Three Problems with the Lone-Gunman Theory

[Jerry Freeman]

One more picture of the various exhibits I can't find a clearer one I'm afraid [sorry]

[Michael T. Griffith]

Well, I guess you can’t say that nothing but bad comes out of Marquette University.

I’m not talking about paraffin tests unless questions are answered.

Question 1:

The FBI had someone fired Oswald’s rifle three times, and the paraffin test on him came up negative.

So, doesn’t this indicate that paraffin tests are unreliable?

Question 2:

If paraffin tests are reliable, why aren’t they used today?

Question 3:

If you answer Question 2 with “Because Nuclear Reactors are not available”, why is it that Nuclear Reactors used to be available for these tests, but no longer are?

Question 4:
And what do you mean by a “Nuclear Reactor”?

Like a full-size nuclear power plant? A small-scale research reactor? And why couldn’t such reactors be used today for critically important criminal cases? If paraffin tests are so reliable.

Surely, they would be used from time to time, in life or death (or life imprisonment cases), if the paraffin test was reliable.

Blah, blah, blah. Just more of your dishonest ducking and dodging, and more of your dishonest strawman arguments (however, I'll stipulate that if they are not dishonest, then you have a serious reading comprehension problem).

I notice you ignored the fact that in the Oak Ridge tests, every single time a person fired a Carcano, the paraffin cast of his cheek tested positive for nitrates in NAA testing. Every. Single. Time.

That's why Guinn was so thrilled by the tests, and that's why he called Gallagher with the good news. Guinn thought they had a way to nail Oswald, a way to prove he had fired a rifle, because he knew that if Oswald had fired a rifle, especially three times in rapid succession, NAA testing of the paraffin cast of his cheek would detect nitrates. The only problem was that Guinn did not know that the FBI had already had Oswald's paraffin casts tested with NAA and that the cheek cast had tested negative for nitrates. Oops. Uh-oh.

Why do you suppose Gallagher did not tell Guinn about this fact? Humm? Why? And why do you suppose the FBI withheld this information from the WC? Hey? Why?

There is a big difference in reliability between paraffin tests done with regular spectrographic testing and paraffin tests done with NAA. The Marquette Law Review article makes the case that even regular paraffin tests had a high degree of accuracy when done properly. The Oak Ridge reenactments prove that paraffin tests done with NAA are vastly more accurate.

I'm guessing you did not even bother to read the article from the Marquette Law Review on the reliability of paraffin tests, since apparently, judging from your verbiage, that journal suddenly doesn't qualify as a credible source in your eyes. Of course, when you're too biased and/or too lazy to read research that you know will challenge your position, the easy way out is to just wave it aside and attack where it was published, even if it was published in a widely respected law journal that has been around for over 100 years.

Nobody said that nuclear reactors are no longer available for NAA. Nor did anyone say that NAA is no longer used to test for gunshot residue. Where do you get those strawman arguments? I said that NAA testing is far more expensive and labor intensive than spectrographic testing because NAA must be done with a research nuclear reactor. Did your brain not process the statement from the article on gunshot residue (GSR) testing that “However, a principal disadvantage of NAA is the required access to a research nuclear reactor"?

NAA is still used for GSR testing, but SEM/EDX GSR testing is the preferred method because it is much cheaper and easier to do and yet is highly accurate. See, for example:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1687850715000308

GSR is no longer collected with paraffin wax because they now use a different kind of adhesive, but the method and principle is the same: an adhesive substance is applied to a part of the skin and then that substance is tested for GSR. One type of commonly used adhesive contains carbon, which makes it black in color and enables it to conduct electrons in SEM analysis. Sometimes a clear adhesive lifter is used, but this method requires the application of an extra step of carbon coating to prevent the elector beam from hitting and charging the sample during SEM analysis. The adhesive is normally attached to an aluminum stub that is built into the cap of a collection container. The criminalist removes the cap to expose the tape, and then he presses the cap onto a part of the skin to collect the GSR sample.

