Forensic Funny-Business
David Lifton was the first to write about a "pre-autopsy surgery to JFK’s head” in his book Best Evidence. At first I was inclined to disbelieve Lifton's theory, but when I learned about other researchers who also found supporting evidence indicating that Lifton was right, I eventually changed my mind.
The purpose of this surgery may have been to make a “back of the head blow-out” appear to be a “front of the head blow-out,” and to eliminate other evidence related to the AR-15 explosive head shot.
It seems too fantastic to believe, but Lifton supports his evidence well, and his findings were corroborated by other evidence uncovered by Douglas Horne, a former ARRB analyst. Horne disagreed with Lifton on the location of the surgery (Lifton speculated that it had to take place on the flight between Dallas and Washington, D.C.; Horne determined that it had actually taken place inside the morgue at Bethesda) and the culpability of Dr. Humes (Lifton thought Humes was innocent; Horne learned that Humes was the primary culprit). Horne’s information can be found on YouTube (“Doug Horne talks about JFK’s autopsy” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LohiQe2LBg).
There is additional corroboration, as well. The author of Murder From Within found a memo within ARRB documents, referring to a Bethesda Naval Hospital orderly named Clarence Israel, who witnessed a doctor (probably Humes) performing “some type of mutilation to “three bullet punctures” to (JFK’s) head area…(which was done) at a very ‘hurried’ pace…and was done within a few minutes.” The orderly (Israel) was deceased at the time the memo was uncovered, but Murder from Within author Fred T. Newcomb tracked down Israel’s family and confirmed the story.
The purpose of the autopsy, according to Custer and other witnesses, seemed to have been not to gain as much forensic evidence as possible, but to find and remove any bullets or fragments that may have been left in the body. Ostensibly this was done to tie Lee Harvey Oswald to the killing, but it more likely was to remove evidence of the AR-15 discharge.
One interesting note about Lifton's work was that one of his autopsy witnesses (McHugh, p. 430) stated that the top back of Kennedy's head "had an explosive bullet in it." I do think that the entry for the the AR-15 round was at the EOP (lower back of Kennedy's head) and that the TSBD shooter's bullet entered the top-front of Kennedy's head. It is a point of disagreement between my opinion and something spoken by this one witness. For now, I will believe that McHugh simply got a little mixed up.
I cannot believe that a conspiracy to murder the President would be as far-reaching as this one would have to be could exist. On the other hand, there is enough evidence of a cover-up reaching into so many branches of government that I can believe the concealment of an embarrassing accident. After all, the “gag orders” received by so many of the autopsy staff (after a White House de-briefing) were “in the interests of National Security.” I can’t believe that the Secret Service would want to murder its most important client, yet the Secret Service agency’s role in cleaning up the crime scene (i.e., washing the car) and confiscating all the autopsy evidence (even destroying some of the photographs by exposing them to light) cannot be denied. I can believe that the Secret Service would want to protect one of its own and its own existence by covering up a “mortal error” accident, and that the higher levels of government as well as the Kennedy family would want to cover up the embarrassment of having Kennedy accidentally killed by his own bodyguard.
Skull Fragments
Most telling in terms of cover-up, X-ray technician Jerrol Custer was ordered to fake an X-ray of skull fragments found in the limousine, with bullet fragments taped to them (given the lame excuse that it was for the purpose of “creating a bust” of Kennedy). Presumeably, the images below show the X-ray that Custer took, although as a lay person I fail to see the bullet fragments. Alternatively, these fragments were x-rayed (but not photographed?) at autopsy, and later Custer was ordered to fake the X-ray. The image below was found at
http://www.paulseaton.com/jfk/frags/bone_frags.htm .
David Lifton was the first to write about a "pre-autopsy surgery to JFK’s head” in his book Best Evidence. At first I was inclined to disbelieve Lifton's theory, but when I learned about other researchers who also found supporting evidence indicating that Lifton was right, I eventually changed my mind.
The purpose of this surgery may have been to make a “back of the head blow-out” appear to be a “front of the head blow-out,” and to eliminate other evidence related to the AR-15 explosive head shot.
It seems too fantastic to believe, but Lifton supports his evidence well, and his findings were corroborated by other evidence uncovered by Douglas Horne, a former ARRB analyst. Horne disagreed with Lifton on the location of the surgery (Lifton speculated that it had to take place on the flight between Dallas and Washington, D.C.; Horne determined that it had actually taken place inside the morgue at Bethesda) and the culpability of Dr. Humes (Lifton thought Humes was innocent; Horne learned that Humes was the primary culprit). Horne’s information can be found on YouTube (“Doug Horne talks about JFK’s autopsy” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LohiQe2LBg).
