The Three Morticians, Photographer, and Photo Technician Who Saw the Large Back-of-Head Wound: All "Mistaken"?

[Michael Griffith]

Are we really supposed to believe that the three morticians discussed below, two of whom handled the skull while they reconstructed it, mistook a gaping wound directly above the right ear for a wound in the back of the head, especially when they indicated the wound was at or near the midline, and when two of them specified that the wound was not visible when the head was lying face-up on a pillow? Are we really supposed to believe that it is merely a coincidence that a photographer and a photographic technician who saw and/or developed JFK autopsy photos said those photos showed a large hole in the back of the head? 

Let us start with the three morticians.

Tom Robinson (Meeting Report, ARRB, 6/21/96) 

Tom Robinson was part of the Gawler’s Funeral Home four-man embalming team. The team embalmed President Kennedy's body and reconstructed the skull to prepare the body for burial.

Robinson said that a large percentage of the rear part of the brain was gone and that the amount of missing brain was the size of a closed fist: 

          Robinson said that he saw the brain removed from President Kennedy's body and that a large percentage of it was gone "in the back,” from the "medulla,” and that the portion of the brain that was missing was about the size of a closed fist. (p. 2) 

Note that a closed fist would be equal in size to at least one-third of an average male brain, since the male brain is typically about 5.5 inches wide, 6.5 inches long, and 3.6 inches high. 

Robinson said there was a large wound in the back of the head: 

          He described a large open head wound in the back of the President's head centrally located right between the ears where the bone was gone as well as some scalp. (p. 2) 

Robinson noted that they used a piece of rubber to cover the back-of-head wound and that the wound was nearly the size of a large orange: 

          Robinson said that Ed Stroble (now deceased) had cut out a piece of rubber to cover the open wound in the back of the head so that the embalming fluid would not leak the piece of rubber was slightly larger than the hole in the back of the head and Robinson estimated that the rubber sheet was a circular patch about the size of a large orange. (p. 3) 

Robinson also noted that the back-of-head wound was not visible when JFK’s body was lying in repose—i.e., with the back of the head resting on the pillow: 

          The scalp was sutured together and also onto the rubber sheet to the maximum extent possible, and the damage in the back of the head was obscured by the pillow in the casket when the body lay in repose. . . . (p. 3) 

When Robinson was shown the autopsy back-of-head photo, it did not make him change his mind about the wound; rather, he said the hole was where he drew it but that it just did not show up in the photo: 

          When asked by ARRB where the hole in the back of the head was in relation to this photograph [the back-of-head photo] Robinson responded by placing his fingers in a circle just above the white spot in the hairline in the photograph and said, "The hole was right here where I said it was in my drawing but it just doesn't show up in this photo.” (p. 4) 

John VanHoesen (Meeting Report, ARRB, 9/26/96) 

VanHoesen was a member of the Gawler embalming team. 

When asked about the condition of the JFK’s head, he said there was material missing in the center of the back of the head, and he demonstrated the wound by placing his hand over upper rear portion of his own head at or just below the cowlick area: 

          When asked to recall the condition of the President's head at the completion of the embalming and reconstruction process Mr. VanHoesen recalled that there was a section of material missing from the skull. . . . He described the size and location of the missing skull material as follows it was roughly the size of a small orange (estimated by gesturing with his hands) in the centerline of the back of the head and its location was in the upper posterior part of the skull (demonstrated by placing his right hand on the upper back portion of his head just at or perhaps just below the cowlick area).

          He independently recalled one of the doctors at Bethesda bringing back what he described as a sheet of plastic for the Gawler's team to use in covering the area of missing material to prevent leakage. (p. 2) 

Like Robinson, VanHoesen recalled that the back-of-head wound was not visible when the body was lying supine with the head lying on the pillow:

          At the conclusion of the embalming process the President's body was wrapped in plastic and then dressed in clothes which had been brought to the morgue from elsewhere. He said that the damaged area in the back of the President's head was not visible as the President lay supine in the casket and that it was covered by the pillow which the President's head was resting on. (p. 2)

This brings to mind the fact that General Godfrey McHugh's said that the large head wound was in the back of the head, and that he specified that by "back of the head" he meant the part of the head that touches the bottom of the bathtub when you're lying down in the bathtub:

          The portion that is in the back of the head, when you're lying down in the bathtub, you hit the back of the head.

Joe Hagan (Meeting Report, ARRB, 5/17/96)

Joe Hagan was the supervisor of the Gawler’s embalming team. He viewed the last 20 minutes of the autopsy from the viewing gallery. He noted that since he was the supervisor, he left the morgue several times during the embalming and reconstruction process to discuss arrangements with John Gawler and Navy personnel and did not see every step of the reconstruction work.

When asked to describe and diagram the head damage as he saw it during the autopsy, he declined to do a drawing but said and demonstrated that there was a large wound in the back of the head: 

          He declined to draw his recollections of damage to the head on either anatomical skull diagrams reproduced from a medical textbook or on a model of a human skull. However, he did state that "all of this was open in the back,” while holding his two hands about 6 inches away from his upper posterior skull gesturing to the area between both of his own ears on the back of his head. (p. 3)

Note that he put his hands on the back of his head “between both of his own ears,” clearly indicating it was not far from the midline.

