JFK's Shallow Back Wound and Knowledge of the Throat Wound at the Autopsy

[Michael T. Griffith]

You can easily have the bullet transit the neck without striking bone.

Oh, and so just sweep aside all the evidence that the back wound was shallow and had no exit point, right? All those accounts, given independently and at different times, were all just "mistaken," right?

Leaving aside the powerful evidence that the back wound had no exit point, you can only get the bullet from the back wound to the throat wound if you ignore the autopsy photo of the wound (it shows the wound tract went upward, not downward, as even the HSCA medical panel admitted), ignore the rear clothing holes, buy the ludicrous theory that the coat and tailor-made shirt bunched in nearly perfect correspondence, ignore the certified death certificate, ignore the back-wound dot on the autopsy face sheet, and ignore the description of the wound's location given by numerous witnesses at the autopsy.

The bullet entered C7-level, not T-1. So it didn't encounter the lung, only passing over and near to it.

So you're still lying about this. And you're never going to stop, are you?

We established earlier in this thread that Boswell admitted that the autopsy doctors could not see a tract from the back wound to the throat wound during the autopsy, even after they removed the chest organs and probed the wound extensively. The people standing around the autopsy table could see the probe pushing against the lining of the chest cavity; they could also see that the back wound was well below the throat wound. The first two drafts of the autopsy report said nothing about a bullet exiting the throat. The tie knot has no hole through it and no nick on its edge. The front shirt slits look nothing like a bullet exit point, have no fabric missing, tested negative for metallic traces, and are clearly at a spot that would have been behind the very bottom part of the tie knot. Etc., etc., etc.

But you just don't care. You will never acknowledge these facts, and many others, because you are determined to peddle the lone-gunman theory no matter what.

You know that the WC said the back wound was at C6, right? The autopsy photo of the back wound seems to show it was no higher than T1, and Dr. McDonnel identified a fracture at T1. The certified death certificate, the rear clothing holes, and the back-wound dot on the autopsy face sheet all place the wound at T3. The death certificate actually specified T3 as the location.

Let's review just some of the other evidence for the lower location of the back wound, shall we? I quote from my article "Where Was President Kennedy's Back Wound?":

* Dr. John Ebersole, who got a look at the back wound during the autopsy, said the wound was near the fourth thoracic vertebra (63:721). This is even slightly lower than where the death certificate places the wound.

* Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who was called to the morgue for the specific purpose of viewing Kennedy's wounds, said the entrance point was "about six inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column" (18:77-78). Hill's placement of the wound corresponds closely to the location of the holes in the President's shirt and coat.

* The FBI's 9 December 1963 report on the autopsy, which was based on the report of two FBI agents who attended the autopsy (James Sibert and Francis O'Neill), located the wound below the shoulder (i.e., below the top of the shoulder blade) (18:83, 149-168).

* Three Navy medical technicians who assisted with the autopsy, James Jenkins, Paul O'Connor, and Edward Reed, have stated that the wound was well below the neck. Jenkins and O'Connor have also reported that it was probed repeatedly and that the autopsy doctors determined that it had no point of exit (10:260, 262, 302-303; 63:720).

* Floyd Riebe, one of the photographers who took pictures at the autopsy, recalls that the back wound was probed and that it was well below the neck (10:162-163, 302).

* Former Bethesda lab assistant Jan Gail Rudnicki, who was present for much of the autopsy, says the wound was "several inches down on the back" (10:206).

* Former Parkland nurse Diana Bowron, who washed the President's body before it was placed in the casket, has indicated that the back wound was an inch or two below the hole shown in the autopsy photo of JFK's back, and this hole, by the HSCA's own admission, is about two inches lower than where the WC placed the wound. In other words, Nurse Bowron located the wound five to six inches below the neck.

* In the transcript of the 27 January 1964 executive session of the Warren Commission, we read that chief counsel J. Lee Rankin said the bullet entered Kennedy's back below the shoulder blade (63:632). Rankin even referred to a picture which he said showed that "the bullet entered below the shoulder blade" (68:78-79).

* Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman, who got a very good look at the President's body, said the wound was "in the shoulder."

