Getting Some Facts Straight About the Single-Bullet Theory

[Michael T. Griffith]

Surprisingly, recent exchanges here with WC apologists about the single-bullet theory (SBT) indicate that they are not only unaware of facts from released files and recent research that refute the theory, but that they are unaware of well-documented facts that have been known for decades that refute the theory. Let us, therefore, review some of the facts that debunk the SBT.

But, before we look at those facts, we first need to remember that the Warren Commission (WC) only cooked up the SBT in desperation after it could no longer ignore the wounding of James Tague. The FBI had already concluded that JFK and Connally were hit by separate bullets, that two bullets hit Kennedy and that one hit Connally. When the WC finally had to acknowledge the Tague wounding, it was forced to cook up the SBT because it could not admit that more than three shots were fired without admitting that there was more than one gunman.

This desperate theory created what has come to be known as “the magic bullet,” Commission Exhibit (CE) 399. This bullet, according to the SBT, struck Kennedy in the back, exited his throat, entered Connally's back below the right armpit, plowed through his chest and broke bone (knocking out 4 inches of rib bone) in the process, exited beneath the right nipple, entered and fractured the right wrist bone, and then penetrated deep into the Governor's thigh, but emerged in nearly pristine condition. Yet, the bullet that struck JFK in the head, which was supposedly the same kind of bullet as CE 399, broke into dozens of fragments, leaving two sizable fragments in the limousine and leaving around 40 fragments in the skull. 

Some of the facts that refute the SBT:

* When I recently mentioned in another thread that the holes in JFK’s coat and shirt overlap and align with each other, one longtime WC apologist called this factual statement “kooky.” But the fact that the holes overlap and align almost exactly has been known for decades.

The hole in the coat is 5.375 inches (5 and 3/8th inches) from the top of the coat’s collar and 1.75 inches (1 and 3/4th inches) from coat’s midline. The hole in the back of the shirt is 5.75 inches from the top of the shirt’s collar and 1.125 inches from the shirt’s midline.

FBI firearms and ballistics examiner Robert Frazier explained to the WC that the two holes lined up vertically after factoring in the fact that the shirt collar was about half an inch above the coat collar. Frazier made this observation after Alan Dulles asked him if the position of the holes indicated that they were made by the same bullet. Frazier said yes, and explained why:

Mr. Dulles. Is the hole in the shirt and the hole in the coat you have just described in a position that indicates that the same instrument, whatever it was, or the same bullet, made the two?

Mr. Frazier. Yes, they are.

They are both—the coat hole is 5 and 3/8th inches below the top of the collar. The shirt hole is 5 and 3/4 inches, which could be accounted for by a portion of the collar sticking up above the coat about a half inch. (5 H 60)

As for the horizontal position of the holes, Frazier said that both holes are “approximately the same distance” from the middle of both garments:

Mr. Frazier. And they are both located approximately the same distance to the right of the midline of both garments. (5 H 60)

* Such nearly perfect vertical and horizontal alignment of the rear shirt and coat holes makes the bunched-clothing theory extremely implausible on its face. WC defenders have advanced this theory to try to explain the fact that the holes in the rear of the shirt and coat place the back wound in the same low location documented by the autopsy face sheet (marked “verified”), by the death certificate (also marked “verified”), by Sibert and O’Neill’s report on the autopsy, by the FBI report on the autopsy, by the transcript of the 1/27/64 WC executive session, by Clint Hill’s description of the wound, and by the wound diagrams that Kellerman, Sibert, and O’Neill drew for the HSCA.

