If the back wound was an exit wound

[Ron Ecker]

From “Trajectory of a Lie” by Milicent Cranor:

“The back wound could have been the exit of a bullet that entered the body through the throat. Many researchers doubt this because no hole was reported in the trunk of the limousine; they believe such a trajectory would require the bullet to also penetrate the trunk. This is not necessarily so: if the bullet had exited with very little energy – perhaps after traveling from afar – it would not have penetrated the trunk.”

http://history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/T...ctoryOfaLie.htm

If a bullet entered JFK’s throat and exited his back (between neck and right shoulder blade), would this be consistent with a shot trajectory from atop the south end of the triple overpass? If not, where could such a shot have come from?

Ron

[Tim Gratz]

The objection to this scenario is that there was no bullet entry into the rear seat of the Lincoln and then into its trunk. If the bullet exited Kennedy's back it presumably still had the force to enter the soft upholstery of the seat even if it did not have the force to penetrate the trunk.

[Ron Ecker]

The objection to this scenario is that there was no bullet entry into the rear seat of the Lincoln and then into its trunk.  If the bullet exited Kennedy's back it presumably still had the force to enter the soft upholstery of the seat even if it did not have the force to penetrate the trunk.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There was no bullet entry into the rear seat as far as we know. If there was such a hole in the seat, I'm not sure the Secret Service would say so. (I'm going to look for the photo that shows the rear seat with the blood on it, just to satisfy my curiosity. I think it shows the entire rear seat.) I imagine there was bullet or fragment damage to the limo that we will never know about. (The damage to the top lining of the windshield was "already there" before Dallas, said the SS. Right.)

Ron

[Al Carrier]

From “Trajectory of a Lie” by Milicent Cranor:

“The back wound could have been the exit of a bullet that entered the body through the throat.  Many researchers doubt this because no hole was reported in the trunk of the limousine; they believe such a trajectory would require the bullet to also penetrate the trunk.  This is not necessarily so: if the bullet had exited with very little energy – perhaps after traveling from afar – it would not have penetrated the trunk.”

http://history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/T...ctoryOfaLie.htm

If a bullet entered JFK’s throat and exited his back (between neck and right shoulder blade), would this be consistent with a shot trajectory from atop the south end of the triple overpass? If not, where could such a shot have come from?

Ron

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ron,

The issue here is sustained velocity from unobstructed travel and soft tissue penetration and adding the clothing on exit. Let's take the 6.5mm MC round for giggles. At 100yds of travel, the velocity goes from 2000fps to 1855fps. Soft tissue penetration would comprimise it no more than an additional 10% which would leave it in the range of 1670-1680fps. Exit penetration through the shirt and more importantly the weave of the jacket would take off another 15-20% giving us a minimun of 1350fps. With a 160gr FMJ bullet, more than enough velocity to penetrate metal on direct impact or at least skip off leaving significant indentation on less than 45degree impact. Another consideration beyond the trunk of the limo would be the damage to the front of the USSS follow-up car that I am unaware of any documentation that it was examined and the findings reported.

Al

[Bill Miller]

Here is what Dr. Baxter sai about the wound and what one should expect ...

Dr. Baxter - Although it would be unusual for a high velocity missile of this type to cause a wound as you have described, the passage through tissue planes of this density could have well resulted in the sequence which you outline; namely, that the anterior wound does represent a wound of exit.

Mr. Specter - What would be the considerations which, in your mind, would make it, as you characterized it, unlikely?

Dr. Baxter - It would be unlikely because the damage that the bullet would create would be---first its speed would create a shock wave which would damage a larger number of tissues, as in its path, it would tend to strike, or usually would strike, tissues of greater density than this particular missile did and would then begin to tumble and would create larger jagged--the further it went, the more jagged would be the damage that it created; so that ordinarily there would have been a rather large wound of exit.

[Bill Miller]

Dr. Baxter - It would be unlikely because the damage that the bullet would create would be---first its speed would create a shock wave which would damage a larger number of tissues, as in its path, it would tend to strike, or usually would strike, tissues of greater density than this particular missile did and would then begin to tumble and would create larger jagged--the further it went, the more jagged would be the damage that it created; so that ordinarily there would have been a rather large wound of exit.

Bill Cheslock reminds me of something Stewart Galanor wrote in his book "Cover-Up" ...

On page 26, he points out the sizes of the holes in the clothing and body

of JFK. The throat wound was 5mm, back wound was 7mm, shirt was 10mm,

and jacket was 15mm. These measurements would indicate the bullet tumbled as it penetrated from front to back, and made larger holes as it traversed JFK's body and clothing.

What Dr. Baxter said and what Galanor points out about the bullet holes go hand in hand when so many other things do not.