* Three released HSCA wound diagrams place the wound well below the neck, and in fact in almost the exact same spot shown on the autopsy face sheet. The diagrams were drawn for the HSCA investigators by Kellerman, Sibert, and O'Neill, each of whom got a very good, prolonged look at the body. This shows that when Kellerman said the wound was "in the shoulder," he meant it was visibly below the top of the right shoulder blade. Each agent placed the wound well below the neck, and visibly below the throat wound.

[Bill Chapman]

If this were any other case, if you had so many witnesses independently saying the same thing and mutually corroborating each other, this would be taken as very strong evidence that their accounts were accurate. But, LNers cannot accept this logical conclusion because it destroys their position on the JFK case, even though CT scans of comparable male torsos prove there was no path from the back wound to the throat wound without smashing through the spine.

Several witnesses ID'd Oswald running, displaying a pistol on Patton
shortly after shots were fired nearby


Bill Chapman
Dead Oswald Tour

[Jack Trojan]

And you people still refuse to come to grips with the hard scientific evidence that the autopsy skull x-rays have been altered. Your abject refusal to deal credibly with this evidence is on full display in the thread "Clear Evidence of Alteration in the JFK Autopsy Skull X-Rays."

The only LNers left here are the hard core denialists, which is why they are still here. They will never admit that they have wasted decades defending the LN position, when in fact it has been disproven many times over. You only need to prove it was a conspiracy and the LN hypothesis goes kaput.

The logistics make the LN hypothesis unfathomable, however, the proof is as simple as demonstrating that Oswald could not have taken all the shots from the TSBD; hence conspiracy. For example, a photogrammetric analysis (unlike what Jerry Organ does), of the Magic Bullet proves that there wasn't a valid trajectory from the 6th floor, at a 17 degree declination that entered JFK's back at the T1 vertebrae and exited at C7 out the throat. A simple reenactment demonstrates this.

Therefore, Oswald could not have taken the MB shot(s) and he was therefore not a LN assassin, who coincidently got a job right next to the limo route. And if this was a conspiracy, then Oswald must have been a patsy, because every good coup de 'at needs one. Just maybe Ozzy was telling the truth that he never even fired a shot because there is no way in hell the conspirators would rely on him to use a crap rifle with a wonky scope to assassinate the POTUS. They sheep dipped him with the backyard photos showing him holding commie lit and linking him to the rifle. But those backyard photos are just further proof of conspiracy. Without a doubt, the following 2 backyard photos were taken with different cameras since their spherical aberrations do not match, hence a conspiracy.

http://www.kohlbstudio.com/images/anim5.gif


Debunking the Magic Bullet

My contention is that there isn't a trajectory from the 6th floor of the TSBD that enters JFK’s back at the T1 vertebrae and exits his throat at the C7 vertebrae then enters Connally at the right 5th rib. That's what makes the bullet magical.

Here is an overhead of the magic bullet’s trajectory thru JFK relative to the TSBD.

http://www.kohlbstudio.com/images/MRI_MB_T1_8b.png


Note that the magic bullet struck the T1 vertebrae yet LNers claim it did not hit any bones as it passed thru JFK’s body.

http://www.kohlbstudio.com/images/x-ray_mb.gif


Take the 2 laser challenge and be the 1st to prove that the magic bullet was possible, if not feasible. Get in between 2 lasers aimed at each other at a 17 deg angle and note where each laser strikes your body.

http://www.kohlbstudio.com/images/JFK_2lasers.png


Can you make them match the autopsy photos?


http://www.kohlbstudio.com/images/JFK_Entrance_Exit_Wounds.jpg

When I took the 2 laser challenge I held a mirror in the photo to show where the front laser struck me as the corresponding back laser struck me on the back of the neck. The only way to match the autopsy wounds was to bend forward with my head almost between my legs, however, JFK was never in that position and slouching didn’t help.

http://www.kohlbstudio.com/images/MB2lasers2.png


Maybe Jerry Organ can post the results of his 2 laser challenge that actually makes it work (without cheating), otherwise, checkmate MB.

[Jerry Organ]

Oh, and so just sweep aside all the evidence that the back wound was shallow and had no exit point, right? All those accounts, given independently and at different times, were all just "mistaken," right?