That location—at least 5 inches below the collar line—makes the single-bullet theory impossible. Thus, lone-gunman theorists argue that Kennedy’s coat and shirt were bunched so significantly, and to the same degree, that the holes in them were made by a bullet that struck several inches higher than the position indicated by the holes with the coat and shirt lying normally. British researcher Jeremy Bojczuk explains some of the reasons that the bunched-clothing theory is invalid:

Although the jacket had bunched up slightly from time to time during the motorcade as Kennedy waved to the crowd, it had never bunched up sufficiently to allow a bullet to enter at the required angle. In a photograph taken no more than 1.2 seconds before any non–fatal shot from the sixth floor could have been fired, the jacket can clearly be seen to be at or very close to its normal position. Buttoned–up shirts tend to be much less flexible than jackets. President Kennedy’s shirt in particular could not have bunched up significantly: it had been made to measure; it was held in place by a belt; it had a long tail, on which Kennedy was sitting; and the hot weather would have caused the shirt to stick to the president’s back. The hole in the shirt lined up almost exactly with the hole in the jacket. (http://22november1963.org.uk/single-bullet-theory-jfk-assassination)

Dr. Art Snyder, a physicist at Stanford University:

The jacket and shirt would have had to ride up about 4 inches to match the upper blemish. Since the holes in the shirt and jacket are nearly on top of one another, they would have had to ride straight up almost identical distances. At frame 2225 the President was not waving to the crowd, but was holding his arms in front of his chest. His suit does not look bunched up. The picture taken earlier in the motorcade and offered by Lattimer as evidence of the suit “riding up” does not show it bunched up anything like 4 inches.

The back brace was a simple corset worn under his clothing around his waist. It would not have pushed his clothing up. A close look at the Willis photo discussed above shows the shirt was not riding up about 1.2 seconds earlier. (http://dufourlaw.com/JFK/snyder_skeptic.pdf)

Chuck Marler conducted experiments and was never able to duplicate the amount of bunching required by the bunched-clothing theory (https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/jefferies-film-and-the-bunching-of-jfk-s-suit-coat).

* The WC claimed that as the magic bullet exited JFK’s throat, it exited through the shirt and created the two overlapping holes in the front of the shirt. This claim was debunked decades ago. The “holes” are actually slits, and the WC ignored the fact that although copper traces were found at the holes in the back of the coat and shirt, no such traces were found in the “holes” in the front of the shirt, even though the FBI’s Robert Frazier informed the commission of this fact (5 H 62). Frazier also noted that the front shirt slits were “not specifically characteristic of a bullet hole” (5 H 61).

The front-shirt slits were made by one of the Parkland Hospital nurses as the medical staff hurriedly removed JFK’s shirt and tie. Harold Weisberg obtained high-quality photos of the shirt and tie and observed that the supposed “bullet holes” are slits with the jagged edges indicative of an accidental cut from a sharp surgical instrument, and one of the Parkland nurses confirmed this. Rockefeller Foundation scholar and investigative journalist Henry Hurt:

The photographs finally disclosed to Weisberg show that the suggested bullet holes in the shirt's front neckband are not bullet holes at all. They are slits made by scalpels used by nurses to cut off the President's necktie. One nurse who cut off the clothing confirmed this, adding impressive credence to Weisberg's observations. (Reasonable Doubt, 1985, p. 60)

Dr. David Mantik confirmed this when he was allowed to examine Kennedy’s clothing, and he also noted that there is no fabric missing from the slits, unlike the bullet hole in the back of the shirt:

What also struck me about the slits is how unlikely a bullet could have passed through there (see Weisberg's photo, if necessary) and also nicked the left outside of the knot of the tie.

Furthermore, there was no obvious fabric missing from the slits, whereas the hole in the back (even before FBI sampling) clearly had lost some fabric during the bullet passage. According to the experts on bullet transit, such missing fabric is typical. If this bullet really transited the neck (or upper chest), and according to the Warren Commission, lost very little speed, then why didn't it also remove fabric from the area of the slits?

The shape of the slits is much more compatible with a scalpel than with a bullet.

* The WC also claimed that as the magic bullet allegedly exited JFK’s throat, it nicked the knot of his tie: “a missile entered the back of his clothing in the vicinity of his lower neck and exited through the front of his shirt immediately behind his tie, nicking the knot of his tie in its forward flight” (WCR, p. 91).

This could not have happened. The cuts in the shirt are directly beneath where the knot of the tie was, but photos of the tie show there was no damage to the knot except for a tiny nick near (but not on) its left edge.

