Dr. Baden Refuted the Single-Bullet Theory

[Michael T. Griffith]

I think it is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that Humes was deliberately misrepresenting the back wound's location in his CE 385 SBT diagram. He surely knew this was not even close to what he had seen. If you compare the autopsy photo of the back wound with CE 385, it is obvious that Humes mislocated the wound at least 2.5 inches higher than where the photo shows it.

The evidence that the back wound was clearly below the throat wound is truly extensive and impressive. For example:

-- As mentioned earlier, JFK's official death certificate, dated 11/23/63, prepared by Dr. George Burkley and marked "verified," placed the back wound at around T3: "a second wound occurred in the posterior back at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra" (https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md6/html/Image1.htm). Needless to say, Dr. Burkley got a long, up-close look at JFK's body during the autopsy and after the autopsy when he witnessed the embalming.

Given how far backward JFK's head is titled in the autopsy photo, the photo certainly does not rule out the death certificate's placement of the wound. Moreover, the "at about the level of" T3 placement is confirmed by the hard physical evidence of the bullet holes in the back of JFK's coat and shirt.

"At about the level of the third thoracic vertebra" means it was not exactly at T3, so it could have been between T2 and T3. The distance between the center of T2 and the center of T3 on the average male is just shy of 3/4ths of an inch, 1.8 cm/0.70 inches. If the wound were perceived to be more than halfway between T2 and T3, "at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra" would be a perfectly valid description.

Furthermore, as we will see below, the T2-T3 placement is supported by numerous and mutually corroborating eyewitness accounts and wound diagrams. 

-- Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who was called to the morgue for the specific purpose of viewing Kennedy's wounds, said in his 11/30/63 report that the back wound was "about six inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column" ("The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963: Statement of Special Agent Clinton J. Hill, United States Secret Service, Concerning His Activities and Official Duties on November 22, 1963," 11/30/63, p. 5; CE 1024, p. 744).

Hill's placement of the wound corresponds closely to the location of the bullet holes in the back of JFK's shirt and coat and to the placement of the back wound on the autopsy face sheet (marked "verified") and in the official death certificate (also marked "verified").

-- In the transcript of the 27 January 1964 executive session of the WC, we read that chief counsel J. Lee Rankin said the bullet entered Kennedy's back below the shoulder blade. Rankin even referred to a picture which he said
showed that "the bullet entered below the shoulder blade" and that it entered below "where the bullet came out":

. . . we have the picture of where the bullet entered in the back, the bullet entered below the shoulder blade to the right of the backbone, which is below the place where the picture shows the bullet came out in the neckband of the shirt in front. (p. 20, https://historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcexec/wcex0127/html/WcEx0127_0069a.htm)

-- Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman got a very good look at JFK's body at the morgue. Kellerman was the one who called Clint Hill to the morgue to view Kennedy's wounds, and he pointed out the wounds to Hill. Kellerman told the HSCA that the back wound was a "back wound," and he put the wound several inches below the neck in his HSCA wound diagram (Kellerman's HSCA wound diagram).

-- When interviewed by the HSCA, FBI agents Sibert and O'Neill both independently put the back wound far too low for the SBT to be even theoretically possible. Sibert and O'Neill actually drew wound diagrams that put the back wound about 4 inches below C7/the base of the neck (Sibert's HSCA wound diagram; O'Neill's HSCA wound diagram). O'Neill even went out of his way to note during his interview that "I do not see how the bullet that entered below the shoulder in the back could have come out the front of the throat" (HSCA affidavit, 11/8/78, p. 5, ARRB record number MD 47).

When the ARRB asked O'Neill about his HSCA wound diagram, he said that he stood by the diagram, and that the location he marked was accurate to the best of his recollection (Deposition of Francis X. O'Neill, ARRB, 9/12/97, pp. 104-107). Indeed, O'Neill said the wound was absolutely no higher than where he marked it on his diagram.

O’Neill further said that at the end of the autopsy, there was no doubt whatsoever that the back wound had no exit point (pp. 30-31, 94).

-- In his ARRB interview, Dr. John Ebersole, the autopsy radiologist, recalled that the back wound was in the "upper right back," and called it a "back wound" (Testimony of John H. Ebersole, Medical Panel Meeting, HSCA, 3/11/78, pp. 3-4, ARRB record number MD 60). In a recorded interview with Harrison Livingstone, Ebersole said he believed the back wound was near T4 (Killing The Truth: Deceit and Deception in the JFK Case, 1993, p. 721).