Leaving aside the powerful evidence that the back wound had no exit point, you can only get the bullet from the back wound to the throat wound if you ignore the autopsy photo of the wound (it shows the wound tract went upward, not downward, as even the HSCA medical panel admitted), ignore the rear clothing holes, buy the ludicrous theory that the coat and tailor-made shirt bunched in nearly perfect correspondence, ignore the certified death certificate, ignore the back-wound dot on the autopsy face sheet, and ignore the description of the wound's location given by numerous witnesses at the autopsy.

You wrote "the shirt would bunch in nearly identical correspondence with the coat", "the coat and tailor-made shirt bunched in nearly perfect correspondence" and "the holes overlap and align almost exactly". You're quite the Drama Queen. Now here's one of your other quotes:

    "The hole in the coat is 5.375 inches (5 and 3/8th inches) from the
     top of the coat’s collar and 1.75 inches (1 and 3/4th inches) from
     coat’s midline. The hole in the back of the shirt is 5.75 inches from
     the top of the shirt’s collar and 1.125 inches from the shirt’s midline."

So the coat hole location differs from the shirt hole location 3/8" vertically and 5/8" horizontally. In other words, a random amount, not "nearly identical" or "nearly perfect".

John Mytton

A one-inch-high bunch takes up two-inches vertical of material. One-inch on each side of the bunch. According to measurements made by the Clark Panel (above graphic), two inches of displacement (ie: a one-inch-high bunch) is all the clothing required.

So you're still lying about this. And you're never going to stop, are you?

How rich. 

We established earlier in this thread that Boswell admitted that the autopsy doctors could not see a tract from the back wound to the throat wound during the autopsy, even after they removed the chest organs and probed the wound extensively. The people standing around the autopsy table could see the probe pushing against the lining of the chest cavity;

Probing the C7-T1 back-to-front neck transit would cause the probe to move the plueral lining that was above the right lung apex (which was bruised across its apex).

they could also see that the back wound was well below the throat wound.

The Clark Panel saw the opposite in the autopsy photos.

The first two drafts of the autopsy report said nothing about a bullet exiting the throat.

And it bothered Humes so much as he was writing the Report that he called Parkland Hospital.

The tie knot has no hole through it and no nick on its edge. The front shirt slits look nothing like a bullet exit point, have no fabric missing, tested negative for metallic traces, and are clearly at a spot that would have been behind the very bottom part of the tie knot. Etc., etc., etc.

More poppycock.

Robert Prudhomme CT Version

David Von Pein Version

Bullet holes in Kennedy's shirt; compare with nick site in Prudhomme and Von Pein Versions

In the motorcade, was the tie knot slightly off to the left?

The President's shirt collar holes showing fibers torn and projecting outward. Dr. John K. Lattimer duplicated the bullet slits (above; right) by firing Carcano bullets through the collar from behind. The shirt weave caused the bullet holes to appear as slits.

But you just don't care. You will never acknowledge these facts, and many others, because you are determined to peddle the lone-gunman theory no matter what.

LNers care more about the truth because they don't have hundreds of websites and thousands of followers encouraging them.

You know that the WC said the back wound was at C6, right? The autopsy photo of the back wound seems to show it was no higher than T1, and Dr. McDonnel identified a fracture at T1. The certified death certificate, the rear clothing holes, and the back-wound dot on the autopsy face sheet all place the wound at T3. The death certificate actually specified T3 as the location.

Let's review just some of the other evidence for the lower location of the back wound, shall we? I quote from my article "Where Was President Kennedy's Back Wound?":

* Dr. John Ebersole, who got a look at the back wound during the autopsy, said the wound was near the fourth thoracic vertebra (63:721). This is even slightly lower than where the death certificate places the wound.

* Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who was called to the morgue for the specific purpose of viewing Kennedy's wounds, said the entrance point was "about six inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column" (18:77-78). Hill's placement of the wound corresponds closely to the location of the holes in the President's shirt and coat.

* The FBI's 9 December 1963 report on the autopsy, which was based on the report of two FBI agents who attended the autopsy (James Sibert and Francis O'Neill), located the wound below the shoulder (i.e., below the top of the shoulder blade) (18:83, 149-168).

* Three Navy medical technicians who assisted with the autopsy, James Jenkins, Paul O'Connor, and Edward Reed, have stated that the wound was well below the neck. Jenkins and O'Connor have also reported that it was probed repeatedly and that the autopsy doctors determined that it had no point of exit (10:260, 262, 302-303; 63:720).