When Harold Weisberg was finally able to obtain high-quality photos of JFK’s tie, he discovered what the WC and the FBI apparently had wanted to keep secret: there is no hole through the tie knot and no hole on the edge of the knot. The nick is visibly inward from the edge of the knot—it is close, but it is not on the edge, so it could not have been made by an exiting bullet. Obviously, it was made by one of the nurses as they hurriedly removed JFK’s clothing.

Furthermore, material surrounding the tie-knot nick was removed to test for traces of copper. No such traces were found.

* There is a simple, straightforward explanation for the above facts: the throat wound was above the shirt collar and the tie knot. Hurt:

Dr. Charles Carrico, the doctor who examined Kennedy in the emergency room before his shirt and tie were removed, testified to the Warren Commission (and later confirmed in an interview) that the anterior neck wound was above the knot of his tie. A wound location this high in the front would render fatuous the whole teetering premise of the Warren Commission. (The commission ignored Dr. Carrico's testimony on this point, even though he was the doctor in the best position to have any direct knowledge.) (Reasonable Doubt, p. 60, original emphasis)

* The wound in the throat was too small to have been an exit wound for a 6.5 mm bullet. Dr. Pierre Finck, one of the autopsists, wrote that the throat wound was approximately 5 mm in diameter. Parkland doctor Malcolm Perry, who saw the throat wound before the tracheotomy was performed, told Dr. James Humes, the chief autopsy doctor, that the throat wound was "only a few mm in size, 3-5 mm.” The alleged lone gunman supposedly used 6.5 mm bullets. A missile of this caliber would have made a much larger wound if it had exited the throat.

In the WC's own wound ballistics tests, the smallest exit wound that was created in the simulated human necks was 10 mm in diameter. WC supporters attempt to explain these tests, and the throat wound's contrastingly small size and neat appearance, by speculating that the collar band of Kennedy's shirt restrained the skin of the neck and prevented it from stretching too far, thereby enabling the bullet to cause the resulting wound to be small and neat. This theory is invalid, however, because WC supporters also claim that the bullet made the slits in the front of the President's shirt as it allegedly exited his neck, and, crucially, those slits were undeniably below the collar band (see, for example, the photo of the slits in Weisberg, Never Again, 1995, p. 245).

* Files released by the ARRB provide confirmation of the considerable preexisting evidence that the autopsy doctors determined that the back wound had no exit point. The doctors even removed the chest organs and turned the body “every which way” to probe the wound again to ensure they could see where the probe came out; they could see the probe pressing against the lining of the chest cavity—there was no exit point; the bullet never penetrated into the chest cavity.

Thanks to ARRB-released documents, we now know that Dr. Robert Karnei, who saw most of the autopsy, reported that the autopsy doctors "tried every which way" to find the back wound's exit point with a probe. Dr. Karnei said they moved the body into different positions; they even turned the body over. The autopsy doctors, added Dr. Karnei, spent "a long time" trying to find the exit point. They eventually realized that it had no exit point.

Again, the autopsy doctors could see where the wound tract ended and that it did not go beyond the lining of the chest cavity, as could others who were there, as Doug Horne points out:

Both FBI agents who were at President Kennedy’s autopsy (agents James Sibert and Francis O’Neill), as well as Navy enlisted autopsy technicians Paul O’Connor and James Jenkins, observed a sharp downward angle for the shallow bullet track in JFK’s upper back.  The location of the upper thorax wound, combined with this sharp downward angle, was entirely inconsistent with the absurd single-bullet. . . . Both O’Connor and Jenkins observed the use of metal probes in this shallow bullet track, and both recalled that the probing of the back wound made an impression on the intact pleura in the vicinity of the descending aorta (below the heart).  This is one of many elegant proofs that the single-bullet theory is nonsense. (http://assassinationofjfk.net/most-jfk-medical-evidence-would-not-be-admissible-at-trial-doug-horne/)

* When Dr. Mantik was able to study the autopsy x-rays, he discovered that there was no path from the back wound to the throat wound without smashing through the spine (Assassination Science, p. 15; Mantik, “The Medical Evidence Decoded,” https://themantikview.com/pdf/The_Medical_Evidence_Decoded.pdf, pp. 38-40). The SBT is a physical impossibility.

