From: schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan Schuck)
Subject: Re: Lattimer, Questions six and seven
Reply-To: Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 18:20:43 GMT

Tom Warner >
Bruce Schuck >>
Joel Grant >>>


>>>Moving along now to Lattimer's questions six and seven:  

>>>"Was there actually definite evidence of a bullet track running
>>>through and through the President's body at the level of the
>>>lower neck?"              
>>>			 and

>>>"If so, which direction was the bullet going through the track?"


>>>A. Bullet Hole in Back of Suit Collar and Shirt.  The coat and
>>>shirt were probably humped up on the back of the President's
>>>neck when the first bullet struck him.

>>I don't think shirts *hump*. Shirts are tucked into pants, and they
>>certainly don't ride up and *hump*. There is no evidence that the
>>the jacket bunched up either. It's just a guess by Lattimer. [He does
>>that a lot]

>The reason Lattimer wants the shirt to have "humped" is to be able
>to say the trajectory angle was something it couldn't have been.
>I agree with Bruce that the shirt was probably tight against Kennedy's
>back, but I still have doubts about using the shirt to to make a definite
>placement. Shirts do fold, slide, get put on kind of crooked, whatever.

I agree that using the shirt is not the best choice. But thats because
Humes didn't measure the wound location properly.

>>>B. Bullet Hole in Back.  The bullet hole in Kennedy's upper back,
>>>about two inches below the crease of his neck, and about two inches
>>>to the right of the midline. 

>>The bullet hole in the shirt was 5.75 inches down from the top of
>>the collar and 1.125 inches to the right of the midline. What's sad
>>is that Humes failed to locate the wound using fixed body points.

>	"Situated on the upper right posterior thorax just above the upper
>border of the scapula there is a 7 x 4 millimater oval wound. This wound is
>measured to be 14 cm. from the tip of the right mastoid process and 14 cm.
>below the tip of the right mastoid process."
>	-- Humes, Boswell and Finck, autopsy report (in the WCR)

>	I thought one of the autopsy surgeons placed the wound at the third
>thoracic (sp?) vertebrae but I can't find that.

>	I don't know how to measure "14 cm. from ... and 14 cm. below
>the tip of the right mastoid process." Anyone else?

Considering that the mastoid process is on the head, and the head does
move, its not a very useful place to start measuring from.

>	Looking at the autopsy photograph of the back, the entry wound appears
>quite high on the back (certainly not 5 1/2" below the shirt collar line, where
>the hole in the shirt is).

The 5 1/2 inches figure is from the top of the collar.

> I measure it, using the scale of the ruler seen in
>the photo, as about three inches below the point where the skin of the neck
>folds when the head tilts backward, and only about 2 inches below the level
>of the shoulder..
>	If you have the photo, (I don't think the HSCA tracing is very good
>for this) you can see that Kennedy is being lifted by his shoulders from
>where he lay on his back, by a person standing to his front and left.
>At the same time, the person holding a ruler to Kennedy's back is doing this
>by applying pressure at two points, both of them below the wound. All of
>this would push/pull the skin of his back somewhat upward toward his neck,
>and also lower the point at which the skin folds on the back of the neck.
>The skin of Kennedy's neck isn't just folding as his head tilts back, it's
>bunching up quite a bit (I don't know about y'all, but the skin of my
>neck won't do this unless the skin of my back is being pulled up forcefully).

>	I'm not saying there's enough skin distortion to account for 3 1/2"
>but I think it could be part of the reason for the discrepancies between
>the photo and the eyewitness accounts and shirt hole. Or maybe the photo
>is just a hoax.

The big question is: Are you measuring the right hole?
There are two obvious dark spots on JFK's back in the autopsy
photgraphs. One is bigger and closer to the neck. Its the one left in
the autopsy drawings and appears to be 1cm in diameter.

The other one is lower down, smaller, about .5cm in diameter.
Some say it was a blood spot.

The question is, do 6.5mm bullets make 10mm holes or 5mm holes,
since wounds can close up a little.

>>>C. Halo around Bullet Hole.  The bullet hole had around it a
>>>faint but definite halo, or circumferential bruise, typical
>>>of a wound of entry froma high-speed bullet.

>>Interestingly enough, the halo was non-circular. It was bigger on
>>the bottom of the circle. That means the bullet entered from below
>>the horizontal.

>Bizarre. From street level? Where'd you find this?

