I agree that the medical evidence (the autopsy report, the X-rays, the photographs) in any murder case is of the utmost importance, but in the assassination of the President it has been tainted by stories of destroyed autopsy evidence, missing autopsy evidence, multiple original autopsy reports, altered photographs and X-rays, conflicting witness statements about the location and size of the wounds and so on.
Take the head wound. At autopsy it was determined that the bullet had entered the back of JFK's head LOW, a little above and to the right of the EOP, and created a large exit wound in the parietal bone, extending into the temporal and occipital regions.
The HSCA relocated the entry wound in the skull to the top of the head, while limiting the large exit wound almost entirely to the parietal region - at least that is how it appears in the Dox drawing.
The autopsy photograph of the back and top of the head does not show any of these wounds, except the bone flap which is in the back of the photo. The purpose of the picture is unclear, and the reason the ruler is held near the head and what exactly it is measuring is anybody's guess, as it can't be there to measure the size of the bullet hole in the cowlick, as the pathologists had located the entry wound 4 inches lower.
All good points. Here are some other problems with the autopsy evidence:
* The autopsy report describes a fragment trail that ran from the EOP to a point just above the right eye, but no such fragment trail is seen on the extant x-rays. Where did it go? Did they somehow incomprehensible "mistake" the fragment trail near the top of the head for a fragment trail that started at the EOP?
* The autopsy report says nothing about the high fragment trail now seen on the extant x-rays. So either the autopsy doctors somehow "missed it," or it was not there on the night of the autopsy, or the autopsy doctors saw it but said nothing about it because it did not line up with the EOP entry site.
* The autopsy report says that part of the large head wound extended into the occipital region (the occiput), but some of the autopsy photos do not show the large wound coming anywhere near the occiput. It's not even close in those photos.
* The autopsy report says nothing--not one word--about the 6.5 mm "fragment" clearly seen on the AP skull x-ray. The autopsy doctors swore up and down that they saw no such "fragment" during the autopsy. (Of course, Dr. Mantik has established via OD measurements and stereo viewing that the "fragment" is actually an image that was ghosted over the image of the small, genuine fragment in the back of the head.)
