LNers Can't Explain the Two Back-of-Head Bullet Fragments

[Michael T. Griffith]

You never hear WC apologists talk about the fact that Dr. Russell Morgan, one of the most eminent radiologists in his day and the only radiologist on the four-member Clark Panel, expressed doubts about the kind of ammo that hit JFK's head and said that the bullet may have been a dumdum bullet (aka hollow-point bullet). In September 1977, Morgan said,

The fragmentation in the slide [the x-ray slide] was so severe that one had to wonder if it was a so-called dum-dum bullet [hollow-point bullet] as opposed to the kind which was found on the floor [on the floor of JFK's limo]. (Lansing State Journal, 16 September 1977, p. 10, see https://www.fff.org/freedom-in-motion/video/reviewing-the-autopsy-x-rays/, starting at 22:49)

Dr. Morgan added that he would be willing to participate in the HSCA investigation.

As many scholars have noted, not one of the FMJ bullets fired into skulls in the WC's wound ballistics tests broke into dozens of fragments. Similarly, not one of the FMJ bullets in the Failure Analysis wound ballistics test broke into numerous fragments. FMJ bullets fired from medium-velocity or low-velocity rifles, such as the alleged murder weapon, will rarely if ever break into numerous fragments (see my article "Forensic Science and President Kennedy's Head Wounds," https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jYMrT9P4ab2BtENAqI_0dQSEY6IJWczi/view?usp=sharing).

FYI, Dr. Morgan was responsible for the most important advances in the 20th century in the quality, safety and application of x-ray technology. The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health website notes that Dr. Morgan

. . . invented an exposure meter that reduced the need for repeated x-rays, developed an automatic timer to shut off x-ray exposure the moment the film had been properly exposed, and significantly improved picture quality so that fewer x-rays were required of patients. His landmark studies on image formation culminated in such technological triumphs as incorporating television monitors, physiologic optics, and computer analysis in radiologic science. (https://publichealth.jhu.edu/about/history/heroes-of-public-health/russell-e-morgan-md)

[John Mytton]

You never hear WC apologists talk about the fact that Dr. Russell Morgan, one of the most eminent radiologists in his day and the only radiologist on the four-member Clark Panel, expressed doubts about the kind of ammo that hit JFK's head and said that the bullet may have been a dumdum bullet (aka hollow-point bullet). In September 1977, Morgan said,
 

Dr. Morgan added that he would be willing to participate in the HSCA investigation.

As many scholars have noted, not one of the FMJ bullets fired into skulls in the WC's wound ballistics tests broke into dozens of fragments. Similarly, not one of the FMJ bullets in the Failure Analysis wound ballistics test broke into numerous fragments. FMJ bullets fired from medium-velocity or low-velocity rifles, such as the alleged murder weapon, will rarely if ever break into numerous fragments (see my article "Forensic Science and President Kennedy's Head Wounds," https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jYMrT9P4ab2BtENAqI_0dQSEY6IJWczi/view?usp=sharing).

FYI, Dr. Morgan was responsible for the most important advances in the 20th century in the quality, safety and application of x-ray technology. The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health website notes that Dr. Morgan

Uh-oh, here we go again.

Like your bizarre responses above, in regards to Zapruder alteration, where you keep using people who are completely unqualified to discuss film alteration, here you quote a guy who seems to be good at taking X-Rays(Big Deal) and he's obviously discussing a topic which is way beyond his paygrade, "Wound Ballistics" and then you disturbingly wonder why he's rarely discussed, well, Duh!

Yet, you are the one who constantly ignores Experts who are actually qualified and are real life Scholars in their chosen fields? Go figure??

Dr. Alfred G. Olivier, who you like to dismiss, is the Chief of the Wound Ballistics Branch and performed practical recreations of Kennedy's head wound, why don't you quote this guy? Oh that's right you have a vested interest in supporting anything but.

Dr. Alfred G. Olivier while using human skulls recreated the shot into the back of Kennedy's head and guess what "Einstein", the bullet separated into two pieces and closely resembled the recovered bullet fragments recovered from the Presidential Limo. I bet your guy who was seemingly good at taking X-Rays didn't do this experiment but instead postulated his dumb dumdum bullet theory without considering the entirety of the physical evidence.

Mr. SPECTER. Did you formulate any other conclusions or opinions based on the tests on firing at the skull?
Dr. OLIVIER. Well, let's see. We found that this bullet could do exactly--could make the type of wound that the President received.
Also, that the recovered fragments were very similar to the ones recovered on the front seat and on the floor of the car.
This, to me, indicates that those fragments did come from the bullet that wounded the President in the head.
Mr. SPECTER. And how do the two major fragments in 857 compare, then, with the fragments heretofore identified as 567 and 569?
Dr. OLIVIER. They are quite similar.

1. The 2 larger test bullet fragments recovered by Dr. Oliver.





2. The 2 larger bullet fragments recovered from Kennedy's Limo





And contrary to the belief of a hardcore conspiracy theorist, Dr. Oliver showed that the bullet after penetrating a human skull broke up into a shower of smaller lead fragments.

Mr. SPECTER. And under what circumstances have you viewed those before, please?
Dr. OLIVIER. There were, the two larger fragments were recovered outside of the skull in the cotton waste we were using to catch the fragments without deforming them. There are some smaller fragments in here that were obtained from the gelatin within the cranial cavity after the experiment. We melted the gelatin out and recovered the smallest fragments from within the cranial cavity.
-------snip------
Mr. SPECTER. I now hand you a photograph marked Commission Exhibit 859 and ask you what that depicts?
Dr. OLIVIER. These are the smaller fragments that have been labeled, also, Exhibit 857. This picture or some of the fragments labeled 857, these are the smaller fragments contained in the same box.



And just to show you how inadequate your research really is, here's Dr. John Lattimer who also did the same experiment and lo and behold his Carcano Bullet also broke up into two larger fragments.



So Griffith, instead of sweeping the very depths of the sewers in your search for unqualified anybody's that dispute the official findings of the many qualified Experts of the Warren Commission and the HSCA and etc. etc., perhaps you better start embracing these fine upstanding Pillars of Society who have the words TRUTH and Justice emblazoned as their middle names!

JohnM

[John Mytton]

HUH? Can you read? How many times have I explained that in Z353 Summers' left leg is splayed forward and that his left foot is clearly extended beyond his right foot? That's the whole point, because 56 thousandths of a second later, or just 1/18th/second later, his left foreleg is bent noticeably backward and his left foot is now directly above his right foot! Moreover, by Z356, just 1/6th/second later at Z33, his legs, arms, and feet are in an obviously different position than they are in Z353.

This is at least the third time you have ducked and dodged these self-evident, readily observable facts. I mean, sheesh, do you somehow think that people won't notice your bald-faced evasion and dissembling on this issue?

Folks, to get an idea of John Mytton's evasion and misrepresentation on this issue, read my segment on Summers' movements in my article "Evidence of Alteration in the Zapruder Film": https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YOK_7uLe49zgXADGQxkIH1dmaEcpyaWd/view?usp=drive_link.

Ffs, just how many time are you going to misrepresent my graphics, the frame that YOU claim is Summers' left leg being "bent noticeably backward" is in fact his left leg splayed forward, it's called perspective, and here's frame Z357 showing exactly what I've been saying, his left leg is pointing towards the camera and his left shoe is partially obscuring his right shin.



