

It's well documented that far more people claimed they went to Woodstock than actually attended. There are also numerous people who conflated the subsequent showing of the Zapruder film on TV and think they saw Kennedy killed live on TV. Eyewitness recollections in general and emergency room doctor recollections in particular are not considered reliable. This is one of the many reasons they perform autopsies. The autopsy report is, legally speaking, the last word. I've looked through hundreds of forensic publications and have not found one instance in which an autopsy report was over-ruled or even disputed in a court of law via the recollections of emergency room personnel. 

As far as "unfortunate coincidences"... I suppose you also think it's an "unfortunate coincidence" that the wounds described in the autopsy report--when removed from the spin put on them by the doctors--not only match the wounds described by the Dealey Plaza witnesses, but strongly suggest two head shots. I mean--that would be unfortunate--that the proof for conspiracy has been in the official record all this time but that people have been too busy chasing spooks and ghouls to notice.

 

OK. I said I wasn't gonna get into it, but here I go again...

People witness a car accident. They say it occurred half-way down a block. The police who first responded, the ambulance driver, and tow-truck driver, however, write up reports in which they indicate it was at an intersection. Later that night, an accident investigation ensues, and photographs of skid marks, shattered glass and a broken bus bench are taken half-way down the block. Even more telling, there is film of the accident which shows it occurred half-way down the block. To some, the film must be fake and the accident investigators must be part of some monstrous scheme. But common sense indicates otherwise and strongly suggests the police on the scene, the ambulance driver and tow truck driver were wrong, yes?

 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Sandy Larsen]

5 hours ago, Andrej Stancak said:

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Problem is, Kennedy had turned his head to the right.

Sandy: are you sure about the right-side turn?

 

Oops! I was thinking of the back of Kennedy's head when I wrote that, but forgot to type that part into the sentence:

"Problem is, Kennedy had turned [the back of] his head to the right."

Thanks for letting me know. I'll fix my post right away.

 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

... can we at least agree that your stating the odds of them being wrong are "1 in 1.048,576" is a gross overstatement?

 

Actually it is a gross understatement. A very, very gross understatement.

 

Math Word Problem

There are 20 Parkland professionals who look at a gaping hole  on JFK's head. What are the odds that they will all get the location wrong?

 

Work

The odds of ONE of them getting it wrong is very low, like maybe in the 1 in 10 to 1 in 100 range.

But rather than doing a psychological study to determine what the statistics truly are, let's assume that a flip of a coin dictates whether each person got it right or wrong. Doing so means that there is a 50% (1 in 2) chance of the person being wrong. A person can't do any worse than a coin toss in getting something wrong. So our solution to this problem will be the least-upper-bound of all approximate solutions to this problem.

½ ^20 = 1 / 1,048,576

Therefore...

 

Solution

The odds of all 20 Parkland professionals being wrong about the location of the head wound is 1 in at least 1,048,576.

 

[Eddy Bainbridge]

I am perfectly willing to believe witnesses are wrong if the preponderance of evidence indicates them to be wrong. 

I could believe that multiple eyewitnesses could be fooled by an optical illusion, particularly in a stressful situation. 

The location of the large blowout on the back of the head has multiple reinforcing pieces of evidence which appear along JFK's transfer from the shot, to the hospital, and to the autopsy.  

Group think - not very plausible

Optical illusion - verging on laughable

Witnesses genuinely mistaken - possible in one location, not multiple ones.

In opposition we have :

Film alteration - not ruled out but hard to fully demonstrate

Autopsy x-ray alteration - some evidence but disputed 

Autopsy photo alteration - Almost certainly photos missing

Witness tampering - a demonstrable fact.

That summarises where I am, as of now. I'm not a researcher, I'm a reader and I lean very heavily towards a large rear headwound. The X-rays are not conclusive for me.

Edited June 11, 2022 by Eddy Bainbridge

[Steven Kossor]