When asked to describe the head as it appeared after the autopsy, he said the hole that he previously mentioned was noticed during the skull reconstruction and that it was in the “upper left posterior portion of the head”: 

          The hole in the cranium was noticed during reconstruction to be in the upper left posterior portion of the head Gawler's. (p. 3)

Obviously, the term “left” here may refer to Hagan’s left and JFK’s right. In any case, he both demonstrated and described a large hole in the back of the head, a hole that was visible during and after the autopsy.

O'Donnell and Spencer Confirm the Morticians' Descriptions

The three morticians’ descriptions of a sizable back-of-head wound is supported (1) by the account of a government photographer who saw some of the autopsy photos soon after the autopsy and (2) by a Navy photographic technician who developed some of the autopsy photos, namely, Joe O’Donnell and Saundra Spencer. 

Joe O’Donnell (Call Report, ARRB, 1/29/97) 

O'Donnell was a government photographer employed by USIA in 1963 and was frequently detailed to the White House to perform various photographic tasks. He knew White House photographer Robert Knudsen very well. Knudsen took photos at the autopsy. 

O’Donnell reported that a few days after the autopsy, Knudsen showed photos from JFK’s autopsy, and that those photos showed a large wound in the back of the head: 

          Within the week after President Kennedy's assassination on two occasions Robert Knudsen showed him autopsy photographs of President Kennedy. 

          On the first occasion he was shown approximately 12 ea 5 X 7 B &W photos. The views included the President lying on his back on his stomach and closeups of the back of the head. He said that the back-of-the-head photograph(s) showed a hole in the back of the head about 2 inches above the hairline about the size of a grapefruit the hole clearly penetrated the skull and was very deep. 

O’Donnell added that one of the photos showed a small wound in the right-frontal area: 

         Another one of the photographs showed a hole in the forehead above the right eye which was a round wound about 3/8-inch in diameter which he interpreted as a gunshot wound. (p. 1) 

Saundra Spencer (Deposition of Saundra Kay Spencer, 6/5/97, ARRB transcript) 

In November 1963, Saundra Spencer was a Navy photographic technician serving at the Naval Photographic Center at Anacostia and was involved in developing JFK autopsy photographs the day after the assassination. 

When she saw leaked copies of the autopsy photos, she assumed they were taken in Dallas because they were not photos that she developed: 

          . . . when they came out with some books and stuff later that showed autopsy pictures and stuff, and I assumed that they were done in - you know, down in Dallas or something, because they were not the ones that I had worked on. (p. 33) 

The autopsy photos that she developed showed a large hole in the back of the head: 

          Q: Did you see any photographs that focused principally on the head of President Kennedy?

          A: Right. They had one showing the back of the head with the wound at the back of the head. 

          Q: Could you describe what you mean by the “wound at the back of the head”? 

          A: It appeared to be a hole, inch, two inches in diameter at the back of the skull here. (p. 37) 

          Q: And you have put some hash marks in there and then drawn a circle around that, and the part that you have drawn, the circle that you have drawn on the diagram is labeled as being as part of the occipital bone, is that correct? 

          A: Yes. (p. 38) 

In her diagram of the head wound, she put the wound in the top part of the occipital bone and somewhat to the right of the midline (ARRB exhibit MD 148). 

Are we really supposed to believe that three morticians confused a wound above the right ear for a wound in the occiput, at least 3 inches behind the right ear, and that it is just a coincidence that O’Donnell and Spencer independently recalled seeing autopsy photos that showed a large wound in the back of the head?

 

 

[Pat Speer]

21 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Are we really supposed to believe that the three morticians discussed below, two of whom handled the skull while they reconstructed it, mistook a gaping wound directly above the right ear for a wound in the back of the head, especially when they indicated the wound was at or near the midline, and when two of them specified that the wound was not visible when the head was lying face-up on a pillow? Are we really supposed to believe that it is merely a coincidence that a photographer and a photographic technician who saw and/or developed JFK autopsy photos said those photos showed a large hole in the back of the head? 

Let us start with the three morticians.

Tom Robinson (Meeting Report, ARRB, 6/21/96) 

Tom Robinson was part of the Gawler’s Funeral Home four-man embalming team. The team embalmed President Kennedy's body and reconstructed the skull to prepare the body for burial.

Robinson said that a large percentage of the rear part of the brain was gone and that the amount of missing brain was the size of a closed fist: 

          Robinson said that he saw the brain removed from President Kennedy's body and that a large percentage of it was gone "in the back,” from the "medulla,” and that the portion of the brain that was missing was about the size of a closed fist. (p. 2) 

Note that a closed fist would be equal in size to at least one-third of an average male brain, since the male brain is typically about 5.5 inches wide, 6.5 inches long, and 3.6 inches high. 

