55 years later...

[Paul May]

Same result Bill.

[Bill Brown]

As for the autopsy photos and X-rays, in 1967 the autopsy pathologists (Humes, Boswell, and Finck), the acting chief of radiology (Ebersole) and one of the autopsy photographers (Stringer) viewed the autopsy photographs and/or X-rays and confirmed the photos and X-rays were accurate in the portrayal of the wounds of the President.

[Jon Banks]

Shouldn?t be ignored? Medical and ballistic evidence trumps witnesses every time.  What do you suggest be done with them?

The Medical evidence in the Kennedy assassination is a mess.

What Ballistics evidence are you referring to?

[Paul May]

Take your pick. The ordering of the weapon. Possession of the weapon as determined by b/y photos. That M/C to the exclusion of any other weapon fired the bullets. Oswald?s finger print on the trigger housing.  No evidence of other weapons bullets hit Kennedy. LHO shirt fibers found in the butt plate. If this weapon didn?t kill JFK, then JFK is still alive.

[Bill Brown]

The HSCA's Photographic Panel studied the autopsy photos and X-rays.

From the Kennedy Library in Massachusetts, the panel gathered X-rays of the President which were made when he was alive.
 In examining these X-rays, they studied unique anatomic characteristics (of the turcica, cranial sutures, vascular grooves, air cells of the mastoid bone).  A difference in any of these anatomic characteristics among the autopsy X-rays would show that the two sets of X-rays were NOT of the same person.  Similarities of these anatomical features among the autopsy X-rays led the panel to conclude that the autopsy X-rays were of same individual as the X-rays that came from the Kennedy Library (again, made when Kennedy was alive).

Dr. Lowell Levine, a forensic odontologist and an expert in dental comparison, testified before the HSCA in 1978.  He was experienced in the dental identification of people who died of some sort of unnatural death (such as airplane crashes, etc.). Levine compared the X-rays from the Kennedy Library with the autopsy X-rays. He concluded that the three autopsy skull X-rays are identifiable as being of the same person as the dental X-rays of President Kennedy.

[Bill Brown]

Stereophotographic views.

Like the backyard photos, the autopsy photos were examined using stereoscopic viewing (3-D).  The autopsy photographer had taken two or more photos of the same scene many times throughout the autopsy process.  The panel found several "stereo pairs" of autopsy photos which they used for stereoscopic viewing.  Stereo pairs added depth to the autopsy photos.  Unless both of the photos of a stereo pair are altered in the exact same manner (virtually impossible to do), any alterations in either of the photos would be easily detected.

There were enough stereo pairs of the back of the head, the top of the head, the large skull defect, the head viewed from the front right, the back wound and the neck wound.  Using stereoscopic viewing (3-D), the panel concluded that the photos (at least the photos used for the stereoscopic viewing process) were authentic.  They found no indication (or evidence) that any of the photos were altered.

[Mitch Todd]

He?s not alone though. There?s a whole movement among scientists to expose the flaws in Forensic ?Science?.

She. Read the blurb again. At any rate, there isn't "a whole movement among scientists." There was a 20-year period starting about 1990 when the forensic science crowd began to systematically look carefully at the validity of existing methods, but that seems to have collected all the scalps its going to. Right now, it's the science side that's having issues, most notably in what is known as the  "reproducability crisis."

Law Enforcement and Prosecutors over-sell the reliability of most methods in Forensics.

There definitely have been people who oversold or misused the value of certain forensic methods. The DNA in the Kercher murder case is a good example of it. But that doesn't invalidate the methods themselves.

I agree but there are a few things we can throw out with regards to the Kennedy assassination investigations like the NAA Lead Analysis and the Hair and Fiber Analysis.

We can safely disregard any claims of matching-to-uniqueness based on fiber analysis or NAA. But both still prevent claims that the paper and cloth (for instance) fibers taken from CE139 cannot be from the 6th floor bag or the blanket from the Paines' garage. Similarly, the NAA doesn't rule out that the Connally wrist fragments were from CE399 or that the fragments plucked from the underside of JFK's frontal lobes were from the same bullet that produced the limo fragments.

There are two other forensic methods seen in the assassination that are essentially novel to the case. The first is the so-called "jiggle analysis." The second is the acoustic analysis performed for the HSCA. The latter (or at least the Weiss and Aschkenazi version) is fatally flawed. It assumes that the only alternative explanation for the putative shots is some burst of noise; however, the Decker crosstalk overlies the "shots" and needs to be accounted for as a/the possible source.  As for the jiggly bit, I would suggest looking at what Hartman at EG&G did with CBS's help in the '60s, and forgoing Alvarez as anything more than an introduction to the problem. EG&G was able to get control footage taken by someone trying to hold cameras while someone else was shooting a rifle nearby. That enabled Hartman to figure out exactly what to look for in the Z film. His solution looks different than what's normally presented on the subject.