Finally, as I have documented in previous replies, even the HSCA FPP's placement of the back wound at T1 destroys the SBT because it requires an upward trajectory from the back wound to the throat wound, and because the only way to align that trajectory with the sixth-floor window is to assume that JFK was leaning markedly forward when the bullet struck.

The uber-cautious Pat Speer, whom WC apologists love to quote on the rare occasions when he says something they like, has pointed out that T1 destroys the SBT:

. . . the T-1 level of the spine corresponds to the level of the first rib. This is extremely problematic for the single-bullet theory in that, if Kennedy was sitting fairly upright, a bullet entering at T-1 as depicted in the HSCA exhibits, including Exhibit F-65, would dive down below T-1, and into Kennedy's lung. According to the autopsy, which held that nothing pierced Kennedy's lung, this did not happen. An entrance at T-1 is also problematic in that, even if Kennedy was bent forward to such an extent that the bullet entering his back would head straight for his throat, the first rib would be right in its way.

So how did the HSCA solve this dilemma? Did they accept what would seem obvious? That the lynch-pin of the single-assassin conclusion, the single-bullet theory, made little sense? . . .

Well...they proposed that Kennedy was leaning a lot further forward than had previously been presumed.

Now, this was doubly surprising since the HSCA had also decided Kennedy was first hit at Zapruder frame 190, at a point before he disappeared behind the sign in the film, when he is clearly sitting up in his seat. The Warren Commission, we should remember, concluded he was hit somewhere between frames 210-225 of the Zapruder film, when he was behind the Stemmons Freeway sign, and his forward lean could not precisely be determined. Equally troubling, by moving up the proposed moment of impact, the HSCA put Kennedy closer to the Texas School Book Depository at the time he was shot, and made the angle of descent for the "magic bullet" that much sharper. A quick comparison of Kennedy's position in Zapruder frame 188, 1/9 of a second before the supposed impact, to Kennedy's position in HSCA Exhibit F-46, a drawing of Kennedy leaning forward to the degree required for a non-deflected bullet to pass through his back and neck and then hit Governor Connally, demonstrates that Kennedy was not in the proper position to receive his wounds as proposed.

. . . Some quick measurements show that Kennedy’s neck is bent forward 31 degrees in the drawing, and that the arrow descends at 27 degrees. A bullet on such a trajectory would ascend 4 degrees through Kennedy’s body. As this matches the pathology panel’s analysis of the back wound, it seems clear, then, that they expended some effort on the drawing, and were not just guessing. Which makes it hard to explain why the arrow in the drawing descends at 27 degrees. The angle of descent from the sniper's nest at frame 190, when the HSCA proposed Kennedy was first wounded, was only 24 degrees. . . .

On Exhibit F-307, the back wound was shifted slightly further from the spine than was indicated by the autopsy photos or by the measurements. The entrance was measured as being 4.5 cm from the mid-line of Kennedy’s spine. If the entrance on this drawing is 4.5 cm from his mid-line, however, then Kennedy measured only 13.6 cm to his shoulder. The Clark Panel measured 16 cm to his shoulder, which is as one should expect for a man of his size. If Kennedy was indeed 16 cm to his shoulder, the wound in exhibit F-307 is 5.4 cm from his spine, not 4.5. In addition, if one uses the width of the ruler in the photo (which appears to be a centimeter ruler), 37 mm or 1.46 inches, to measure the distance from Kennedy’s spine to the location of the bullet entrance in the photo, one finds that the distance from Kennedy's spine to the bullet entrance was actually more like 3.9 cm. from his spine, not 4.5. If the entrance was really 3.9 cm from the spine but presented in F-307 as 5.4 cm from the spine, it follows that the wound was moved almost 40% further from the spine.

This convenient movement of the back wound, courtesy Dr. Baden, who worked on the drawings with medical illustrator Ida Dox, created the illusion the proposed bullet path passed outside the width of Kennedy’s spine.  (https://www.patspeer.com/chapter11thesingle-bullettheory).

[Zeon Mason]

So presuming all the above sources posted by MTG are reasonably accurate , then there is one wound in the JFK back right where we see it in the one autopsy photo ( looks below shoulder line to me) which had no exit and then there is one entrance wound in JFK throat that also had no exit ?

