From: sdevries@fys.ruu.nl (Sjoerd de Vries)
Subject: Re: Lattimer, Question 11
Organization: Physics Department, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 22:27:21 GMT

In <schuck.718998420@sfu.ca> schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan Schuck) writes:


>grant_jo@ripple.enet.dec.com (Joel Grant) writes:

>>Question eleven: "Was there any evidence of a bullet traveling
>>through the President's head or body from one side to the other
>>(as from the grassy knoll), rather than exclusively from 
>>back to front?"

>[....lots of drivel deleted....]

>>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'.

[...]
>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. 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)

[...]

>What did they do, fire into a test skull at 90 degrees? What a lousy
>test!! A tangential shot, coming in from the stockade fence would have
>been at an angle no more than 35 degrees. A tangential shot, entering
>near the ear, would have taken off the right rear of JFK's head and
>produced *no* fragments that could hit Jackie.

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Sjoerd C. de Vries                            | If all else fails |
| Utrecht Biophysics Research Institute         | we can whip the   |
| Dept. of Medical and Physiological Physics    | horses' eyes      |