Gary Mack and the about face !

[John Mytton]

Mytton continually ignores the actual evidence and instead relies on this stuff instead. Why does the actual evidence scare him so much?

HUH? How is the Xrays, Autopsy Photos, eyewitnesses, The Zapruder film not actual evidence?



JohnM

[Mitch Todd]

As we've said before, you can't just strip out one interview or account and run with it. You have to weigh all of the other evidence.

William Manchester said that he interviewed Dave Powers, John Hagan and the two Gawler brothers, owners of the funeral home, in 1964 for his book. Powers noted his activities that day (11/22/63) and they show that he and the other WH staff, e.g., Lawrence O'Brien, picked out the casket that JFK was to be buried in from Gawlers at about midnight. Then he, Hagan, Gawler, and, from Power's note, their "young cosmetician" - I believe it was Thomas Robinson - left in the hearse with it headed to Bethesda soon after.

Again, that was around midnight.

So, did Robinson leave the autopsy, return to the funeral home, and then return to Bethesda with the casket? Or was he never there before arriving with the mortician team around midnight? Or was Powers referring to someone else?

In DoaP, Powers and his notes only said that the casket was selected around midnight. The "young cosmetician" is Manchester's words, and would have come from Hagen (who Manchester interviewed) or either of the Gawlers that Manchester talked to. AFAIK, the Gawler's crew was Joe Gawler, Hagen, Stroble, Van Hoesen, and Robinson and no one else. None of them have ever to my knowledge said that there was anyone else. Also, Sibert and O'Neill listed Hagen, Robinson, Stroble, and Van Hoesen as the embalming team. Robinson, who told the ARRB that he rode with Hagen, has to be the "young cosmetician." Which would put his entrance very late.   

[Pat Speer]

Yikes. This is yet another thread in which I mostly cross the line and agree with the LNs.

1. As documented ad nauseum on my website, the widespread belief the eyewitnesses (or even the Parkland eyewitnesses) all claimed the large head wound was on the far back of the head is a myth. As demonstrated by Mytton's gif, the so-called BOH witnesses actually placed the wound over a large area, with many of these witnesses placing the wound closer to where it is shown in the autopsy photos than where it is shown in the so-called McClelland drawing.
2, Robinson, for that matter, is a particularly bad witness for a large wound at the back of the head. The orange-sized wound he described was the wound at the end of the autopsy, which was then hidden in a pillow. This is as one would expect. Stroble was, after all, a cosmetician, and not a forensic anthropologist. His job was to make the president presentable for an open-casket funeral. So, of course, scalp and bone were re-arranged so that the missing scalp and bone were on the back of the head, where the hole could be hidden from view.
3. The LN claim the back wound was inches above the throat wound is, however, utter nonsense. The HSCA FPP (8 LNs and one CT) all concluded that the back wound was lower than the throat wound when the body was placed in the anatomic position. This is not some CT myth made up by Wecht. Read the HSCA's report, for crying out loud. The photo comparison which makes out that the back wound was above the throat wound, for that matter, is a total sham, long debunked. Look at the ears. The ears in the back wound photo are half the size of the ears in the profile photo. And that's because the photos are improperly sized to help create the illusion the back wound was higher than the throat wound. Look, furthermore, at the level of the throat wound in the profile photo. Does anyone really believe the throat wound is at that level in the back wound photo, 4 inches or so below the shoulder tips? Of course not. 4 inches or so below the shoulder tips is the level of one's chest, not throat.
4. As for Gary, he was like most people--a little too enthralled with his own pet theories, a little too dismissive of those with whom he disagreed. But I can see how that came to be. There's a lot of sloppy thinking on both sides, IMO, and putting up with glossy eyed newbies who think they've solved everything when they barely know anything would have to have taken its toll. I'm not sure how many on this forum have been to Dallas. But if you go to Dealey Plaza you're bound to run into someone who'll ask you who killed Kennedy, and then cuts you off before you can say you really don't know...to tell you who they think did it....without any real evidence. (On my last trip, I was prepared for this, and when that day's "guy" started to tell me his chosen bad guy, I surprised him by guessing, correctly, that he thought Onassis was behind it.) In any event, Gary had to put up with this kind of stuff 200 times a year for 20 years. No wonder he got burnt out. RIP.

[Chris Scally]

Gary Mack was my friend for many years. We had dinner in Dallas, spoke often by phone and exchanged emails frequently.  Gary?s position on 11/22/63 was quite simple. He was not a dedicated CT nor a supportive LN. It was always about what could be proven and what could not be proven. This one statement by Gary sums it up:

?There may have been a conspiracy to kill Kennedy but I can?t prove it nor can anybody else?.

The point today, 55 years later is no hard nor credible evidence has ever been produced for conspiracy. Ever. Nor will it.

Thanks for those few words, Paul, and particularly Gary's statement, which has stood the test of time. He said it repeatedly to anyone who bothered to listen, and he was absolutely correct! 

[Michael Walton]

Yikes. This is yet another thread in which I mostly cross the line and agree with the LNs.

Pat, so you don't think that someone like Mack, who first pushed a theory of a man dressed as a policeman shot Kennedy (and this man was among the blobs in one of the photos) shot Kennedy, then switches sides and is the star of many shows made by Discovery that were, to say the least, dishonest...is just a tad disingenuous?

[Royell Storing]

In DoaP, Powers and his notes only said that the casket was selected around midnight. The "young cosmetician" is Manchester's words, and would have come from Hagen (who Manchester interviewed) or either of the Gawlers that Manchester talked to. AFAIK, the Gawler's crew was Joe Gawler, Hagen, Stroble, Van Hoesen, and Robinson and no one else. None of them have ever to my knowledge said that there was anyone else. Also, Sibert and O'Neill listed Hagen, Robinson, Stroble, and Van Hoesen as the embalming team. Robinson, who told the ARRB that he rode with Hagen, has to be the "young cosmetician." Which would put his entrance very late.   

        The Manchester book is just that. A book. Id'ing someone based on 2nd hand Hearsay = "young cosmetician" is Exactly how Gary Mack came to wrongly ID McKinnon as the lady on the ground near the Stemmons sign. And that Boner was cavalierly accepted as fact for roughly 30 years.  The above is nothing more than once again repeating a bone headed process which the JFK Research Community has repeatedly Proven to be faulty. 

[John Iacoletti]

Let's see, on one side we have the Xrays, the autopsy photos, the Zapruder Film, first day TV interviews, the autopsy doctors and some Parkland Doctors Vs some other Parkland Doctors.

Other than your dishonest screenshots where you take a frame out of a film sequence when the hand is situated where you want it to be, what Parkland staff described the head wound that you believe in?

[Mitch Todd]

        The Manchester book is just that. A book. Id'ing someone based on 2nd hand Hearsay = "young cosmetician" is Exactly how Gary Mack came to wrongly ID McKinnon as the lady on the ground near the Stemmons sign. And that Boner was cavalierly accepted as fact for roughly 30 years.  The above is nothing more than once again repeating a bone headed process which the JFK Research Community has repeatedly Proven to be faulty.

Look at the other post I wrote.

We know from what Robinson has told the ARRB and and HSCA investigators, both directly and indirectly, that his job was the cosmetic part.
Also, Robinson confirms Manchester, stating that he rode in with Hagen. Hagen agrees with Manchester that he didn't show up until late.

And Manchester didn't just make up the stuff in his book. He interviewed Powers, Hagen, and two of the Gawlers within about a year of the assassination.