Proof that Pat Speer is wrong about Dr. McClelland initially saying the gaping wound was near the temple.

[Pat Speer]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

The phrase "back of the head" is not precise. It could mean anywhere on the back of the head. But it can't mean top of the head. Everybody (with the possible exception of you) knows the difference between back of the head and top of the head.

Naturally there was some variation in Parkland Hospital professionals' descriptions of the precise location of the gaping wound. But it doesn't follow that, therefore, they were all wrong about the wound being on the back of the head.

 

If you look at the image below you will see that 4 of the 18 witnesses Groden claimed supported the McClelland drawing are pointing to the top of their head. If you follow-up and watch video-taped interviews, you will find that another 3 were not pointing out the back of the head as the location of a blow-out wound, and that Groden was misrepresenting them. If you actually start reading you well then find that another 5 or so swore the wound they saw was an exit for a bullet from behind, or that they believe the autopsy photos are legitimate. So you have at best 7 out of 18 you can truly call "back of the head witnesses" supporting that the back of the head was blown out from a frontal shot. And that includes Beverly Oliver--who many doubt was actually a witness, Phil Willis--who did not see the wound and was only reporting what he'd been told by his family, McClelland--who initially claimed the wound was of the left temple, Crenshaw--who was only in the room for seconds and who failed to give any description of the wound prior to his writing a book decades later, Bell--who we should doubt actually got a look at the wound, Ward--who many believe never saw the wound, and Rike--who admittedly never saw the wound and was describing the damaged part of the skull. 

There's no there there. It's weak sauce. 

So I ask again... Where do you place the wound? IF you claim the bulk of these witnesses are correct, you are simultaneously admitting the witnesses actually REJECTED the McClelland drawing as an accurate depiction of the President's wound, and that Livingstone and Groden deceived their readers when they claimed (and continue to claim) these witnesses all support the accuracy of the drawing.

 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

59 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

So I ask again... Where do you place the wound?

 

The back of the head.

Small witness variations occur, depending upon a number of factors. But virtually all of the Parkland professionals said the gaping wound was on the back of the head. The right side of the back of the head. About the size of a small fist.

 

 

[Miles Massicotte]

This interview with nurse Sharon Tuhoy seems to confirm an observation of a large wound in the back of the head, slightly to the right side. It has stuck with me for a long time. Denis Morissette first posted this here in 2020 and it has been mentioned occasionally by other forum members since. It is not a contemporaneous recollection, it is an HSCA interview, but something about her matter-of-fact-ness and candor throughout struck me. I don't personally believe in alteration or faking of the autopsy x-rays, but at the same time I can't shake Tuhoy's recollection, which was made of course long before the whole "back of the head" issue became mainstream (before Crenshaw, before McClelland and the aarb and etc etc). Her recollection jibes with the initial Parkland reports, for example Clark's report. 

I'm just sharing, this is not an area I have researched deeply. I don't think the autopsy photos or Zapruder et al. were faked, but things like Tuhoy's recollections make me uneasy.

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

The back of the head.

Small witness variations occur, depending upon a number of factors. But virtually all of the Parkland professionals said the gaping wound was on the back of the head. The right side of the back of the head. About the size of a small fist.

 

 

Yet another dodge. What are you so scared of? Look at all the witnesses and re-read all the statements, and then tell us where the wound was located, within an inch or so. Pretty pretty please.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Sandy Larsen]

15 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Yet another dodge. What are you so scared of? Look at all the witnesses and re-read all the statements, and then tell us where the wound was located, within an inch or so. Pretty pretty please.

 

I've told you where, many times.

Nobody gave the location within an inch or so. Get real.

 

[James DiEugenio]

5 hours ago, Keyvan Shahrdar said:

Facts are facts and facts don't change with what people say!  Historical film, photo, x-rays ... of the assassination do not show a hole in the back of JFK's head.  I know you want to discredit the film, photos, and x-rays in order to convince people of a narrative that the parkland doctors started, but facts are facts, and they just don't change no matter what anyone says.

I hate to tell you Keyvan, but in a court of law:

1. The pictures of JFK's brain would be thrown out of court due to the testimony of Stringer under oath. (And Stringer was shocked when they showed no cerebellar damage.)  And just think how long it took to discover that piece of information: over three decades.  Talk about a cover up.

2. The HSCA admitted that the burden of proof would be on the prosecution to prove a chain of custody on the rest of the photos.  Because there is none, no names, numbers etc.  And once you got people like Sandy Spencer on the stand and Robert Knudsen--again not explored until  the ARRB--it would be bye bye.

This forum is supposed to be about the trial that Oswald never got.  So we should follow the rules of evidence and testimony that would have been in effect if that had taken place.

As for mistaken cerebellar tissue, I mean c'mon Pat.  We had two professionals in JFK Revisited--one a practicing neurologist --saying that its next to impossible to mistake one for the other.

PS Thanks Miles, was not aware of that one.

Edited December 8, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[David Von Pein]

25 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

This forum is supposed to be about the trial that Oswald never got. 

