The autopsy skull x-rays show a substantial amount of missing frontal bone and show a clear gap between this frontal defect and the right parietal-temporal defect acknowledged by government panels (i.e., the large wound above the right ear seen in the autopsy photos).
There are two major reasons that this missing frontal bone poses fatal problems for the lone-gunman theory.
One, the missing frontal bone in the skull x-rays severely contradicts the autopsy photos. The autopsy photos show no indication of any missing frontal bone but give the appearance of an entirely intact frontal bone. The autopsy photos show
scalp damage that extends into the area of the scalp above the frontal bone, but they show no indication of missing bone beneath that damage or anywhere else in the frontal bone. The forehead and the frontal-bone area behind the hairline should look very different than they do in the autopsy photos, given the amount of missing frontal bone seen in the skull x-rays. This is one reason that WC apologists deny that the skull x-rays show missing frontal bone.
Two, the missing frontal bone constitutes a second sizable exit wound separate and distinct from the right parietal-temporal exit wound, which in turn suggests that the right parietal-temporal exit wound could be an exit wound for a shot from the front or for another shot from behind. Not one of the bullets fired into test skulls in the WC’s Biophysics Lab wound ballistics test produced two separate exit wounds.
The WC, Dr. John Lattimer (the WC’s first prominent apologist), and the HSCA FPP said there was only one exit wound and that this one exit wound did not extend beyond the coronal suture, i.e., that it did not extend into the frontal bone. However, the skull x-rays indicate a large defect in the frontal bone that is separate and distinct from the area of missing parietal-temporal bone. The frontal defect begins slightly beyond the coronal suture and ends right at the end of the hairline. (The coronal suture is the long fibrous joint that connects the frontal bone with the parietal bone. It is the dividing line between the two bones.)
These two separate exit wounds suggest two bullets, since, as mentioned, not one of the bullets fired into the test skulls in the WC’s Biophysics Lab wound ballistics test produced two separate and distinct exit wounds (see, for example CE 861 and CE 862; see also Dr. Alfred Olivier’s WC testimony in 5 H 88-89 and CE 388).
This is why HSCA FPP chairman Michael Baden so adamantly rejected Dr. Lawrence Angel's analysis and claimed that the Harper fragment and the triangular fragment, along with the fracture fragment, fit together, left no gaps between them, and constituted one large exit wound that did not extend beyond the coronal suture (i.e., beyond the forward edge of the parietal bone and into the frontal bone). Thus, Baden argued for the impossible placement of the triangular fragment in the right parietal-temporal area.
Baden rejected and ignored the analysis performed by the FPP’s consulting forensic anthropologist, Dr. Lawrence Angel of the Smithsonian Institution, even though Dr. Angel was more qualified than anyone on the FPP to identify the skull fragments. Dr. Angel identified the triangular skull fragment as frontal bone and specified that there was a clear gap between the two largest skull fragments. The triangular fragment is the second-largest fragment of the skull fragments. Dr. David Mantik and other experts have confirmed Dr. Angel’s identification of the triangular fragment as frontal bone and agree with his placement of the fragment.
John Hunt, who was one of the most thorough scholars ever to grace the research community, examined Baden’s shady, erroneous rejection of Dr. Angel’s analysis in detail in his article “A Demonstrable Impossibility: The HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel’s Misrepresentation of the Kennedy Assassination Medical Evidence” (
https://history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/ADemonstrableImpossibility/ADemonstrableImpossibility.htm).
Thanks to John Hunt’s research, we know that Dr. Angel disagreed strongly with Baden and the rest of the FPP majority regarding the missing frontal bone and the placement of the triangular fragment, and that Dr. McDonnel feared that the FPP would misrepresent his views in their report. In addition, Hunt found evidence that Dr. McDonnel disagreed with the FPP about what the skull fractures indicated regarding
the direction of the shot.
One WC apologist, Jerry Organ, has made the ridiculous argument that “the ‘missing’ frontal bone is nothing more than normal luminosity best seen when the actual X-ray films are back-lit.” In his article “Insights on the X-Rays” (
The Third Decade, March 1993), Organ even claims that JFK’s pre-mortem lateral skull x-ray “conveys the false impression of ‘missing’ bone in the frontal region” (p. 17). Organ also claims that Dr. Gerald McDonnel reported to the HSCA that the frontal bone was present in the autopsy skull x-rays.
