JFK's Head Was Hit with Frangible Ammo, not FMJ Ammo

[Michael T. Griffith]

Joe, you are not answering the question I asked and that was what size are the WCC/MC fragments compared to the frags left by the frangible round?

That is the crux of the issue and one of the fatal flaws of the lone-gunman theory. In Olivier's ballistics tests for the WC, the 10 WCC/MC bullets fired into skulls simply did not behave anything like the lone-gunman theory's head-shot bullet. The record shows that the 10 bullets produced 29-31 fragments. CE 859 shows the fragments from the tests. The fragments in CE 857 were all included in CE 859, according to Olivier. If there were more fragments, Olivier did not say so, and there is no record of any other fragments from his tests.

Suspiciously, Olivier did not specify how many bullets did not fragment or if all of them fragmented. However, we know that not one of those bullets shattered into dozens of pieces, leaving 40-plus fragments inside the skull, depositing two fragments on the outer table of the skull, and ejecting its nose and tail from the skull.

The importance of the two outer-table fragments cannot be overstated. Those two fragments alone refute the lone-gunman theory. If they came from the WC's head-shot bullet, they must have been scraped off the bullet as it entered the skull, which is unheard of behavior for FMJ bullets, and then they somehow ended up 1 cm below the entrance wound! Even more fantastically, if these fragments were the WC's head-shot bullet, they must have come from the mid-section of the bullet, which is a ballistic impossibility, as even Sturdivan admitted.

As many other researchers have noted, Olivier just bald-facedly lied when he told the WC that his tests showed that an FMJ bullet could have caused all of JFK's head wounds. His tests showed no such thing. But, that's a subject for another discussion.

[Michael Carney]

What do you mean by: For many, but not all types of FMJ, this will never happen in the real world, because these velocities are greater than the muzzle velocity of the rifle that fires them.

If you are insinuating that the round is moving faster than the muzzle velocity from the gun which it was fired from that is wrong. The maximum velocity reached is when it leaves the muzzle then it gets slowed down by air resistance.

[Michael Carney]

Joe,

“Hence, some differences between the bullet that went through Skull # 8170 and President Kennedy. The bullet that went through President Kennedy’s head broke up into 3 fragments. The Skull # 8170 bullet remained in one extremely mangled fragment that did not quite separate into multiple fragments, but came close to doing so, as one can see from Figure 20 on Page 122 from Larry Sturdivan’s book “The JFK Myths”. Also, while a string of tiny fragments was left in President Kennedy’s head, there was no string of tiny fragments left within Skull # 8170, suspended in air. Nor should we expect to see such.”

And were two of these fragments deposited on the outside back of his head? And where was the third frag found?

A string of tiny fragments found in JFK’s head and not in skull #8170. This is because #8170 was shot with a FMJ  round and JFK was shot with a frangible round.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Joe,

“Hence, some differences between the bullet that went through Skull # 8170 and President Kennedy. The bullet that went through President Kennedy’s head broke up into 3 fragments. The Skull # 8170 bullet remained in one extremely mangled fragment that did not quite separate into multiple fragments, but came close to doing so, as one can see from Figure 20 on Page 122 from Larry Sturdivan’s book “The JFK Myths”. Also, while a string of tiny fragments was left in President Kennedy’s head, there was no string of tiny fragments left within Skull # 8170, suspended in air. Nor should we expect to see such.”

Sturdivan goofed horrendously on this point. He was simply unaware of the cloud of fragments in the frontal part of the head on the x-rays. In Sturdivan's defense, he was never shown the original lateral x-rays but only the HSCA FPP's doctored "enhanced" version of them. I have pointed this out to Elliott at least once. Dr. Michael Kurtz:

Sturvidan also stated that Kennedy was not struck in the front of the head by an exploding bullet fired from the grassy knoll. The reason, Sturdivan declared, was that the computer-enhanced x-rays of Kennedy's skull do not depict "a cloud of metallic fragments very near the entrance wound." In cases where exploding bullets impact, he asserted that "you would definitely have seen" such a cloud of fragments in the x-ray. Sturdivan's remarks betrayed both his own ignorance of the medical evidence and the committee's careful manipulation of that evidence. Sturdivan saw only the computer-enhanced x-ray of the skull, not the original, unretouched x-rays. Had he seen the originals, he would have observed a cloud of metallic fragments clustered in the right front portion of the head. Furthermore, the close-up photograph of the margins of the large wound in the head shows numerous small fragments. The Forensic Pathology Panel itself noted the presence of "missile dust" near the wound in the front of the head. One of the expert radiologists who examined the x-rays noticed "a linear alignment of tiny metallic fragments" located in the "posterior aspect of the right frontal bone." The chief autopsy pathologist, Dr. James J. Humes, remarked about the numerous metallic fragments like grains of sand scattered near the front head wound. The medical evidence, then, definitely proves the existence of a cloud of fragments in the right front portion of Kennedy's head, convincing evidence, according to Sturdivan, that an exploding bullet actually did strike the president there. (Michael Kurtz, Crime of the Century, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, pp. 177-178)