* Floyd Riebe, one of the photographers who took pictures at the autopsy, recalls that the back wound was probed and that it was well below the neck (10:162-163, 302).

* Former Bethesda lab assistant Jan Gail Rudnicki, who was present for much of the autopsy, says the wound was "several inches down on the back" (10:206).

* Former Parkland nurse Diana Bowron, who washed the President's body before it was placed in the casket, has indicated that the back wound was an inch or two below the hole shown in the autopsy photo of JFK's back, and this hole, by the HSCA's own admission, is about two inches lower than where the WC placed the wound. In other words, Nurse Bowron located the wound five to six inches below the neck.

* In the transcript of the 27 January 1964 executive session of the Warren Commission, we read that chief counsel J. Lee Rankin said the bullet entered Kennedy's back below the shoulder blade (63:632). Rankin even referred to a picture which he said showed that "the bullet entered below the shoulder blade" (68:78-79).

* Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman, who got a very good look at the President's body, said the wound was "in the shoulder."

* Three released HSCA wound diagrams place the wound well below the neck, and in fact in almost the exact same spot shown on the autopsy face sheet. The diagrams were drawn for the HSCA investigators by Kellerman, Sibert, and O'Neill, each of whom got a very good, prolonged look at the body. This shows that when Kellerman said the wound was "in the shoulder," he meant it was visibly below the top of the right shoulder blade. Each agent placed the wound well below the neck, and visibly below the throat wound.

So you're comfortable with C6, T1, T3 and T4; or T8 since you mentioned "the bullet entered below the shoulder blade". Just not C7. Do you think Kennedy was struck in the back five times?

By all means, show us visually where the "back" bullet hole in the autopsy photo lies relative to the vertebral column.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Dr. George Burkley, JFK's personal physician, provided key evidence that the back wound was at around the level of T3 (third thoracic vertebra), well below the throat wound. Burkley was the only medical professional who was at both Parkland Hospital and the autopsy, giving him a unique knowledge of Kennedy’s wounds.

-- Burkley signed the official death certificate, which said the back wound was "at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra." This position is confirmed by the holes in the back of JFK's coat and shirt and by the back-wound dot on the autopsy face sheet.

-- Burkley marked as "verified" the autopsy sheet, which includes a dot for the back wound that places the wound well below the neck and at around T3. We should keep in mind that the Warren Commission (WC) suppressed this "verified" version of the autopsy face sheet--it did not surface until the ARRB released it in the mid-1990s.

"At about the level of the third thoracic vertebra" does not mean it was exactly on the T3 vertebra. It could mean it was slightly above the T3 vertebra or halfway in between T2 and T3, or even just slightly below T2. Any of these locations corresponds very closely with the holes in the back of JFK's coat and shirt and with the descriptions of the back wound given by numerous witnesses; in fact, they also are arguably consistent with the location of the wound seen in the back-wound autopsy photo.

Since we have such strong evidence that the back wound had no exit point, the location of the back wound is not as crucial as it used to be, but it is still very important. Why? Because the only way the WC could get its silly single-bullet theory (SBT) to work was to assume the back wound was actually in the neck, visibly above the shoulder blade and the neck line, as we see in CE 386. However, even the problematic autopsy photo of the back wound clearly refutes that placement and shows the wound 2-3 inches lower.

One reason the back-wound photo is problematic is that it was taken with JFK's head tilted substantially backward. You can see two lines of folded skin on the neck. As a result, the photo does not show the neck in its normal position, which obscures the spatial relationship between the back wound and the neck and between the back wound and the hairline. However, you can clearly see in the photo that the back wound is below the neck and below the top of his right shoulder--a hand is resting on the right shoulder, and the back wound is undeniably below the shoulder line. This location is consistent with a wound at around T3.

No one can honestly conclude that the back-wound photo shows the wound at C6 or C7. As any good anatomy diagram will show (e.g., https://basicmedicalkey.com/surface-anatomy-of-the-back-and-vertebral-levels-of-clinically-important-structures-2/), C7 is right at the base of the neck, and the back-wound photo undeniably shows the wound was below the base of the neck and below the shoulder line of the right shoulder.

Some might ask, "Don't the rear clothing holes provide clear, compelling evidence that the back wound was below the neck?"