Robinson said there was a large wound in the back of the head: 

          He described a large open head wound in the back of the President's head centrally located right between the ears where the bone was gone as well as some scalp. (p. 2) 

Robinson noted that they used a piece of rubber to cover the back-of-head wound and that the wound was nearly the size of a large orange: 

          Robinson said that Ed Stroble (now deceased) had cut out a piece of rubber to cover the open wound in the back of the head so that the embalming fluid would not leak the piece of rubber was slightly larger than the hole in the back of the head and Robinson estimated that the rubber sheet was a circular patch about the size of a large orange. (p. 3) 

Robinson also noted that the back-of-head wound was not visible when JFK’s body was lying in repose—i.e., with the back of the head resting on the pillow: 

          The scalp was sutured together and also onto the rubber sheet to the maximum extent possible, and the damage in the back of the head was obscured by the pillow in the casket when the body lay in repose. . . . (p. 3) 

When Robinson was shown the autopsy back-of-head photo, it did not make him change his mind about the wound; rather, he said the hole was where he drew it but that it just did not show up in the photo: 

          When asked by ARRB where the hole in the back of the head was in relation to this photograph [the back-of-head photo] Robinson responded by placing his fingers in a circle just above the white spot in the hairline in the photograph and said, "The hole was right here where I said it was in my drawing but it just doesn't show up in this photo.” (p. 4) 

John VanHoesen (Meeting Report, ARRB, 9/26/96) 

VanHoesen was a member of the Gawler embalming team. 

When asked about the condition of the JFK’s head, he said there was material missing in the center of the back of the head, and he demonstrated the wound by placing his hand over upper rear portion of his own head at or just below the cowlick area: 

          When asked to recall the condition of the President's head at the completion of the embalming and reconstruction process Mr. VanHoesen recalled that there was a section of material missing from the skull. . . . He described the size and location of the missing skull material as follows it was roughly the size of a small orange (estimated by gesturing with his hands) in the centerline of the back of the head and its location was in the upper posterior part of the skull (demonstrated by placing his right hand on the upper back portion of his head just at or perhaps just below the cowlick area).

          He independently recalled one of the doctors at Bethesda bringing back what he described as a sheet of plastic for the Gawler's team to use in covering the area of missing material to prevent leakage. (p. 2) 

Like Robinson, VanHoesen recalled that the back-of-head wound was not visible when the body was lying supine with the head lying on the pillow:

          At the conclusion of the embalming process the President's body was wrapped in plastic and then dressed in clothes which had been brought to the morgue from elsewhere. He said that the damaged area in the back of the President's head was not visible as the President lay supine in the casket and that it was covered by the pillow which the President's head was resting on. (p. 2)

This brings to mind the fact that General Godfrey McHugh's said that the large head wound was in the back of the head, and that he specified that by "back of the head" he meant the part of the head that touches the bottom of the bathtub when you're lying down in the bathtub:

          The portion that is in the back of the head, when you're lying down in the bathtub, you hit the back of the head.

Joe Hagan (Meeting Report, ARRB, 5/17/96)

Joe Hagan was the supervisor of the Gawler’s embalming team. He viewed the last 20 minutes of the autopsy from the viewing gallery. He noted that since he was the supervisor, he left the morgue several times during the embalming and reconstruction process to discuss arrangements with John Gawler and Navy personnel and did not see every step of the reconstruction work.

When asked to describe and diagram the head damage as he saw it during the autopsy, he declined to do a drawing but said and demonstrated that there was a large wound in the back of the head: 

          He declined to draw his recollections of damage to the head on either anatomical skull diagrams reproduced from a medical textbook or on a model of a human skull. However, he did state that "all of this was open in the back,” while holding his two hands about 6 inches away from his upper posterior skull gesturing to the area between both of his own ears on the back of his head. (p. 3)

Note that he put his hands on the back of his head “between both of his own ears,” clearly indicating it was not far from the midline.

When asked to describe the head as it appeared after the autopsy, he said the hole that he previously mentioned was noticed during the skull reconstruction and that it was in the “upper left posterior portion of the head”: 

          The hole in the cranium was noticed during reconstruction to be in the upper left posterior portion of the head Gawler's. (p. 3)

Obviously, the term “left” here may refer to Hagan’s left and JFK’s right. In any case, he both demonstrated and described a large hole in the back of the head, a hole that was visible during and after the autopsy.

O'Donnell and Spencer Confirm the Morticians' Descriptions

The three morticians’ descriptions of a sizable back-of-head wound is supported (1) by the account of a government photographer who saw some of the autopsy photos soon after the autopsy and (2) by a Navy photographic technician who developed some of the autopsy photos, namely, Joe O’Donnell and Saundra Spencer. 

Joe O’Donnell (Call Report, ARRB, 1/29/97) 

O'Donnell was a government photographer employed by USIA in 1963 and was frequently detailed to the White House to perform various photographic tasks. He knew White House photographer Robert Knudsen very well. Knudsen took photos at the autopsy. 

O’Donnell reported that a few days after the autopsy, Knudsen showed photos from JFK’s autopsy, and that those photos showed a large wound in the back of the head: 

          Within the week after President Kennedy's assassination on two occasions Robert Knudsen showed him autopsy photographs of President Kennedy. 

          On the first occasion he was shown approximately 12 ea 5 X 7 B &W photos. The views included the President lying on his back on his stomach and closeups of the back of the head. He said that the back-of-the-head photograph(s) showed a hole in the back of the head about 2 inches above the hairline about the size of a grapefruit the hole clearly penetrated the skull and was very deep. 