HSCA vol 7. pp 86-87
"The abrasion collar extends around the entire circumference,
but is most prominent between 1 o'clock and 7 o'clock about the defect
with the head being 12 o'clock."

"Several members of the panel believe.....the direction of the missile
on initial penetration was slightly upwards, inasmuch as the lower
margin of the skin is abraided in an upward direction. Furthermore,
the wound beneath the skin appears to be tunnelled from below upward."

Thats why JFK is always bent over in WC and HSCA drawings. He had to
be bent farther over than he was to account for an upwards travelling
entry.

My explanation is that he was bent over slightly, and the bullet came
from the 2nd floor of the Dal-Tex. Since the street sloped 3 degrees
downward, an upwards track is possible if the bullet was fired from a
much lower floor than the 6th. 

>How conclusive is this kind of evidence?

Since they are using poor quality pictures, it's not as accurate as
analyzing the original wound. However, analyzing abrasion collars is
relatively common.

>>>E & F.  Pleura and Lung Bruised.  The autopsy report described a
>>>5 cm bruise on the dome of the right pleura and also on the upper tip of 
>>>the right lung, but no perforation of either, compatible with the 
>>>passage of a high-speed bullet close above this point.

>Note that Lattimer doesn't even try to say that these can be used as
>evidence of which way the supposed traversing bullet was going.

>"Compatible with the passage of a high-speed bullet?" Perhaps, but how
>many other kinds of trauma are these bruises "compatible" with?
>Bruising the lung without perforating the pleura doesn't sound very much
>like the result of a tangential bullet passage to me. I wouldn't be
>surprised if the jokers didn't bruise this stuff themselves while desperately
>trying to figure out where the bullet went.

Or digging one out before the autopsy. :)


>>>I. Tracheostomy.  There was a gaping 6.5 cm transverse tracheostomy
>>>incision low on the neck where the Dallas surgeons had enlarged the 
>>>bullet hole in order to insert a tracheostomy tube.  [reference here
>>>to fig. 80, p. 201, part of the "stare of death" autopsy Dox
>>>drawing]

>>A tracheotomy tube flange is no more than 2 inches wide. The incision
>>was no more than 1.5 inches and was clean and sharp when JFK left
>>Parkland. It is *not* common to make tracheotomy incisions larger than
>>the flange that is going to hold the tracheotomy tube.

>>Why did the wound grow to almost three inches and become gaping and
>>ragged at Bethesda unless someone had gone fishing for bullets?

>1) Just because it isn't common to make a wider incision than necessary
>	doesn't mean that in a panic situation it didn't happen
>2) At Parkland, Kennedy was lying on a level surface, and so thin slits
>	extending from either side of the tracheostomy would not have been
>	very visible
>3) In the autopsy photos taken at Bethesda, Kennedy's head is leaning back,
>	pulling the throat wound open and maximizing its visibility
>4) Along the way from the operating table in Dallas to the autopsy table in
>Baltimore, Kennedy was picked up, put in a coffin, his head wrapped more than
>once, jostled around who knows how much on the ride to the airport and from
>the airport to the naval hospital, picked up out of the coffin, his head
>wrappings taken off, lifted for photos of his back -- I think the sum
>total of this could very well have enlarged the wound some.

>All in all, I'd have to say the perceived difference in size of the tracheostomy
>incision is pretty shaky evidence of someone having "dug for bullets."
>I think the combined effect of all the investigations that have been done
>is to pretty much rule out the possibility of anyone mucking with Kennedy's
>body between Parkland and Bethesda unless it was right in front of Jackie
>and the whole Kennedy entourage.

>On the other hand, I can't explain what happened to the bullet/fragment
>that entered Kennedy's throat either.

Or the one that entered his back.

>>In my opinion, the evidence points to a bullet entering the back *and*
>>a bullet entering the throat.

>I agree, or possibly a fragment entering the throat (The doctors remembered
>it being quite small, some said "a few millimeters.")

The Doctors at Parkland original guess was that a bullet hit JFK in
the throat, bounced upwards after it hit his spine, and exitted from
the back of his head causing the exit wound they saw.

They saw an entrance wound in the throat and an exit wound in the back
of the head.

The Zapruder film showed the throat wound occurring well before the
head wound.

But how did the exit wound in the right rear of JFK's head disappear?

Why did the throat wound becaome an exit wound when the Parkland staff
are the only ones who saw it?

-- 
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        "We've got to get bigger guns" -- Dick Durkin -- Split Second

schuck@sfu.ca                                           Vote No on October 26th
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