Well, you would think so. But, since admitting this fact would destroy the SBT, virtually all WC apologists adhere to the ludicrous theory that JFK's coat and his tailor-made shirt were both bunched upward by about 5 inches and in nearly perfect correspondence with each other, so that when the bullet allegedly struck at C6 or C7, it made holes in the coat and shirt that were at least 3 inches lower than the back wound's alleged C6/C7 location. This nutty theory makes the accidental-erasure explanation for the 18-minute gap in the Watergate tape seem downright credible by comparison.

Even WC apologist Jim Moore doesn't buy the bunched-clothing fantasy. Moore concedes that "the odds against this millimeter-for-millimeter correspondence boggle the imagination" (Conspiracy of One, p. 155). Moore also notes that the photographic evidence refutes the idea that Kennedy's clothing was markedly bunched; he points out that the Willis and Betzner pictures both show JFK's white shirt collar, "which would not be visible were his jacket bunched" (p. 155).

Former HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi noted the utter absurdity of the idea that JFK's shirt bunched along with the coat:

Kennedy was one of the best-tailored presidents ever to occupy the White House, and if it is possible--but not probable--that he was wearing a suit jacket baggy enough to ride up five or six inches in the back when he waved his arm, it is inconceivable that a tightly buttoned shirt could have done the same thing.(The Last Investigation, p. 27).

Some might also ask, "Doesn't the back-wound dot on the autopsy face sheet, verified by Dr. Burkley, provide additional strong evidence that the wound was below the neck?" Well, here, too, you would think so.

But, WC apologists cite the measurements for the back wound's location written on the autopsy face sheet. The written measurements say the wound was 14 cm. from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the top of the right mastoid process. This could support placing the wound at C6.

However, the written measurements are penned in ink, whereas the other notations are in pencil--they are clearly darker than any other notation. Of course, this indicates the measurements were not written at the same time as the other notations, which in turn suggests they were added later. Furthermore, the two features used as reference points in the measurements--the acromion process of the shoulder and the mastoid process of the skull--are not fixed reference points and can produce different measurements, depending on the body’s position.

If one uses those written measurements as evidence for the accuracy of CE 386, which shows the wound no lower than C6, one must ignore the back-wound photo, the rear clothing holes, the back-wound dot on the autopsy face sheet, the death certificate, and numerous eyewitness accounts that put the wound well below the neck.

I should add that the slits in the front of JFK's shirt do not overlap when the collar is buttoned. Anyone can look at the photo of the slits and see this very easily for themselves. Moreover, slits have no fabric missing from them, tested negative for metallic traces, and are clearly at a point that would be behind the very bottom part of the tie knot. And, the tie knot has no hole through it and no nick on either edge, so obviously no bullet exited the shirt slits.


 

[Michael T. Griffith]

First, a few points about the photos that Jerry Organ has (surprisingly) included in his replies. They show that a wound just below the Adam's Apple would not have needed to exit through the shirt slits (which makes sense since three of the Dallas doctors independently confirmed that the throat wound was above the collar). They show what numerous scholars have long noted: that the slits are irregular and would not overlap if the collar were buttoned. And not one of the photos of JFK's coat shows the coat bunched upward by 5-6 inches (as even WC apologist Jim Moore has admitted, JFK's collar would not be visible if the coat were bunched this high, and the Betzner and Willis photos refute any notion of a markedly bunched coat).

And, again, the shirt slits have no fabric missing from them and tested negative for metallic traces. Furthermore, how on earth would a bullet that left a small, neat, punched-in wound in the throat have created the jagged, irregular, non-overlapping shirt slits? And how would it have done so without removing any fabric and without leaving behind any traces of metal?

The photo of the nick in the tie knot clearly shows the nick was not on the edge of the knot. Photos of the back of the tie show there was no hole there. Perhaps this is the reason that Organ did not include any of the photos of the back of the tie. This is also undoubtedly the reason that Harold Weisberg had to battle in court for years to get the FBI to release the photos of the back of the tie. Those photos prove that no bullet went through the tie and no bullet nicked either edge of the tie knot. JFK's tie knot would have had to be severely off-center to allow the bullet to miss it, but no photo shows the tie knot in such a position.