As a psychologist and the operator of a relatively large practice that delivers mental health treatment services to children in their homes & communities, I actually have had more than a little training in forensic "critical incident analysis" in order to satisfy state standards for the investigation of incidents of alleged abuse and neglect.  Applying that training to the JFKA has been something I've been doing for at least 10 years, adding new bits of information as it comes to light, and "slicing the bologna" of time as thinly as possible and examining each slice carefully as an entity unto itself, like I was taught to do, in order to create the most accurate reconstruction of events possible (and identifying missing information) by considering both eyewitness testimony and any available forensic evidence.  That process has yielded some very stable understandings about what probably happened (it's not possible to say "exactly" what happened, but in the realm of probability, I'm pretty confident that I understand the sequence of events pretty clearly at this point).  David Lifton and some others have gone beyond the realm of probability and entered the realm of speculation in the past, but in David's case, we've spoken about the "thin time slices" of events in microscopic detail over the past 10 years as I was trying (until about March of this year) to help him finish Final Charade. I think that he is closer to a scientific/forensic understanding of the events on 11/22/63 than others, because he has embraced the concept of reviewing "thin sequential time slices" and reconciling each of them with established facts to the extent possible, so I'm hopeful that his sequel to Best Evidence will be helpful in understanding "what happened" (which he documented scrupulously in Best Evidence along with his speculation trying to tie events together as best he could) but also "what was probably planned, but didn't happen in Dallas for several reasons, but set into motion the French farce between Love Field and the official Bethesda autopsy that was a desperate struggle by the plotters to get the plot back on the rails."  I'll let David complete the story of the JFKA in Final Charade asap.  In the mean-time I'll add whatever insights I've come up with to the narrative in the Education Forum, with appreciation from the group for identifying less-than-complete contributions, and will amend them to the best of my ability as necessary.  The confirmation bias be damned!

[Michael Crane]

15 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Custer testified to the ARRB that he took the x-rays at the beginning of the autopsy. He even spotted his personal marker on them. The x-rays, furthermore, show brain within the skull, and shattered skull at the top and back of the head. This corresponds 100% with Humes' testimony that shattered skull fell to the table as he peeled back the scalp. 

John H Ebersole maybe? 

 

 

X-Rays in Dallas would have looked different IMO.

 

[Andrej Stancak]

I have no doubts about the veracity of reports of Parkland doctors and a nurse (Audrey Bell) on the occipital or occipital-parietal location of the main head wound. They would not mistake the occipital-parietal location for a frontal-temporal flap that none of them had seen. For them to make such a mistake they were too much of experts. Parkland doctor's reports are not comparable in strength to e.g., witness testimonies on the number of shot or their directions, which obviously are subject to perceptual errors. Any surgeon having the opportunity to view JFK's head from a short distance (e.g., 2 feet) and for a reasonable period of time (minutes) would be able to describe the location of the head wound(s). This is the reason for the highly convergent reports across the group of surgeons attending the JFK in trauma room 1.

However, several people in Bethesda alo reported to have seen occipital-parietal head wound, e.g., the chief radiologist at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, Dr Ebersole.  

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Andrej Stancak said:

I have no doubts about the veracity of reports of Parkland doctors and a nurse (Audrey Bell) on the occipital or occipital-parietal location of the main head wound. They would not mistake the occipital-parietal location for a frontal-temporal flap that none of them had seen. For them to make such a mistake they were too much of experts. Parkland doctor's reports are not comparable in strength to e.g., witness testimonies on the number of shot or their directions, which obviously are subject to perceptual errors. Any surgeon having the opportunity to view JFK's head from a short distance (e.g., 2 feet) and for a reasonable period of time (minutes) would be able to describe the location of the head wound(s). This is the reason for the highly convergent reports across the group of surgeons attending the JFK in trauma room 1.

However, several people in Bethesda alo reported to have seen occipital-parietal head wound, e.g., the chief radiologist at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, Dr Ebersole.  

What makes you think Bell was even there?

[Michael Crane]

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

What makes you think Bell was even there?

Come on Pat.You know that she testified before the ARRB.

[Pat Speer]

16 minutes ago, Michael Crane said:

Come on Pat.You know that she testified before the ARRB.

What does that mean? They also interviewed Joe O'Donnell, who turned out to have been a fantasist in the throes of dementia. I suspect the same is true of Bell. As pointed out by David Lifton, there is no evidence she was ever in ER 1 when Kennedy was in there. And her story about being shown the wound by Perry is absolute rubbish. Doctors immersed in trying to save the life of a patient don't put everything on hold for a few seconds to show the wounds of their patient to a looky-loo nurse. They just don't.

The statements of O'Donnell and Bell belong in the garbage bin. It's pathetic that people still cling to them. 

[Michael Crane]

IIRC she was handed some fragments,but that might of been from Connally.

Then we have this.If she was asked where the entrance wound was,wouldn't you think that she would say "I didn't see it" instead,she drew an area like this?

 

Oh yeah,Crenshaw was there also doing a cutdown on one of the legs  😉

Edited June 12, 2022 by Michael Crane

[Andrej Stancak]

From: JFK Absolute Proof, by Robert Groden, page 151.

"There was a massive wound at the back of his head. I recall the injury being right along this area. There was a big hole there. There was a large hole in this area".

 

Edited June 12, 2022 by Andrej Stancak