The Entrance Wound in the Throat, the Front Shirt Slits, and Tie Knot Nick

[Michael T. Griffith]

The throat wound was an entrance wound. The wound was immediately below the larynx and above the shirt and tie. It was visible before JFK's shirt and tie were removed. The front shirt slits and the small nick on the left side of the tie knot were made by nurses as they hurriedly cut away JFK's clothing. We learned years ago when photos of the tie were released that there was no hole through the tie, only a small nick on the left edge of the tie knot.

Dr. Ronald Jones saw JFK's body before the clothes were removed. Interviewed for the 2023 Paramount documentary JFK: What the Doctors Saw, Dr. Jones said the throat wound was "visible" and that it was "just above where the shirt and tie was":

The first thing I noticed was a very small wound in his neck in the front. . . .
We could tell that the wound was in the front of the neck just above
where the shirt and tie was. So it was visible to you.
(18:12-18:19, 18:32-18:39)

In the same documentary, Dr. Joe D. Goldstrich, a fourth-year medical student at Parkland Hospital at the time, said he could see the neck wound when JFK's clothes were still on:

I do remember that very early on, even when his clothes were
still on, I saw the wound in his neck. (18:20-18:28)

He would not have been able to see the throat wound if it had been under/behind the tie knot and the front shirt slits.

Dr. Carrico told the WC that the throat wound was above the tie:

Dulles: Will you show us about where it was?
Dr. Carrico: Just about where your tie would be.
Dulles: Where did it enter?
Dr. Carrico: It entered?
Dulles: Yes.
Dr. Carrico: At the time we did not know --
Dulles: I see.
Dr. Carrico: The entrance. All we knew this was a small wound here.
Dulles: I see. And you put your hand right above where your tie is?
Dr. Carrico: Yes, sir. (3 H 361-362)

Plus, we have Carrico's 11/22/63 admission note, where he said the throat wound was "immediately below the larynx." A wound "immediately below" the larynx would be above the collar and above the shirt slits.

When Carrico spoke with Harold Weisberg in 1975, he confirmed that the throat wound was above the collar; he was “definite on this” (Weisberg, Never Again, 2007 edition, p. 241). Weisberg continued:

When I asked him if he saw any bullet holes in the shirt or tie, he was
definite in saying “No.” I asked if he recalled Dulles’s question and his
own pointing to above his own shirt collar as the location of the bullet hole.
He does remember this, and he does remember confirming that the hole
was above the collar. . . . (Never Again, p. 242)

Carrico also told Weisberg that the nurses used scalpels to remove the president’s shirt and tie because they were, understandably, in a big hurry, and that it was “likely” that the nurses made the slits and the nick in the tie, adding, “I saw neither the nick in the tie nor the cuts in the shirt before the nurses started cutting” (Weisberg, Post Mortem, pp. 375-376; http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/N%20Disk/New%20York%20Times/Item%2093.pdf, p. 4; https://www.google.com/books/edition/Matrix_for_Assassination/SC-wBAAAQBAJ?q=&gbpv=1#f=true, pp. 95-96; http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Book Images/Never Again - Draft/Never Again Draft.pdf, p. 14)

Rockefeller Foundation fellow Henry Hurt, in his book Reasonable Doubt, notes that one of the nurses confirmed that nurses made the shirt slits when they hurriedly cut away JFK’s tie and shirt (p. 60).

Dr. Malcolm Perry diagnosed the throat wound as an entrance wound because it was small (3-5 mm in diameter), neat (no ragged edges), and punched-in, and because of the damage he saw beneath the throat wound. He believed the missile had entered the throat and then ranged downward into the chest.

Dr. Kemp Clark said that Dr. Perry discovered that the trachea was deviated, and that Perry believed the missile had ranged downward into the chest:

He discovered that the trachea was deviated so he felt that the
missile had entered the President's chest. (6 H 22)

Dr. Clark said that Dr. Perry also saw blood in the strap muscles of the neck and that Perry believed this was another indication that the bullet had entered the chest:

The part pertaining to the bullet entering the President's chest rests
on the reasons for the placing of the chest tubes which were being
inserted when I arrived. It was the assumption, based on the previously
described deviation of the trachea and the presence of blood in the
strap muscles of the neck that a wound or missile wound might have
entered the President's chest. (6 H 28)

Dr. Perry explained that in addition to the damage to the trachea and the blood in the strap muscles, he also found “free air and blood” in the “superior right mediastinum” (the upper-right part of the central compartment of the chest cavity), which further led him to believe the missile had entered the chest:

I made a transverse incision right through this wound and carried
it down to the superficial fascia, to expose the strap muscles overlying
the thyroid and the trachea. There was an injury to the right lateral
aspect of the trachea at the level of the external wound. The trachea
was deviated slightly to the left and it was necessary to divide the
strap muscles on the left side in order to gain access to the trachea.
At this point, I recall. Dr. Jones right on my left was placing a catheter
into a vein in the left arm because he handed me a necessary
instrument which I needed in the performance of the procedure.