I forgot to mention two other ballistics tests. In tests conducted by forensic pathologist Dr. John Nichols, FMJ bullets emerged in virtually perfect condition after penetrating several feet of tough Ponderosa pine wood. Dr. John Lattimer fired Carcano bullets through test skulls. X-rays of these test skulls revealed no bullet fragments, not even near the wound of entry in the rear top of the head (Kurtz, Crime of the Century, p. 98).

[Joe Elliott]

Sturdivan goofed horrendously on this point. He was simply unaware of the cloud of fragments in the frontal part of the head on the x-rays. In Sturdivan's defense, he was never shown the original lateral x-rays but only the HSCA FPP's doctored "enhanced" version of them. I have pointed this out to Elliott at least once. Dr. Michael Kurtz:

Larry Sturdivan is well aware of this case. I have never heard a true ballistic expert, agree with your point. Have you? If so, can you name them and provide a link?

I forgot to mention two other ballistics tests. In tests conducted by forensic pathologist Dr. John Nichols, FMJ bullets emerged in virtually perfect condition after penetrating several feet of tough Ponderosa pine wood.

Stop the presses. Yes, this is well known. If you had read a Larry Sturdivan’s book, “The JFK Myths”, you would know what property of a material is most important in what damage it will do to a bullet. And that property is density. It’s not hardness, it’s density. So soft tissue, which has the same density as water, will not deform a WCC/MC bullet, even if hit at muzzle velocity. But bone, which generally has a density of twice that of water, will.

What is the density of Ponderosa pine wood? Slightly less than that of water. So, even through wood is hard, it won’t damage a WCC/MC bullet anymore than soft tissue will. So naturally it will come out undeformed after going through, as I recall, 47 inches of soft wood.

Dr. John Lattimer fired Carcano bullets through test skulls. X-rays of these test skulls revealed no bullet fragments, not even near the wound of entry in the rear top of the head (Kurtz, Crime of the Century, p. 98).

What ballistic expert says that there are lead fragments near the wound of entry (the back of the head) of JFK’s X-Rays? Do you consider the wound of entry near the front?

And again, this brings up the question as to how old were the test skulls? How much had they dried up? Was the density of the bone still twice the density of water, as it is with living bone?

Now, on the question of why we don’t small lead fragments within the test skull X-Rays, like we do with JFK’s head X-Rays. You do realize that these test skulls were bare skulls, don’t you? How can I explain this to you? The test skulls were similar to your own head. There was nothing between the ears. There was no organic material, like the brain, that the badly deformed bullet would travel through, which strips off small fragments as the bullet with its exposed lead core moves through the brain. And even if, somehow, such fragments were created, they would not remain suspended in space within an empty skull. So, we should not expect to see any X-Ray of a test skull to look identical to an X-Ray of JFK’s skull, with both showing a trail of fragments along the bullet’s path.

We know that with the test result of Skull # 8170, a bullet will get very badly mangled upon striking a skull, even of just a bare skull which has, no doubt, undergone some drying after death. So, if some skulls have dried out enough so that they no longer can mangle a WCC/MC bullet, that doesn’t matter. All that counts is what the skull of a still living man will do to such a bullet.

[Michael Carney]

Let’s take inventory here; supposedly there were 3 large fragments found, two on the back of the head, not in the head. Where was the third frag found? Also we have a spray of tiny frags on the interior of the skull. The large frags would be from a FMJ round and the spray of tiny frags would be from a frangible round. This indicates he was hit with two different bullets. Before I go any further with this I want the three large fragments location, where they were found. So if we can all agree where the large fragments were found…….. I know of 2 large fragments found on the back of JFK’s head, I don’t know where the third one was found.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Larry Sturdivan is well aware of this case.

He was not aware of it at the time of the HSCA. He said that if a frangible bullet had hit the skull, he would expect to see a cluster of fragments near its entry point, yet he said nothing about the fact that that x-rays show a cloud of fragments in the right-front part of the skull So he was either lying through his teeth or he was not aware that the original x-rays show a cluster of fragments in the frontal region, exactly as Sturdivan indicated you would expect to see from a frontal shot with a frangible bullet.