Second, I think it would be useful to quote part of Dr. Gary Aguilar's discussion on evidence that the autopsy doctors knew about the throat wound during the autopsy in his article "How Five Investigations Into JFK's Medical/Autopsy Evidence Got It Wrong":

Is it reasonable to believe that the pathologists were ignorant of JFK’s throat wound that horrid night? There had been ample coverage of the President’s wounds, including his throat wound [see below] in contemporaneous television and radio reports that were monitored by virtually the entire nation. Moreover, JFK’s personal physician, Admiral George Burkley, had remained with JFK from the shooting, to the frenzied, futile efforts at the hospital and on through the grim vigil in the morgue. By all accounts, the admiral worked closely with the emergency surgeons in Dallas, conferring with Malcolm Perry, MD, who performed the tracheotomy, and Kemp Clark, MD, the physician who pronounced JFK dead.[35] He also dwelt at length with his fellow Navy physicians who labored in the morgue.

Is it reasonable to assume that neither Dallas doctor told Burkley about one of JFK’s wounds, or that the admiral kept the autopsists in the dark about one of JFK’s wounds? To do so would have been a violation of one of the most uniformly observed, time-honored practices in medicine: a physician’s providing pertinent medical information to his consulting colleague. And even if Burkley had kept mum, would everyone in the crowded morgue, including the three Secret Service agents [Kellerman, Greer and Hill, who had been with JFK throughout] have neglected to mention what everyone else in the country had been told about JFK’s throat wound? Improbably, Kennedy’s autopsists have steadfastly insisted that they were, in fact, oblivious of the throat wound until the next morning’s call to a doctor in Dallas, Malcolm Perry, MD. . . .

The absence of word about Kennedy’s throat wound in the FBI report is far from proof of the surgeons’ ignorance. . . .

Manchester discovered that the course of events that makes the most sense to us today is in fact what actually happened: that the autopsy team had indeed heard Perry’s comments on the afternoon of the murder, and that they had dutifully communicated with Dallas during the post mortem.

“They had heard reports of Mac Perry’s medical briefing for the press, and to their dismay they had discovered that all evidence of what was being called an entrance wound in the throat had been removed by Perry’s tracheotomy. . . ." [Manchester, The Death of a President, pp. 432-433)

. . . Parkland witness, Paul Peters, MD, told Boston Globe journalist, Ben Bradlee, that “We did find out almost immediately after President Kennedy was taken to Bethesda that there was a hole in the neck that we had not seen a the time. . . . But it was only a few hours later when we began to get calls back from Bethesda. . . ."

Author Harrison Livingstone reported another Parkland source for nighttime contact between the morgue and Dallas. In a 1991 interview, Livingstone said that Parkland Hospital nurse Audrey Bell told him, “Dr. Perry was up all night. He came into my office the next day and sat down and looked terrible, having not slept. I never saw anybody look so dejected! They called him from Bethesda two or three times in the middle of the night to try to get him to change the entrance wound in the throat to an exit wound.”

. . . By the later stages of the autopsy, Admiral Burkley was apparently talking to others about a wound in JFK’s throat, according to a Bethesda witness reported by author David Lifton. On 11/29/63, Coast Guardsman George Barnum wrote up a memo that concerned a conversation he had had with Admiral Burkley at Bethesda Hospital on the night of the autopsy. Barnum reported that Burkley had told him Kennedy had been hit twice, “The first striking him in the lower neck and coming out near the throat … .”[53] Barnum’s account is incomprehensible without accepting that Burkley’s remark suggests that either there was knowledge of the throat wound or, as per Boswell and Karnei, that a throat wound had been inferred by the autopsy team. Either way, Humes’ assertion to the Warren Commission to the effect a throat wound only dawned on him the next day, after a call to Dallas, seems open to dispute. Other witnesses add to the doubts. . . .

A case can be made for either knowledge or ignorance of Kennedy’s throat wound during the autopsy. The preponderance of evidence, and the weight of commonsense, however, seem to tip the scales toward there having been knowledge(https://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/How5Investigations/How5InvestigationsGotItWrong_1a.htm#_ednref41)

[Jerry Organ]

Dr. George Burkley, JFK's personal physician, provided key evidence that the back wound was at around the level of T3 (third thoracic vertebra), well below the throat wound. Burkley was the only medical professional who was at both Parkland Hospital and the autopsy, giving him a unique knowledge of Kennedy’s wounds.