The wound in the trachea was then enlarged to admit a cuffed
tracheotomy tube to support respiration. I noted that there was
free air and blood in the superior right mediastinum. Although I saw
no injury to the lung or to the pleural space, the presence of this free
blood and air in this area could be indicative of a wound of the right
hemithorax, and I asked that someone put a right chest tube in for
seal drain age. At the time I did not know who did this, but I have
been informed that Dr. Baxter and Dr. Paul Peters inserted the chest
tube and connected it to underwater drainage. (6 H 10)

Dr. Perry also noted there was considerable bruising in “the right lateral portion of the neck” and also the right upper mediastinum:

Mr. Specter. What did you observe, if anything with respect to bruising
in the interior portion of the President's neck?

Dr. Perry. There was considerable hematoma in the right lateral portion
of the neck and the right superior mediastinum, as I noted. (6 H 11)

The fact that this damage was on the righthand side of the superior (upper) mediastinum is important because the nick on the tie knot was on the left edge of the knot, an obviously impossible trajectory given the thickness of the knot and the fact that the knot was neatly centered in the middle of the collar band.

All of these facts enable us to more fully appreciate the ARRB disclosures about the back wound. We now know that on the night of the autopsy, the autopsy doctors were absolutely, completely, and totally certain that the back wound had no exit point. They established this with prolonged probing, both with fingers and with surgical probes, and even removed the chest organs and positioned the body “every which way” to facilitate and observe the probing. A medical technician at the autopsy reported that he could see the end of the probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity and that there was no exit point.

This explains another fact that we now know thanks to ARRB disclosures: the first draft of the autopsy report said the throat wound was caused by a fragment from the head shot.

[Tom Graves]

The throat wound was an entrance wound.

Griffith,

You're so full of beans, I can smell you from here.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Griffith,

You're so full of beans, I can smell you from here.

And you are unserious. Your main purpose here seems to be to accuse anyone who doubts the WC of being a Russian disinformation agent, which is just plain weird and silly.

Now, let's see: The throat wound was only 3-5 mm in diameter. It was punched-in, not gashed out. It was neat, without ragged edges. There was more damage behind the wound than on the surface of the wound. These are all textbook, standard indications of an entrance wound, and Dr. Perry and the other Parkland staff had seen many more gunshot wounds than Humes and Boswell had seen.

Furthermore, the wound was located above the shirt slits and above the tie knot. So, obviously, no bullet exited the shirt slits, which is why there is no fabric missing from them, why the FBI found no metallic traces around them, and why there was no hole through the tie. These facts, in turn, are not at all surprising since we now know that the back wound had no exit point and that this was acknowledged in the first draft of the autopsy report.

We also now know, mainly thanks to ARRB disclosures, that Dr. Perry was severely pressured and badgered into changing his diagnosis of the throat wound from entrance wound to exit wound, but toward the end of his life he told a friend and fellow surgeon that the wound was definitely an entrance wound.

But you folks are simply in denial of all this evidence because it destroys your absurd single-bullet theory, which was only cooked up in desperation when the timing problem and the Tague wounding could not be ignored.

[Tom Graves]

Your main purpose here seems to be to accuse anyone who doubts the WC of being a Russian disinformation agent.

Griffith,

People who, after five years or so of serious "study," still doubt the conclusions of the Warren Commission Report aren't necessarily witting "Russian disinformation agents" -- it's much more likely that they're simply "useful idiots" who've been zombified in general by sixty-six years (it started in 1959) of KGB* disinformation, "active measures," and mole-based strategic deception counterintelligence operations, and in particular by JFKA disinfo courtesy of Mark "KGB" Lane, Jim "Paese Sera" Garrison, and Oliver "Jim Garrison/Jim Marrs/Jim DiEugenio" Stone, et al. ad nauseam.

However, people like you who don't just "doubt the WC" but actively proselytize against it as much as you do are a different kind of animal altogether, IMHO.

Question: Does Vladimir Putin pay you, or do you do it for free?

*Today's SVR and FSB

[John Mytton]

The wound immediately below the larynx and above the shirt and tie.

Wrong again, Griffith!



JohnM

[Tim Nickerson]

The throat wound was an entrance wound.

If the throat wound was an entrance wound, what happened to the bullet? What happened to the bullet that entered the back of the neck?

[Michael T. Griffith]

Wrong again, Griffith!

JohnM

So your answer to the fact that there was no hole through the tie, the fact that there was only a small nick on the left edge of the tie knot, the fact that the damage beneath the throat wound was to the right and below the throat wound, the fact that no metallic traces were found around the front shirt slits, the fact that the first draft of the autopsy report said the throat wound was caused by a fragment from the head shot, the fact that the throat wound was only 3-5 mm in diameter and was punched-in and had no ragged edges, the fact that Dr. Carrico and Dr. Jones said the throat wound was above the shirt and tie, the fact that the autopsy doctors established beyond any doubt that the back wound had no exit point  (which is why the first autopsy report said the throat wound was the exit point for a fragment from the head shot), and the fact that Dr. Carrico confirmed that the nurses made the shirt slits and nicked the tie knot while they were hurriedly cutting away JFK's clothing--your answer to all of these facts is to offer another one of your bogus graphics?

[Royell Storing]

Wrong again, Griffith!



JohnM

   Hey John - So are we to believe we are looking at the very same Adam's Apple in both photos? These 2 images of the throat area do Not even look similar.