O’Donnell added that one of the photos showed a small wound in the right-frontal area: 

         Another one of the photographs showed a hole in the forehead above the right eye which was a round wound about 3/8-inch in diameter which he interpreted as a gunshot wound. (p. 1) 

Saundra Spencer (Deposition of Saundra Kay Spencer, 6/5/97, ARRB transcript) 

In November 1963, Saundra Spencer was a Navy photographic technician serving at the Naval Photographic Center at Anacostia and was involved in developing JFK autopsy photographs the day after the assassination. 

When she saw leaked copies of the autopsy photos, she assumed they were taken in Dallas because they were not photos that she developed: 

          . . . when they came out with some books and stuff later that showed autopsy pictures and stuff, and I assumed that they were done in - you know, down in Dallas or something, because they were not the ones that I had worked on. (p. 33) 

The autopsy photos that she developed showed a large hole in the back of the head: 

          Q: Did you see any photographs that focused principally on the head of President Kennedy?

          A: Right. They had one showing the back of the head with the wound at the back of the head. 

          Q: Could you describe what you mean by the “wound at the back of the head”? 

          A: It appeared to be a hole, inch, two inches in diameter at the back of the skull here. (p. 37) 

          Q: And you have put some hash marks in there and then drawn a circle around that, and the part that you have drawn, the circle that you have drawn on the diagram is labeled as being as part of the occipital bone, is that correct? 

          A: Yes. (p. 38) 

In her diagram of the head wound, she put the wound in the top part of the occipital bone and somewhat to the right of the midline (ARRB exhibit MD 148). 

Are we really supposed to believe that three morticians confused a wound above the right ear for a wound in the occiput, at least 3 inches behind the right ear, and that it is just a coincidence that O’Donnell and Spencer independently recalled seeing autopsy photos that showed a large wound in the back of the head?

 

 

Oh my. O'Donnell had dementia and said lots of other nonsense no one takes seriously. Spencer was recalling stuff from eons before--heck even Horne thinks she was talking about photos taken after the reconstruction. Van Hoesen and Gawler were in fact talking about the wound as it appeared during reconstruction. 

[Sean Coleman]

There’s a lot of talk on this subject, but my eyes  give me the answer…man, there’s a hole in the top of his head.

 

Edited March 19 by Sean Coleman

[Michael Griffith]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Oh my. O'Donnell had dementia and said lots of other nonsense no one takes seriously. Spencer was recalling stuff from eons before--heck even Horne thinks she was talking about photos taken after the reconstruction. Van Hoesen and Gawler were in fact talking about the wound as it appeared during reconstruction. 

"Oh my" is right.

O'Donnell recalled plenty of details that others also recalled. I notice you said nothing about Robinson and Hagan and that they, like O'Donnell, saw a large back-of-head wound.

Regarding Spencer, the fact remains that she said that the existing autopsy photos are not the ones that she developed, and that the photos that she saw showed a large hole in the back of the head. And her account of a back-of-head wound, which seems very clear and detailed, is supported by Robinson's accounts to the HSCA and the ARRB, by most of the Parkland accounts, and by Hill's and Kellerman's accounts of the wound.

Uh, no, VonHoesen was not talking about the wound as it appeared "during reconstruction." He specified that he was describing how it looked after the skull had been reconstructed.@Sean Coleman

Quote

@Sean ColemanThere’s a lot of talk on this subject, but my eyes give me the answer…man, there’s a hole in the top of his head.

Then dozens of people, in three different locations, amazingly experienced the same hallucination.

Evidence of Alteration in the Zapruder Film

Edited January 29 by Michael Griffith

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Michael Griffith said:

"Oh my" is right.

O'Donnell recalled plenty of details that others also recalled. I notice you said nothing about Robinson and Hagan and that they, like O'Donnell, saw a large back-of-head wound.

Regarding Spencer, the fact remains that she said that the existing autopsy photos are not the ones that she developed, and that the photos that she saw showed a large hole in the back of the head. And her account of a back-of-head wound, which seems very clear and detailed, is supported by Robinson's accounts to the HSCA and the ARRB, by most of the Parkland accounts, and by Hill's and Kellerman's accounts of the wound.

Uh, no, VonHoesen was not talking about the wound as it appeared "during reconstruction." He specified that he was describing how it looked after the skull had been reconstructed.@Sean Coleman

Then dozens of people, in three different locations, amazingly experienced the same hallucination.

Evidence of Alteration in the Zapruder Film

Let's not resurrect all this zombie stuff, Michael. The morticians saw the wound during and after reconstruction. The right side of the head was pulled apart during the autopsy. Stroble (who was never officially interviewed) reconstructed the head and is reported to have told friends the wound was on the top of the head. In any event, at the  end of reconstruction there was an orange sized hole on the back of the head that could be hidden in a pillow. This is as expected. What is surprising though is that desperate desperate people have cherry-picked statements so they can pretend Robinson--who almost certainly arrived and sat with the others--saw an orange sized hole on the back of the head at the beginning of the autopsy while the others saw an orange-sized hole on the back of the head at the end of the reconstruction, during which three large bone fragments had been added back into the head.

It's silly and sad. You need to apply that same critical eye you use when analyzing people's claims about Vietnam and Kennedy to the works of those pushing body alteration and photo alteration etc. if you do you will see that a lot of it is garbage. 