Actually, Dr. McDonnel said no such thing. Organ cites 1 HSCA 205, which is page 2 of McDonnel’s report, but when we read that page, we see that McDonnel said the opposite of what Organ claims he said. McDonnel said that the x-rays showed a loss of part of the rear portion of the right frontal bone. I quote from page 2 of his report to the HSCA FPP:
Nearly complete loss of right parietal bone, the upper portion of the right temporal bone, and a portion of the posterior aspect of the right frontal bone. (Report of G. M. McDonnel, 8/4/1978, p. 2, in 7 HSCA 218 and in 1 HSCA 205).
As mentioned, Dr. Angel found that the triangular skull fragment is frontal bone, which means a substantial part of the right frontal bone was blasted out. Dr. Angel provided diagrams to show where the frontal bone was missing. You can see these drawings in John Hunt’s article or in Angel’s report to the HSCA FPP (7 HSCA 228-230).
Other experts who have noted the missing frontal bone include the following:
-- Dr. Boswell told the ARRB there was missing frontal bone and drew a hole on a plastic skull to illustrate it.
-- Although the autopsy report does not mention missing frontal bone, Boswell drew missing frontal bone on his autopsy face-sheet diagram of the skull damage. (The missing frontal bone was not the only key evidence that Dr. James Humes, the chief pathologist at the autopsy, omitted from the autopsy report: he also omitted the high fragment trail and the cortical damage.)
-- In his report to General Bloomberg, Dr. Pierre Finck, the only forensic pathologist of the three autopsy doctors, said that frontal bone was missing.
-- Dr. John Fitzpatrick, the ARRB’s forensic radiologist, said that the skull x-rays show missing frontal bone.
-- Dr. Gary Aguilar notes that “the skull damage extended well into the frontal bone” (
https://history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_2.htm).
-- Dr. Mantik noted and diagrammed the missing frontal bone when he examined the skull x-rays at the National Archives. He has also confirmed the missing frontal bone with optical density (OD) measurements. Here are some of Dr. Mantik’s observations regarding the missing frontal bone in his 2022 book
JFK Assassination Paradoxes:
. . . missing frontal bone is quite obvious on the X-rays (and even on Boswell’s sketches); even Dr. J. Lawrence Angel, the physical anthropologist, disagreed with Baden’s reconstruction. (p. 56)
The HSCA’s mistake (relied upon by Baden—quite possibly even initiated by him) was its opinion that frontal bone was fully intact immediately anterior to the coronal suture (Figure 4). That opinion can be refuted via the following items: (1) the AP skull X-ray (Figure 10), (2) optical density (OD) data from the AP X-ray (Figure 11—my sketch of absent frontal bone), (3) Boswell’s skull diagram for the ARRB (Figure 12), (4) Boswell’s sketch from the autopsy (Figure 13), and (5) the opinion of the ARRB forensic radiologist, John J. Fitzpatrick. The AP X-ray also clearly shows where right frontal bone was missing (even though Baden oddly claimed that it was present). . . .
Figure 11 shows missing right frontal bone, a conclusion that is based on OD data that I took at the Archives. Boswell’s sketch for the ARRB also show missing frontal bone. Furthermore, notice the close agreement (regarding the missing frontal bone) between my sketch (Figure 11) and Boswell’s sketches (Figures 12 and 13). He did one (Figure 12) for the ARRB, while the other one (Figure 13) was prepared at the autopsy. (pp. 15-16)
Dr. John J. Fitzpatrick, the forensic radiologist for the ARRB, also agreed with me that the frontal bone was present only up to the hairline. Although Angel would have agreed with him, the HSCA would not have welcomed Fitzpatrick’s conclusion. (p. 96)
The coronal suture would, of course, fit with Lawrence Angel’s view that the triangular fragment was frontal bone. It would also be consistent with Fitzpatrick’s (and my) conclusion that right frontal bone was missing all the way to JFK’s hairline. (p. 152)
RR [Randy Robertson] places the triangular fragment into the right parietal area. But it cannot fit there. In particular, I have demonstrated, with detailed reconstructions via successive iterations of fluoroscopy images, exactly where bone islands lie on both the AP and lateral JFK X-rays. RR’s proposed site for the triangular fragment is already occupied by two significant bone islands, and simply cannot accommodate another large bone fragment. That is a powerful reason—independent of Angel—that the triangular fragment must derive from frontal bone. (p. 152)
