The head wound

[Mark Johansson]

I searched around the internet and came across with a very interesting image, which I think agrees what the witnesses testified regarding the rear wound.

Johansson

[Kathleen Collins]

I searched around the internet and came across with a very interesting image, which I think agrees what the witnesses testified regarding the rear wound.

Johansson

That was a rough one. I never saw it before. Maybe you should warn people. But I remember the medical drawing of it. Now, the bullet entrance in his back: was that the hole someone stuck his finger into and it was only the size of a thimble?

Kathy

[Chris Davidson]

I searched around the internet and came across with a very interesting image, which I think agrees what the witnesses testified regarding the rear wound.

Johansson

Mark,

That's from Gordon Smith. Make-up artist.

chris

Edited May 8, 2007 by Chris Davidson

[Richard J. Smith]

Now, the bullet entrance in his back: was that the hole someone stuck his finger into and it was only the size of a thimble?

Seems to me the back wound as depicted is an inch or 2 too low. But in essence, yes, Humes stuck a finger into the wound at the autopsy. Also, according to several autopsy witnesses, including O'Connor, Sibert, O'Neill, and Jenkins, there was no perforation into the pleura. In other words, the bullet didn't traverse the body. A bruise on the back side on the uppermost lobe of the lung was more than likely caused by blunt force trauma, not by the bullet passing the lung and exiting the front.

From O'Connor's interview by William Law in In the Eye of History:

O’Connor: When we started an autopsy, the first thing we always did…was to weigh and measure the body. We’d check for any scars, contusions, any abnormalities, and so on. But in this case, we didn’t turn the body over to look at the back while we were doing that. Finally we turned the body over, and there was a bullet wound—an entrance wound—in his back, on the right side of his spinal column. To emphasize where it was in proximity to the rest of his body: if you bend your neck down and feel back, you feel a lump and that’s the seventh cervical vertebra. This bullet wound was about 3 inches down and an inch or two to the right of the seventh cervical vertebra. I remember there was a big gush of surprise that nobody actually thought about turning him over right away, you know after we had done our initial investigation of the president’s body. Dr Humes took his finger and poked it in the hole---the bullet wound hole, the entrance wound hole---and said it didn’t go anywhere. There was a very big argument, a lot of consternation, that he shouldn’t have stuck his finger in the hole.

Law: What difference would it make?

O’Connor: Well, when you take your finger and stick it into a bullet wound, you avulse the wound.

Law: You think that happened when he stuck his finger in the back?

O’Connor: Yes

Law: It could have create a false track:

O’Connor: Well, not necessarily a false track as much as a false impression of the entrance of the missile that went into his back.

Law: Who was arguing?

O’Connor: Dr Finck strongly objected to Commander Humes doing what he did. He(Finck) took a sound, which is a probe, a metal malleable, non rigid probe. We started out with a rigid probe and found that it only went in so far. I’d say maybe an inch and a quarter. It didn’t go in any further than that. So we used a malleable probe and bent it a little bit and found that the bullet entered the body, went through the intercostals muscles---the muscles between the ribs. The bullet went in through the muscles, didn’t touch any of the ribs, arched downwards, hit the back of the pleural cavity and stopped. So we didn’t know the track of the bullet until we eviscerated the body later. That’s what happened at the time. We traced the bullet path down and found that it didn’t traverse the body. It did not go in one side and come out the other side of the body.

Law: You can be reasonably sure of that?

O’Connor: Absolutely

Law: And these doctors knew that?

O’Connor: Absolutely

Law: While it happened?

O’Connor: Absolutely. And another thing we found out while the autopsy was proceeding, that he was shot from a high building, which meant the bullet had to be traveling in a downward trajectory and we also realized that this bullet is what we call in the military a “short shot”. It didn’t have the power to push the projectile clear through the body. If it had…it would have come out through his heart and through his sternum.

O’Connor: We were told(in the report of the Warren Commission) that he was shot in the back and it came out his throat. That didn’t jibe with what we saw, and when I say we, I’m talking about Dr. Boswell and myself.

