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.