So now you're boosting Buckley's claim about T3 level by implying he saw the back wound at Parkland and Bethesda. According to one researcher, Burkley may have arrived at Parkland after the resuscitation attempts and moments before the President was declared dead.

After the flight to Andrews AFB, Burkley was primarily concerned about Mrs. Kennedy's well-being and didn't actively participate in the autopsy at Bethesda (except to annoy the pathologists by urging on the autopsy). Humes said "Admiral Burkley wanted us to hurry as much as possible." Burkley said:

    "I made numerous trips to the 17th floor for reassurance
     to those in that area and to supply them with some idea
     of the contemplated departure time.

-- Burkley signed the official death certificate, which said the back wound was "at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra." This position is confirmed by the holes in the back of JFK's coat and shirt and by the back-wound dot on the autopsy face sheet.

It appears the clothing hung on a clothes hanger might have been the basis for Burkley's T3 level, or one of the Secret Service supplied an opinion. Photos of the motorcade show the jacket had a one-inch-high bunch at the nape.

-- Burkley marked as "verified" the autopsy sheet, which includes a dot for the back wound that places the wound well below the neck and at around T3. We should keep in mind that the Warren Commission (WC) suppressed this "verified" version of the autopsy face sheet--it did not surface until the ARRB released it in the mid-1990s.

Boswell corrected the face-sheet with an "X" in a 1966 newspaper article. He said to use the measurements for the back wound.

"At about the level of the third thoracic vertebra" does not mean it was exactly on the T3 vertebra. It could mean it was slightly above the T3 vertebra or halfway in between T2 and T3, or even just slightly below T2. Any of these locations corresponds very closely with the holes in the back of JFK's coat and shirt and with the descriptions of the back wound given by numerous witnesses; in fact, they also are arguably consistent with the location of the wound seen in the back-wound autopsy photo.

Haven't seen much "arguing" from you. Only harden conclusions. No visuals.

Since we have such strong evidence that the back wound had no exit point, the location of the back wound is not as crucial as it used to be, but it is still very important. Why? Because the only way the WC could get its silly single-bullet theory (SBT) to work was to assume the back wound was actually in the neck, visibly above the shoulder blade and the neck line, as we see in CE 386. However, even the problematic autopsy photo of the back wound clearly refutes that placement and shows the wound 2-3 inches lower.

One reason the back-wound photo is problematic is that it was taken with JFK's head tilted substantially backward. You can see two lines of folded skin on the neck. As a result, the photo does not show the neck in its normal position, which obscures the spatial relationship between the back wound and the neck and between the back wound and the hairline. However, you can clearly see in the photo that the back wound is below the neck and below the top of his right shoulder--a hand is resting on the right shoulder, and the back wound is undeniably below the shoulder line. This location is consistent with a wound at around T3.

The camera is above and oblique to the shoulder line. This means we're seeing more of the the top of his right shoulder. Critics assume the camera was straight out from the wound.

No one can honestly conclude that the back-wound photo shows the wound at C6 or C7. As any good anatomy diagram will show (e.g., https://basicmedicalkey.com/surface-anatomy-of-the-back-and-vertebral-levels-of-clinically-important-structures-2/), C7 is right at the base of the neck, and the back-wound photo undeniably shows the wound was below the base of the neck and below the shoulder line of the right shoulder.

Generic medical illustrations and drawings don't take into account the elevated camera angle towards the JFK "back" wound. Nor do such illustrations show the shoulders raised up due to rigor mortis.


The site you referenced shows the C7 spinous process level with the point where the side of the neck meets the shoulder slope (above left) and below the same point (above right). The JFK autopsy photo shows the wound below the point where the side of the neck meets the shoulder slope.

Some might ask, "Don't the rear clothing holes provide clear, compelling evidence that the back wound was below the neck?"

Well, you would think so. But, since admitting this fact would destroy the SBT, virtually all WC apologists adhere to the ludicrous theory that JFK's coat and his tailor-made shirt were both bunched upward by about 5 inches and in nearly perfect correspondence with each other, so that when the bullet allegedly struck at C6 or C7, it made holes in the coat and shirt that were at least 3 inches lower than the back wound's alleged C6/C7 location. This nutty theory makes the accidental-erasure explanation for the 18-minute gap in the Watergate tape seem downright credible by comparison.