Edited January 9, 2005 by Bill Miller

[Ron Ecker]

Bill,

Thanks for that info. While the increasing size of the holes clearly indicates transit of a bullet from front to back, it leaves the question of the rear seat. Is it possible that after tumbling through the jacket, the bullet had lost enough energy that it bounced or richocheted off the leather seat, rather than penetrating it, and wound up in the street?

The question of shot origin must also be answered. Does such a trajectory line up at all with the south overpass? What other origin could there be? I think it's the overpass or nothing.

Ron

[Bill Miller]

Thanks for that info. While the increasing size of the holes clearly indicates transit of a bullet from front to back, it leaves the question of the rear seat. Is it possible that after tumbling through the jacket, the bullet had lost enough energy that it bounced or richocheted off the leather seat, rather than penetrating it, and wound up in the street?

The question of shot origin must also be answered. Does such a trajectory line up at all with the south overpass? What other origin could there be? I think it's the overpass or nothing.

Two things that make it an impossibility to ever know.

MR. GUNN: One of the things in the -- during the autopsy, they did not link the wound in the back to the neck. That did not come until after they spoke with Dr. Perry, so there was no tracing. There was an attempt to use the probe, and they found that the probe went in a short degree and then they could not find that it connected anywhere.

I can't lay my hands on it at the moment, but one of the doctors testified that an bullet could have entered the body and changed path for several reasons and that it was impossible to now know the path the missile took. We often think about a LOS from Zapruder to JFK, but a view from the RR yard to JFK when he was first shot would be much more on a level field of view. Kennedy's head was turned to his extreme right by Z193 - Z195, but his sitting posture above the back seat was the same as seen in the Croft photo. Any deflection of the bullet could have caused it to leave the body in a way that it would not have hit the trunk or the follow-up car.

[Al Carrier]

Thanks for that info. While the increasing size of the holes clearly indicates transit of a bullet from front to back, it leaves the question of the rear seat. Is it possible that after tumbling through the jacket, the bullet had lost enough energy that it bounced or richocheted off the leather seat, rather than penetrating it, and wound up in the street?

The question of shot origin must also be answered. Does such a trajectory line up at all with the south overpass? What other origin could there be? I think it's the overpass or nothing.

Two things that make it an impossibility to ever know.

MR. GUNN: One of the things in the -- during the autopsy, they did not link the wound in the back to the neck. That did not come until after they spoke with Dr. Perry, so there was no tracing. There was an attempt to use the probe, and they found that the probe went in a short degree and then they could not find that it connected anywhere.

I can't lay my hands on it at the moment, but one of the doctors testified that an bullet could have entered the body and changed path for several reasons and that it was impossible to now know the path the missile took. We often think about a LOS from Zapruder to JFK, but a view from the RR yard to JFK when he was first shot would be much more on a level field of view. Kennedy's head was turned to his extreme right by Z193 - Z195, but his sitting posture above the back seat was the same as seen in the Croft photo. Any deflection of the bullet could have caused it to leave the body in a way that it would not have hit the trunk or the follow-up car.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bill, Ron and Tim,

Some excellent exchanges here!

The only problem I have with the bullet changing course drastically within the body cavity, is what caused it to do so. I have looked at this rather closely and the only thing I could see that would have altered the trajectory so much would have been glancing off the thorasic vertebrae. Probing the wound path could have been comprimised (as Stu Wexler had pointed out in the past) by body positioning at the time of the probing.

Al

[Ron Ecker]

I find it hard to believe that a bullet from the north knoll area entered JFK's throat and exited the back of his right shoulder, and then another bullet from the north knoll area entered his left temple and exited the right rear of his head. Too many bullets changing course. I'll buy one, but not two, but I say that knowing nothing about ballistics.

Like Bill I also recall one of the pathologists saying a bullet might have changed course in JFK's neck, but I can't find the reference.

Since I tend to agree with Al that the fatal head shot came from the south knoll area, that's one bullet going straight and one (the throat shot) changing course. I can buy that.

Ron

Edited January 9, 2005 by Ron Ecker

[Tim Gratz]

Thanks for your input, Al. The dimensions sure do seem consistent with a bullet entering from the front and exiting the back.

I have these comments:

Didn't the probe of the back wound show a downward trajectory?

If as most of us think LHO was being set up as a patsy, I think a commonly accepted scenario is that the first shots came from the rear (the TSBD or the Dal-Tex Building) and JFK was shot from the front (313) only when it appeared the rear shots had not yet killed him. I think the acoustic evidence also supported this sequence. Why, then, would one of the first shots come from the front? It seems inconsistent with a planned scenario of LHO as the lone gunman.

[Ron Ecker]

Tim,

I think the planned scenario was a hit team sent by Castro, so shots from the front were no problem. What was important was that a shot or shots from the TSBD frame Oswald, who would be the only member of the "hit team" to be shot down or IDed. The scenario went bad when Oswald got arrested instead of shot down or eliminated in Mexico or wherever.

