Q9

[Tim Nickerson]

The fragments are referred to in the singular multiple times by multiple people, including Audrey Bell herself. She wrote "fragments" on the envelope containing the fragments and "fragment" on the transfer receipt. The large fragment stood out, and the tiny ones did not. Bell couldn't even see them in the photocopy shown to her during her ARRB interview.

[Tim Nickerson]

Above is a crop of CE 843, the fragments removed from JBC's wrist.
We can see the larger fragment and the particle.
Unexpectedly there is another fragment in the centre of the dish. It is comparatively similar in size to the smaller fragment left in JBC's wrist.
Where did this extra fragment come from?



This a picture of the fragments removed from JBC's wrist as they are in the National Archives.
The particle has disappeared and two more extra fragments have appeared from nowhere.
Where have these extra fragments come from?

CE 843 is fragments removed from Kennedy's brain.

[Tim Nickerson]

Any help identifying these initials would be greatly appreciated.
I've got the ones in the red circle:

RF = Robert Frazier
CK = Charles Killion
JH = Cortland Cunningham [not sure why but that's the initials he uses]

I would expect to possibly see the initials of Bob Nolan (he said he signed the envelope), Will Fritz and Vince Drain.
There is an interesting one in the bottom left hand corner. It looks like V W [it might not be] and is dated 11/22/63. Would really like to know who this is.

Cortlandt Cunningham chose not to use CC because of its carbon copy meaning.

Bobby M. Nolan's initials are on the  envelope. He positively identified them on that photocopy of the image of the envelope.   They are upside down compared with the others.

[Dan O'meara]

Nice work Tim, you've cleared up so many issues including a massive error on my part regarding CE843. I thought that there were only two fragments removed from JFK's head and there appeared to be 3 fragments in the picture I posted which confused me. The two fragments from JBC's wrist can be seen in the rectangular transparent container next to the envelope in the top picture:



These are obviously the two fragments Gregory testifies to removing, which is confirmed by the pre-op and post-op X-rays.
Audrey Bell must be mistaken about the number of fragments removed and about turning them over to a plainclothes officer instead of s State Trooper (unless Nolan wasn't in uniform that day).
The envelope is surely the one that made it's from from Bell to Nolan to Fritz to Drain to Frazier.

The FBI report [30/11/63] about Gregory removing a single fragment must also be some kind of mistake.
It is also possible that Frazier labeling Q9 as a single fragment instead of multiple fragments might be some kind of convention, although in other examples he specifically refers to the amount of fragments. And in his WC testimony he only refers to a single fragment.

The only thing that hasn't really been cleared up is the picture of Q9 [FBI C9] in the National Archives:



I don't see how this can possibly relate to the two fragments taken from JBC's wrist.

[Tim Nickerson]

Audrey Bell was not mistaken about the number of fragments. Those four in CE-842 are fragments that Dr. Gregory removed from the wrist. Bell was mistaken about who she passed the fragments to though. It was Nolan and he had to have been out of uniform. That was not uncommon for Texas Highway Patrolmen back then. Gregory never specified in his operative report of Nov 22 as to how many fragments that he removed. He just wrote that "Small bits of metal were encountered at various levels throughout the wound and these were wherever they were identified and could be picked up were picked up". According to Gregory, one of the Pre-OP X-Rays appeared to show seven or eight.

CE-843 contains two fragments, not three.

[Martin Weidmann]

Cortlandt Cunningham chose not to use CC because of its carbon copy meaning.

Bobby M. Nolan's initials are on the  envelope. He positively identified them on that photocopy of the image of the envelope.   They are upside down compared with the others.

Amazing how this chain of custody matter is being commented about by somebody who in another thread claims that inclusion in a chain of custody isn't necessary.

[Tim Nickerson]

Amazing how this chain of custody matter is being commented about by somebody who in another thread claims that inclusion in a chain of custody isn't necessary.

It seems to me that those fragments were not, and are not, readily identifiable. I think having a chain of custody for them would probably be recommended. But, I'm not a self-proclaimed lawyer like you. So, what do I know?

[Mitch Todd]

Nice work Tim, you've cleared up so many issues including a massive error on my part regarding CE843. I thought that there were only two fragments removed from JFK's head and there appeared to be 3 fragments in the picture I posted which confused me. The two fragments from JBC's wrist can be seen in the rectangular transparent container next to the envelope in the top picture:



These are obviously the two fragments Gregory testifies to removing, which is confirmed by the pre-op and post-op X-rays.
Audrey Bell must be mistaken about the number of fragments removed and about turning them over to a plainclothes officer instead of s State Trooper (unless Nolan wasn't in uniform that day).
The envelope is surely the one that made it's from from Bell to Nolan to Fritz to Drain to Frazier.

The FBI report [30/11/63] about Gregory removing a single fragment must also be some kind of mistake.
It is also possible that Frazier labeling Q9 as a single fragment instead of multiple fragments might be some kind of convention, although in other examples he specifically refers to the amount of fragments. And in his WC testimony he only refers to a single fragment.

The only thing that hasn't really been cleared up is the picture of Q9 [FBI C9] in the National Archives:



I don't see how this can possibly relate to the two fragments taken from JBC's wrist.

The spectrographic testing that was done by the FBI was destructive, so instead of subjecting the entire fragment to testing, samples were cut from the fragment and used instead. They were not always destroyed, and those pieces may have been reunited with the other fragments in the exhibit. I'm not saying that this is what happened, but it's worth keeping in mind.

BTW, the NAA was a bit different. While NAA is not inherently destructive, it does involve shoving a sample into the heart of a nuclear reactor and irradiating the hell out of it. While the sample won't lose any mass, it tend to become highly radioactive. IIRC, the bits that were used for NAA were discarded as radioactive waste after testing.