When shown the photo of the back by Law:

O’Connor: That’s a very accurate portrayal of the entrance wound to his back, which as you know, is quite a ways down from his neck. At the angle he was shot…the laws of physics will not let a bullet strike there and go up and go out his throat…I helped roll him over…one of these arms might have been mine, because I was at the head of the body and helped roll him over. It wasn’t rolled over until quite a ways into the autopsy, and that’s when they discovered the bullet wound.

O’Connor: Now I had this drawing made at the University of Florida showing the back wound and this is exactly what happened. The bullet struck him in the back, it passed through the outer layer of muscle and through the inner layer of muscle between the vertebrae. These are intercostals muscles and they connect the spinal column together. This bullet came in, arched downward, and bulged against the pleural cavity, which is the protective cavity around both lungs. It did not penetrate that lung area. It just bruised it real badly. I had it highlighted showing there was bruising on the right lung. The back if the right lung was bruised, but wasn’t torn. It was bruised badly enough to hemorrhage in the tissues, but not enough to tear the lung or the cavity.

RJS

Edited May 8, 2007 by Richard J. Smith

[Mark Johansson]

Mark,

That's from Gordon Smith. Make-up artist.

Chris,

Thanks for the other images. I have never seen such a convincing piece of material, beside drawings, that has shown the actual wound of the head.

Was this make-up for ‘JFK’ the movie?

That was a rough one. I never saw it before. Maybe you should warn people. But I remember the medical drawing of it. Now, the bullet entrance in his back: was that the hole someone stuck his finger into and it was only the size of a thimble?

Kathy

Kathleen, you’re right, I should have warned everyone.

Johansson

[Charles Black]

Mark

Since these are apparently recreations of various eye witness testimonies, is it known who authorized or "paid for" these recreations ?

Charlie Black

[Charles Drago]

I'm almost certain that this work was commissioned for "JFK."

The film's autopsy scenes in which the body was visible were shot in grainy B&W, and the images move quickly.

It would be most interesting to hear from the mannequins' designer and from Oliver Stone regarding the origins and development of these pieces.

And one is left to wonder, given what appears to be a photo of the "president" undergoing emergency treatment, just how much material was left on the cutting room floor.

Charles

[Charles Black]

Having just visited the Gordon Smith website, I found two "actual" Time Magazine photos of the motorcade that I found quite interesting. One is a close up which shows the respective seating positions of JFK and JBC which is quite telling.

Kennedy is very obviously seated "far" to the outside of JBC.....they are not aligned, even thru sheer imagination, for the magic bullet shot !

The other picture, if I interpret it correctly, pictures Jackie in what appears to be a "nearly prone" postion on the Limo trunk, as Clint Hill has not managed to yet fully board the limo.

If my eyes aren't deceiving me, they are quite interesting.

Charles Black

[Robin Unger]

Scan from Groden's booklet " JFK THE CASE FOR CONSPIRACY "

[David Butler]

Having just visited the Gordon Smith website, I found two "actual" Time Magazine photos of the motorcade that I found quite interesting. One is a close up which shows the respective seating positions of JFK and JBC which is quite telling.

Kennedy is very obviously seated "far" to the outside of JBC.....they are not aligned, even thru sheer imagination, for the magic bullet shot !

The other picture, if I interpret it correctly, pictures Jackie in what appears to be a "nearly prone" postion on the Limo trunk, as Clint Hill has not managed to yet fully board the limo.

If my eyes aren't deceiving me, they are quite interesting.

Charles Black

The second picture with Jackie prone on the trunk isn't a real one from the assassination I'm pretty sure...it appears to be a reenactment or maybe a televison recreation ?

[Terry Mauro]

Scan from Groden's booklet " JFK THE CASE FOR CONSPIRACY "

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"A bullet entering the rear of the head on a right to left trajectory would have exited around the front of the left cheek."

No. It would have blown out the front of the left cheek, if not the left side of his face, most likely taking the left eye, and some teeth with it.