There is additional corroboration, as well. The author of Murder From Within found a memo within ARRB documents, referring to a Bethesda Naval Hospital orderly named Clarence Israel, who witnessed a doctor (probably Humes) performing “some type of mutilation to “three bullet punctures” to (JFK’s) head area…(which was done) at a very ‘hurried’ pace…and was done within a few minutes.” The orderly (Israel) was deceased at the time the memo was uncovered, but Murder from Within author Fred T. Newcomb tracked down Israel’s family and confirmed the story.
The purpose of the autopsy, according to Custer and other witnesses, seemed to have been not to gain as much forensic evidence as possible, but to find and remove any bullets or fragments that may have been left in the body. Ostensibly this was done to tie Lee Harvey Oswald to the killing, but it more likely was to remove evidence of the AR-15 discharge.
One interesting note about Lifton's work was that one of his autopsy witnesses (McHugh, p. 430) stated that the top back of Kennedy's head "had an explosive bullet in it." I do think that the entry for the the AR-15 round was at the EOP (lower back of Kennedy's head) and that the TSBD shooter's bullet entered the top-front of Kennedy's head. It is a point of disagreement between my opinion and something spoken by this one witness. For now, I will believe that McHugh simply got a little mixed up.
I cannot believe that a conspiracy to murder the President would be as far-reaching as this one would have to be could exist. On the other hand, there is enough evidence of a cover-up reaching into so many branches of government that I can believe the concealment of an embarrassing accident. After all, the “gag orders” received by so many of the autopsy staff (after a White House de-briefing) were “in the interests of National Security.” I can’t believe that the Secret Service would want to murder its most important client, yet the Secret Service agency’s role in cleaning up the crime scene (i.e., washing the car) and confiscating all the autopsy evidence (even destroying some of the photographs by exposing them to light) cannot be denied. I can believe that the Secret Service would want to protect one of its own and its own existence by covering up a “mortal error” accident, and that the higher levels of government as well as the Kennedy family would want to cover up the embarrassment of having Kennedy accidentally killed by his own bodyguard.
Skull Fragments
Most telling in terms of cover-up, X-ray technician Jerrol Custer was ordered to fake an X-ray of skull fragments found in the limousine, with bullet fragments taped to them (given the lame excuse that it was for the purpose of “creating a bust” of Kennedy). Presumeably, the images below show the X-ray that Custer took, although as a lay person I fail to see the bullet fragments. Alternatively, these fragments were x-rayed (but not photographed?) at autopsy, and later Custer was ordered to fake the X-ray. The image below was found at
http://www.paulseaton.com/jfk/frags/bone_frags.htm .
Then there is the Harper fragment. The Harper fragment, which showed signs of “outward beveling” (an indication of an exit wound) and tiny metal fragments, was found by Billy Harper, who was taking pictures on Dealey Plaza the day after the shooting. He took the fragment to his uncle, a doctor, who took it to Methodist Hospital, where it was photographed and examined by Dr. A.B. Cairns, the Chief Pathologist. Dr. Cairns identified the fragment as “occipital” (back and bottom of the skull) which gave fuel to conspiracy theorists that Kennedy was shot from the front. However, upon further examination, the fragment was shown to be parietal (side of the skull). A discussion of the Harper fragment can be found here: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/harper.htm. The image below was taken from http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/harper1.gif .
However, even with the Harper fragment identified as parietal, there appear to be difficulties with its placement and orientation used by HSCA to indicate a specific “outshoot.” There is an interesting essay at http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkmed/ADemonstrableImpossibility/ADemonstrableImpossibility.htm which indicates that although the Harper fragment is indeed parietal, but that the ultimate placement and orientation of the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel (FPP) was wrong. The essay author contends that the FPP quashed evidence of the true positioning of the Harper fragment, which would have shown multiple outshoots indicative of conspiracy, and constructed his own model of where he believed the fragments belonged.
What I find most interesting about the skull fragments, however, is a rebuttal to Lifton’s book found on the McAdams website, at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/lifton.txt. The author, Dr. Robert R. Artwohl, MD, gives a description that explains the explosion of Kennedy's head on the Zapruder film. Dr. Artwohl informed me via e-mail that the "pressure cavity" that caused the explosion is consistent with a shot from both the AR-15 and Oswald's Carcano rifle. However, as I think back to Dr. Olivier's experiments with skulls filled with ballistics gel, I remember that only one of the ten skulls exploded.