Now that we have sifted through your ducking and dodging and strawman arguments, when are you going to address the fact that in the Oak Ridge tests, when a person fired a Carcano, the paraffin casts of their cheek tested positive for nitrates when subjected to NAA? Every. Single. Time. When are you going to deal with this fact?

[Michael Carney]

“-- The throat wound gave every appearance of being an entrance wound. It was very small, about 3-5 mm in diameter, and was punched inward. In fact, it was smaller than the back wound.”

It’s interesting that the quote “small entry” hole in JFK’s throat is used. So it was fired from the front, now I am thinking it’s the shot from the grassy knoll. James File, I know, I know, said he used a Remington .221 Firefox pistol with sight to kill JFK. That’s about as small as you can get. I know it’s only .002 smaller than a .223 but in my research I find nothing about any massive damage by a .221 like the damage a frangible .223 does. So the shooter hit JFK in the throat, the weapon is easily concealable, he gets away.

[Michael T. Griffith]

“-- The throat wound gave every appearance of being an entrance wound. It was very small, about 3-5 mm in diameter, and was punched inward. In fact, it was smaller than the back wound.”

It’s interesting that the quote “small entry” hole in JFK’s throat is used. So it was fired from the front, now I am thinking it’s the shot from the grassy knoll. James File, I know, I know, said he used a Remington .221 Firefox pistol with sight to kill JFK. That’s about as small as you can get. I know it’s only .002 smaller than a .223 but in my research I find nothing about any massive damage by a .221 like the damage a frangible .223 does. So the shooter hit JFK in the throat, the weapon is easily concealable, he gets away.

The Feds eventually ignored Dr. Perry's opinion that the missile that hit the throat ranged downward into the chest. In connection with this, it is very curious that the chest x-rays and photos are missing from the autopsy materials. The bruising that one of the medical technicians saw in Kennedy's chest after the doctors removed the chest organs tends to support Perry's conclusion.

Nurse Henchliffe, who in her many years as an ER nurse had seen many bullet wounds, told the WC that the throat wound looked like a typical entrance wound and that she had never seen exit wound that looked like that.

The throat-wound missile might well have been a fragment of glass from the windshield. We now know that there was a neat, round through-and-through hole in the windshield. Some experts, including Dr. Mantik, believe that a glass fragment struck Kennedy in the throat.

[Michael Carney]

I was wondering about chest x-rays, now I know why there aren’t any, be proof of another shooter.

I think if the bullet did hit the windshield I doubt the collision would generate a piece of glass and send it straight at JFK. Typically when a bullet hits glass it goes straight through and sends the broken bits of glass outward away from the bullet. Also more likely the bullet because the shooter was aiming at JFK.

I think by lining up the hole in the windshield and JFK’s throat one might place the shooter. Would be a fun project if we had an overhead view and bullet hole location in glass, elevation, etc.

[Michael Carney]

I think this video that was in the movie "JFK" is spot on.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Well, well, it turns out that one member of the Warren Commission (WC) and one of the WC attorneys knew that neutron activation analysis (NAA) had found no traces of nitrates on the paraffin mold of Oswald’s cheek, and that this meant he had not fired a rifle on the day of the assassination. WC attorney Norman Redlich advised WC member Alan Dulles about the NAA results in an internal memo, a memo that came to light years later and only after a FOIA lawsuit filed by Harold Weisberg. Said Redlich,

At best, the analysis shows that Oswald may have fired a pistol, although this is by no means certain. … There is no basis for concluding that he also fired a rifle. (Memo from Redlich to Dulles, 7/2/1964)

This contradicts the WC’s later claim that nitrates were found on both sides of the paraffin cast of Oswald’s cheek and that therefore the paraffin test was “unreliable.”

The documents released by Weisberg’s FOIA lawsuit also reveal that the FBI arranged for a control test of the validity of the NAA paraffin test of Oswald’s cheek and found NAA to be 100% reliable. Since the test required a nuclear reactor, the test was done on the FBI’s behalf at the Atomic Energy Commission’s Oak Ridge facility. Seven men fired a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle once and then three times in rapid succession, and then underwent an NAA paraffin test. In every single case, NAA detected substantial amounts of nitrates in their cheek paraffin molds. In other words, all seven cheek paraffin casts tested positive for nitrates, just as they should have (Weisberg, Post Mortem, 1975, pp. 436-438; see also FBI HQ JFK File, 62–109060–5; FBI HQ Oswald File, 105–82555–94).