At NO point that Summers' is being seen in Zapruder, has Summers left leg "bent noticeably backward".
I made this stabilized GIF which is technically way beyond what you can produce or even understand, clearly shows at all times Summers' left leg always pointing towards Zapruder's camera and his legs, arms, and feet are in different positions because he's falling to the ground, your continued amateur efforts to analyze absolutely anything in the visual record constantly defies belief!
Btw if you look closely at the last frame before Summers' meets the socket area, after his frontal splaying left leg is being brought towards his body, the resulting momentum lifts his left knee and his his lower left leg springs slightly forward and specifically his left shoe is kicking forward. Which is the last nail in the coffin and only further destroys your absurd original observation. Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen and Girls and Boys, but here with this soul destroying fact, I rest my case.



P.S. if as you claim, this is yet another film segment that has had frames removed, how come Altgen's backwards walk and the constantly moving Limo show no signs of being altered? In other words how did they specifically isolate Summers' movement and most importantly why would the evil overseeing "they" feel the need to separate Summer's natural appearing movements from events occurring all around him?

P.S.S. And one last consideration to ponder, some of the exact same Summers' frames that we have now, were published in LIFE magazine a week later and allowing for acquiring, organizing, printing and distribution only leaves a precious few days for your alteration to occur, so how long do you honestly believe that it took for this massive deception to take place?





JohnM

[Michael T. Griffith]

Uh-oh, here we go again.

Like your bizarre responses above, in regards to Zapruder alteration, where you keep using people who are completely unqualified to discuss film alteration, here you quote a guy who seems to be good at taking X-Rays(Big Deal) and he's obviously discussing a topic which is way beyond his paygrade, "Wound Ballistics" and then you disturbingly wonder why he's rarely discussed, well, Duh!

Yet, you are the one who constantly ignores Experts who are actually qualified and are real life Scholars in their chosen fields? Go figure??

Dr. Alfred G. Olivier, who you like to dismiss, is the Chief of the Wound Ballistics Branch and performed practical recreations of Kennedy's head wound, why don't you quote this guy? Oh that's right you have a vested interest in supporting anything but.

Dr. Alfred G. Olivier while using human skulls recreated the shot into the back of Kennedy's head and guess what "Einstein", the bullet separated into two pieces and closely resembled the recovered bullet fragments recovered from the Presidential Limo. I bet your guy who was seemingly good at taking X-Rays didn't do this experiment but instead postulated his dumb dumdum bullet theory without considering the entirety of the physical evidence.

Mr. SPECTER. Did you formulate any other conclusions or opinions based on the tests on firing at the skull?
Dr. OLIVIER. Well, let's see. We found that this bullet could do exactly--could make the type of wound that the President received.
Also, that the recovered fragments were very similar to the ones recovered on the front seat and on the floor of the car.
This, to me, indicates that those fragments did come from the bullet that wounded the President in the head.
Mr. SPECTER. And how do the two major fragments in 857 compare, then, with the fragments heretofore identified as 567 and 569?
Dr. OLIVIER. They are quite similar.

1. The 2 larger test bullet fragments recovered by Dr. Oliver.

2. The 2 larger bullet fragments recovered from Kennedy's Limo

And contrary to the belief of a hardcore conspiracy theorist, Dr. Oliver showed that the bullet after penetrating a human skull broke up into a shower of smaller lead fragments.

Mr. SPECTER. And under what circumstances have you viewed those before, please?
Dr. OLIVIER. There were, the two larger fragments were recovered outside of the skull in the cotton waste we were using to catch the fragments without deforming them. There are some smaller fragments in here that were obtained from the gelatin within the cranial cavity after the experiment. We melted the gelatin out and recovered the smallest fragments from within the cranial cavity.
-------snip------
Mr. SPECTER. I now hand you a photograph marked Commission Exhibit 859 and ask you what that depicts?
Dr. OLIVIER. These are the smaller fragments that have been labeled, also, Exhibit 857. This picture or some of the fragments labeled 857, these are the smaller fragments contained in the same box.

And just to show you how inadequate your research really is, here's Dr. John Lattimer who also did the same experiment and lo and behold his Carcano Bullet also broke up into two larger fragments.

So Griffith, instead of sweeping the very depths of the sewers in your search for unqualified anybody's that dispute the official findings of the many qualified Experts of the Warren Commission and the HSCA and etc. etc., perhaps you better start embracing these fine upstanding Pillars of Society who have the words TRUTH and Justice emblazoned as their middle names! JohnM

Howling Betsy!!!

Let's start with your comment that in Dr. Lattimer's test, one of the FMJ bullets broke up into "two larger fragments." I again ask, Can you read? How does this comment address the fact that the x-rays of the skulls from Lattimer's test show no fragments in the skulls? Did you not notice that Lattimer specified that the two fragments that you mention were recovered from outside the skull ("after passing through a skull")?! Do you even read the text in the images that you post before you post them?

I notice that you snipped and ignored the point that not one of the FMJ bullets in the Failure Analysis test broke up into numerous fragments. I might add, as I discuss in my article "Forensic Science and President Kennedy's Head Wounds," that the FMJ bullets in the HSCA's test likewise failed to behave like the ammo that hit JFK in the head. Side-view photos of the HSCA gelatin blocks showed that all of the FMJ bullets punched straight, relatively narrow channels through the gelatin, drastically different from the brain damage that JFK suffered. And I would again note that you still have not explained the fact that no FMJ bullet in the history of forensic science has deposited two bullet fragments on or above the outer table when penetrating a skull.

You realize that Dr. Russell Morgan was a member of the Clark Panel and that he was regarded as one of the best radiologists in the world at the time, right? He was the only radiologist on the panel. But, nah, according to you he had no business talking about what the x-rays showed about the kind of ammo that was used!

As for Dr. Olivier's testimony and his exhibits, do you have any clue how many scholars have examined Olivier's testimony and CE 857 and CE 859 and have noted the glaring holes in his claims? Any clue? And you didn't bother to read my linked article "Forensic Science and President Kennedy's Head Wounds" before you posted this howling nonsense, did you?

Did you ever ask yourself why Olivier showed fragments from only one of the 10 FMJ test shots into skulls? Now why do you suppose that was? What about the fragments from the FMJ bullets fired into the nine other skulls? Hey?

Did you notice that they had to go "off the record" after Specter asked Olivier if all the fragments in CE 859 were in CE 857 and after Olivier said they were "supposed to be"? Let's read:

---------------------------------------------
Mr. Specter. Are all of the fragments on 859 contained within 857?
Dr. Olivier. They are supposed to be, photographed and placed in the box. If they dropped out they are supposed to be all there.
(Discussion off the record.)
(5 H 88)
---------------------------------------------

Now, gee, why did they have to go off the record after Olivier gave that answer? Humm? Because there's an obvious difference between the number of fragments seen in CE 857 and the number seen in CE 859? CE 859 shows more fragments than are seen in CE 857.

Yet, even CE 859 shows at least 40% fewer fragments than the autopsy skull x-rays show. The skull x-rays show about 40 tiny fragments just in the right frontal region alone--the "snowstorm" of tiny metal fragments that are seen on the unenhanced skull x-rays. To the viewer's left of this fragment cloud we see a number of other fragments that are larger in size than the cloud fragments and that extend upward to a point at least 1 inch from the cowlick site. Not one of the bullets in Olivier's test deposited a "snowstorm" of tiny fragments in the right frontal region and then a trail of fragments that ranged upward from that fragment cloud. Not a single one.

In addition, there are at least two fragments on the back of the skull in the autopsy skull x-rays, one in the outer table and another between the galea and the outer table. Not a single one of the bullets in the WC's test deposited fragments on or above the outer table. Not a single one.

