In article , Anthony says...

>

>Questions like this about the precise angles of trajectory are what are

>supposed to be answered in a real autopsy. They often are. In a real

>autopsy, such as the one which should have been performed by Dr. Earl

>Rose, the wound would have been dissected.



I have no doubt that Dr. Rose would not only have done a better autopsy,

but, having access to JFK's physicians, would have known immediately

about the wound in the throat.  I seriously doubt, though, that his

diagnosis --

two shots from behind -- would in any way have differed.  Don't forget

that

Dr. Rose was on the HSCA foresenic panel and concurred completely

with their findings.



And don't forget that Dr. Rose burned his notes of both the LHO and Ruby

autopsies, and for the same reasons that Dr. Humes burned his notes.

Dr. Francisco, who did the MLK autopsy, did not dissect the wound track,

for the same reason that Humes did not dissect the wound track.  It

seems

that celebrated personages are treated differently not only in life but

in

death.



As for tracing the precise angles, dissecting the wound track would have

shown the connection between the back wound and the throat wound

beyond question.  But how precise?  Listen to forensic pathologist Dr.

Vincent J. M. DiMaio in his oft-cited GUNSHOT WOUNDS: PRACTICAL

ASPECTS OF FIREARMS, BALLISTICS, AND FORENSIC TECHNIQUES.

(Elsevier, 1985, p. 290)



"Exact calculation of the angle that the bullet traveled through the

body is

not possible.  The results of such calculations are often misleading. 

At the

time of autopsy, the body is in an unnatural position, e.g. flat on its

back

and not upright.  Calculations of the angle fail to take into account

movement

of the thorax, diaphragm, and internal viscera during the normal

processes

of breathing; distention of viscera by fluid, air, or food; the effects

of

gravity on the position of the internal viscera; and bending and

twisting

of the body at the time of bullet impact."



> It is not just enough to note

>a wound in the back and a wound in the throat and just assume that one

>bullet made a straight line path connecting the two wounds.



In my last post I noted the back wound and throat wounds and noted

that, absent a bullet in the body, the reasonable conclusion is that

the bullet exited from the throat.  I was discussing it at this "35,000

foot" level

to illustrate that, even from that height, the detail is greater than

most

multiple-gunman scenarios.



But of course the back/neck wounds are connected by damage to the

right pleura of the lung, damage in the area of the seventh cervical/

first thoracic vertebrae, air in the tissues just anterior to this

damage,

and the damaged trachea, deviated slightly to the left.



> It is not

>acceptable to simply state that a victim was shot from behind and no

>more. A real forensic pathology will also tell you how far away the

>weapon was at the time.



Well, they can tell you if it was right next to the victim, pressed into

the

victim, or farther away than the farthest length that unburned powder

from

the particular type of ammo that was used can travel.  (and they test

lots

of ammo types to make this determination.)  But I don't think they can

tell

much about the range beyond that.



>That could rule in one suspect while ruling out

>another. A real forensic pathologist will tell you if the victim was

>struck by more than one weapon or from more than one location or more

>than one shooter or one shooter using two weapons. It is not acceptable

>simply to say that the victim was shot and leave it at that. There are

>any number of cases where the exact paths of bullets through the body of

>the victim are plotted.



Did anyone say: "JFK was shot" and leave it at that?  Don't forget that

Dr. Finck was board-certified in forensic pathology in 1961.  He was in

fact an expert in gunshot wounds, which was why Humes asked AFIP

to send him over.  Since Finck did not do medico-legal autopsies full

time

and since he wasn't in charge, the measurements and other standard 

protocol were far below the standard of the approximately twelve

FP's who at that time worked full time.



But Finck could look at JFK's skull, for instance, and figure out that

he

was hit once in the head, and that it was from behind.  He could see

that

the wound in JFK's back was an entrance wound.  Had Finck and the

others been thinking more clearly, they would have demanded JFK's

clothing

and would have demanded to speak with the Parkland doctors.  And the

Parkland doctors, not to mention Burkley, should have sent a full report

along with the body.  But we cannot go back in time and put Dr. Wecht

in charge of JFK's autopsy.