Huh??? Who has ever defined this forum in such a restrictive manner?

I know of no one who has---until Jim D. just now.

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by David Von Pein

[James DiEugenio]

And let me add, to read Specter's questioning of the three pathologists in the WC, in light of what we know today, is a truly sickening and nauseating experience.  Just compare that with what happened to Finck in New Orleans.  

And then to list the people that the Commission did not call e.g. Ebersole and Stringer for starters, is to see what a travesty of justice the WC really was.

One would have thought the HSCA would have tried to correct this.  They deceived the public about their own witness testimony and they also were deceptive about the camera and lens used on the photos.

Stokes was humiliated by his own daughter after Stone's film and he asked the ARRB to do a real inquiry into the autopsy. And that is how we finally understood how bad things really were.

[Pat Speer]

32 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I hate to tell you Keyvan, but in a court of law:

1. The pictures of JFK's brain would be thrown out of court due to the testimony of Stringer under oath. (And Stringer was shocked when they showed no cerebellar damage.)  And just think how long it took to discover that piece of information: over three decades.  Talk about a cover up.

2. The HSCA admitted that the burden of proof would be on the prosecution to prove a chain of custody on the rest of the photos.  Because there is none, no names, numbers etc.  And once you got people like Sandy Spencer on the stand and Robert Knudsen--again not explored until  the ARRB--it would be bye bye.

This forum is supposed to be about the trial that Oswald never got.  So we should follow the rules of evidence and testimony that would have been in effect if that had taken place.

As for mistaken cerebellar tissue, I mean c'mon Pat.  We had two professionals in JFK Revisited--one a practicing neurologist --saying that its next to impossible to mistake one for the other.

PS Thanks Miles, was not aware of that one.

The pictures of the brain would only have been thrown out if NONE of the autopsy doctors vouched for their authenticity. If  Humes said they were legit and Stringer said they were not, the lawyer asking for their admission into evidence (which I would hope would be the defense seeing as the photos absolutely positively prove two shots to the head) would be allowed to introduce into evidence Stringer's HSCA interview, in which he discussed the photos without mentioning any disagreement, and the inventory he prepared for the archives in 1966, in which he similarly failed to note any disagreements with the photos. It would then be up to the judge, who normally prefer to err in allowing evidence as opposed to suppressing evidence. 

As far as the other photos, they would have no problem whatsoever getting entered into evidence. All you need is someone who was there in a position to know to say they reflect his recollections. Well, in this case we have all the doctors and Stringer, himself. So no problem. 

As far as macerated cerebral tissue resembling cerebellar tissue, that comes from CT darling Dr. Robert Livingston. He said they did resembler each other but thought the Parkland doctors would not make such a mistake. Well, that's funny. A doctor with lots of experience working with brain tissue declares people could make such a mistake, but offers his opinion the Parkland doctors wouldn't make such a mistake, but he never checks with them to see if they have anything to say about it. And people like Fetzer gobble it up. OF COURSE, they could make such a mistake. 

After all this time, it still amazes me that not one researcher beyond myself, of which I am aware, has ever spent a day or two or three (or three months in my case) reading about human cognition--and learned anything about why mistakes happen. In one of his many books Malcolm Gladwell discussed the decision by Korean Air Lines to have their pilots speak English while in the air, and how this greatly reduced the number of accidents and near-accidents. The reason? There is a deference to authority inherent when speaking Korean that makes it hard for co-pilots to point out errors to their superiors, including the pilot sitting beside them. But they feel less restricted when speaking English. In any event, it's clear some of the early Parkland reports were written while under the sway of other doctors--Clark, in particular. Heck, those citing McClelland agree with this, seeing as they claim to believe his claim that the only wound location mentioned in his report wasn't something he actually saw, but something he thought someone else saw. In any event the influence of others  affected the earliest reports, and spread thereafter, to the point where a number of people working at Parkland that day have popped up with a story about seeing the wounds and they were blah blah blah. It's just not reliable. Not as science, and not as history. (It's kinda like Woodstock where twice as many people claimed to have been there than were actually there.) In closing, Autopsies exist for a reason and the JFK assassination is exhibit 1A as to why they exist. Of course the performance of the autopsy left much to be desired but it is nevertheless far more substantive, scientifically and historically, than the ramblings of some senior 30 years after the assassination. 

[Micah Mileto]

7 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

 

What? You must be aware that Ramsey Clark and John Stringer admitted that they were pressured into signing that inventory, because of the lack of any photographs of the interior chest.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Micah Mileto

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Micah Mileto said:

What? You must be aware that Ramsey Clark and John Stringer admitted that they were pressured into signing that inventory, because of the lack of any photographs of the interior chest.

Precisely. IF Stringer was unafraid to claim he signed an inventory saying no photos were missing because he was under pressure, he would also have been unafraid to say he was under a similar pressure not to say the brain photos were phonies. And yet he never made that claim. He was 78 when speaking to the ARRB, and had no recollection of even speaking to the HSCA, let alone being shown the photos at that time. 