Some sources for further study:

http://dufourlaw.com/JFK/snyder_skeptic.pdf

http://the-puzzle-palace.com/files/NP2%20SingleBull.pdf (Anthony Marsh)

http://jfkthelonegunmanmyth.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-single-bullet-fantasy-part-1.html

http://22november1963.org.uk/single-bullet-theory-jfk-assassination

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/jefferies-film-and-the-bunching-of-jfk-s-suit-coat

https://themantikview.com/pdf/The_Medical_Evidence_Decoded.pdf

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_A_Philadelphia_Lawyer_Analyzes_the_Presidents_Back_and_Neck_Wounds.html

https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/EvenMoreMagical.htm

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=4268#relPageId=20

http://www.jfklancer.com/hunt/phantom.htm

http://www.jfklancer.com/hunt/mystery.html

https://whowhatwhy.org/2017/10/06/navy-doctor-bullet-found-jfks-limousine-never-reported/

http://assassinationofjfk.net/most-jfk-medical-evidence-would-not-be-admissible-at-trial-doug-horne/

[Dan O'meara]

I wanted to let this go but I can't. I understand I've stumbled into some crazy kind of world where up is down and black is white and that's okay, I'm just about getting my head round it, but your reference to the  "bunched-clothing theory" is a piece of craziness too far. In the "Fragments" thread John Mytton posted the following graphic:



Just take a few seconds out of your day and watch as the picture changes from JFK at Love Field (the one where he's stood up) to the one where he's sat in the limo (on Elm Street seconds before he is shot in the back). This graphic proves - it doesn't hint or postulate or theorise - it PROVES that Kennedy's jacket was bunched up at the back just before he was shot in the back.You can line up all the experts you want and take all the measurements you want, this is irrefutable photographic evidence. It is the "Bunched-Clothing Fact". That's that. It's over. Done. Finished.

And if that wasn't enough - the graphic also proves that all your experts have made a catastrophic mistake in their measurements. In the Love Field picture look at the collar of JFK's jacket, you will notice a clear gap between the top of the jacket collar and the top of the shirt collar. You will also notice a clear gap between the top of his shirt collar
to the bottom of his hair revealing his neck. Now look at the Elm Street photo, you will notice that the top of the jacket collar is the same level as the top of his shirt collar and that both have ridden up to touch the bottom of his hair.

D'Oh

[Gary Craig]

Surprisingly, recent exchanges here with WC apologists about the single-bullet theory (SBT) indicate that they are not only unaware of facts from released files and recent research that refute the theory, but that they are unaware of well-documented facts that have been known for decades that refute the theory. Let us, therefore, review some of the facts that debunk the SBT.

But, before we look at those facts, we first need to remember that the Warren Commission (WC) only cooked up the SBT in desperation after it could no longer ignore the wounding of James Tague. The FBI had already concluded that JFK and Connally were hit by separate bullets, that two bullets hit Kennedy and that one hit Connally. When the WC finally had to acknowledge the Tague wounding, it was forced to cook up the SBT because it could not admit that more than three shots were fired without admitting that there was more than one gunman.

This desperate theory created what has come to be known as “the magic bullet,” Commission Exhibit (CE) 399. This bullet, according to the SBT, struck Kennedy in the back, exited his throat, entered Connally's back below the right armpit, plowed through his chest and broke bone (knocking out 4 inches of rib bone) in the process, exited beneath the right nipple, entered and fractured the right wrist bone, and then penetrated deep into the Governor's thigh, but emerged in nearly pristine condition. Yet, the bullet that struck JFK in the head, which was supposedly the same kind of bullet as CE 399, broke into dozens of fragments, leaving two sizable fragments in the limousine and leaving around 40 fragments in the skull. 

Some of the facts that refute the SBT:

* When I recently mentioned in another thread that the holes in JFK’s coat and shirt overlap and align with each other, one longtime WC apologist called this factual statement “kooky.” But the fact that the holes overlap and align almost exactly has been known for decades.

The hole in the coat is 5.375 inches (5 and 3/8th inches) from the top of the coat’s collar and 1.75 inches (1 and 3/4th inches) from coat’s midline. The hole in the back of the shirt is 5.75 inches from the top of the shirt’s collar and 1.125 inches from the shirt’s midline.

