Q9

[Dan O'meara]

From the HSCA Medical Panel Report.
An FBI report describes the disposition of metal fragments removed from John Connally:

"Doctor Charles Francis Gregory...performed surgery on Govenor John Connally...he removed from the arm a small metal fragment...the small metal fragment was placed into a transparent container for preservation...no other bits or pieces of metal removed from the Govenor's body...Surgery Supervisor Audrey Bell took custody of the fragment of metal removed from the Governor's arm...Miss Bell obtained a receipt from State Trooper Bob Nolan...and transferred the metal fragment to him.."

So far, so good.
Gregory states that he removed a single metal fragment from JBC's arm and that no other fragments were recovered. The fragment was given to Audrey Bell who then passed it on to Trooper Nolan.

Another FBI report states that Nolan, unsure what to do with the fragment, called DPD HQ and was told to bring it in to Will Fritz.
Further on in the Medical Panel report it states:

"This fragment is labeled "Q9 metal fragment removed from arm of Governor John Connally", in FBI report "DL 89-18" and in correspondence addressed to Dallas Police Chief Jesse E Curry."

Below is a copy of the report listing the evidence that was handed in to the FBI lab in Washington. Q6 to Q13 is a list of the evidence Vince Drain brought to Washington from Dallas Police Department on the night of the assassination. It includes Q9 - "Metal fragment from arm of Governor John Connally"



This all seems quite straight forward.
Gregory took a single metal fragment from JBC's arm, gave it to Bell, who gave it to Nolan, who gave it to Fritz. From the DPD, Vince Drain brought it to the FBI lab in Washington where it was received by Frazier who assigned the Q numbers.
What could possibly go wrong?

This is from the same Medical Panel report:

"Doctor Gregory's operative record describes the course of the missile through the wrist:
...Small bits of metal were encountered at various levels throughout the wound and wherever they were identified and could be picked up were picked up and have been submitted to the pathology department for identification and examination."

Errm...
In the FBI report Gregory seemed adamant that a single metal fragment was removed from the arm and that this was given to Bell who then gave it to Nolan. Now, in Gregory's operative record, we have multiple fragments being removed and sent to the pathology department.
When the evidence from Dallas reached Frazier he numbered the single fragment Q9 and gave it the label "Metal fragment removed from Governor Connally's arm". Metal fragment, singular.
Frazier received a single metal fragment from Dallas, Gregory reported to the FBI that he had removed a single fragment and that "no other bits or pieces of metal removed from the Govenor's body".
Yet his operative record has him removing multiple fragments from JBC's wrist and sending them to the pathology department to be identified and examined.
What's going on?

A summary of an ARRB interview with Surgery Supervisor Audrey Bell states:

"She remembered receiving "3 to 5 fragments, perhaps 4" from the body of Governor Connally on 11/22/63 in his Operating Room."

Okay, this seems to confirm Gregory's operative record that multiple fragments were removed from JBC's wrist. But then the interview summary states:

"When shown an FBI FD-302...she felt it was inaccurate in two respects: it quotes her as turning over "the metal fragment (singular)", whereas she is positive it was multiple fragments; it states she turned over the metal fragment to a Texas State Trooper, whereas she recalls turning it over to plainclothes Federal agents who were either FBI or Secret Service."

Huh?
We seem to have two stories going on at once here-
A single fragment from JBC's body was given to State Trooper Nolan who sent it to Fritz who then sent it on to Frazier via Drain.
AND
Multiple fragments were removed which were then handed over to Federal agents.

How do we make sense of these conflicting reports?

[Dan O'meara]

SA Robert Frazier was the Lead Examiner in the JFK assassination investigation.
As the evidence from the crime came into the FBI Lab in Washington, it was Frazier who assigned each piece of evidence a "Q" or "K"number, and it was he who gave each piece of evidence it's specific label.
Frazier dealt with things on a microscopic level and was meticulous in his handling of the evidence. When he gives Q9 the label "Metal fragment from arm of Governor John Connally", he is talking about a single fragment. There can be little doubt about that.
Frazier confirms this in his WC testimony:

Specter: Was a fragment of metal brought to you which was identified as coming from the wrist of Governor Connally?
Frazier: It was identified to me as having come from the arm of Governor Connally.
Specter: Will you produce that fragment at this time, please?
Frazier: This one does not have a Commission number as yet.
Specter: May it please the Commission, I would like to have this fragment marked as Commission Exhibit 842.
    (Commission Exhibit No. 842 was marked for identification and received in evidence.)
Specter: Now, referring to a fragment heretofore marked as Q9 for FBI record purposes, and now marked as Commission Exhibit No. 842, will you describe that fragment for us, please?
Frazier: Yes, sir; this is a small fragment of metal which weighed one-half a grain when I first examined it in the laboratory. It is a piece of lead, and could have been a part or a bullet or a core of a bullet.
However, it lacks any physical characteristics which would permit stating whether or not it actually originated from a bullet.
Specter: Are its physical characteristics consistent with having come from Commission Exhibit 399?
Frazier: Yes, sir; it could have.
Specter: Were the characteristics of the fragment identified as Commission Exhibit 842 consistent with having come from the fragment heretofore identified as Commission Exhibit 569?
Frazier: Yes, sir.
Specter: Would you set forth from the records of the FBI, if you have those before you, the chain of possession of the fragment identified as Commission Exhibit 842, please?
Frazier: Commission Exhibit 842, that is the one from Governor Connally's arm, was delivered to me in the FBI laboratory on November 23, 1963, by Special Agent Vincent E. Drain of the Dallas Office of the FBI, who stated he had secured this item from Capt. Will Fritz of the Dallas Police Department.
I do not know where Captain Fritz obtained it.