Just a reminder: I notice that you snipped and ignored the point that not one of the FMJ bullets in the Failure Analysis test broke up into numerous fragments. I might add, as I discuss in my article "Forensic Science and President Kennedy's Head Wounds," that the FMJ bullets in the HSCA's test likewise failed to behave like the ammo that hit JFK in the head. Side-view photos of the HSCA gelatin blocks showed that all of the FMJ bullets punched straight, relatively narrow channels through the gelatin, drastically different from the brain damage that JFK suffered. And I would again note that you still have not explained the fact that no FMJ bullet in the history of forensic science has deposited two bullet fragments on or above the outer table when penetrating a skull.

As many scholars have noted, Olivier misrepresented his own test data and failed to mention serious contradictions between the wounds in the test skulls and JFK's head wounds. Physicist Howard Roffman noted one of the contradictions:

---------------------------------------------
Ten skulls were fired upon with "Oswald's" rifle under conditions duplicating only those under which Oswald allegedly fired. Only one skull was subsequently shown to the Commission; the bullet that struck it "blew out the right side of the reconstructed skull in a manner very similar to the head wound of the President" (R87). This persuaded the "expert" to conclude--contrary to his beliefs nurtured by prior experience--"that the type of head wounds that the President received could be done by this type of bullet" (R87).

The pictures of this test exhibit printed by the Commission show a gelatin-filled skull with the bone of the entire right side missing (17H854). However, the gelatin underlying this missing bone is completely intact, so utterly undisturbed that it still bears the various minute impressions of the skull that once covered it. This gelatin was supposed to simulate the tissues within the skull (5H87). Yet those tissues, according to the autopsy report, were "lacerated," "disrupted," and "extensively lacerated" (16H981, 983). Obviously, even upon its entering the bony vault of the skull, the test bullet was not capable of producing the extensive damage attributed to it by the Commission. (Presumed Guilty, Associated University Press, 1975, pp. 112-113)
---------------------------------------------

Dr. Don Thomas, a former research scientist for the U.S. Government:

---------------------------------------------
The results also demonstrate another problematic aspect of both Lattimer's and Olivier's experimental results. Contrary to the statements of both men, neither set of experiments resulted in skull damage that resembled Kennedy's head wound. The top right side of Kennedy's cranium was burst open, but the President's face was intact. In Lattimer's and Olivier's skulls, parts of the face were destroyed (Fig. 10.3), which is only to be expected from bullets entering the back of the head. (Hear No Evil, MFF Press, 2010, p. 364)
---------------------------------------------

Just a reminder: I notice that you snipped and ignored the point that not one of the FMJ bullets in the Failure Analysis test broke up into numerous fragments. I might add, as I discuss in my article "Forensic Science and President Kennedy's Head Wounds," that the FMJ bullets in the HSCA's test likewise failed to behave like the ammo that hit JFK in the head. Side-view photos of the HSCA gelatin blocks showed that all of the FMJ bullets punched straight, relatively narrow channels through the gelatin, drastically different from the brain damage that JFK suffered. And I would again note that you still have not explained the fact that no FMJ bullet in the history of forensic science has deposited two bullet fragments on or above the outer table when penetrating a skull.

Finally, I see that you are still droning on with your denial of Malcolm Summers' impossibly fast movements and with your self-evidently bogus claim that the stark contradictions between Jackie's and Hill's Nix-Zapruder positions and locations are merely an optical illusion caused by drastically different camera angles.

Amazingly, you continue to ignore the plain language of my points about Summers' movements and to ignore the obvious differences between the positions of his left foreleg that occur in just 1/18th/second and the differences in the positions of his left foreleg, left arm, and upper body that occur in just 1/6th/second.

I'll address your drivel about the supposedly drastically different Nix and Zapruder camera angles by asking you a simple question: If the Nix and Zapruder camera angles are drastically different, how do you explain the fact that the Nix and Zapruder frames show the respective rear tires, the respective sides of the rear bumper, and the respective sides of Jackie and Agent Hill? How can this be if the camera angles are drastically different?

[Mitch Todd]

Your reply is downright farcical. Holy cow, are you supposed to know something about the assassination? You make claims that rival the comical drivel that Jerry Organ regularly posts. Let's begin:

That is total nonsense. No, Riley's graphic most certainly does not show the cowlick entry site "twice as far forward as the HSCA did." What on Earth are you talking about? Riley puts it exactly where we see it in the HSCA's own wound diagram, right around 1 inch above the lambda and 3/4ths of an inch to the right of the sagittal suture.

Sheesh, can you not see the sagittal suture and the lambda in Riley's graphic? Where is the dot for the cowlick entry site in relation to those features? Huh? It's exactly where I just said it was, and that is exactly where the HSCA put it.

I mean, who are you people? A person would have to be almost blind not to see what I just described. Anyone can look at Riley's graphic and look at the HSCA's wound diagram and see that the cowlick entry point is in the exact same location in both. But you get on a public board and make the utterly bogus claim that Riley's dot for the site is "twice as far forward" as the HSCA's dot for the site.

What I said is exactly what Riley did, and it can be seen simply by inspecting his figure. Your appeals to the lambda's location are useless, since the lambda isn't visible in the TotH photos. Only the distance from the rear of the head to the wound is important here, because it's the only common reference point available in the photo.

Well, of course you have to say this. I take it you haven't read the Stringer interview transcript. On a few points, he said he could not recall with certainty, but not on this issue. So your bottom line is that he was another witness who was severely "mistaken," that his memory was so bad that he mistook a wound in the cowlick for a wound that was 4 inches farther down on the skull and near two fixed reference points. Yeah, okay.

Humm, well, the guy who supposedly took that picture said it was not a wound but just a spot of blood. And, well, the two pathologists who saw the wound in the scalp and then reflected the scalp and saw the wound in the underlying skull said there was no entry wound at the cowlick site. And when all three of the autopsy pathologists reviewed the autopsy materials for several hours in late 1966, they said they saw the EOP entry wound in several of the autopsy photos,

The "red spot" is concave. A spot of blood would not be. Also:

The BOH photos were shot to center on the "red spot."

There is a ruler placed right next to the "red spot."

The photos show that someone parted the hair away from the "red spot."

That is, everything about the BOH photos indicate that they were taken specifically to document the "red spot." They wouldn't have done that if it was just a "spot of blood."  I have the timeless reality captured in the photos themselves on my side. You only have the faded memories of a old man trying to remember something he saw 35 years before.   

as did Dr. Fred Hodges when he reviewed the autopsy materials in 1975. But, nah, never mind all that.

It's that Rockefeller Commission report that you can't quote in context, innit? In the RC interviews and testimony, Hodges agreed with Spitz, who placed the wound high.

So is this a tacit admission that Jerry Organ's silly claim that the scalp was not reflected is wrong?

Dream on, Sunshine

Yeah, uh-huh. Never mind that he saw and handled the wound in the skull bone and had pictures taken of the wound from the inside and the outside. Your argument requires us to believe that he couldn't tell the difference between a wound 4/10ths of an inch above the EOP in the occiput and a wound 1 inch above the lambda and above the lambdoid suture in the parietal bone.

In Finck's correspondence to Blumberg, he reiterates the autopsy report's measurements for the back wound, noting that those were his measurements. But when it came to the BOH wound, he notably omitted the autopsy report's description of the wound location, opting instead for much more generalized, non specific language. This should tell you that he either didn't agree with the location in the AR or he wasn't confident enough in his own observations to  be more specific. The autopsy report's own description of the wound location, 2.5 cm to the right and slightly above the EOP, should tell you right off the bat that they didn't actually bother to measure it's location, or make much note of it's position. Otherwise, the AR would be much more specific on that matter and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

The Blumberg letters are important in that this is the only point where Finck does not have to defend the autopsy report in public, and he has the luxury of allowing himself to freely relate his experience.