As for determining how many shooters and types of weapons, yes, they

often can do that.  But if a guy gets shot by two similar weapons and

each

wound is a perforating (through and through) wound which leaves behind

insufficient material for the pathologist to eyeball, she is going to

have to

rely on crime scene investigation and other criminalistic analysis.



>In this case, your logic ignores a possibility which I believe is the

>correct solution. You state that the only possible path a bullet could

>have taken after going through JFK would have been to hit Connally or

>the limo. But that is assuming that the bullet stayed in a downward

>trajectory. You overlook the possibility that the bullet could have

>changed from a downward trajectory to an upward trajectory. Bullets do

>strange things and you can not dictate to a bullet what it MUST do.

>There have been numerous examples where a bullet has changed trajectory

>while going through a person. The path is not always a straight line.



It is true that bullets can do strange things in bodies.  However, there

is

no evidence that the wound in the soft tissue of JFK's upper trunk did

much bouncing as, for instance, a .22 can often do.  In fact, even Dr.

Wecht,

in testimony to the Rockefeller Commission, could find no really good

reason

why the bullet would have deflected upwards.  He speculated that perhaps

it hit the trachea and bounced upwards about five degrees.  But even

if this could have happened, any bullet fired from more than five

degrees

above JFK would, after a five degree deflection, still be traveling

downward.



I would not say that it is impossible for a jacketed bullet (note the

copper on

the back of JFK's coat) traversing only soft tissue to deflect upwards

sharply.

But there is no good reason why it should and no evidence that it did. 

On

the contrary, numerous wound ballistics tests with WCC/MC bullets show

that,

when there is any deflection, it is downward, since the center of

gravity of

jacketed bullets is in the butt.



>Your view of the WC defender unanimity is not as perfect as you might

>project. Those in your camp, even the WC itself, do not always agree on

>such issues as exactly what shot did what and when each was fired, which

>missed, etc. You can not state exactly at which frame the shot which

>missed was fired. You have only guesses. The exact time of the SBT shot

>seems to change with various authors. Some WC defenders can account for

>the dented chrome topping in one way while others account for it in

>another way, while others simply are unable to account for it. We have

>already seen in this newsgroup that there is no universal agreement among

>WC defenders about all aspects of this case. Yet they are firmly convinced

>that they are right and that everyone else is wrong. Conspiracy theorists

>have theories about various aspects of the case. With so many unanswered

>questions and missing evidence, it would be difficult to have universal

>agreement among them all about every aspect of the case. It is easier to

>have general agreement about general points in the WC defender camp when

>the size of that camp is proportionally much smaller than the conspiracy

>side. It is easier to get 10 people into a room and just have them all

>agree that Oswald was the lone nut and nothing more. It is much more

>difficult to get 800 people into a room and get them to all agree on all

>points. There are competing theories and competing agenda. 



You are right that LN'ers don't agree on every detail.  But by

definition they

agree that Oswald shot JFK and that there is no credible evidence of

any other shooters.  I'm glad you have noticed that LN'ers weren't all

cut

by the same cookie cutter.   ;^)



But I maintain that there is a very large difference between disagreeing

on how many shooters there were; where they were firing from; how many

bullets hit and from which directions; who was in charge of the plot;

and

on and on, than differing by a few degrees in a trajectory or a few

frames

of the z-film.



LN'ers tend to view the JFK case as a gunshot crime, fully amenable to

solution, even as many thousands of such cases are solved every year.

With which view I wholly concur.   ;^)  I would also suggest, ever so

gently,

that the presence of so many "competing theories and competing agendas"

should tell us something about whether or not solid evidence of multiple

shooters really exists, or if this isn't a conclusion for which evidence

is

assiduously gathered.



Joel Grant