P.S. Did I read that right? Are you really saying O'Donnell, who claimed he'd had a sit-down with Jackie in which they viewed and edited the Zapruder film together, is a credible witness?

Edited January 29 by Pat Speer

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Sean Coleman said:

There’s a lot of talk on this subject, but my eyes  give me the answer…man, there’s a hole in the top of his head.

Yes, there's a hole there. And when I spent a few years tracking down books and articles on wound ballistics for the supposed assassination rifle it became clear that a hole of this size is inconsistent with this wound's being an exit for a bullet that had simply passed through brain, and that the testimony and articles claiming the temporary cavities created by bullets like the one fired can explode skulls in such a manner...are inaccurate, and probably dishonest. 

So for me the Z-film is crystal clear proof of a conspiracy.

And this makes it hard for me to fathom why so many supposedly convinced there was a conspiracy continue to claim this and the corresponding autopsy photos are fake. 

[Keven Hofeling]

5 hours ago, Sean Coleman said:

There’s a lot of talk on this subject, but my eyes  give me the answer…man, there’s a hole in the top of his head.

You may think your "eyes give you the answer" in that hazy still from a badly degraded version of the Zapruder film, but what do your eyes think when you see more clearly that the extant Zapruder film is depicting a cantaloupe sized crater in JFK's forehead that none of the Parkland and Bethesda witnesses ever reported? 

The situation is such that by the end of the Zapruder film headshot sequence at Z-335 and Z-337 we are seeing the First Lady's pink shoulder pad where we should be seeing JFK's forehead and face.

Long before it was possible for all of us to digitally analyze these images in our own homes researcher Harrison Livingstone was staring at Z-335 and Z-337 in bewilderment, wondering how in light of the voluminous witness testimony to the contrary, Z-335 and Z-337 could be authentic... 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

HARRISON LIVINGSTONE ON "THE BLOB":

Harrison Livingstone writes: "If the [Zapruder] film shows a huge wound to the right side of the face, as it does, then all the witnesses who saw the dying or dead President and all the autopsy photographs are wrong. Common sense tells us they can't all be wrong (Livingstone, High Treason 2, 362)....

 

"Common sense, therefore, tells us that the film is wrong. That it is a fake." (Ibid.)....

 

He continues, "I have long wondered about a large apparent effusion of brain matter or flesh that spills from the right side of the face and temple region just after the President receives a shot to the head. . . . The material spewing forth from the head appears to stick out several inches and be about half a foot wide. It is spread all across the face. One would assume that it is an exploded face or brain, and it cannot be an optical illusion from reflections of sunlight off Jackie's hat and from the small flap of bone that evidently opens up at that point, as Groden has led us to believe. . . . (Ibid.)....

 

"We see a small flap of bone with scalp attached on the right side of the head in some of the autopsy photographs but not in others. Trouble with the flap is, it changes orientation in relation to the rest of the head as the camera moves around the head. And it does not exist at all in the autopsy photograph of the right side of the head. There is a bat-wing-shaped structure on the head in the general area, but much too large to be the flap, and in the wrong place (Ibid.)....

 

"Groden claims that Mrs. Kennedy closed up the alleged flap on the way to the hospital, where it was not seen. But the autopsy staff say the flap we see in the picture is not in the right place either, or did not exist at all" (Ibid., 363-65)....

 

Livingstone quotes Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman: ". . . I saw nothing in his face to indicate an injury, whether the shot had come through or not. He was clear" (Ibid., 365, citing 2 H 82)....

 

Livingstone goes on, "There are many other statements that there was no damage at all to any part of the President's face, and none to the contrary" (Ibid.). He is correct: From Dealey Plaza to Parkland to Bethesda to the White House, where family members privately viewed the body, not a single person noted any damage to the face except a cracked supraorbital ridge, which caused the right eye to protrude slightly....

 

"Corresponding to the gigantic wound in the right front of the face and forehead-temple area is a total loss of bone in the X-ray alleged to be of President Kennedy's head. We know that this would be impossible without the face being blown away, if it represents a shot from behind. If the bone had fallen in during transport to Bethesda, it would show somewhere in the X-rays. It does not. If it had fallen in, the face would have fallen in with the body on its back, and there is no sign of the bone anywhere in the skull. The face shows no sign of being unsupported by bone, and in fact looks perfectly undamaged. No doctor I have spoken to said that a face would remain normal if the underlying bone was gone (Ibid.)....

 

"The missing bone in the skull X-rays has to represent a blow-out of the face, which did not in fact happen (Ibid.)....

 

If the exit wound was in the rear of the head, where most eyewitnesses place it, or at the top or side of the head, as the autopsy photographs would indicate, then we should see "the blob coming out there if the [Zapruder] film was on the up and up, and not on the face, as we now see it in the film (Ibid.)....

 

"It is my opinion, therefore, that the Zapruder film has some animated special effects: The large effusion we see sticking out from the head is painted in for those few frames before the head falls into Jackie's lap" (Ibid., pp. 365-66). (He later clarified that he didn't mean it was painted *directly* onto the film [Livingstone, Killing Kennedy, 159])....

 

". . . We see the strange blob for more than twenty-five frames, far too long for it to be any sort of defect in the film. . . . it cannot be an artifact, because it is quite clear and distinctive for those twenty-five frames (High Treason 2, 366)....

