The Three Small Puncture Wounds in JFK's Right Cheek: Proof of a Second Gunman

[Michael T. Griffith]

   "HSCA TESTIMONY........"?  Is anyone aware of Tom Robinson being sworn in and giving "HSCA TESTIMONY"?  Maybe what is being attributed to Tom Robinson was an HSCA "interview" of some kind? Nothing attributed to Tom Robinson above, is enclosed in quotation marks. This further makes me believe we are looking at someone's Reader's Digest condensed version of a possible HSCA "interview" of Robinson.

You can find the transcript of Robinson's HSCA interview here:

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md63/html/Image00.htm

[Royell Storing]

  HUGE difference between Sworn Testimony and an "interview". Anyone confusing sworn testimony with an interview are: (1) intentionally confusing the audience, or (2) confused themselves. This is the same kinda thing we sometimes run into with Cropped Images of the JFK Assassination. Intentional or Accidental, it is Misrepresentation which can lead to Faulty Conclusions.

[Lance Payette]

MG: mortician Tom Robinson noticed three small puncture wounds in JFK's right cheek.

In his HSCA testimony with Purdy, Robinson said that the only wounds to JFK's head were the large gaping wound and a single small wound in the hairline of the right temple, which ascribed to being caused by a fragment. He was asked about any other wounds and said no. Three wounds to JFK's face would be clearly visible to everyone else in the morgue, yet no one else at the autopsy saw anything like that. Nor do these wounds show up in the autopsy photos, as you've sorta noticed.. The only way to believe that those wounds existed is to cherry-pick Robinson's statement to Horne then filter out the rest of the universe.

All points that I was going to make after reviewing the materials! As I read Horne's summary of the interview, Robinson noticed the "2 or 3 small perforations or holes" WHEN EMBALMING FLUID BEGAN TO SEEP OUT OF THEM. There is no suggestion that he or anyone else had noticed them before, or that they would justify Horne's use of the term "wounds." I watched or listened to all I could find with Robinson himself; he always discussed the head wound and throat wound, but I found no further mention of the cheek "wounds." Good Lord, by this time the body had been autopsied - who knows what minute perforations of the inside of the cheek the doctors (or bone fragments) might have caused? Michael's "analysis" strikes me as much ado about nothing.

In legal work, we typically interview a witness and then go to the trouble and expense of a deposition if we decide the witness has something significant to add to the case. Apparently, neither the HSCA nor even the ARRB decided that Robinson did.

I was struck by the somewhat "conspiratorial" vein of Andy Purdy's questioning, especially considering that Robinson was a mere mortician (albeit one who had watched the autopsy). He was questioned as though he were some sort of medical or forensic witness.

As it turns out, Andy Purdy as a law student at the University of Virginia was one the persons whose activities were responsible for Congress forming the HSCA. At the time Purdy was questioned, he was a fairly new lawyer. In a recent interview, he states that "the entire [HSCA] staff wanted and expected to find a conspiracy" and was "shocked" when things didn't go in this direction. He feels that his bombshell medical interviews, including the one with Robinson, were deep-sixed by Blakey. Today, he believes there were two morgues, two autopsies, altered photos, yada yada. All of which would tend to explain the somewhat conspiratorial orientation I noticed in his questioning of Purdy (and that shines through whenever Horne questioned someone for the ARRB).

[Royell Storing]

All points that I was going to make after reviewing the materials! As I read Horne's summary of the interview, Robinson noticed the "2 or 3 small perforations or holes" WHEN EMBALMING FLUID BEGAN TO SEEP OUT OF THEM. There is no suggestion that he or anyone else had noticed them before, or that they would justify Horne's use of the term "wounds." I watched or listened to all I could find with Robinson himself; he always discussed the head wound and throat wound, but I found no further mention of the cheek "wounds." Good Lord, by this time the body had been autopsied - who knows what minute perforations of the inside of the cheek the doctors (or bone fragments) might have caused? Michael's "analysis" strikes me as much ado about nothing.

In legal work, we typically interview a witness and then go to the trouble and expense of a deposition if we decide the witness has something significant to add to the case. Apparently, neither the HSCA nor even the ARRB decided that Robinson did.