Frazier could not be more specific - a single metal bullet fragment was delivered to him by SA Vince Drain, from the DPD.
He describes the metal fragment in detail and this important piece of evidence is given the commission number CE 842.
So when we go to CE 842 we should be fully expecting to see a picture of a single bullet fragment.
Think again...



In the picture above there at least 3 fragments.
How can this be when Frazier is specifically describing a single fragment?
This is a man dealing with things in forensic detail.

[Gerry Down]

Could the single bullet fragment have broken apart?  If someone shook or dropped that plastic case the fragment could potentially have broken apart.

[Dan O'meara]

Could the single bullet fragment have broken apart?  If someone shook or dropped that plastic case the fragment could potentially have broken apart.

Not really the issue Gerry.
An FBI report dated the 30th [SA Doyle Williams] states that Gregory removed a single metal fragment from JBC's arm and that Gregory himself stated that no other bits of metal were removed from JBC's body. Gregory also reported that Surgery Supervisor, Audrey Bell, took custody of the metal fragment and that she received a receipt for it from State Trooper Bob Nolan.
Another FBI report by Williams dated the 23rd, states that a bullet fragment was turned over to Tooper Nolan at Parkland and that he eventually turned it over to Will Fritz. This fragment was part of the evidence collected by SA Vince Drain and transported to the FBI lab in Washington where it was received by SA Robert Frazier, Lead Examiner of the investigation into the assassination. Frazier recorded it as being a single fragment and gave it the Q number Q9.
A single fragment removed by Gregory and recorded by Frazier as a single fragment.

But then we have Gregory's operative record - that he removed multiple fragments at various levels of flesh. And Audrey Bell insisting she received multiple fragments, "perhaps 4", from JBC's body and turned them over to plainsclothes federal agents, not a state trooper.
When showed CE 842 she accepts the envelope was the one she used that day (she even points the word "fragments" out, meaning multiple fragments) but when showed the picture of the fragments she stated they "were too small, and were too few in number, to represent what she handled on 11/23/63".

We have two completely different narratives concerning the number fragments removed from Connally's wrist and what happened to them. These are documented difference and have nothing to do with shaking containers.

But there does seem to be a way of definitively ascertaining how many fragments were removed from Connally's wrist. This is from Dr. Gregory's WC testimony:

Dr. GREGORY. Only to indicate that there were two fragments of metal retrieved in the course of dealing with this wound surgically.
For the subsequent X-rays of the same area, after the initial surgery indicate that those fragments are no longer there.
And as I stated, I thought I had retrieved two of them. The major one or ones now being missing. The small one related to the bone or most closely related to the bone...

Not one, not four, but two fragments.
In this section of his testimony, Gregory is referring to sets of X-rays that were taken of JBC's wrist pre-op and post-op. They demonstrate beyond doubt that before JBC had surgery performed on his wrist there were three metal fragments in his wrist and that after surgery was performed, only one remained, meaning Gregory had removed two metal fragments.
This, however, doesn't answer Audrey Bell's recollection of turning over the fragments to federal agents and not State Trooper Nolan.
And it most certainly doesn't answer why Frazier, so meticulous when recording other evidence, would label Q9 as a single fragment.

But it is definitive, right?
The X-rays prove two fragments were removed from JBC's wrist, right?

Then we come to a the picture of Q9 in the National Archives:



FOUR FRAGMENTS!!
Just as Audrey Bell thought there was.
What on earth can explain all of these differences in narratives and physical evidence?

[Gerry Down]

Must look into it more so.

[Dan O'meara]

A quick review of the physical evidence concerning the fragments removed from JBC's wrist;



To the left is a crop of CE 691, an X-ray of the wrist before surgery.
There are three well-defined fragments - a larger one, beneath that a smaller one and near the larger one, a small particle.

To the right is a crop of CE 692, an X-ray of the wrist after surgery.
It is clear the larger fragment and the particle are gone, leaving the smaller fragment, picked out by the yellow arrow.
There is, what appears to be, another fragment above and to the right but let's just assume that's some kind of artifact as things are complicated enough.

We can conclude from this that the larger fragment and the particle were removed during surgery, leaving the smaller fragment in place.



Above is a crop of CE 843, the fragments removed from JBC's wrist.
We can see the larger fragment and the particle.
Unexpectedly there is another fragment in the centre of the dish. It is comparatively similar in size to the smaller fragment left in JBC's wrist.
Where did this extra fragment come from?



This a picture of the fragments removed from JBC's wrist as they are in the National Archives.
The particle has disappeared and two more extra fragments have appeared from nowhere.
Where have these extra fragments come from?

[Dan O'meara]

Any help identifying these initials would be greatly appreciated.
I've got the ones in the red circle:

RF = Robert Frazier
CK = Charles Killion
JH = Cortland Cunningham [not sure why but that's the initials he uses]

I would expect to possibly see the initials of Bob Nolan (he said he signed the envelope), Will Fritz and Vince Drain.
There is an interesting one in the bottom left hand corner. It looks like V W [it might not be] and is dated 11/22/63. Would really like to know who this is.

[John Iacoletti]

I think that's supposed to be Vince Drain.