Now I’m certainly open to this possibility  but I’m having trouble figuring out what type  weapons and what type projectiles cause each wound and why none of those projectiles were seen embedded in flesh or documents showing they were removed. And where each of these gunmen were located relative to the JFK limo on Elm st ?

Dissolving darts or small pellets  containing cyanide? Umbrella man and his CIA dart gun umbrella is improbable imo and more likely he and DC man were meant to distract SS agents to focus on them. That is IF either or both were conspirators vs simply being protestors)

[Michael T. Griffith]

So presuming all the above sources posted by MTG are reasonably accurate , then there is one wound in the JFK back right where we see it in the one autopsy photo ( looks below shoulder line to me) which had no exit and then there is one entrance wound in JFK throat that also had no exit ?

Now I’m certainly open to this possibility  but I’m having trouble figuring out what type  weapons and what type projectiles cause each wound and why none of those projectiles were seen embedded in flesh or documents showing they were removed. And where each of these gunmen were located relative to the JFK limo on Elm st ?

Dissolving darts or small pellets  containing cyanide? Umbrella man and his CIA dart gun umbrella is improbable imo and more likely he and DC man were meant to distract tge SS agents to focus on them. That is IF either or both were conspirators vs simply being protestors)

Many bullets enter bodies without exiting. This is not uncommon.

The back-wound bullet clearly did not come from the sixth-floor window -- it came came at the wrong time and at the wrong angle to have come from that window. The shot may have been a misfire from a lower floor of the Dal-Tex Building (Harold Weisberg identified photographic evidence that suggests a gunman was firing from a lower floor that building), or it may have been a large fragment from the bullet that hit the pavement behind the limo early in the shooting (the small back-of-head bullet fragments could only have come from this bullet).   

The throat-wound missile ranged downward into the chest, as indicated by the damage described by Dr. Perry and Dr. Clark. This projectile may have been a fragment of glass from the bullet that made the hole in the windshield (eight witnesses saw the hole, and one of them -- a police officer -- even stuck a pencil through it).

I recommend reading Dr. David Mantik's extensive analysis of the back wound and the throat wound in his recent book The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: The Final Analysis.

[John Corbett]

I think it is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that Humes was deliberately misrepresenting the back wound's location in his CE 385 SBT diagram. He surely knew this was not even close to what he had seen. If you compare the autopsy photo of the back wound with CE 385, it is obvious that Humes mislocated the wound at least 2.5 inches higher than where the photo shows it.

The evidence that the back wound was clearly below the throat wound is truly extensive and impressive. For example:

Comparing the autopsy photo of the back wound to the left profile view shows this is a false claim.
https://www.svtperformance.com/attachments/kennedyautopsy3s-jpg.1226051/
https://ochelli.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-26-at-15-08-39-The-Kennedy-Autopsy-Minute-by-Minute-The-Kennedy-Autopsy-Minute-by-Minute-1.pdf.png

The back wound is only about 3 inches below the creases on the back of JFK's neck while the left profile view shows the exit wound in the front of the throat is considerably lower than that.

Once again, MTG relies on a long ago debunked myth.

[Tim Nickerson]

I don't know what MTG is trying to prove by arguing the holes in the coat and shirt are too low to fit with the SBT. We have a photo of where the entry wound on JFK's back was and that was above the exit wound in the throat. It would be pretty silly to argue that the hole in JFK's back was caused by a different bullet than the one that made the hole in his shirt and jacket.

MTG is so delusional that he has convinced himself that he can see JFK clearly enough in Willis 5 to say with certainty that the top of his jacket can be seen to lie flat on his back in it. And he is delusional enough to argue that the hole in JFK's back was caused by a different bullet than the one that made the hole in his shirt and jacket.

[Tim Nickerson]

I think it is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that Humes was deliberately misrepresenting the back wound's location in his CE 385 SBT diagram. He surely knew this was not even close to what he had seen. If you compare the autopsy photo of the back wound with CE 385, it is obvious that Humes mislocated the wound at least 2.5 inches higher than where the photo shows it.

The evidence that the back wound was clearly below the throat wound is truly extensive and impressive. For example:

-- As mentioned earlier, JFK's official death certificate, dated 11/23/63, prepared by Dr. George Burkley and marked "verified," placed the back wound at around T3: "a second wound occurred in the posterior back at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra" (https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md6/html/Image1.htm). Needless to say, Dr. Burkley got a long, up-close look at JFK's body during the autopsy and after the autopsy when he witnessed the embalming.