I was struck by the somewhat "conspiratorial" vein of Andy Purdy's questioning, especially considering that Robinson was a mere mortician (albeit one who had watched the autopsy). He was questioned as though he were some sort of medical or forensic witness.

As it turns out, Andy Purdy as a law student at the University of Virginia was one the persons whose activities were responsible for Congress forming the HSCA. At the time Purdy was questioned, he was a fairly new lawyer. In a recent interview, he states that "the entire [HSCA] staff wanted and expected to find a conspiracy" and was "shocked" when things didn't go in this direction. He feels that his bombshell medical interviews, including the one with Robinson, were deep-sixed by Blakey. Today, he believes there were two morgues, two autopsies, altered photos, yada yada. All of which would tend to explain the somewhat conspiratorial orientation I noticed in his questioning of Purdy (and that shines through whenever Horne questioned someone for the ARRB).

       With respect to not calling Tom Robinson to give ARRB testimony, I believe you are forgetting the Primary Purpose of the ARRB. The purpose of the ARRB was NOT, "...looking for something significant to add to the case".  The HSCA and the ARRB were 2 different govt bodies with 2 different directives. Please keep this in mind.

[Lance Payette]

       With respect to not calling Tom Robinson to give ARRB testimony, I believe you are forgetting the Primary Purpose of the ARRB. The purpose of the ARRB was NOT, "...looking for something significant to add to the case".  The HSCA and the ARRB were 2 different govt bodies with 2 different directives. Please keep this in mind.

The ARRB took at least 16 formal, court-reporter-present, had-to-be-paid-for, fully-indexed depositions: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/contents.htm.

The testimony taken was squarely in the ballpark of what Robinson had to talk about. He was apparently deemed not sufficiently significant.

Oops. Please keep this in mind. 

[Mitch Todd]

More of your sophistry, misleading omissions, and flimsy rejection of evidence that you can't explain. You failed to mention that Robinson only noticed the three small puncture wounds after the autopsy was over and when embalming fluid was then put into the body and some of the fluid began leaking from the three small cheek punctures and slight discoloration began to appear around the punctures. Did you just miss these statements? Humm?

So the three small puncture wounds would not have been "clearly visible to everyone else in the morgue." Again, Robinson only noticed them after the autopsy ended, when embalming fluid began to leak from the punctures and when they began to become slightly discolored.

Robinson also explained that the punctures don't show up in the right-superior profile photo because the photo is of poor quality ("because of the photo's poor quality"). Gee, did you just miss this statement too?

Robinson noticed the small wound in the right temple, but the autopsy report says nothing about it. Robinson, along with nearly everyone else at the autopsy, also saw the large back-of-head wound, but it has vanished from the autopsy photos, is obscured on the autopsy x-rays, and is not mentioned in the autopsy report.

You seem to have a habit of trying to mislead readers by omitting key information, or at least that's how it appears to me. I don't know how you could have missed the above-mentioned statements or thought they weren't worth mentioning.

For those who want to read the entire ARRB summary of the Robinson interview, here's a link to it:

https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md180/html/md180_0001a.htm

The fact that Robinson did not mention the three small punctures in his HSCA interview proves nothing. Are you implying that he lied to the ARRB about them? Robinson may simply not have thought to mention them in his HSCA interview since the focus was on the visible wounds to JFK's head and since he didn't notice the tiny punctures until after the autopsy. Witnesses quite frequently remember certain things in one interview that they forgot to mention in another interview.

WC apologists don't want to admit there were three small puncture wounds in JFK's right cheek because they know they have no way to explain them.

MG:  You failed to mention that Robinson only noticed the three small puncture wounds after the autopsy was over and when embalming fluid was then put into the body and some of the fluid began leaking from the three small cheek punctures and slight discoloration began to appear around the punctures. Did you just miss these statements? Humm?

[...]So the three small puncture wounds would not have been "clearly visible to everyone else in the morgue." Again, Robinson only noticed them after the autopsy ended, when embalming fluid began to leak from the punctures and when they began to become slightly discolored.