Dr. Artwohl's entire response to Lifton's work is worth reading, but the section quoted below is especially interesting:
David's discussion about the skull fractures and how they related to the scalp laceration reveals a fundamental misunderstanding as to how the fractures were generated. The skull fractures were not generated by outside forces, but by the internal pressure cavity generated by the deceleration of the bullet as it passed through the cranial cavity. When David wrote Best Evidence he either had no understanding of how the head wound was generated or chose to ignore it.
The dramatic head burst at Z313 was not created by a bullet IMPACT. In point of fact, by the time head exploded, the bullet had already left the body. As the bullet decelerated going through the head, it lost kinetic energy. This energy had to go somewhere, and it went into the formation of a temporary pressure cavity. This pressure cavity formed in the wake of the bullet's path, and in fact continued to expand after the bullet leaves the head, just as a wake continues to widen behind behind a boat. Since the skull is a rigid structure incapable of expansion, the only way the pressure can be be relieved is by a sudden burst. And this is seen in Z313.
I would like to emphasize that this pressure cavity formation is not a theoretical argument. The importance of pressure in generating tissue damage has been recognized since the late 1800's. Theodor Kocher, a Swiss surgeon, actually measured the pressure formed in tissue fired upon by the Vetterli rifle and reported his results in 1875. Pressure cavity formation is why soft pointed bullets, like hollow-points, and like most hunting bullets are so destructive. The are designed to deform upon impact. This deformation causes them to decelerate rapidly inside the body, creating a large destructive pressure cavity. Most wounds thought by the lay public to be caused by "explosive bullets" are actually caused by high velocity bullets designed to rapidly decelerate after impact. This allows the shooter a higher liklihood of a kill.
By now you have probably figured it out. The skull was not fractured from without, but burst from within. At the head burst, some of the pieces of scalp exploded outward,lacerating the scalp and creating the large scalp flaps seen in the autopsy photographs.
Dr. Artwohl does not agree with the Donahue theory, but his information does not refute it, either. He recommends John K. Lattimer's book entitled Kennedy and Lincoln, which I will certainly read next.
Major Cosmetic Reconstruction
One of the things that happened during the autopsy or immediately after was a “major cosmetic reconstruction” of Kennedy’s head. The ARRB deposition of Saundra Kay Spencer (http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=68560), who worked at the Naval Photographic Center and developed the Kennedy autopsy photos, explains how the photographs shown to her (presumably those available to the public) are not the photographs that she developed the night of the autopsy. Spencer stated that the pictures she was presented with were of Kennedy, but there were “massive cosmetic things done to Kennedy” and “the only thing I can think of is that a second set of autopsy photographs was shot for public release if necessary.” The photographs she was shown were “very pristine” in that the body had been cleaned before the pictures had been taken. In one of the photographs there was a brain beside the body, but Saunders stated that it might or might not have been Kennedy’s. To back up her statements, she pointed out that the watermarks were not the same as what her lab used at the time.
Custer in his ARRB testimony (linked above) as well as the morticians who embalmed Kennedy (http://jfkmurdersolved.com/EMBALMER.htm) said that something was placed inside the skull to hold it together, made of rubber or plastic, with plaster of paris or something else used to fill the skull and give it substance.
Autopsy photos available to the public can be viewed at http://jfklancer.com/photos/autopsy_slideshow/index.html, which also states,
“In 1992, the official autopsy photos were specifically exempted from the JFK Records Act and will not be released. ARRB Senior Staffer Doug Horne stated that after viewing digital copies of the original photos, he noted the Fox unofficial photos are cropped differently and are degraded as compared to the originals in the National Archives but are basically the same. Some photos taken at the autopsy missing (sic) and are not now a part of the official collection… The color photos were obtained by JFK researcher and amateur photographer Robert Groden who served as an upaid consultant to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Groden photographed the color autopsy photos without permission. Groden was paid by "The Globe" tabloid at their 1991 printing of those photos and has also published them in his books.”
I can’t say that there was anything sinister about the “reconstruction,” or the photos taken after the reconstruction, but the fact that some of the original photos are now “missing” and are “not now part of the official collection” is another instance of missing evidence (in addition to the brain and brain tissue slides having all disappeared).
Personally, I would like to have Kennedy’s body exhumed and examined objectively by top modern-day forensic pathologists. I think that what they would find would support Donahue’s theory.
What I find most interesting about the skull fragments, however, is a rebuttal to Lifton’s book found on the McAdams website, at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/lifton.txt. The author, Dr. Robert R. Artwohl, MD, gives a description that explains the explosion of Kennedy's head on the Zapruder film. Dr. Artwohl informed me via e-mail that the "pressure cavity" that caused the explosion is consistent with a shot from both the AR-15 and Oswald's Carcano rifle. However, as I think back to Dr. Olivier's experiments with skulls filled with ballistics gel, I remember that only one of the ten skulls exploded.