Ron

[Al Carrier]

Thanks for your input, Al.  The dimensions sure do seem consistent with a bullet entering from the front and exiting the back.

I have these comments:

Didn't the probe of the back wound show a downward trajectory?

If as most of us think LHO was being set up as a patsy, I think a commonly accepted scenario is that the first shots came from the rear (the TSBD or the Dal-Tex Building) and JFK was shot from the front (313) only when it appeared the rear shots had not yet killed him.  I think the acoustic evidence also supported this sequence.  Why, then, would one of the first shots come from the front?  It seems inconsistent with a planned scenario of LHO as the lone gunman.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tim,

My issues with the probe were that they only entered some 2.5-3". Because the path was stopped, this shows that the probing of the trajectory was not done appropriately, as so much of the autopsy was done poorly. Whether it was body positioning or rigor that stopped the probe of the wound path, it shows it was not done properly. The autopsy physicians believe initially before hearing of the throat wound, that CE399 fell out of the shallow back wound during cardiac message. I would love to hear from them how they could justify such a shallow back wound. What I am getting at, if the probing was so incomplete and poorly done, then we have to take the angle of the of the shallow probe with a grain of salt as well.

As I have stated before, IMO, the purpose of the shots from the TSBD were for nothing more than to draw attention to it and away from the other shooters. I don't believe the persons who set up the assassination planned on using Oswald as a lone nut assassin, but to link one of the shooters to Castro, the USSR and communism. It was the FBI who came charging in and saw what had transpired turned the tables and used Oswald as their lone nut and diverted any attention away from a planned conspiracy to assassinate JFK.

The accustical evidence should also be taken with a grain of salt. There were eight spikes on the recording and only four were accepted as gunshots as the other four did not match the TSBD or North Knoll. If testing comparisons would have been done from other points in the plaza, such as the south end of the overpass or south knoll, IMO we would have seen matches for the other spikes.

Al

[James Richards]

I don't believe the persons who set up the assassination planned on using Oswald as a lone nut assassin, but to link one of the shooters to Castro, the USSR and communism. (Al Carrier)

I don't wish to divert this thread away from the excellent ballistics discussion but I believe Al's sentence above is something that should be isolated and absorbed completely.

To think beyond a lone nut conspiracy plan (now there's an oxymoron for you) helps one to place the assassination into perspective. To have an assassin connected to Castro puts the blame on Communism and I agree with Al that this is what was originally intended.

It also helps one comprehend why the sudden Oswald frame and subsequent cover-up was so sloppy.

James

[Bill Miller]

Since I tend to agree with Al that the fatal head shot came from the south knoll area, that's one bullet going straight and one (the throat shot) changing course. I can buy that.

Ron

I don't know what the bullet did - other than possibly break into several pieces upon impact by the way the brain was shredded. Of Course once a missile is split into sections, then the bullet's original path is altered by new projectiles going off in different directions. I do defer to what Dr. Clark had said to the Commision ...

Dr. CLARK - Yes. I graduated from the University of Texas in Austin, 1944. I graduated from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in 1948. I interned at Indiana University Medical Center and was a resident in surgery there from 1948 to 1950. I spent 2 years in the Air Force and then took my residency in neurological surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. This was from 1953 to 1956, at which time I came to the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical School, as chairman of the division of neurological surgery.

Dr. CLARK - I described the President's wound in his head in very much the same way as I have described it here. I was asked if this wound was an entrance wound, an exit wound, or what, and I said it could be an exit wound, but I felt it was a tangential wound.

Mr. SPECTER - Which wound did you refer to at this time?

Dr. CLARK - The wound in the head.

Mr. SPECTER - Did you describe at that time what you meant by "tangential"?

Dr. CLARK - Yes, sir; I did.

Mr. SPECTER - What definition of "tangential" did you make at that time?

Dr. CLARK - As I remember, I defined the word "tangential" as being---striking an object obliquely, not squarely or head on.

Dr. CLARK - The effects of any missile striking an organ or a function of the energy which is shed by the missile in passing through this organ when a bullet strikes the head, if it is able to pass through rapidly without shedding any energy into the brain, little damage results, other than that part of the brain which is directly penetrated by the missile. However, if it strikes the skull at an angle, it must then penetrate much more bone than normal, therefore, is likely to shed more energy, striking the brain a more powerful blow.

Secondly, in striking the bone in this manner, it may cause pieces of the bone to be blown into the brain and thus act as secondary missiles. Finally, the bullet itself may be deformed and deflected so that it would go through or penetrate parts of the brain, not in the usual direct line it was proceeding.

Loose pieces of shredded brain seems to be seen falling out of the President's head on the Zapruder film.

Click attachment to animate.

Edited January 9, 2005 by Bill Miller