 

"What is not clear and distinctive is the President's head, which seems to disintegrate and disappear by the time it is drawn into Jackie's lap. In one frame there is no face or head at all to the right of the line extending upward from the President's ear, and I see Jackie clearly to the right of and beyond the ears, where the rest of the head should be" (Ibid.)....

 

Not one frame -- two: 335 and 337, cf. color photo insert in High Treason 2; or Groden's The Killing of a President, pp. 38-39 and 188-89....

 

Livingstone speculates that "the purpose of this special effect is to encourage the idea in Earl Warren's head that the President was shot from behind" (High Treason 2, 366)....

 

Look closely at color reproductions of frames 335 and 337 (it's nearly impossible to discern in black and white unless you already know what you're looking for). Page 38 of The Killing of a President has a gigantic blow-up of 337. Mentally draw a line straight up from the middle of Kennedy's ear; on the left is the back of his head; on the right is the pink sleeve of Jacqueline Kennedy's left arm where JFK's face should be. The "blob" also obscures the entire lower right of his face. Same thing for 335. Look closely -- is that John F. Kennedy's face's? IS there a face in these frames? Or is there only a shadow across the front of Jackie's dress, curving along a contour that almost approximates the shape of a face?....

 

And it's not just those two frames -- those are just the only two *clear* frames. All of the surrounding frames, however blurry, show that the President's face -- the entire front half of his head -- is missing. The edge of the front half also sometimes appears to be strangely blacked out....

 

Was the President's face actually blown away? Not only is this contrary to every single word of the eyewitness testimony; not only is it contrary to every other piece of photographic evidence (and I would not exclude the autopsy X-rays); not only is it contrary to any and all conclusions the government has put forth -- neither the autopsy report, the Warren Commission, the HSCA, nor anyone has concluded that the entire front half of Kennedy's head was blown off....

 

Not a single witness of the dozens and dozens who saw JFK's body in between Dealey Plaza and the time he was buried reported anything seriously wrong with the face -- much less that it was gone, as it appears in these frames....

 

Josiah Thompson, also looking at badly degraded stills from the Zapruder film, attempted to rationalize the authenticity of the film as well...

----------------------------------------------------------------

DOUG HORNE CALLS OUT JOSIAH THOMPSON OVER THE CATASTROPHIC ANTERIOR HEAD WOUND DEPICTED BY THE ZAPRUDER FILM WHICH MUST BE FRAUDULENT:  

 

"...BUT WHAT I DID HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WAS WHAT JOSIAH THOMPSON WAS SAYING ABOUT Z-FILM IMAGES FROM FRAME 328 THROUGH 337. He showed many slides depicting how the top of JFK's head is apparently missing, and where you can actually see Jackie Kennedy's shoulder (in the pink Chanel suit) through what appears to be a huge golf-type "divit" of missing cranium in the top of JFK's skull. It was easy to see how Tink had connected the dots: "The Z-film shows a huge portion of the top of the head missing, just like the autopsy photos, so therefore the Z-film is authentic."

⁠
But wait---Tink was clearly dodging an important issue: the same day treatment notes, and same-day and same-weekend statements to the media, of the Parkland doctors and nurses. NONE OF THEM MENTIONED ANY DAMAGE TO THE TOP OR RIGHT SIDE OF THE HEAD IN 1963. In 1964 when they all testified under oath, only one Parkland witness, Dr. Giesecke, mentioned damage to the top of the head and side of the head, and he said it was the top and left side of the head (the wrong side). His testimony is so anomalous that it can, and should be, discarded. Just go back and read the same-day treatment notes from the Warren Report, and the sworn testimony of all of the other Parkland doctors and nurses from 1964. They repetitively and definitively describe a wound in the BACK OF THE HEAD, not the top or right side of the head, using these phrases: "posterior; occipital, occipital-parietal; and occipital-temporal" (which is still behind the right ear if you check the skull drawings in an anatomy text). Jackie Kennedy told the Warren Commission in her testimony: "From the front there was nothing," indicating she could see no damage to her husband's head when looking at JFK from the front. Presumably she saw him from the front when he was removed from the limousine at Parkland, and also observed him lying supine on the gurney inside Trauma Room One. When Jeremy Gunn and I interviewed nurse Audrey Bell and Dr. Crenshaw in 1997, face-to-face, and specifically asked them if they saw any damage at Parkland to the top or right side of President Kennedy's head, they emphatically said "no," and looked at us like we were crazy. Dr. Ronald Jones volunteered to the ARRB under oath in August of 1998 that he saw no evidence of missing bone in the top of the head, nor did he see bones protruding from the right side of the head. His clear intent was to impugn the bootleg autopsy photos that he had seen in many books, as not representing what he saw in Trauma Room One. In a recent article Dr. Don Teal Curtis, another Parkland witness, was quoted as saying the autopsy photographs do not accurately depict the damage to President Kennedy's head that he saw in Trauma Room One; he specified that the head wound he saw was strictly posterior, not superior. Here is the link to that article: http://www.myplainview.com/canyon/news/article_f6555d0a-48c4-11e3-bbd1-001a4bcf887a.html

⁠
Finally, the four Parkland doctors who saw cerebellum protruding from the head wound onto the treatment cart have provided compelling evidence that the head wound they observed was in THE BACK OF THE HEAD, NOT THE TOP. Cerebellum could only have been protruding from the wound if that wound was in the back of the head, vice the top, as shown in the Z-film.