You will, do doubt, bring up that Finck put the wound in what he called the "occipital bone" and the "occipital region." But "occiput" only means "the back part of the head or skull" (per Mirriam-Webster), and some point of "occipital bone" or "occipital region" may not actually lie within the bone called the occipital bone. You can, of course, claim that Finck would have seen the suture lines dividing the different cranial bones; however, the surface of the skull is covered by adhering soft tissue like the periosteum, the loose areolar tissue and the various interior membranes which obscure the exact surface of the bone and hide the sutures as any meaningful guidepost.

It is amazing to see how current-day WC apologists have to trash the autopsy doctors and accuse them of making mind-boggling blunders, whereas for many years after the assassination WC apologists held up the autopsy doctors as experts whose word only paranoid conspiracy theorists would dare challenge.

HB&F have been getting pelted hard from both sides of the aisle since the 60's, and definitely since the 70's, so I'm not sure what you're actually talking about here.

And, BTW, the entire skull was never "pulled apart." In fact, several of the medical techs noted that they did not even need to do a skull cap because of the extensive nature of the head wound.

I never actually claimed that the entire skull was pulled apart, so I'm also not sure what you're talking about. I wonder if you know what you're talking about at this point.
 

Howling Betsy! LOL! You have no clue what you are talking about. Did you miss the part that there is no path/cavitation that connects the cortical and subcortical damage? Did you somehow miss this crucial point? How in the world could you, with a straight face, compare this to paper that continues to tear far from where the tear starts? That is the exact opposite of the cortical and subcortical damage that we're talking about.

The only hallucinating going on here is your farcical analogy of a paper tear. Do you just not understand what we're talking about here? We're talking about two wound paths in the brain, one high and one low, one cortical and one subcortical, that have no connection between them whatsoever--not even a few tiny fragments indicating connection, no cavitation between them, no nothing. To all but brainwashed WC apologists, this screams two bullets.

Again, obviously, the subcortical damage could not have been caused by a cowlick-site bullet because it is far below the cowlick site and because there is no path/cavitation that connects it to the cowlick site and no path/cavitation that connects it with the much higher cortical damage.

When M L Fackler was researching the effects of 5.56x45 bullets breaking up after impact, he found that the original M193 bullets created a temporary cavity about 20-25cm across and a permanent cavity about 15-20cm wide. An adult male cranium is about 14cm, max, inside-to-inside along the sagittal axis. An M193 bullet has about 1/3 the mass and 70% of the muzzle energy of a 6.5mm Carcano round. Areas of the brain not directly affected by the tearing in the creation of the main wound channel are still subject to being crushed, torqued, and smashed when they were hammered into the inside of the skull by intense cavitation forces, causing blunt force trauma, including lacerations. There should be no question, then, that a 6.5mm would cause damage many centimeters from the bullet path. Period.

Dr. Riley, a recognized and respected neuroanatomist, explained this impossibility in some detail:
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However, there is an even more compelling reason to reject the Panel's [the HSCA medical panel’s] conclusions. The Panel describes the subcortical damage adequately (see previous description) but provides no analysis or explanation of how such wounds could be produced. If a bullet entered where the Panel places the entrance wound, it is anatomically impossible to produce the subcortical wounds. A description of the trajectory necessary to produce the subcortical wounds borders on parody. . . .

Even the most superficial examination of the evidence demonstrates that the high entrance wound [the cowlick site] cannot account for all of the posterior subcortical damage, yet the Panel provides no explanation or analysis of the subcortical wounds. It is difficult to understand how a panel of competent forensic pathologists could have ignored the subcortical damage in their report.

The occipital entrance wound is consistent with the subcortical wounds. As described previously, the subcortical damage requires an entrance and exit wound in the occipital bone and the right supraorbital ridge due to the linear nature of the damage. . . .

However, this entrance site and trajectory cannot account for the cortical damage and cannot be the wound inflicted at frames 312/313 of the Zapruder film.

First, there is no evidence of continuity between the cortical and subcortical wounds. There is no evidence of significant fragmentation along the subcortical trajectory and no anatomical or radiographic evidence of a path from the subcortical trajectory and the damaged cortex. In addition, as described previously, the distribution of fragments in the cortex is superficial, without evidence of subcortical penetration, and the pattern of distribution is inconsistent with a subcortical penetration. . . .

An entrance wound located in the posteromedial parietal area [the cowlick site], as determined by the HSCA Forensics Panel, may account for the cortical damage but cannot account for the subcortical damage. An entrance wound in the occipital region, as determined by the autopsy prosectors, may account for the subcortical damage but cannot account for the dorsolateral cortical damage. The cortical and subcortical wounds are anatomically distinct and could not have been produced by a single bullet. The fundamental conclusion is inescapable: John Kennedy's head wounds could not have been caused by one bullet. (“The Head Wounds of John F. Kennedy: One Bullet Cannot Account for the Injuries,” The Third Decade, 2004, available at http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/R Disk/Riley Joe/Item 04.pdf)
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You might also read Dr. David Mantik's research on this issue. There's a reason that the HSCA FPP experts, while noting the subcortical damage, made no effort to explain how in the world their cowlick bullet could have magically caused this damage.

And Dr Riley's recognized expertise in gunshot wounds is.....?

Ditto with Mantik.

You're kidding, right? Are you relatively new to the JFK case? Is that the problem here? Why do you suppose the HSCA FPP forensic experts did not cite a single known case of an FMJ bullet depositing a fragment (much less two) from its cross section on the outer table? And they knew this was a problem. They said it was "rare" for FMJ bullets to behave in this way, yet, revealingly, they did not cite a single example to substantiate that this was even physically possible.

We now know that the Clark Panel members believed the 6.5 mm object was a ricochet fragment. Even Dr. Fisher recognized that no FMJ bullet would "shear off" a fragment from its cross section onto the outer table of a skull. That is "shear" fiction.

Do we actually "know" this? Last I checked, this is what Menninger said Donohue said that Fisher said it. Did Fisher really say that, or did Donohue/Menninger just hear what they wanted to hear?

Do you know who Dr. Larry Sturdivan is? He is a wound ballistics expert and was the HSCA's wound ballistics consultant. I quote from a statement that Sturdivan wrote in 1998 on this issue:

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I’m not sure just what that 6.5 mm fragment is. One thing I’m sure it is not is a cross-section from the interior of a bullet. I have seen literally thousands of bullets, deformed and undeformed, after penetrating tissue and tissue simulants. Some were bent, some torn in two or more pieces, but to have a cross-section sheared out is physically impossible. That fragment has a lot of mystery associated with it. Some have said it was a piece of the jacket, sheared off by the bone and left on the outside of the skull. I’ve never seen a perfectly round piece of bullet jacket in any wound. Furthermore, the fragment seems to have great optical density thin-face [on the frontal X-ray] than it does edgewise [on the lateral X-rays]. . . . The only thing I can think is that it is an artifact. (David Mantik, JFK Assassination Paradoxes, p. 21)
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Next, I quote from Sturdivan's discussion on the 6.5 mm object and on Dr. Baden's attempt to use the object as evidence of the proposed cowlick entry site:

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It was interesting that it [Baden's description of the 6.5 mm object] was phrased that way, ducking the obvious fact that it cannot be a bullet fragment and is not that near to their [the HSCA medical panel's] proposed entry site. A fully jacketed WCC/MC bullet will deform as it penetrates bone, but it will not fragment on the outside of the skull.