FBI firearms and ballistics examiner Robert Frazier explained to the WC that the two holes lined up vertically after factoring in the fact that the shirt collar was about half an inch above the coat collar. Frazier made this observation after Alan Dulles asked him if the position of the holes indicated that they were made by the same bullet. Frazier said yes, and explained why:

As for the horizontal position of the holes, Frazier said that both holes are “approximately the same distance” from the middle of both garments:

* Such nearly perfect vertical and horizontal alignment of the rear shirt and coat holes makes the bunched-clothing theory extremely implausible on its face. WC defenders have advanced this theory to try to explain the fact that the holes in the rear of the shirt and coat place the back wound in the same low location documented by the autopsy face sheet (marked “verified”), by the death certificate (also marked “verified”), by Sibert and O’Neill’s report on the autopsy, by the FBI report on the autopsy, by the transcript of the 1/27/64 WC executive session, by Clint Hill’s description of the wound, and by the wound diagrams that Kellerman, Sibert, and O’Neill drew for the HSCA.

That location—at least 5 inches below the collar line—makes the single-bullet theory impossible. Thus, lone-gunman theorists argue that Kennedy’s coat and shirt were bunched so significantly, and to the same degree, that the holes in them were made by a bullet that struck several inches higher than the position indicated by the holes with the coat and shirt lying normally. British researcher Jeremy Bojczuk explains some of the reasons that the bunched-clothing theory is invalid:

Dr. Art Snyder, a physicist at Stanford University:

Chuck Marler conducted experiments and was never able to duplicate the amount of bunching required by the bunched-clothing theory (https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/jefferies-film-and-the-bunching-of-jfk-s-suit-coat).

* The WC claimed that as the magic bullet exited JFK’s throat, it exited through the shirt and created the two overlapping holes in the front of the shirt. This claim was debunked decades ago. The “holes” are actually slits, and the WC ignored the fact that although copper traces were found at the holes in the back of the coat and shirt, no such traces were found in the “holes” in the front of the shirt, even though the FBI’s Robert Frazier informed the commission of this fact (5 H 62). Frazier also noted that the front shirt slits were “not specifically characteristic of a bullet hole” (5 H 61).

The front-shirt slits were made by one of the Parkland Hospital nurses as the medical staff hurriedly removed JFK’s shirt and tie. Harold Weisberg obtained high-quality photos of the shirt and tie and observed that the supposed “bullet holes” are slits with the jagged edges indicative of an accidental cut from a sharp surgical instrument, and one of the Parkland nurses confirmed this. Rockefeller Foundation scholar and investigative journalist Henry Hurt:

Dr. David Mantik confirmed this when he was allowed to examine Kennedy’s clothing, and he also noted that there is no fabric missing from the slits, unlike the bullet hole in the back of the shirt:

* The WC also claimed that as the magic bullet allegedly exited JFK’s throat, it nicked the knot of his tie: “a missile entered the back of his clothing in the vicinity of his lower neck and exited through the front of his shirt immediately behind his tie, nicking the knot of his tie in its forward flight” (WCR, p. 91).

This could not have happened. The cuts in the shirt are directly beneath where the knot of the tie was, but photos of the tie show there was no damage to the knot except for a tiny nick near (but not on) its left edge.

When Harold Weisberg was finally able to obtain high-quality photos of JFK’s tie, he discovered what the WC and the FBI apparently had wanted to keep secret: there is no hole through the tie knot and no hole on the edge of the knot. The nick is visibly inward from the edge of the knot—it is close, but it is not on the edge, so it could not have been made by an exiting bullet. Obviously, it was made by one of the nurses as they hurriedly removed JFK’s clothing.

Furthermore, material surrounding the tie-knot nick was removed to test for traces of copper. No such traces were found.