So? This is just a red herring, and it actually hurts your argument: the sudden emergence of embalming fluid from JFKs face would have made the wounds even more easily apparent to everyone else in the room. The morgue was still full of people during the embalming process. Do you think that everyone in the morgue during the autopsy suddenly vanished the second that the embalming started?  And --again-- none other than Robinson ever said they saw any wounds to JFK's face nor saw embalming fluid leaking out therefrom.
 

MG: Robinson also explained that the punctures don't show up in the right-superior profile photo because the photo is of poor quality ("because of the photo's poor quality"). Gee, did you just miss this statement too?

There are several photos showing JFK's face. You really think all those photos are that bad? You're talking about wounds you claim were made by jagged pieces of shrapnel. Those create equally ragged, irregular injuries. Not the kind of thing that's difficult to spot, even when small.


MG: The fact that Robinson did not mention the three small punctures in his HSCA interview proves nothing.

You misrepresent what goes down in Robinson's interview with Purdy. Robinson described to Purdy the tracheotomy, the large head wound, and the small wound in the hairline at the temple. After that, Purdy asks Robinson "Were there any other wounds on the head other than the little one in the right temple area, and the big one in the back?" Robinson's reply is specific: "that's all." The fact that Purdy specifically cued Robinson as to additional wounds slams the door on your argument that it just somehow slipped Robinson's mind as he was prattling on.

Also, in 1978, Robinson described two wounds to JFK's head: a large one at the rear and a small one in the temple in the hairline. 20 years later, he remembered a large wound at the rear, of large-ish triangular one on the side of the head above the ear, and two or three in the face. The small, temple hairline wound just disappears in the 20-year gap and new, previously undisclosed, injuries mysteriously appear. The difference can't be reconciled by your handwaving.

Did Robinson lie? Well, he tries to claim that he was in the morgue from the beginning of the autopsy. However, the Sibert and O'Neil report says that "At the termination of the autopsy, the following personnel from Gawler’s Funeral Home entered the autopsy room to prepare the President’s body for burial: JOHN VAN HAESEN, EDWIN STROBLE, THOMAS ROBINSON, Mr. HAGEN." Manchester, in Death of a President, says that Robinson (described only as a "young cosmetician") accompanied  Joe Hagen, he mahogany casket, and one of the Gawlers to the Morgue in a hearse. Manchester places the selection of the casket  at "around midnight," citing Powers and Powers' contemporaneous notes of the events. The autopsy started about 8PM, and the brain, heart and lungs had already been removed by the time Finck showed up at 8:30PM. It's very hard to believe that Robinson could have seen the early stages of the autopsy --before the Y-incision had been made--  when he arrived close to midnight and was kept out of the morgue until the end of the autopsy proper.


MG: Robinson may simply not have thought to mention them in his HSCA interview since the focus was on the visible wounds to JFK's head

By Robinson's own description, the cheek wounds were literally "visible wounds to JFK's head." Not sure what you're trying to argue here, other than you're not thinking carefully.

[Royell Storing]

The ARRB took at least 16 formal, court-reporter-present, had-to-be-paid-for, fully-indexed depositions: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/medical_testimony/contents.htm.

The testimony taken was squarely in the ballpark of what Robinson had to talk about. He was apparently deemed not sufficiently significant.

Oops. Please keep this in mind. 

   "...squarely in the ballpark....". That's subjective babble. Horne's books explain what was going on with respect to 'interviewed" witnesses like Robinson. I recommend you take the time to read those books.

[Mitch Todd]

   "HSCA TESTIMONY........"?  Is anyone aware of Tom Robinson being sworn in and giving "HSCA TESTIMONY"?  Maybe what is being attributed to Tom Robinson was an HSCA "interview" of some kind? Nothing attributed to Tom Robinson above, is enclosed in quotation marks. This further makes me believe we are looking at someone's Reader's Digest condensed version of a possible HSCA "interview" of Robinson.

"Testimony" has a number of related meanings. I figure that Purdy's Robinson "interview" fits under M-W definition #1: "a solemn declaration usually made orally by a witness under oath in response to interrogation by a lawyer or authorized public official"

Then again, whether or not I used Storing-approved terminology is unimportant. The point is that Robinson had some very different descriptions of the wounds over the years.