When they break up in the target, real bullets break into irregular pieces of jacket, sometimes complete enough to contain pieces of the lead core, and a varying number of irregular chunks of lead core. It cannot break into circular slices, especially one with a circular bite out of the edge. (JFK Myths, pp. 184-185)
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Since I haven't claimed that any bullet broke up into "circular slices," this must be another of your diversions into the realm of Beside the Point.

LOL! No, I've never considered such a ridiculous, impossible scenario. There is no defect in the skull leading to the 6.5 mm object in the outer table, and there are two tough, fibrous layers of scalp that would have had to be penetrated to get into the outer table by a fragment from outside the skull (the galea and the periosteum). Only a fragment from outside the skull and coming at the skull perpendicularly and at a high velocity could have penetrated the galea and the periosteum and then embedded itself in the outer table. The idea that a fragment exiting with the material allegedly blown through the top of the head could have done this is beyond absurd.

You are the first person who has ever floated this impossible scenario to explain the 6.5 mm object. Congratulations.

So, instead of actually bothering to come up with a single argument against what I proposed, you just hide behind flatulent dollops of empty attempts at ridicule. Also, there is no good reason to believe that the fragment penetrated into the inner table; from the x-rays we have, it could simply be lying against the outer table without having poked into it at all.

This is your answer to the point that not one of the FMJ bullets in the WC and Biophysics Lab wound ballistics tests deposited a fragment on the outer table of the skull?! Phew! You bet I have no idea. No, I bet you have no idea. I bet you have no clue in Kentucky what you're talking about. According to your side's best wound ballistics expert, Dr. Sturdivan, yes, the failure of an FMJ bullet to deposit in the outer table would be expected in all cases--every single time, without fail.

It is incredible that in 2023 you are arguing that an FMJ bullet could have deposited a fragment in the outer table. You are a good two decades behind the information curve. 

I didn't claim that any fragment was "deposited" in either the outer or inner tables. It's like you keep arguing in your head with some alternate version of yourself instead of dealing with what I've said.

MT: Exactly how many actual forensic experts who have seen the autopsy materials take issue with a fragment being in that position? Out of how many forensic experts who've seen the autopsy materials?

HUH? You didn't read or didn't understand the second sentence in my statement, did you? Let me repeat it: "The only plausible answer to this problem is that the extensive cracking of the skull in the back of the head was caused by an exiting bullet that struck the head in the front." Did you miss that sentence? It came right after the point that not one of the Biophysics Lab skulls showed extensive fracturing from the entry holes.

That sentence is a great example of you begging the question. The rest of your reply is simply a lame attempt to avoid answering my question by changing the subject using as much whargrrrbl as you can muster.

I take it you are unaware that part of the EOP entry wound was contained in a late-arriving skull fragment? Dr. Boswell explained this fact in some detail. He told the HSCA FPP about this, but they ignored him. He repeated this crucial point to the ARRB, and, thankfully, the ARRB interviewer questioned him closely on this point and had him explain it in considerable detail. Although Humes and Finck, years later, denied that the EOP entry wound was not circumferential, i.e., they later denied that part of the wound was found in one of the late-arriving skull fragments--although they denied this years later, initially they both acknowledged that the EOP entry wound was not circumferential.

That's right. Boswell remembered something like that happening, but Humes and Finck didn't remember it that way. The rest is you trying to shove a proverbial square peg into a proverbial round hole, kinky lad you. For contemporaneous reference, The Sibert+O'Neill report, the autopsy report, and Finck's correspondence to Blumberg say that the late-arriving fragment completed the exit, not the entry (and put the entry at the rear of the cranium). BTW, you might want to consider that a bullet passing through the skull can result in partial cratering. Sometimes, you even get what's called a "keyhole", where there are two (roughly) half-craters, one facing inside and one facing outside. Each crater occupying it's own half of the circumference. And, again, Humes and Boswell had partially disassembled the remaining skull to remove the brain. Finck may not have seen the entire wound when it was pointed out to him.

This is clown material. Have I ever said that the high fragment trail was compatible with the EOP entry site? Huh? How many times in this forum have I pointed out that the high fragment trail is evidence that two bullets hit the skull? How many? Take a guess. 10? 20? At least. You are talking like you just started reading about the JFK case in the last few weeks.

If it's clown material, then it should be right up your alley, Bozo.

No, of course the high fragment trail is not compatible with the EOP site. Duh. Just Duh. That's why Humes said nothing about it in the autopsy report. As I have said many times, Humes knew there was no way he could associate the high fragment trail with the EOP entry wound. This is the same reason that Finck and Boswell stayed quiet about the high fragment trail. How can you not know that the high fragment trail has been cited by dozens of scholars as evidence of two bullets to the head for many years now?

The autopsy report really isn't very specific about the secondary characteristics shown in the x-rays, including the location of the minor fragments. I suspect that this is because Humes, Boswell and Finck no longer had access to the x-rays, and were relying on their memory, rather than some grand subversion. Their omission then becomes an empty canvas upon which the easily excitable can scrawl their own brightly-colored pictures in finger-paint.

Of these "dozen's of scholars" you mention, how many actually have any real demonstrated and accepted expertise in gunshot wounds? How many are simply medical dilettantes, swimming unsupervised well out of their own specialties? How many are just wild-eyed dorks who have a conclusion they don't know how to prove, and simple bend reality to make their conjecture fit? I'll bet that the members of the first category numbers zero, or something very close to it. The rest are a dime a dozen.

I suspect that by now you are a bit embarrassed that you made this comment, after making so many erroneous claims and after showing such a poor knowledge of the medical evidence.

Oh, I'm nowhere near as embarrassed as you really ought to be, but just don't have the sense to.

And, you shouldn't use terms that you don't understand. "Begging the question"? Do you even know what that term actually means? Apparently not, since not one of the problems I cited with the cowlick entry site involves "begging the question."

It means to assume the conclusion to be argued as a given, a priori. You do it every time you assert something beginning "obviously...."  without providing any other argument or evidence. Like Robert Harris, you do that quite a bit.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Before I respond to your jaw-dropping arguments, I will note that your reply suggests that you are either something of a newcomer to the case or that you have read few of the primary sources and few sources that do not support the lone-gunman position.

MG: That is total nonsense. No, Riley's graphic most certainly does not show the cowlick entry site "twice as far forward as the HSCA did." What on Earth are you talking about? Riley puts it exactly where we see it in the HSCA's own wound diagram, right around 1 inch above the lambda and 3/4ths of an inch to the right of the sagittal suture.

Sheesh, can you not see the sagittal suture and the lambda in Riley's graphic? Where is the dot for the cowlick entry site in relation to those features? Huh? It's exactly where I just said it was, and that is exactly where the HSCA put it.

I mean, who are you people? A person would have to be almost blind not to see what I just described. Anyone can look at Riley's graphic and look at the HSCA's wound diagram and see that the cowlick entry point is in the exact same location in both. But you get on a public board and make the utterly bogus claim that Riley's dot for the site is "twice as far forward" as the HSCA's dot for the site.

What I said is exactly what Riley did, and it can be seen simply by inspecting his figure. Your appeals to the lambda's location are useless, since the lambda isn't visible in the TotH photos. Only the distance from the rear of the head to the wound is important here, because it's the only common reference point available in the photo.

LOL! Uh, so just never mind that Riley included the lambda, the lambdoid suture, and the sagittal suture in his diagram and that he put the cowlick site right around 1 inch above the lambda and 0.75 inches to the right of the sagittal suture?! Just never mind that? Is this whacky reasoning how you rationalize your absurd claim that Riley put the cowlick site "twice as far forward as the HSCA did"? He did no such thing, and the fact that you won't admit this shows you're not to be taken seriously.

