From: schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan Schuck)
Subject: Re: Lattimer, Question 11
Reply-To: Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 03:08:20 GMT

> Sjoerd de Vries
>> Bruce Schuck
>>> Joel Grant

>>>except for some surface hematoma over the frontal gyri adjacent
>>>to the main wound.  From the right side of the brain, however,
>>>it appeared that approximately 70 percent of the right cerebral
>>>hemisphere was missing, with only a torn and flattened portion of
>>>the base of the right hemisphere remaining.  This was compatible
>>>with the huge cavities that can be demonstrated to form in soft
>>>tissues, such as the brain, in the high-speed photographs taken
>>>of bullets passing through soft tissues by the armed forces 
>>>medical research teams."

>>Lattimer suggests that 70% of the right side of the brain was missing.
>>Thats probably true. However, the autopsy claims the JFK brain weighed
>>1500 grams. Normal human brains are 1400 - 1700 grams. 
>>Even if JFK had a maximum size brain [1700 gms] it should weigh 65% of
>>1700 gms -- ie .5 * 1700 + ((.5 * 1700) * .3) = ~ 1100 gms.

>>I wonder whose brain they were actually weighing?

>     I seem to remember from the Guiness Book of Records that the
>     largest brain ever weighed amounted to something like 2500 grams.
>     This needs verification since I'm not totally sure about it.
>     The individual, BTW, was a retard.
>     If we take 65% to weigh 1500 gram then originally the brain weighed
>     about 2300 gram, which will not make it into Guiness'.

I was using figures from High Treason 2 and assume they were for an
adult male of normal head size. JFK didn't have a head twice as large
as normal did he?

>[...]
>>A tangential strike explains the abscence of fragments on the left
>>side of JFK's head, and Lattimer should/could have tested for it and
>>didn't.

>>>and since Mrs. Kennedy was not hit by any fragments

>>A tangential strike from the right front would not have resulted in
>>Jackie being hit as she was to the left of JFK, not behind him.

>>Conversely, I ask how a bullet travelling downwards and slightly right
>>to left, did not produce any fragments that hit the SS agent in the
>>shotgun seat? [Connally was laying in Nellies lap by then]

>>It also failed to spray him or the windshield with blood
>>or brain matter, while in reality, motorcycle policement to JFK's left
>>and rear *were* hit by blood and brain matter while motorcycle cops to
>>JFK's right and rear were not.

>>A tangential strike from the right front explains the dispersement of
>>blood, brain tissue and skull pieces that actually occurred.

>    To get a tangential strike the bullet track should lie completely
>    in the tangent plane through the point of impact. You can't have
>    a tangential strike at every point you like. For instance, a
>    tangential strike at the right temple implies that the sniper was
>    shooting from roughly JFK's viewing direction. A sniper to the right
>    of JFK (relative to his head) cannot give a tangential shot at the
>    temple. 

I didn't say the impact point was at the temple. I proposed it was
above the ear, which was the forward point of the hole seen by Humes
and the Parkland medical staff.

Don't mix up the temporal bone which ends above the ear, and the
temple. Humes aid the wound extended into the temporal bone, not the
temple which is farther forward.

>    You may be right here that it is possible, Bruce. I don't
>    have the data handy. Can you give an indication of the angle between 
>    the surface normal at the temple and the direction of the grassy 
>    knoll assassin at Z313? Is it 55 deg? (90 deg - your 35deg from the
>    following text)

Again, I don't think it hit JFK in the temple, I think it hit him
farther back, slightly above the ear, and exitted near the rear centre
of his head near the hairline, about where the white spot is on the
back of the head pictures, the one the WC dismissed as brain tissue.

By the way, that was the aiming point used by the SS in their recreation
photographs. They had a piece of tape placed on an SS agents head at
the hairline, exactly where HUMES said the *entrance* wound was. 

The trouble with that as an entrance wound from the TSBD was that it would
have exitted JFK from the middle of his face because a shot from
Oswald would have been moving left to right. Thats why the HSCA moved
Humes entrance wound 4 inches higher -- something Humes still denies
is right.

Ok....the angle to a perpendicular line drawn alongside JFK's head
facing in the direction of the limo:

From the intersection of the two stockade fence sections closest to
the street -- ~55 degrees.

From the piece of stockade fence closest to the Triple Overpass 
-- ~ 40 degrees.

Of course, JFKs head was turned to the left and it was tilted to the
left as well, as well as being tilted forward.

Remember, if they used frangible ammunition such as high velocity
soft-nosed or explosive or dum-dums, the bullet track does not have to
be an exact straight line. The impact with the side of JFK's head
could deflect it a bit. Military ammunition, such as they say Oswald
used has a tendency to travel in a straight line.

I think if a shot came from stockade fence, closer to the Triple
Overpass, and impacted near just above JFK's ear, it could have easily
exitted at the rear hairline near the midline, blowing off the right
rear corner of JFK's skull. 

This scenario accounts for the rearward moving skull pieces, which the
WC and HSCA scenarios ignore.




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