⁠
Furthermore, Josiah Thompson knows this. He published medical illustrator Philip Johnson's depiction of the damage described by Dr. McClelland in his book in 1967. It shows no visible damage to the top of the head or to the right side. And I am confident that in 1966 and 1967 he read the same-day treatment notes, and the sworn Warren Commission testimony, of the members of the Parkland emergency room treatment staff who attempted to save JFK's life. Beginning in 1998, the Parkland Hospital wound sketches drawn for the ARRB by nurse Audrey Bell, and Dr. Charles Crenshaw---both depicting a wound localized to only the right rear quadrant of the head, thus confirming the 1967 drawing approved by Dr. McClelland---have been available to the public via the JFK Records Collection, and have been published in more than one book. So he is intentionally dodging the issue, which I do not at all respect. This is egregious and inexplicable behavior for someone who was both a philosophy professor, and a "private eye." He should have raised the issue himself and declared his position. Does Josiah Thompson believe the remarkably consistent wound descriptions of the Parkland doctors and nurses, or not? Did he think we were all so stupid that we would not think of this just because we were so captivated by his own line of reasoning? Tink is a smart man; I'm sure he was aware of this major weakness in his continuing argument for Z-film authenticity. He was just attempting to dodge it. Buy the Lancer recording of his lecture, and see for yourself.

⁠
Ask yourself this: "What is more likely, that the Zapruder film is an authentic and unaltered film, and therefore matches what is seen in two thirds of the autopsy photos---and that ALL the Parkland doctors and nurses were either lying, or were wrong, and consistently wrong, in the same way? Or that the Parkland doctors and nurses were all correct and telling the truth, and that the Zapruder film was altered at Hawkeyeworks on 11/24/63 in an attempt to make it "match" the autopsy photos developed on 11/23/63---the day before the film went to Hawkeyeworks---autopsy photos which depict the results of clandestine, illicit, post-mortem surgery performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital to remove from JFK's body all evidence of shots fired from the right front?"..."

⁠
'JOSIAH THOMPSON AND ROLLIE ZAVADA AT JFK LANCER: A CRITICAL REPORT'

 

by Douglas P. Horne, author of Inside the Assassination Records Review Board

⁠https://insidethearrb.livejournal.com/10709.html

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

9 hours ago, Sean Coleman said:

There’s a lot of talk on this subject, but my eyes  give me the answer…man, there’s a hole in the top of his head.

 

A hole in the top of the head... which nobody saw.

Not a single medical professional at Parkland Hospital saw a hole at the top of Kennedy's head.

17 of the 18 Parkland doctors and nurses said they saw a gaping hole at the back of the head. None of them saw a hole on the top of his head.

If you are right, that the gaping hole was at the top of the head, then 17 of the 18 doctors and nurses got it wrong. That's a phenomenon called mass hallucination.

I calculated the odds of so many witnesses being wrong and found it to be 1 in 1,272,588,445. In other words, scientifically impossible.

(I did the calculation here.)

The odds of 17 or 18 doctors and nurses getting it wrong is the same as tossing a coin and having it land heads-up 30 times in a row. We will all be dead before that happens.

 

[Keven Hofeling]

And the following are the calculations Dr. Gary Aguilar has provided as to the odds that the cover-up adherents are wrong about their contention that all the Parkland Hospital and Bethesda autopsy witnesses were wrong that JFK's large avulsive head wound was located in the occipital-parietal region of the right side of the back of his head...  

"...If, as has been argued, the error rate in the determination of entrance from exit in single, perforating wounds is 37% among emergency physicians (Randall T. Clinicians' forensic interpretations of fatal gunshot wounds often miss the mark. JAMA. 1993; 269:2058- 2061), and, accepting for the sake of argument that the determining of the location of a skull defect is as troublesome as determining entrance from exit in perforating bullet wounds (it should not be, of course), the likelihood of error by 44 witnesses from two facilities is 1 divided by 2 to the 44th power, or 1 in 4,294,967,296.

The likelihood that 44 of 44 erroneous witnesses would agree (excepting Giesecke and Salyer) among themselves to the same "wrong" location is considerably less than 1 divided by 2 to the 44th power.

Critics of the Warren Commission's conclusions are chary to embrace such odds and are troubled that loyalists seem to be unaware of this problem."

JOHN F. KENNEDY'S FATAL WOUNDS:
THE WITNESSES AND THE INTERPRETATIONS
FROM 1963 TO THE PRESENT

by
Gary L. Aguilar, MD
San Francisco, California, August, 1994

http://www.assassinationweb.com/ag6.htm

DR. GARY AGUILAR'S APPENDIX - TABLES AND FIGURES:

https://history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_tabfig.htm

 

 

Edited January 30 by Keven Hofeling

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Keven Hofeling said:

The likelihood of error by 44 witnesses from two facilities is 1 divided by 2 to the 44th power, or 1 in 4,294,967,296.

 

Dr. Aguilar must have used a regular calculator instead of a scientific one, as it apparently hit its limit.