Of course the lambda and the sagittal suture are not visible in the top-of-head photos! Sheesh! Duh! But Riley included those features in his diagram to pinpoint the location of the cowlick site, and he put it exactly where the HSCA did, as anyone with two eyes can see. Plus, when the autopsy doctors reflected the scalp, they would have seen those landmarks.

The "red spot" is concave. A spot of blood would not be.

When Dr. Douglas Ubelaker, a forensic anthropologist, examined the autopsy photos for the ARRB, he reached a different conclusion:

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On the photographs showing the back of the head (#s 15 16 42 and 43) it was observed that the red spot in the upper part of the photo near the end of the ruler does not really look like a wound. The red spot looks like a spot of blood--it could be a wound but probably isn't. The white spot which is much lower in the picture near the hairline could be a flesh wound and is much more likely to be a flesh wound than the red spot higher in the photograph. (Meeting Report: Independent Review of JFK Autopsy X-Rays and Photographs By Outside Consultant--Forensic Anthropologist, ARRB, 1/26/96, p. 1)
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And if you're still going to cling to the debunked cowlick site (the red spot), then you need to explain

-- how this site can explain the two bullet fragments that are 1 cm below it (one in the outer table and the other between the outer table and the galea).

-- how this site could be associated with the high fragment trail given that this trail starts/ends nowhere near the site, is nearly 2 inches above it, and ranges downward from its left/rearward end.

Also: The BOH photos were shot to center on the "red spot." There is a ruler placed right next to the "red spot." The photos show that someone parted the hair away from the "red spot."

That is, everything about the BOH photos indicate that they were taken specifically to document the "red spot." They wouldn't have done that if it was just a "spot of blood."

Oh my goodness. I'll start by repeating the fact, which you ignored, that the autopsy photographer who took this photo, John Stringer, said that the red spot was not the entry wound and that the photo was not taken to show the entry wound.

Also, I take it you haven't read Humes and Boswell's HSCA testimony, have you? Humes flatly rejected the suggestion that the ruler was placed to be centered on the red spot and that the red spot was therefore the entry wound. After noting that the entry wound was lower on the skull, he explained that the ruler was placed there simply to establish scale and not to identify the red spot as the entry wound:

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Dr PETTY Then this is the entrance wound The one down by the margin of the hair in the back.
Dr HUMES Yes, sir.
Dr PETTY Then this ruler that is held in the photograph is simply to establish a scale and no more.
Dr HUMES Exactly.
Dr PETTY It is not intended to represent the ruler starting for something.
Dr HUMES No way no way. (1 HSCA 246)
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A few minutes later, in further commentary on the main back-of-head photo, Humes noted that they reflected scalp at the cowlick site and that there was no wound there:

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I can assure you that as we reflected the scalp to get to this point there was no defect corresponding to this in the skull at any point I don't know what that is It could be to me clotted blood I don't I just don't know what it is but it certainly was not any wound of entrance. (1 HSCA 254)
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And I take it that you're unaware that when the HSCA FPP showed Finck the main back-of-head photo, he questioned the photo's origin--indeed, he asked how the photo had been determined to have been taken at the autopsy. Gee, now why did he do that?

I have the timeless reality captured in the photos themselves on my side. You only have the faded memories of a old man trying to remember something he saw 35 years before.

You are kidding yourself. You have autopsy photos that contradict each other and that drastically contradict the skull x-rays. When the autopsy forensic pathologist was shown the main back-of-head photo, he disputed its origin and insisted that it did not show the entry wound that he personally examined and that he had had photographed from both sides.

"35 years before"? The autopsy report was written hours after the autopsy. Finck wrote his report to Blumberg barely a year after the autopsy. The autopsy doctors reviewed the autopsy photos and x-rays in late 1966 and reported that they confirmed the autopsy report. The autopsy doctors testified before the HSCA in 1978, 15 years after the autopsy.

Every single autopsy witness who has commented on the location of the rear head entry wound has said it was near the EOP and the hairline.

I might add that 35 years ago is not such a long period that no one can remember events that occurred at the time. 35 years ago, I was stationed at Hellenikon Air Force Base in Athens, Greece. I can still clearly remember all kinds of events and other things from my time there. I can still name many of the people I worked with. I can still remember the name of the street that I lived on. I can provide detailed accounts of many events that I experienced while I was there--what happened, who was there, when they happened, where they happened, etc., etc.

It's that Rockefeller Commission report that you can't quote in context, innit? In the RC interviews and testimony, Hodges agreed with Spitz, who placed the wound high.

Uh, no, it's not the Rockefeller Commission's report. Can you read? It's the report that Dr. Hodges submitted to the Rockefeller Commission (RC). The RC buried his report. It did not surface until years later.

And, no, Hodges did not agree with Spitz on this issue. Where do you get that? Did you suffer a flash of amnesia and forget about Hodges' report when you wrote this?

FYI, the RC medical panel itself did not comment on the location of the rear head entry wound. The RC medical panel was asked only to determine "whether the movements of the President's head and body following the fatal shot are consistent with the President being struck from (a) the rear, (b) the right front, or (c) both the rear and the right front" (RC report, p. 261). Thus, the panel did not reach or issue a formal conclusion regarding the wound's location.

I might add that Dr. Hodges was the only radiologist on the RC's medical panel.

MG: So is this a tacit admission that Jerry Organ's silly claim that the scalp was not reflected is wrong?

Dream on, Sunshine

Yeah, I should have known better than to think that for once you were actually dealing credibly with the evidence. My bad.

So, tell me, where do you get this silly claim that the scalp was not reflected? Where does Jerry Organ get it? Reflection of the scalp in an autopsy involving a headshot is basic, standard procedure. The HSCA FPP did not deny that the autopsy doctors reflected the scalp. The autopsy report says the scalp was reflected. The autopsy doctors referred to their reflecting of the scalp in their WC testimony, HSCA testimony, and ARRB testimony. The chief autopsy photographer, John Stringer, said the scalp was reflected. And, autopsy photo F8 is labeled "Missile Wound of Entrance in Posterior Skull, Following Reflection of Scalp."

So where in the world do you get this nonsense that the autopsy pathologists did not reflect the scalp? You don't want to admit that they reflected the scalp because you know this makes it impossible to believe that they "mislocated" the rear head entry wound by 4 inches, that they mistook a wound above the lambda for a wound slightly above the EOP.

In Finck's correspondence to Blumberg, he reiterates the autopsy report's measurements for the back wound, noting that those were his measurements. But when it came to the BOH wound, he notably omitted the autopsy report's description of the wound location, opting instead for much more generalized, non specific language. This should tell you that he either didn't agree with the location in the AR or he wasn't confident enough in his own observations to  be more specific. The autopsy report's own description of the wound location, 2.5 cm to the right and slightly above the EOP, should tell you right off the bat that they didn't actually bother to measure it's location, or make much note of it's position. Otherwise, the AR would be much more specific on that matter and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

The Blumberg letters are important in that this is the only point where Finck does not have to defend the autopsy report in public, and he has the luxury of allowing himself to freely relate his experience.

You will, do doubt, bring up that Finck put the wound in what he called the "occipital bone" and the "occipital region." But "occiput" only means "the back part of the head or skull" (per Mirriam-Webster), and some point of "occipital bone" or "occipital region" may not actually lie within the bone called the occipital bone. You can, of course, claim that Finck would have seen the suture lines dividing the different cranial bones; however, the surface of the skull is covered by adhering soft tissue like the periosteum, the loose areolar tissue and the various interior membranes which obscure the exact surface of the bone and hide the sutures as any meaningful guidepost.