* There is a simple, straightforward explanation for the above facts: the throat wound was above the shirt collar and the tie knot. Hurt:

* The wound in the throat was too small to have been an exit wound for a 6.5 mm bullet. Dr. Pierre Finck, one of the autopsists, wrote that the throat wound was approximately 5 mm in diameter. Parkland doctor Malcolm Perry, who saw the throat wound before the tracheotomy was performed, told Dr. James Humes, the chief autopsy doctor, that the throat wound was "only a few mm in size, 3-5 mm.” The alleged lone gunman supposedly used 6.5 mm bullets. A missile of this caliber would have made a much larger wound if it had exited the throat.

In the WC's own wound ballistics tests, the smallest exit wound that was created in the simulated human necks was 10 mm in diameter. WC supporters attempt to explain these tests, and the throat wound's contrastingly small size and neat appearance, by speculating that the collar band of Kennedy's shirt restrained the skin of the neck and prevented it from stretching too far, thereby enabling the bullet to cause the resulting wound to be small and neat. This theory is invalid, however, because WC supporters also claim that the bullet made the slits in the front of the President's shirt as it allegedly exited his neck, and, crucially, those slits were undeniably below the collar band (see, for example, the photo of the slits in Weisberg, Never Again, 1995, p. 245).

* Files released by the ARRB provide confirmation of the considerable preexisting evidence that the autopsy doctors determined that the back wound had no exit point. The doctors even removed the chest organs and turned the body “every which way” to probe the wound again to ensure they could see where the probe came out; they could see the probe pressing against the lining of the chest cavity—there was no exit point; the bullet never penetrated into the chest cavity.

Thanks to ARRB-released documents, we now know that Dr. Robert Karnei, who saw most of the autopsy, reported that the autopsy doctors "tried every which way" to find the back wound's exit point with a probe. Dr. Karnei said they moved the body into different positions; they even turned the body over. The autopsy doctors, added Dr. Karnei, spent "a long time" trying to find the exit point. They eventually realized that it had no exit point.

Again, the autopsy doctors could see where the wound tract ended and that it did not go beyond the lining of the chest cavity, as could others who were there, as Doug Horne points out:

* When Dr. Mantik was able to study the autopsy x-rays, he discovered that there was no path from the back wound to the throat wound without smashing through the spine (Assassination Science, p. 15; Mantik, “The Medical Evidence Decoded,” https://themantikview.com/pdf/The_Medical_Evidence_Decoded.pdf, pp. 38-40). The SBT is a physical impossibility.

Some sources for further study:

http://dufourlaw.com/JFK/snyder_skeptic.pdf

http://the-puzzle-palace.com/files/NP2%20SingleBull.pdf (Anthony Marsh)

http://jfkthelonegunmanmyth.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-single-bullet-fantasy-part-1.html

http://22november1963.org.uk/single-bullet-theory-jfk-assassination

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/jefferies-film-and-the-bunching-of-jfk-s-suit-coat

https://themantikview.com/pdf/The_Medical_Evidence_Decoded.pdf

https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_A_Philadelphia_Lawyer_Analyzes_the_Presidents_Back_and_Neck_Wounds.html

https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/EvenMoreMagical.htm

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=4268#relPageId=20

http://www.jfklancer.com/hunt/phantom.htm

http://www.jfklancer.com/hunt/mystery.html

https://whowhatwhy.org/2017/10/06/navy-doctor-bullet-found-jfks-limousine-never-reported/

http://assassinationofjfk.net/most-jfk-medical-evidence-would-not-be-admissible-at-trial-doug-horne/

Am I wrong or wasn't there a timing problem with the Carcano?

JFK & JBC were hit by seperate bullets.

But the time between the 2 bullets hitting them was less than the fastest the Carcano could be fired, cycled & fired again,

even without aiming.

[Gary Craig]

I wanted to let this go but I can't. I understand I've stumbled into some crazy kind of world where up is down and black is white and that's okay, I'm just about getting my head round it, but your reference to the  "bunched-clothing theory" is a piece of craziness too far. In the "Fragments" thread John Mytton posted the following graphic:



Just take a few seconds out of your day and watch as the picture changes from JFK at Love Field (the one where he's stood up) to the one where he's sat in the limo (on Elm Street seconds before he is shot in the back). This graphic proves - it doesn't hint or postulate or theorise - it PROVES that Kennedy's jacket was bunched up at the back just before he was shot in the back.You can line up all the experts you want and take all the measurements you want, this is irrefutable photographic evidence. It is the "Bunched-Clothing Fact". That's that. It's over. Done. Finished.

