Calling Jim DiEugenio: new book claims to outdo Posner and Bugliosi in debunking conspiracy

[David Josephs]

4 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

The far-fetched Z224 SBT

You can stop right there MG.  

[Greg Doudna]

55 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

You can stop right there MG.  

David I too am skeptical of the single bullet going through-and-through from the back in the rear out the neck in front. I am wondering if it is possible a bullet fired at about Z330 when there is a "jiggle" and some support from witnesses for a post-Z312 shot, could have been fired from the storm drain, entered the throat and exited the rear of the head. The position of the limo at Z330 would be about right to have that shot be possible and "just right"; the off-right location of the storm drain would be a trajectory avoiding a hit of the windshield; the angle of JFK's head (following Z312) and the slightly upward trajectory from the storm drain would agree with reports that a probe went all the way through from the back of JFK's head to JFK's throat wound; it would agree with the strong statements of appearance from the witnesses that the throat wound looked like an entrance; it would agree with credible witness accounts of hearing or seeing shooting activity coming from that storm drain.

(Lest there be misunderstanding, I do not suppose any entrance or exit to that storm drain of a shooter via tunnels. The shooter would gain entrance to that storm drain in broad daylight the morning of the assassination by means of a vehicle stopping and stalling immediately over that storm drain, enabling and blocking from view a person descending into the storm drain through the manhole cover and then cover up again; then with that accomplished the stalled vehicle would move, shooter now safely there. It is confirmed from a police report that a pickup truck was stalled in exactly that location at about 10 am or so the morning of the assassination, in exact agreement with what would be necessary to this scenario. On exit, I assume any shooter there, if so, would need to remain there until after dark when with assistance could get out unobserved. Presumably with sandwiches and a canister of coffee to pass the time! There would be a risk if any officer thought to check, by looking into, the storm drains, to see if anyone was there, but there is no report that ever happened, an unfortunate oversight in retrospect.) 

BUT--I have a MAJOR problem and this is why I am more sympathetic than others to why a lot of people have thought (rightly or wrongly) that there was a bullet through-and-through entering the back wound to exit out the front of the neck. What is the solution to this problem?

The problem is: the back wound is an entrance, so where did that bullet go? It isn't in the body itself (lots from the autopsy on that). Only two possibilities: either it was a shallow-penetration and came back out the back, as the FBI thought and as supported by the stories of probes not going in very deep in that wound. Or, it exited through the throat. I realize Varnell and Prudhomme have proposed the bullet went in and then dissipated completely (Prudhomme's dum-dum bullet) so thoroughly that there was no bullet core to be found in the body. I am no ballistics expert but gut feeling is that is a stretch, in the absence of some other ballistics experts (not non-expert people like me attempting to do intelligent-layman reasoning) actually saying that would be very credible (for a bullet to go in JFK's back and break up so thoroughly as to not be detected by the autopsists). (I accept Prudhomme has ballistics expertise but I mean second and third expert opinions in support of Prudhomme.)

Pat Speer and some others have argued in favor of the original FBI Gaemberling report view that the bullet that went into the back was a very shallow penetration (and that the bullet penetration was so shallow that the bullet in fact came back out). 

The probes reported at the autopsy support that. Fair enough, but how? How do you think that happened, David?

Because: Prudhomme argued, pretty convincingly to me, that any freak "short shot" that was underpowered by mistake would have simply fallen short of the limo altogether and never made it to JFK's body at all.

And yet that shallow penetration is looking at < 300 fps speed, very slow. No rifle, or pistol either that I can find, fires at that slow of a bullet speed.

And the book, The Bastard Bullet, cites medical gunshot wound people who say the penetration needed for the bullet to come back out would have to be even more shallow than realized: if the bullet went into the flesh fully the skin closes up behind it and it is not going to come back out naturally even during chest massage, as the FBI report reconstructed. The bullet would practically have to have gone in only partway, part of it still sticking out, for it to come back out naturally. 

I read Pat Speer's discussion on this on his website (https://www.patspeer.com), but I did not see (or else did not understand if it was there) an explanation for how a shallow penetration was possible, i.e. from the fps speed being so slow to account for that but still have the bullet hit JFK's body at all.

I recently spent some time trying to check another possible explanation--which turned out to be fruitless but if it helps anyone else I'll tell what happened. I thought and thought: what could account for a shot fired not penetrating very deep, and I thought of bullet-resistant clothing. Worn by heads of state today more commonly than publicized. So good in tailoring today that it almost can't be obviously noticed.

First I wondered if that spica tape said to have been wrapped around JFK's trunk could possibly have had unreported bullet-resistant properties, or some bullet-resistant properties built into that tape used on JFK's trunk. The idea being that the bullet comes in at speed but some barrier protects JFK's back from the bullet entering much. Not kevlar but some textile. 

But from all accounts the spica tape, taping up his back brace, was around the lower part of his trunk and thighs, not as high as his upper body or shoulders area at all. Plus spica tape itself would not stop a bullet the way needed.

JFK's bloodied shirt is known and there is nothing bullet-resistant about that shirt.

JFK's suit jacket I believe is also known and nobody ever found anything unusual about it, thicker or heavier, or padded with silk. Padded silk could slow down or stop a bullet, but there is no sign of padded silk worn by JFK on his upper back. 

And I cannot find a hint of mention of JFK wearing protective or bullet-resistant clothing (surely the Secret Service, and Vince Palamaro, would know something of that if it were so), even though it would have been better in retrospect if JFK had.

And so I'm out of ideas there on that. I cannot find a mechanism for what would account for a shallow penetration of a bullet fired from the rear. 

Donald Thomas said the back entrance wound was from a bounce or ricochet off the street, losing speed in that way before a piece of shrapnel from that went into JFK's back at low speed. Could that be it? That would almost necessarily assume someone fired intentionally at the street to miss (but endanger a lot of people still?), or the light-pole freak deflection idea. 

I can see how people would believe the shored-wound throat exit idea for the bullet entering into the back though--not because there are not problems in that, but because of perception of greater unsolved problems if it didn't.

[David Josephs]

48 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

The problem is: the back wound is an entrance, so where did that bullet go?

All I can do is to use the evidence we are provided and try to determine if it's consistent, reliable, true based on other evidence, the situation and common sense.

there is documentation of many more than 3 bullets from Dealey Plaza in the record.  here are 2 of them.

A manhole was hit and a bullet picked up, the chrome of the limo has a bullet-like dent, there are records of bullets found in the Limo when back in DC and the story of Flyod Boring thanks to Vince P.

This is O'Connor's recollection followed by an FBI memo at the time JFK was at the Bethesda hospital.

Missing bullets are nothing new in this case... only 3 were ever to be allowed.  Doesn't mean they were never there.

 

Edited May 7, 2023 by David Josephs