The Weisberg-released documents show that FBI expert Cortlandt Cunningham lied through his teeth about the paraffin tests in his WC testimony. Yet, WC apologists such as John McAdams still cite Cunningham’s testimony to justify their rejection of the negative paraffin results on Oswald’s cheek cast.

Moreover, in the Oak Ridge control test, two of the seven shooters also underwent the standard diphenylamine paraffin test, the same kind of test the Dallas police used, and in both cases their cheek casts tested positive for nitrates (General Atomic Report GA-6152 to the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, pp. 10-11). Also, all seven shooters had to wait three or four hours after firing the rifle before the paraffin molds were made of their cheeks.

Dr. David Wrone, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Wisconsin, says the following about Oswald’s paraffin test:

Paraffin tests test on a well-known fact that when a rifle is fired, gases blow back on the shooter’s face and hands, depositing detectable residues. At midnight on November 22, the Dallas police performed the normal tests on Oswald to detect any deposits, using warm liquid paraffin on his right cheek and both hands to make casts. As it hardened, the paraffin would remove and capture any deposits from his skin and pores. Police sent the casts to Dr. Martin F. Mason, director of the Dallas City-County Criminal Investigative Laboratory at Parkland Memorial Hospital, who at 10:45 AM on November 23 tested them with reagent diphenyl-benzidine. The results showed “no traces of nitrates” on the right cheek, which meant Oswald had not fired a rifle. . . .

In its Report the Commission dismisses paraffin tests by asserting that “a positive reaction is . . . valueless” in showing a suspect fired a weapon and thus “unreliable.” This is disingenuous. To be sure, ink, paper, and many other common objects that Oswald’s hands touched that day during the normal course of his work could have caused a positive reaction, but as the Commission’s own official evidence proved, the absence of traces is exculpatory. Oswald’s cheek had none; he had not fired a rifle.

Not satisfied with the Dallas testing, the FBI in its laboratory also performed a more refined spectrographic test of the samples, a scientific test used by law enforcement for 60 years in similar cases. The FBI lab drew the same conclusion about residues on the cheek. Then, under pressure from the Commission, the FBI submitted the paraffin casts to a third, even more sophisticated test. They took the samples to the Atomic Energy Commission facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. . . .

Upon receiving word of the findings, FBI headquarters immediately ordered its agents not to release or make known the results to anyone in order “to protect the Bureau”. . . . Nevertheless, after a bitterly contested lawsuit that lasted ten years, critic Harold Weisberg and his attorney James Lesar obtained the NAA raw data and the results from the bureau and the Oak Ridge authorities.

Weisberg discovered an additional element to the tests that was devastating for the official findings. The FBI had used a control in making the tests. Seven different men had fired the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, and NAA officials had made paraffin casts of their cheeks, which were then tested for residues by the reactor. The control firings had deposited heavy residues on the control cheeks. Oswald’s check cast had no such residues or any traces whatsoever. He had not fired a rifle. (The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK’s Assassination, University Press of Kansas, 2003, pp. 171-172)

We all know that if Oswald’s paraffin cheek cast had tested positive for nitrates in the DPD diphenyl-benzidine paraffin test, in the FBI spectrographic paraffin test, and in the Oak Ridge NAA paraffin test, the WC would have hailed this as powerful evidence that Oswald fired a rifle on 11/22/1963, and WC apologists would still be parroting this position to this day. But, since Oswald’s cheek cast tested negative for nitrates in all three of those tests, WC apologists bend over backward to not only ignore the negative results but to discredit even the NAA paraffin test, even though the FBI’s own control test found that the NAA paraffin test was 100% reliable.

WC apologists handle the paraffin test evidence the same way they handle the HSCA acoustical evidence: They cite some government/government-hired expert's critique of the evidence and then ignore subsequent disclosures on the evidence and ignore scholarly responses to the government-sponsored critique.