And if that wasn't enough - the graphic also proves that all your experts have made a catastrophic mistake in their measurements. In the Love Field picture look at the collar of JFK's jacket, you will notice a clear gap between the top of the jacket collar and the top of the shirt collar. You will also notice a clear gap between the top of his shirt collar
to the bottom of his hair revealing his neck. Now look at the Elm Street photo, you will notice that the top of the jacket collar is the same level as the top of his shirt collar and that both have ridden up to touch the bottom of his hair.

D'Oh

The jacket may have bunched up but the fitted shirt he was wearing wouldn't have.

Why is that important?

The hole in the jacket lines up with the hole in the shirt.

[Dan O'meara]

"The jacket may have bunched up but the fitted shirt he was wearing wouldn't have."

Good, you see the jacket has bunched up, you see it as well. Thank you for saving my sanity. As for the shirt, you don't have a clue what's going on with the shirt, absolutely no idea whatsoever. That's what is important - you making a statement about the shirt you have no idea about and believing it's a fact. We can see the jacket bunched up and riding up his back so that the jacket collar is either touching or just below the hairline on the back of JFK's neck. We can see that. That's a fact. We can also assume that when the bullet went through the jacket it also went through the shirt at the same spot. I may be wrong but isn't the only thing we can really do in this circumstance is try to recreate the bunching and upward movement of the jacket compared to the Love Field photo, line up the two holes and then measure how much the shirt was bunched up?

[Michael T. Griffith]

I wanted to let this go but I can't. I understand I've stumbled into some crazy kind of world where up is down and black is white and that's okay, I'm just about getting my head round it, but your reference to the  "bunched-clothing theory" is a piece of craziness too far. In the "Fragments" thread John Mytton posted the following graphic:

Just take a few seconds out of your day and watch as the picture changes from JFK at Love Field (the one where he's stood up) to the one where he's sat in the limo (on Elm Street seconds before he is shot in the back). This graphic proves - it doesn't hint or postulate or theorise - it PROVES that Kennedy's jacket was bunched up at the back just before he was shot in the back.

Three points:

One, your graphic only shows modest bunching of the jacket, and the bunching is not high enough nor in the right place to produce bullet holes in the coat and shirt that would be 2-3 inches lower than the alleged actual wound location.

Two, you still have the problem of the shirt, and the extreme unlikelihood that the shirt would bunch in nearly identical correspondence with the coat, for the reasons explained in my OP.

Three, other photo evidence of JFK shortly before the timeframe of the first shot seems to show his coat almost flat on his back. For example, go to 27:21 and 27:25 in the documentary Inside JFK's Assassination, which shows us a clear profile view of Kennedy just seconds before the first shot:

https://www.amazon.com/Inside-JFKs-Assassination-Patrick-Jeudy/dp/B079C86SYN

[Peter Goth]

I have a question.

If the jacket and shirt bunched up at the base of the neck, 
why are there not two or more holes in either garment ?

[John Iacoletti]

"The jacket may have bunched up but the fitted shirt he was wearing wouldn't have."

Good, you see the jacket has bunched up, you see it as well. Thank you for saving my sanity. As for the shirt, you don't have a clue what's going on with the shirt, absolutely no idea whatsoever. That's what is important - you making a statement about the shirt you have no idea about and believing it's a fact. We can see the jacket bunched up and riding up his back so that the jacket collar is either touching or just below the hairline on the back of JFK's neck. We can see that. That's a fact.

There you go again. Your interpretation of a photo doesn’t constitute a “fact”. JFK’s is sitting in one photo and standing in the other. His head is not at the same angle.

How many seconds was Croft taken before the back shot? You don’t know, because you don’t know for a fact when the back shot occurred. Apart from the same slight bulge not being visible in Willis 5, and the hole in the shirt lining up, can this slight bulge in Croft account for a 2-3 inch displacement?