Given how far backward JFK's head is titled in the autopsy photo, the photo certainly does not rule out the death certificate's placement of the wound. Moreover, the "at about the level of" T3 placement is confirmed by the hard physical evidence of the bullet holes in the back of JFK's coat and shirt.

"At about the level of the third thoracic vertebra" means it was not exactly at T3, so it could have been between T2 and T3. The distance between the center of T2 and the center of T3 on the average male is just shy of 3/4ths of an inch, 1.8 cm/0.70 inches. If the wound were perceived to be more than halfway between T2 and T3, "at about the level of the third thoracic vertebra" would be a perfectly valid description.

Furthermore, as we will see below, the T2-T3 placement is supported by numerous and mutually corroborating eyewitness accounts and wound diagrams. 

-- Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who was called to the morgue for the specific purpose of viewing Kennedy's wounds, said in his 11/30/63 report that the back wound was "about six inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column" ("The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963: Statement of Special Agent Clinton J. Hill, United States Secret Service, Concerning His Activities and Official Duties on November 22, 1963," 11/30/63, p. 5; CE 1024, p. 744).

Hill's placement of the wound corresponds closely to the location of the bullet holes in the back of JFK's shirt and coat and to the placement of the back wound on the autopsy face sheet (marked "verified") and in the official death certificate (also marked "verified").

-- In the transcript of the 27 January 1964 executive session of the WC, we read that chief counsel J. Lee Rankin said the bullet entered Kennedy's back below the shoulder blade. Rankin even referred to a picture which he said
showed that "the bullet entered below the shoulder blade" and that it entered below "where the bullet came out":

. . . we have the picture of where the bullet entered in the back, the bullet entered below the shoulder blade to the right of the backbone, which is below the place where the picture shows the bullet came out in the neckband of the shirt in front. (p. 20, https://historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcexec/wcex0127/html/WcEx0127_0069a.htm)

-- Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman got a very good look at JFK's body at the morgue. Kellerman was the one who called Clint Hill to the morgue to view Kennedy's wounds, and he pointed out the wounds to Hill. Kellerman told the HSCA that the back wound was a "back wound," and he put the wound several inches below the neck in his HSCA wound diagram (Kellerman's HSCA wound diagram).

-- When interviewed by the HSCA, FBI agents Sibert and O'Neill both independently put the back wound far too low for the SBT to be even theoretically possible. Sibert and O'Neill actually drew wound diagrams that put the back wound about 4 inches below C7/the base of the neck (Sibert's HSCA wound diagram; O'Neill's HSCA wound diagram). O'Neill even went out of his way to note during his interview that "I do not see how the bullet that entered below the shoulder in the back could have come out the front of the throat" (HSCA affidavit, 11/8/78, p. 5, ARRB record number MD 47).

When the ARRB asked O'Neill about his HSCA wound diagram, he said that he stood by the diagram, and that the location he marked was accurate to the best of his recollection (Deposition of Francis X. O'Neill, ARRB, 9/12/97, pp. 104-107). Indeed, O'Neill said the wound was absolutely no higher than where he marked it on his diagram.

O’Neill further said that at the end of the autopsy, there was no doubt whatsoever that the back wound had no exit point (pp. 30-31, 94).

-- In his ARRB interview, Dr. John Ebersole, the autopsy radiologist, recalled that the back wound was in the "upper right back," and called it a "back wound" (Testimony of John H. Ebersole, Medical Panel Meeting, HSCA, 3/11/78, pp. 3-4, ARRB record number MD 60). In a recorded interview with Harrison Livingstone, Ebersole said he believed the back wound was near T4 (Killing The Truth: Deceit and Deception in the JFK Case, 1993, p. 721).

Finally, as I have documented in previous replies, even the HSCA FPP's placement of the back wound at T1 destroys the SBT because it requires an upward trajectory from the back wound to the throat wound, and because the only way to align that trajectory with the sixth-floor window is to assume that JFK was leaning markedly forward when the bullet struck.