1/2 to the 44th power isn't 1 in 4,294,967,296.  It is 1 in 17,592,186,044,416.

Which in the real world is zero. That is to say, the odds of 44 doctors wrongly placing the gaping wound on the back of the head is zero.

This is proof that the gaping wound was indeed on the back of the head.

And proof that the Zapruder film has been altered.

And proof that the back-of-head autopsy photos are forgeries.

And proof that the autopsy skull x-rays have been altered.

There's just no getting around this.

 

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Dr. Aguilar must have used a regular calculator instead of a scientific one, as it apparently hit its limit.

1/2 to the 44th power isn't 1 in 4,294,967,296.  It is 1 in 17,592,186,044,416.

Which in the real world is zero. That is to say, the odds of 44 doctors wrongly placing the gaping wound on the back of the head is zero.

This is proof that the gaping wound was indeed on the back of the head.

And proof that the Zapruder film has been altered.

And proof that the back-of-head autopsy photos are forgeries.

And proof that the autopsy skull x-rays have been altered.

There's just no getting around this.

 

Oh my. It just gets worse and worse.

Now it's 44 DOCTORS??? 

What, were these doctors lined up to get a look at the head wound, and did they all then independently write down the wound location on pieces of paper that were then sealed in a trunk only to be opened by ???

P.S. I hope you realize that none of these witnesses saw an entrance wound on the front of the head so...congrats, I guess--you've just proved there was no such wound!

P. P.S. Proof the x-rays were altered? Says who? Not Mantik. He says the hole on the back of the skull is on the x-rays but that we just can't see it with our naked eyes. 

 

Edited January 30 by Pat Speer

[Sandy Larsen]

19 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Now it's 44 DOCTORS??? 

 

Aguilar's list includes other people at the hospitals, like technicians, FBI Agents, etc. And it covers both Parkland and Bethesda.

 

19 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

What, were these doctors lined up to get a look at the head wound, and did they all then independently write down the wound location on pieces of paper that were then sealed in a trunk only to be opened by ???

 

They all had opinions on where the gaping hole was. Nearly all of them put a large hole on the back of the head.

 

19 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

P.S. I hope you realize that none of these witnesses saw an entrance wound on the front of the head so...congrats, I guess--you've just proved there was no such wound!

 

Entrance wounds are often small. But some of them saw the wound.

 

19 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

P. P.S. Proof the x-rays were altered? Says who? Not Mantik.

 

Mantik says the head x-rays were altered. Remember the white patch?

 

[Michael Crane]

I'm at the point where I would like to see genuine evidence against Oswald & genuine medical evidence.

[Michael Griffith]

20 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Spencer was recalling stuff from eons before. . . . 

No, Spencer was not recalling events from "eons" before. She was only about 25 years old in November 1963, and she was only about 58 at the time of her ARRB deposition. So we're not talking about some decrepit old lady who was struggling to recall events from "eons" ago; we're talking about a woman in her late 50s who was describing important, historic events that she took part in 33 years earlier, and I might add that she described them in great detail and gave no indication that she was having trouble recalling key information.

When you were in your late 50s, or even your early 60s, were you not able to recall some events from 33 years earlier, especially traumatic and/or important events? Really? 

33 years ago, I was stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. I can easily remember plenty of details about things I did and saw in 1991, especially things that happened to me during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. I could provide detailed descriptions of many things that I did and saw during this period. These are not "faded memories" but things I can remember in great detail. Some of them were so impactful for me that I suspect I'll remember them until the day I die. 

Have you actually bothered to read Spencer's ARRB testimony? She was able to recall names, time periods, types of film, her training and experience, the processing of the autopsy photos, what she saw in the photos, etc., etc. 

This "eons ago" argument is a standard line used by WC apologists to dismiss eyewitness accounts that refute the lone-gunman theory. 
 

[Pat Speer]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Aguilar's list includes other people at the hospitals, like technicians, FBI Agents, etc. And it covers both Parkland and Bethesda.

 

 

They all had opinions on where the gaping hole was. Nearly all of them put a large hole on the back of the head.

 

 

Entrance wounds are often small. But some of them saw the wound.

 

 

Mantik says the head x-rays were altered. Remember the white patch?

 

We're in a time loop. 15 years ago or so, Fetzer on this very forum claimed Mantik had proved the x-rays had been altered to hide a hole in the back of the skull. I then pointed out that Mantik had long claimed the very back of the skull on the x-rays is not altered, and that he claimed instead that his OD measurements in this area proved there was a hole. Fetzer then checked with Mantik and Mantik confirmed what I'd told him--that he thinks the white patch was added to cover missing brain and not missing skull, and that whoever added the white patch had actually not covered up the hole on the skull.  

It should also be pointed out that Mantik places this hole on the skull in the middle of the occipital bone at the level of the ears. So, no, a number of witnesses pointing to a location above the occipital bone on the right side of the head does not support Mantik's claims, and his claim the middle of the back of the head was blown out at the level of the ears does not support that their recollections were accurate.

The back of the head gang has always tried to have it both ways... They have tried to claim that since people point to location C instead of location F then it was really at location A. It is a bait and switch. The reality of course is that the head wound in the photos is actually inches to the rear of where most think it is at first glance, and that it is really more like location D. 

Edited January 30 by Pat Speer