In his book The JFK Myths, Sturdivan says nothing--not one word--about the small genuine fragment inside the 6.5 mm object and about the small fragment next to it (the one that Dr. McDonnel identified, and that Dr. Mantik has confirmed).

In his book, Sturdivan reaches and strains to explain the "snow storm" of fragments visible on the lateral skull x-rays. He suggests they were "flushed out" by blood and got stuck in the bone flaps on the way the way to the hospital! Seriously? And this guy is your go-to "expert"?

Sturdivan also says that no forger would have planted the 6.5 mm object because it could not be a bullet fragment, adding that a forger would have planted something "that could actually be mistaken for a bullet fragment." Uh, is Sturdivan not aware that three federal medical panels--the Clark Panel, the Rockefeller Commission's medical panel, and the HSCA's forensic pathology panel--concluded that the 6.5 mm object was a bullet fragment?! So the forgery was good enough to fool all the forensic pathologists and radiologists on those panels.

Sturdivan does not even attempt to explain why the high fragment trail was not mentioned in the autopsy report and why the doctors insisted they saw a low fragment trail between the EOP and the right eye. Crickets.

Nor does Sturdivan say a word about Dr. Mantik's OD measurements, even though he mentions the book Assassination Science, which contains a section on the measurements. (By the way, that section was proof-read by Dr. Arthur Haas, who was the director of Kodak's Department of Medical Physics at the time.)

Three medical doctors have confirmed via OD measurements that there is a small fragment inside the 6.5 mm object but that the 6.5 mm object is not metallic but is a ghosted image. None of the experts on the above-named panels realized this because they didn't do any OD measurements. Again, Sturdivan simply ignores the OD measurements.

I have never heard a true ballistic expert, agree with your point. Have you? If so, can you name them and provide a link?

Huh? Are you saying that you have a "true ballistics expert" who denies that the autopsy skull x-rays show a cloud of fragments in the frontal area? Who is this "expert"? And since when do ballistics experts read x-rays?

Anyway, Sturdivan said that a frangible bullet would have left a cloud of fragments near its entry point:

Mr. MATTHEWS: Mr. Sturdivan, taking a look at JFK Exhibit F-53, which is an x-ray of President Kennedy's skull, can you give us your opinion as to whether the president may have been hit with an exploding bullet? . . .

Mr. STURDIVAN: In those cases, you would definitely have seen a cloud of metallic fragments very near the entrance wound. (1 HSCA 401, emphasis added)

And that is exactly what we see on the skull x-rays: there is a cloud of fragments near the right temple, and several witnesses saw a small wound in JFK's right temple (the mortician filled the small hole with wax).

It is humorous to see you dismiss the conclusions of forensic pathologists and pretend that only the opinions of ballistics experts count when it comes to bullet behavior. Most ballistics experts have no experience with gunshot wounds on actual people.  They have never seen firsthand the effects of bullets on the body. They have never done autopsies on gunshot victims, have never removed bullet fragments during autopsies, etc., etc. And, most ballistics experts have no training in reading x-rays.

Perhaps you are taking this silly position because so many forensic pathologists have noted that the head-shot bullet did not behave like an FMJ missile. On an interesting side note, we now know that the autopsy doctors themselves expressed surprise during the autopsy that there were so many fragments in the head from the supposedly FMJ bullet.

Off the top of my head, I can name you two ballistics experts who argue that the head-shot bullet did not behave like an FMJ bullet: Howard Donahue and Dr. Roger McCarthy.

Furthermore, I am still waiting for you to name me a single ballistics expert who claims that it is not at all unusual for an FMJ bullet that strikes a skull (1) to fragment into dozens of pieces, (2) to leave two mid-section fragments on the outer table of the skull 1 cm below the entry point or 9 cm above the entry point, and (3) to eject the nose and tail from the skull.

I know that Sturdivan would never endorse such a ludicrous position. He argued that the 6.5 mm object must be an artifact because he said that the object would have had to be a mid-section fragment and that an FMJ bullet would never deposit such a fragment. And I agree that an FMJ bullet would never, ever, ever behave like that.

Ok, then you guys need to explain the two small fragments on the back of the head. They're on the outer table of the skull. They're not even near an entry point. They are 1 cm below the debunked cowlick entry point, and 9 cm above the EOP entry site. It is clear, obvious, and self-evident that they are ricochet fragments--there is no other rational, plausible, scientific explanation for them, but you guys can't admit this because your version of the shooting won't allow it.