Commander HUMES - The wound in the low neck of which I had previously begun to speak is now posteriorly--is now depicted in 385, in 386 and in 388.
....
Commander HUMES - You will note that the wound in the posterior portion of the occiput on Exhibit 388 is somewhat longer than the other missile wound which we have not yet discussed in the low neck.
.....
Commander HUMES - I--our previously submitted report, which is Commission No. 387, identified a wound in the low posterior neck of the President.
.....
Commander HUMES - In attempting to relate findings within the President's body to this wound which we had observed low in his neck, we then opened his chest cavity, and we very carefully examined the lining of his chest cavity and both of his lungs.
.....
Commander HUMES - The angle which we observed in measuring, in comparing the point of entrance, our point of entrance labeled "C" on 385 and "D" point of exit is one that the point of exit is below the point of entrance compared with the vertical.
.....
Commander HUMES - The report which we have submitted, sir, represents our thinking within the 24-48 hours of the death of the President, all facts taken into account of the situation.
The wound in the anterior portion of the lower neck is physically lower than the point of entrance posteriorly, sir.
==============

Mr. SPECTER - Have you been present here today during the entire course of Doctor Humes testimony?
Commander BOSWELL - I have, sir; yes.
Mr. SPECTER - Do you have anything that you would like to add by way of elaboration or modification to that which Doctor Humes has testified?
Commander BOSWELL - None, I believe. Doctor Humes has stated essentially what is the culmination of our examination and our subsequent conference, and everything is exactly as we had determined our conclusions.
Mr. SPECTER - And are you one of the three coauthors of the autopsy report which has been previously identified as a Commission Exhibit?
Commander BOSWELL - Yes; I am.
Mr. SPECTER - All the facts set forth therein are correct in accordance with your analysis and evaluation of the situation?
Commander BOSWELL - Yes.
Mr. SPECTER - And specifically, as to the points of entry and points of exit which have been testified to by Doctor Humes, do his views express yours as well?
Commander BOSWELL - They do, yes.
==============

Mr. SPECTER - Were you present here today and did you hear the entire testimony of Doctor Humes?
Colonel FINCK - Yes; I did.
Mr. SPECTER - And do you concur in Dr. Humes' statements and opinions regarding the point of entry C, point of exit D, and general angle on the flight of the missile?
Colonel FINCK - I certainly do.
==========

"This wound is located approximately at the point where the bullet would be expected to exit, given the nature of the entrance wound in the upper right back and the damage to the transverse process of the lower cervical and first thoracic vertebras, which are situated on a line between the entrance and exit points."- HSCA Volume VII, page 175

That may be why they said this:

"the entrance perforation is medial to the scapula and superior to the ribs." - HSCA Volume VII, page 87

T1 being the uppermost vertebra for the ribs.

And there's this from the HSCA photographic analysis panel:

168. "the evidence indicates that the bullet passed near, but did not strike, the right lateral processes of the seventh cervical and first thoracic vertebrae (nor any other bony matter) (59)"- HSCA Volume VI, page 56

(59) sources paragraphs 272-289 of the FPP report.
================

The midpoint is estimated to be 13.5 centimeters below the right mastoid process, with the head and neck, as positioned within the photograph, 6 cm below the most prominent neck crease and 5 cm below the upper shoulder margin. - HSCA Volume VII, page 85
------

"There is an elliptical penetrating wound of the skin of the back located approximately 15 cm. medial to the right acromial process, 5 cm. lateral to the mid-dorsal line and 14 cm. below the right mastoid process. This wound lies approximately 5.5 cm. below a transverse fold in the skin of the neck."- Clark Panel



===========

"back in the neck...just above C7". - Paul O'Connor, HSCA interview

[Tim Nickerson]

Comparing the autopsy photo of the back wound to the left profile view shows this is a false claim.
https://www.svtperformance.com/attachments/kennedyautopsy3s-jpg.1226051/
https://ochelli.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-26-at-15-08-39-The-Kennedy-Autopsy-Minute-by-Minute-The-Kennedy-Autopsy-Minute-by-Minute-1.pdf.png

The back wound is only about 3 inches below the creases on the back of JFK's neck while the left profile view shows the exit wound in the front of the throat is considerably lower than that.

Once again, MTG relies on a long ago debunked myth.

I hate to nitpick but the "back" wound is only about 2 inches below the creases on the back of JFK's neck, not 3 inches. And yes, the left profile clearly shows the exit wound in the front of the throat is considerably lower than that. A little more than an inch, as measured by the Clark Panel.