More to the point, moreover, he told the ARRB the back of the head photo was legit. So why are those claiming he supports a conspiracy PRETENDING his claims about the photos support a back of the head blow-out, when he specifically said the opposite? 

It's just more fun, isn't it? 

[Micah Mileto]

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Precisely. IF Stringer was unafraid to claim he signed an inventory saying no photos were missing because he was under pressure, he would also have been unafraid to say he was under a similar pressure not to say the brain photos were phonies. And yet he never made that claim. He was 78 when speaking to the ARRB, and had no recollection of even speaking to the HSCA, let alone being shown the photos at that time. 

More to the point, moreover, he told the ARRB the back of the head photo was legit. So why are those claiming he supports a conspiracy PRETENDING his claims about the photos support a back of the head blow-out, when he specifically said the opposite? 

It's just more fun, isn't it? 

Wasn't there a story about Stringer being interviewed, and saying the hold was in the back of the head, but only when the cameras started filming him did he instantly change to saying it was on the top of the head?

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Micah Mileto said:

Wasn't there a story about Stringer being interviewed, and saying the hold was in the back of the head, but only when the cameras started filming him did he instantly change to saying it was on the top of the head?

I seem to remember that the opposite happened, that Lifton told KRON they needed to talk to Stringer, and that when they did, he told them it was on the top or whatever and they decided to cut it out of their news piece on the back of the head witnesses. 

[Andrew Iler]

Dr. Kemp Clark. Chair of Neurosurgery, University of Texas, Southwestern Medical School. Certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery. Fellow with the American College of Surgeons. Director of Neurological Surgery at Parkland Memorial Hospital. 
 

By the tone of this thread, one has to wonder if Dr. Clark had any experience working with or around human brains. 
 

I always try to imagine a non-medical person challenging the knowledge and expertise of a trained medical specialist and expert in a courtroom situation.  
 

On November 22, 1963, Dr. Clark was in Trauma Room 1 and assessed President Kennedy’s posterior occipital-parietal head wound. He wrote a same day report from his position as an eyewitness and as someone who had probably qualified as an expert witness to provide expert medical opinions about physical brain injuries in dozens if not hundreds of court cases during his career. 
 

Even someone trained in basic neuro-anatomy knows that the cerebral and cerebellar structures of the human brain are markedly different and can be distinguished by even an untrained eye. 
 

Here is what Dr. Clark had to say about President Kennedy’s head wound in his same day report. 
 

 

Here is what Dr. Clark had to say under oath before the Warren Commission about the President’s occipital-parietal head wound. 
 

 

Has anyone here held a real human brain in their hands or seen with their own eyes the difference between the cerebrum and cerebellum? Do you think you know enough to have your feelings challenge the expert eyewitness opinion of Dr. Clark? Maybe here on a forum, but in the real world of an operating room or in the adversarial environment of a courtroom, unless you had the credentials to back you up, you would not even get through the courtroom doors to sit in the gallery, let alone qualify as a witness to speak to the structures of the brain and nature of a damaged brain. 
 

Dr. McClelland’s under oath testimony before the ARRB is also extremely compelling. 

I imagine that his time looking directly at President Kennedy’s head wound was not Dr. McClelland’s first experience looking at a human brain either.

 

Under oath testimony, given under the penalty of perjury, is always given far more weight than edited clips from a TV show or statements made out of context in an informal setting.

People, even experts, can be wrong, but at least eight (8) trained and experienced trauma room doctors at Parkland Hospital and more than just a couple of trained staff at Bethesda reported seeing cerebellar tissue in a posterior occipital-parietal head wound. 
 

This seems pretty straight forward to me. 

[Micah Mileto]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

I seem to remember that the opposite happened, that Lifton told KRON they needed to talk to Stringer, and that when they did, he told them it was on the top or whatever and they decided to cut it out of their news piece on the back of the head witnesses. 

“Vero Beach Press-Journal”, 11/14/93: article by Craig Colgan---As Gary Aguilar has reported, “Craig Colgan reported Stringer’s surprise when he heard, and positively identified, his own tape-recorded voice making the above statements to Lifton in 1972. He insisted in the interview with Colgan that he did not recall his ever claiming that the wound was in the rear. [?] The wound he recalled was to the right side of the head [this is the identical about-face Stringer did with Livingstone after the first interview!]. ABC’s “Prime Time Live” associate producer, Jacqueline Hall-Kallas, sent a film crew to interview Stringer for a 1988 San Francisco KRON-TV interview [“JFK: An Unsolved Murder”, 11/18/88, with Sylvia Chase, later of “20/20” fame] after Stringer, in a pre-filming interview told Hall-Kallas that the wound was as he described it to Lifton. Colgan reported, “When the camera crew arrived, Stringer’s story had changed [another about-face]”, said Stanhope Gould, a producer who also is currently at ABC and who conducted the 1988 on-camera interview with Stringer…”we wouldn’t have sent a camera crew all the way across the country on our budget if we thought he would reverse himself”, Gould said…”(In the telephone pre-interview) he corroborated what he told David Lifton, that the wounds were not as the official version said they were,” Hall-Kallas said.”;