Stop the presses. Yes, this is well known. If you had read a Larry Sturdivan’s book, “The JFK Myths”, you would know what property of a material is most important in what damage it will do to a bullet. And that property is density. It’s not hardness, it’s density. So soft tissue, which has the same density as water, will not deform a WCC/MC bullet, even if hit at muzzle velocity. But bone, which generally has a density of twice that of water, will.

Oh?! So bone will deform FMJ bullets?! Well, yes, I agree. Bone won't cause FMJ bullets to shatter into dozens of pieces, but it most certainly can deform them. So how do you explain CE 399? Its lands and grooves are not even disrupted. Bullets fired into soft materials have emerged with more deformity than CE 399 has.

What is the density of Ponderosa pine wood? Slightly less than that of water. So, even through wood is hard, it won’t damage a WCC/MC bullet anymore than soft tissue will. So naturally it will come out undeformed after going through, as I recall, 47 inches of soft wood.

LOL! This sets a new record for absurdity and silliness. This is every bit as comical as flat-Earth arguments. Let's just say this: You go get a bullet and try to push the bullet through pine wood, and then try to push that same bullet through water. I guarantee you that you will have no trouble  pushing the bullet through the water but that you will be unable to push the bullet through the pine wood. I guarantee it. You won't be able to push the bullet through the pine wood because pine wood is vastly tougher than water.

What ballistic expert says that there are lead fragments near the wound of entry (the back of the head) of JFK’s X-Rays?

LOL! Humm, well, I wasn't aware that ballistics experts were trained in radiology. You keep ignoring the fact that Dr. Mantik has confirmed the presence of those two fragments with OD measurements. Their OD measurements are comparable to the OD measurements of the two largest fragments in the frontal region, so we know they are metallic.

Anyway, I can name a whole bunch of radiologists and medical experts with training and experience in radiology who have identified at least one fragment in the rear outer table of the skull on the autopsy skull x-rays: McDonnel, Seaman, Fitzpatrick, Ubelaker, Fisher, Chesser, Mantik, Aguilar, Morgan, Carnes, Moritz, Lindenberg, Robertson, etc., etc.

And again, this brings up the question as to how old were the test skulls? How much had they dried up? Was the density of the bone still twice the density of water, as it is with living bone?

Now, on the question of why we don’t small lead fragments within the test skull X-Rays, like we do with JFK’s head X-Rays. You do realize that these test skulls were bare skulls, don’t you? How can I explain this to you? The test skulls were similar to your own head. There was nothing between the ears. There was no organic material, like the brain, that the badly deformed bullet would travel through, which strips off small fragments as the bullet with its exposed lead core moves through the brain. And even if, somehow, such fragments were created, they would not remain suspended in space within an empty skull. So, we should not expect to see any X-Ray of a test skull to look identical to an X-Ray of JFK’s skull, with both showing a trail of fragments along the bullet’s path.

We know that with the test result of Skull # 8170, a bullet will get very badly mangled upon striking a skull, even of just a bare skull which has, no doubt, undergone some drying after death. So, if some skulls have dried out enough so that they no longer can mangle a WCC/MC bullet, that doesn’t matter. All that counts is what the skull of a still living man will do to such a bullet.

So I guess you're saying that all the head-shot ballistics tests are meaningless because they did not involve a live person's skull! Yeah, right. The problem is that those tests show that the JFK head-shot bullet did not behave like an FMJ bullet.

FYI, in Olivier's ballistics tests for the WC, the skulls were coated with a gelatin thick enough to simulate scalp, and the skulls were also filled with gelatin to simulate brain tissue (5 H 87).

And, as we have discussed, the 10 bullets that were fired into those skulls produced only about 30 fragments, for an average of three fragments per bullet. Not one of them blew up into dozens of fragments. Not one of them magically deposited two fragments (much less two mid-section fragments) on the outer table of the skull.

I'll have to read more about Lattimer's head-shot ballistics test. If he failed to wrap or coat the skulls, that would be a surprising oversight. If he failed to put any kind of tissue simulant in the skulls, that would be another surprising oversight.

I once again invite you to cite a single case in the known history of forensic science where an FMJ bullet struck a live person's skull and (1) shattered into dozens of fragments, (2) left two fragments 1 cm below or 9 cm above the entry point, and (3) also ejected its nose and tail from the skull. Find me just one case where this has occurred. Just one.

[Michael Carney]

Ah, such fun stuff!!