LOL! What a load of hogwash. So according to you, the terms "occipital region" and "occipital bone" may refer to an area outside the occiput! Go to any medical dictionary and you'll discover that those terms always and only refer to bone in the occiput and to scalp above the occiput. Finck would have never used those terms to describe damage that was not in the occiput. If the wound had been in the parietal bone, he, of all people, would have specified this--he was known for being a stickler for exactitude and precision.

Finck not only told Blumberg that he "found a through-and-through wound of the occipital bone" but that he based his conclusion about the direction of the bullet on the "pattern of the occipital bone perforation."

When Finck was asked about the cowlick site during the Clay Shaw trial in 1969, he adamantly rejected it:

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I saw that wound of entry in the back of the head at approximately 1 inch or 25 millimeters to the right and slightly above the external occipital protuberance, and it was definitely not 4 inches or 100 millimeters above it. (Clay Shaw trial transcript, 2/26/69, p. 23, HSCA record number 180-10097-10185)
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When Finck appeared before the HSCA FPP, he specified that by "slightly above" he meant that the wound was right around 1 cm or 0.39 inches above the EOP.

MG: It is amazing to see how current-day WC apologists have to trash the autopsy doctors and accuse them of making mind-boggling blunders, whereas for many years after the assassination WC apologists held up the autopsy doctors as experts whose word only paranoid conspiracy theorists would dare challenge.

HB&F have been getting pelted hard from both sides of the aisle since the 60's, and definitely since the 70's, so I'm not sure what you're actually talking about here.

Really? You're really "not sure" what I'm "actually talking about here"? I find that hard to believe, unless you are truly that poorly read on the case.

Anyway, let me spell it out for you: You and many other WC apologists claim that Humes, Boswell, and Finck made the mind-boggling blunder of mislocating the rear head entry wound by a whopping 4 inches, even though they had the EOP and the hairline as reference points. Given that the back of the head is only about 7 inches in height, and given that the pathologists reflected the scalp and would have had the lambda and lambdoid suture as additional reference points, this would have been an astonishing, incomprehensible error, an error that even a first-year medical student would not make.

I should add that not all WC apologists make this absurd argument. Some WC apologists, such as Dr. Larry Sturdivan, reject the cowlick site.

Virtually all WC apologists (at least all the ones I've read, and I've read dozens) argue that Humes, Boswell, and Finck committed the equally astounding gaffe of mistaking the high fragment trail for a trail (1) that was at least 2 inches lower, (2) that ranged upward instead of downward, and (3) that began near the EOP instead of above the cowlick site. You guys have to make this argument because the existing autopsy x-rays do not show the low fragment trail described in the autopsy report.

Conspiracy theorists have criticized the autopsy doctors on several points, but no conspiracy theorist in the last 25 years has accused them of committing those two surreal blunders.

I never actually claimed that the entire skull was pulled apart, so I'm also not sure what you're talking about. I wonder if you know what you're talking about at this point.

Right. You're "not sure" what I'm talking again. Okay. Go back and read our previous exchanges.
 

When M L Fackler was researching the effects of 5.56x45 bullets breaking up after impact, he found that the original M193 bullets created a temporary cavity about 20-25cm across and a permanent cavity about 15-20cm wide. An adult male cranium is about 14cm, max, inside-to-inside along the sagittal axis. An M193 bullet has about 1/3 the mass and 70% of the muzzle energy of a 6.5mm Carcano round. Areas of the brain not directly affected by the tearing in the creation of the main wound channel are still subject to being crushed, torqued, and smashed when they were hammered into the inside of the skull by intense cavitation forces, causing blunt force trauma, including lacerations. There should be no question, then, that a 6.5mm would cause damage many centimeters from the bullet path. Period.

So you've ditched your farcical paper-tear explanation and are now repeating Jerry Organ's jostled-brain theory. Again, why do you suppose that neither the Clark Panel nor the HSCA FPP floated this theory to explain the subcortical damage? And, again, why do you suppose they did not even try to explain the subcortical damage?

Moreover, Fackler never claimed that any of those bullets created two separate, unconnected wound paths, and you know it. You are merely drawing an unfounded inference from his finding about cavitation forces. We both know that you cannot cite a single known case where cavitation forces created two separate, unconnected wound paths in a brain, much less a case where this occurred without causing substantial damage to other parts of the brain.

Furthermore, you seem to keep forgetting those troublesome, impossible autopsy brain photos, which show a virtually intact brain except for the right-side front-to-back laceration and with only 1-2 ounces of tissue missing. They also show an intact cerebellum that doesn't even exhibit any premortem bleeding, and they show no damage whatsoever to the rear area of the right occipital lobe, as the HSCA FPP noted. In addition, they show no damage to the entire left side of the brain, not even any cortical damage--not even to the top-left gyri and lobulus.

Conjure up a theory where cavitation forces could have created two separate and distinct wound paths, one much lower than the other, on the right side of the brain, while causing no damage to the cerebellum, no damage to the rear area of the right occipital lobe, and no damage to the entire left side of the brain. It's just nonsense.

And Dr Riley's recognized expertise in gunshot wounds is.....?

Ditto with Mantik.

We're not talking about expertise in gunshot wounds but expertise in neuroanatomy and in reading skull x-rays. This is why forensic pathologists will have a radiologist on hand during an autopsy, and why forensic pathologists will often consult with neurologists to describe brain damage.

Why do you suppose that no expert on your side has responded to Dr. Riley's research? Oh, that's right: You guys don't have an expert who has anything close to Dr. Riley's credentials in neuroscience. Nor do you have anyone who has Dr. Mantik's dual qualifications of being a physicist and a radiation oncologist. Doug Horne tried to get Dr. John Fitzpatrick to respond to Dr. Mantik's optical density analysis, and he declined to do so.

Do we actually "know" this? Last I checked, this is what Menninger said Donohue said that Fisher said it. Did Fisher really say that, or did Donohue/Menninger just hear what they wanted to hear?

Uh-hu. Yeah. Right. Menninger just "misunderstood" Donahue and/or Donahue lied about what Fisher told him. Of course. FYI, I knew Howard Donahue. Anyone who knew him can tell you that he was a straight shooter. Donahue carefully reviewed every page of Mortal Error before he allowed it to be published.

Since I haven't claimed that any bullet broke up into "circular slices," this must be another of your diversions into the realm of Beside the Point.

LOL! Uh, well, the problem is that, as Dr. Sturdivan, one of your own experts, noted, the 6.5 mm object would be a circular slice if it were a bullet fragment. Except for a small notch on its bottom-right area, it is circular. Did you just not understand Dr. Sturdivan's point? You realize that he's an ardent WC apologist, right? Right? Yet, to his credit, he's had the integrity to admit that the 6.5 mm object could not have come from an FMJ bullet and cannot be a bullet fragment.

MG: LOL! No, I've never considered such a ridiculous, impossible scenario. There is no defect in the skull leading to the 6.5 mm object in the outer table, and there are two tough, fibrous layers of scalp that would have had to be penetrated to get into the outer table by a fragment from outside the skull (the galea and the periosteum). Only a fragment from outside the skull and coming at the skull perpendicularly and at a high velocity could have penetrated the galea and the periosteum and then embedded itself in the outer table. The idea that a fragment exiting with the material allegedly blown through the top of the head could have done this is beyond absurd. You are the first person who has ever floated this impossible scenario to explain the 6.5 mm object. Congratulations.

So, instead of actually bothering to come up with a single argument against what I proposed

Uh, actually, I did. Can you read? I noted that there's no defect seen in the autopsy materials that leads to the 6.5 mm object.