Dr. Artwohl's entire response to Lifton's work is worth reading, but the section quoted below is especially interesting:
David's discussion about the skull fractures and how they related to the scalp laceration reveals a fundamental misunderstanding as to how the fractures were generated. The skull fractures were not generated by outside forces, but by the internal pressure cavity generated by the deceleration of the bullet as it passed through the cranial cavity. When David wrote Best Evidence he either had no understanding of how the head wound was generated or chose to ignore it.
The dramatic head burst at Z313 was not created by a bullet IMPACT. In point of fact, by the time head exploded, the bullet had already left the body. As the bullet decelerated going through the head, it lost kinetic energy. This energy had to go somewhere, and it went into the formation of a temporary pressure cavity. This pressure cavity formed in the wake of the bullet's path, and in fact continued to expand after the bullet leaves the head, just as a wake continues to widen behind behind a boat. Since the skull is a rigid structure incapable of expansion, the only way the pressure can be be relieved is by a sudden burst. And this is seen in Z313.
I would like to emphasize that this pressure cavity formation is not a theoretical argument. The importance of pressure in generating tissue damage has been recognized since the late 1800's. Theodor Kocher, a Swiss surgeon, actually measured the pressure formed in tissue fired upon by the Vetterli rifle and reported his results in 1875. Pressure cavity formation is why soft pointed bullets, like hollow-points, and like most hunting bullets are so destructive. The are designed to deform upon impact. This deformation causes them to decelerate rapidly inside the body, creating a large destructive pressure cavity. Most wounds thought by the lay public to be caused by "explosive bullets" are actually caused by high velocity bullets designed to rapidly decelerate after impact. This allows the shooter a higher liklihood of a kill.
By now you have probably figured it out. The skull was not fractured from without, but burst from within. At the head burst, some of the pieces of scalp exploded outward,lacerating the scalp and creating the large scalp flaps seen in the autopsy photographs.
Dr. Artwohl does not agree with the Donahue theory, but his information does not refute it, either. He recommends John K. Lattimer's book entitled Kennedy and Lincoln, which I will certainly read next.
Major Cosmetic Reconstruction
One of the things that happened during the autopsy or immediately after was a “major cosmetic reconstruction” of Kennedy’s head. The ARRB deposition of Saundra Kay Spencer (http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=68560), who worked at the Naval Photographic Center and developed the Kennedy autopsy photos, explains how the photographs shown to her (presumably those available to the public) are not the photographs that she developed the night of the autopsy. Spencer stated that the pictures she was presented with were of Kennedy, but there were “massive cosmetic things done to Kennedy” and “the only thing I can think of is that a second set of autopsy photographs was shot for public release if necessary.” The photographs she was shown were “very pristine” in that the body had been cleaned before the pictures had been taken. In one of the photographs there was a brain beside the body, but Saunders stated that it might or might not have been Kennedy’s. To back up her statements, she pointed out that the watermarks were not the same as what her lab used at the time.
Custer in his ARRB testimony (linked above) as well as the morticians who embalmed Kennedy (http://jfkmurdersolved.com/EMBALMER.htm) said that something was placed inside the skull to hold it together, made of rubber or plastic, with plaster of paris or something else used to fill the skull and give it substance.
Autopsy photos available to the public can be viewed at http://jfklancer.com/photos/autopsy_slideshow/index.html, which also states,
“In 1992, the official autopsy photos were specifically exempted from the JFK Records Act and will not be released. ARRB Senior Staffer Doug Horne stated that after viewing digital copies of the original photos, he noted the Fox unofficial photos are cropped differently and are degraded as compared to the originals in the National Archives but are basically the same. Some photos taken at the autopsy missing (sic) and are not now a part of the official collection… The color photos were obtained by JFK researcher and amateur photographer Robert Groden who served as an upaid consultant to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Groden photographed the color autopsy photos without permission. Groden was paid by "The Globe" tabloid at their 1991 printing of those photos and has also published them in his books.”
I can’t say that there was anything sinister about the “reconstruction,” or the photos taken after the reconstruction, but the fact that some of the original photos are now “missing” and are “not now part of the official collection” is another instance of missing evidence (in addition to the brain and brain tissue slides having all disappeared).
Personally, I would like to have Kennedy’s body exhumed and examined objectively by top modern-day forensic pathologists. I think that what they would find would support Donahue’s theory.