Who's claiming "both bunched upward by about 5 inches and in nearly perfect correspondence with each other"? That's your fevered imagination.

I'm claiming an one-inch-high bunch is all that's necessary, based on the Clark Panel measurements and pictures from the motorcade.

Even WC apologist Jim Moore doesn't buy the bunched-clothing fantasy. Moore concedes that "the odds against this millimeter-for-millimeter correspondence boggle the imagination" (Conspiracy of One, p. 155). Moore also notes that the photographic evidence refutes the idea that Kennedy's clothing was markedly bunched; he points out that the Willis and Betzner pictures both show JFK's white shirt collar, "which would not be visible were his jacket bunched" (p. 155).

One of the rare mistakes Jim Moore made in his 1991 book "Conspiracy of One". Jim writes:

    "The Betzner photo clearly shows the President's shirt
     collar, which could not be visible were his jacket bunched."

Well, here's a blowup of the Betzner photo:



Now where do you see JFK's white shirt collar? Especially above his mid-line or right shoulder. On the left side is only neck.

Below is a crop from the photo by James Altgens of the President on Houston Street. It's very similar in camera angle to the Betzner and Willis photographs and was snapped about half-a-minute earlier. To the right is a photo by Jay Skaggs taken near the time of the Altgens Houston photo.

There is no white shirt collar visible.

Connally's jacket collar has a shadow but Kennedy's jacket collar does not, because the jacket collar is obscured by the inch-high bunch at the nape.

    "Although not as evident in the Willis slide, the collar is
     also detectable and the jacket appears flat."

Moore himself says the Willis photo is less reliable than the Betzner photo. Here's the Betzner photo beside the Willis photo:



Moore says this about the photo below:

    "The problem with Lattimer's argument [bunched jacket]
     is not in the theory itself, but rather, in the photos he used
     as reference. The picture published in his book was taken
     from the motorcade's press bus, very likely at the outset
     or in the first few minutes of the procession from Love Field."



We know more about this photo then Moore did, or was told, in 1991. It was taken by Dallas Times Herald staff photographer Bill Beal from a balcony at the Adolphus Hotel, five blocks from Dealey Plaza. Moore is correct in that the jacket bunch began when the president sat down in the limousine at Love Field.

Probably the last moment the right-top of the jacket collar is visible.

And there it is. From Love Field to Main to Houston to Elm.

John Mytton

Former HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi noted the utter absurdity of the idea that JFK's shirt bunched along with the coat:

Kennedy was one of the best-tailored presidents ever to occupy the White House, and if it is possible--but not probable--that he was wearing a suit jacket baggy enough to ride up five or six inches in the back when he waved his arm, it is inconceivable that a tightly buttoned shirt could have done the same thing.(The Last Investigation, p. 27).

Another Drama Queen. There he goes with the five or six inch bunch (that nobody other than silly CTs insist is necessary).



Less to do with the quality of his clothing than how he sometimes slouched.

I can see the start of bunch and the tops of collars at hairline.

Jacket bunching in the Johnson White House.

Some might also ask, "Doesn't the back-wound dot on the autopsy face sheet, verified by Dr. Burkley, provide additional strong evidence that the wound was below the neck?" Well, here, too, you would think so.

But, WC apologists cite the measurements for the back wound's location written on the autopsy face sheet. The written measurements say the wound was 14 cm. from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the top of the right mastoid process. This could support placing the wound at C6.

Cite.

However, the written measurements are penned in ink, whereas the other notations are in pencil--they are clearly darker than any other notation. Of course, this indicates the measurements were not written at the same time as the other notations, which in turn suggests they were added later.

How do you know they were written later? You think there was only one thing to write with in the autopsy room?

Furthermore, the two features used as reference points in the measurements--the acromion process of the shoulder and the mastoid process of the skull--are not fixed reference points and can produce different measurements, depending on the body’s position.

If one uses those written measurements as evidence for the accuracy of CE 386, which shows the wound no lower than C6, one must ignore the back-wound photo, the rear clothing holes, the back-wound dot on the autopsy face sheet, the death certificate, and numerous eyewitness accounts that put the wound well below the neck.

So you believe Rankin when he placed the back wound at the equivalent of the T8 level?

[Bill Chapman]

Apparently Kennedy wore a tent earlier in the parade