, you just hide behind flatulent dollops of empty attempts at ridicule. Also, there is no good reason to believe that the fragment penetrated into the inner table; from the x-rays we have, it could simply be lying against the outer table without having poked into it at all.

What?! Who said anything about the "inner table"? The inner table is on the opposite side of the skull cap from the outer table. You don't even know what in the world you're talking about.

Anyway, the Clark Panel, the HSCA FPP, and a host of private experts from both sides have said that the 6.5 mm object as seen on the x-rays is in the outer table. But according to you they're all wrong and the object could be "lying against the outer table."

I didn't claim that any fragment was "deposited" in either the outer or inner tables. It's like you keep arguing in your head with some alternate version of yourself instead of dealing with what I've said.

You said that the 6.5 mm object could be a fragment that exited the skull, then caught the edge of the intact scalp at the rear of the wound, and then got trapped against the outer table when this supposed scalp flap fell back down. In short, you said it was deposited by hitting an alleged scalp flap and then getting trapped against the outer table when the scalp flap fell back onto the skull. Let me quote what you said:

Quote from: Mitch Todd on December 23, 2023, 12:39:43 AM
Also, have you ever considered that the fragment may have originated among the material being ejected through the top of the head, but caught the edge of the intact scalp at the rear of the wound (which would also have been liable to be pulled away from the underlying skull from the explosive cavitational forces acting at that instant) and been caught between the scalp and skull when the rear scalp fell back to the skull?

Now let me repeat and then expand on why your theory is ludicrous: One, there is no wound leading to the 6.5 mm object from any direction, whether horizontal or vertical. Two, multiple sets of OD measurements have proved beyond any doubt that the 6.5 mm object is not metallic (but its image was superimposed over a smaller genuine fragment, which is visible on the lateral x-rays). Three, your own side's best wound ballistics expert, Dr. Sturdivan, has admitted that the object could not be a bullet fragment (because it has no partner image on the lateral x-rays). Four, it boggles the mind to imagine how a bullet fragment ejected from the alleged exit wound above the right ear could have magically hit an alleged scalp flap that was 1 cm below the cowlick site. Five, there is no evidence of detached scalp at the cowlick site or 1 cm below the cowlick site.

That sentence is a great example of you begging the question. The rest of your reply is simply a lame attempt to avoid answering my question by changing the subject using as much whargrrrbl as you can muster.

I think you're describing your answer, not mine. You ignored everything I'd said before that sentence and then acted like I was avoiding your question. To cut through your smokescreen, I'll pose two simple questions:

One, can you name a single forensic or wound ballistics expert who has said that an FMJ missile can deposit a fragment, much less two fragments, from its cross-section on or in the outer table of the skull as it enters the skull? (Here's a hint: Dr. Sturdivan has stated this is impossible.)

Two, can you name a single case in known of history of forensic science where an FMJ bullet behaved in this manner?

That's right. Boswell remembered something like that happening, but Humes and Finck didn't remember it that way. The rest is you trying to shove a proverbial square peg into a proverbial round hole, kinky lad you. For contemporaneous reference, The Sibert+O'Neill report, the autopsy report, and Finck's correspondence to Blumberg say that the late-arriving fragment completed the exit, not the entry (and put the entry at the rear of the cranium). BTW, you might want to consider that a bullet passing through the skull can result in partial cratering. Sometimes, you even get what's called a "keyhole", where there are two (roughly) half-craters, one facing inside and one facing outside. Each crater occupying it's own half of the circumference. And, again, Humes and Boswell had partially disassembled the remaining skull to remove the brain. Finck may not have seen the entire wound when it was pointed out to him.

You're once again decades behind the information curve. Although Humes and Finck later contradicted Boswell's description, they did not initially do so but indicated they agreed with it.

And you know that Dr. Ebersole revealed to the HSCA that one of the large late-arriving skull fragments was occipital bone, right? Right? You know this, right?

If it's clown material, then it should be right up your alley, Bozo.

Oh, wow. "Bozo"? Are we in high school?

The autopsy report really isn't very specific about the secondary characteristics shown in the x-rays, including the location of the minor fragments. I suspect that this is because Humes, Boswell and Finck no longer had access to the x-rays, and were relying on their memory, rather than some grand subversion. Their omission then becomes an empty canvas upon which the easily excitable can scrawl their own brightly-colored pictures in finger-paint.

This is another howler. I guess you were trying to deflect from your Captain Obvious comment that, gee, the high fragment trail is incompatible with the EOP site. Are you just hoping that no one who reads your reply will have read or will read the autopsy report? Or has it been a long time since you read the autopsy report?

The autopsy report specifically describes a fragment trail that begins near the EOP and ends at a point just above the right orbit. Now, why would the autopsy doctors have described this trail but not the obvious high fragment trail? The high fragment trail is at least 2 inches above the highest point of the low fragment trail--moreover, the high fragment trail goes downward from its left/rearward end, whereas the low fragment trail is described as going upward from its left/rearward end.

And, BTW, the high fragment trail is not really compatible with the cowlick site either, given that it's nearly 2 inches above the site, given that it does not start/end anywhere near the site, and given that it ranges downward from its left/rearward end.

MG: No, of course the high fragment trail is not compatible with the EOP site. Duh. Just Duh. That's why Humes said nothing about it in the autopsy report. As I have said many times, Humes knew there was no way he could associate the high fragment trail with the EOP entry wound. This is the same reason that Finck and Boswell stayed quiet about the high fragment trail. How can you not know that the high fragment trail has been cited by dozens of scholars as evidence of two bullets to the head for many years now?

Of these "dozen's of scholars" you mention, how many actually have any real demonstrated and accepted expertise in gunshot wounds? How many are simply medical dilettantes, swimming unsupervised well out of their own specialties? How many are just wild-eyed dorks who have a conclusion they don't know how to prove, and simple bend reality to make their conjecture fit? I'll bet that the members of the first category numbers zero, or something very close to it. The rest are a dime a dozen.

Wow. Really? Again, you don't have to be an expert in gunshot wounds to read x-rays and to identify damage and wound paths, but you do have to have expertise in reading x-rays. And if you're going to do optical density analysis, it greatly helps if you have a background in physics and radiation oncology (especially if you use optical density measurements as part of your job). Nor do you need to have expertise in gunshot wounds to analyze autopsy photos to determine brain, scalp, and skull damage, but you do have to have expertise in neuroscience to fully describe that damage.

Now theorizing about the type of bullet that caused the damage, the bullet's velocity, the bullet's behavior in the skull, etc., does require expertise in wound ballistics.

This being said, how about Dr. Roger McCarthy, a wound ballistics expert? How about Dr. Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist and a former president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences? How about Dr. Doug DeSalles, who has conducted wound ballistics experiments? These experts have argued that two bullets hit JFK in the head.

IOW, you're going to trash any expert who doesn't agree with you, even though your side has uncritically gobbled up claims made by medical doctors and scientists who had no formal training in gunshot wounds (e.g., Lattimer [M.D.], Artwohl [M.D], Nalli [M.S. in Science Education and PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences], etc.).

Finally, just on a point of basic English, I didn't say "dozen's of scholars" but "dozens of scholars." In grade school, they teach youngsters that to make a word plural in English, you add an s, not an apostrophe and an s.

Oh, I'm nowhere near as embarrassed as you really ought to be, but just don't have the sense to.

It means to assume the conclusion to be argued as a given, a priori. You do it every time you assert something beginning "obviously...."  without providing any other argument or evidence. Like Robert Harris, you do that quite a bit.

Yeah. Uh-huh. See above.