Mr. Horne's research is best explained by himself, and he does so in a 5-part lecture. Here's part 1, the others are easily looked up by copying and pasting the title in the search bar.
A lot of folks don't know that Horne has a degree in history from Ohio State University. His JFK assassination research is some of the very best available.
Horne comes across as very professional. He's very private though apparently. Not someone that hangs around JFK conferences and such. I guess he's done all his talking in his five volume book set.
* Autopsy photo F8 shows fatty tissue in the upper-left corner. (Dr. Kirschner)
[Comment: This is crucial because F8 could not show that fatty tissue unless it had been taken from the back of the head. We now know that the autopsy doctors, the autopsy radiologist, and the medical photographer who took the picture said it was a back-of-head photo. This, in turn, is crucial because it means this photo shows a large wound in the occiput.]
This is autopsy photo F8. It is cropped in such a way that it is almost impossible to properly orientate. If it is the back of the head, then the nose would be on the left side of the photo?
(http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/Autopsy_photos/BE7_HI.JPG)
A compelling visual clue unexpectedly confronted me at the Archives as I viewed the color transparencies in stereo. In the upper left corner of F8 . . . I was surprised to see fat tissue (in the far distance), and even a nipple extending outward from the skin of the chest. (This area is not visible in the public images.) Rather strangely, until the ARRB, no one else had reported seeing such fatty tissue. However, the ARRB’s forensic pathologist, Robert H. Kirschner, also described this fat. Kirschner had thus corroborated my critical observation. These fat pads probably resulted from retracting the abdominal skin after the Y-incision. (Kirschner made the same point.) Seeing such fatty tissue in that location is only possible if F8 is a view from the back of the head. Once that is granted, a large occipital defect can readily be appreciated in F8. (Mantik, John F. Kennedy’s Head Wounds: A Final Synthesis, 2015, p. 31)
Not really. He's given numerous interviews, including at least two after his book was published, and he's spoken at at least two JFK conferences that I know of.
Basically, yes.
The autopsy skull x-rays and the Harper fragment are two keys to orienting the photo correctly. And, as Dr. Mantik has explained, the presence of the fatty tissue in the upper-left corner is also a key indicator.
Dr. Mantik viewed F8 in stereo and noted that the upper left corner of F8 shows fat tissue and even a nipple extending outward from the skin of the chest. As Dr. Mantik explains, this fatty tissue would only be visible if F8 showed a posterior view of the head:
On a side note, Humes told the ARRB that F8 showed the EOP entry wound, and Dr. Mantik has confirmed that F8 does show an EOP entry wound almost exactly where Humes placed it (John F. Kennedy’s Head Wounds, pp. 25-29, 62-65).
I would recommend reading Dr. Mantik's section on autopsy photo F8 in his online paper "The Medical Evidence Decoded," pp. 80-83.
https://themantikview.com/pdf/The_Medical_Evidence_Decoded.pdf
Dr. Mantik's best and most up-to-date analysis of F8 is in his JFK's Head Wounds: A Final Synthesis. On page 28 he has a picture of F8 with overlaid orienting graphics to help the read understand what F8 shows.
Michael,
Thanks for posting the link to Dr. Mantik's The Medical Evidence Decoded. I am about half way through and impressed so far. The editing is a bit sloppy but overall a good read.
It is hard to understand why important evidence in the Crime of the Century was handled so carelessly by the Federal Government that things got lost, like the brain and microscopic tissue slides. More sinister is the willing destruction of evidence by federal agents, and the disappearance of various autopsy photographs and X-rays. Dr. Mantik even claims, and not without good reason, that a number of photos/X-rays were faked or altered and that the head wound moved up by 4 inches from the level of the EOP to the top of the head!
The Zapruder film shows that a bullet entry at the EOP and exit in the right parietal/temporal area can not possibly be matched up to a shot fired from the 'sniper's nest.' I hypothesize therefore that as soon as the Zapruder film was released to the public, and the impossibility of the abovementioned trajectory became apparent to all, the entrance wound HAD TO BE MOVED UP in order to maintain the single assassin solution of the Warren Commission. In reality, as Dr. Mantik writes, there is no wound there and all three pathologists agreed.
More later.
The features Mantik imagines are at the photo's edge and out of focus.
Little confidence can be placed in Mantik's claim.
"Livingstone traveled to Dallas and showed these images (actually copies
of drawings of the back of the head, based on the work of the HSCA) for the
first time to the Parkland medical witnesses. What he discovered was truly
astonishing; the Parkland personnel radically disagreed with their authenticity."
The Parkland doctors were shown a viewpoint of the cleaned-up back of the head that none of them ever saw in the first place. So naturally they couldn't confirm a view they had never seen.
"In fact, in their detailed medical notes of 22 November 1963, none of these
doctors had mentioned such a small entry site, a truly astonishing oversight,
if indeed, this "entry" site had existed at all that day."
The doctors explained that the wound could have been there and they not notice it.
"The first individual to recognize this paradox was John Nichols, M.D., A pathologist
at the University of Kansas, (John Nichols, ''The Wounding of Governor John
Connally of Texas, "The Maryland State Medical Journal, October 1977). He drew
a model crosssection of anatomy, and concluded that a bullet fired from the lateral
angle of the sniper's nests imply could not exit at the midline of the throat without
striking bone."
Endorsing the Nichols cartoon shows how bewildered Mantik is in regards to anatomy.
(https://sites.google.com/site/jfkforum/misc/newsgroup/spacers/dot_clear.gif)
Kennedy's neck-tie knot was not as wide as model's.
An individual called Michael Walton composed a picture of a combination of the F8 'mystery' photo and the Back Of The Head autopsy photo:
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oKQZmH-7o2k/WiILDpy15JI/AAAAAAAAE1I/Z8fUHplXNH0HXXgfWUdQYbJ2WrYREnPigCLcBGAs/s1600/rear+wound.jpg)
Note that the large head wound extends to the area behind the ear, and one half of a circular defect is visible in the center-back area. The scalp has been reflected to the left. I still can't see the entry described at autopsy nor the revised entrance wound as presented by the HSCA.
Therefore: is this composition correct?
Basically, yes.
The autopsy skull x-rays and the Harper fragment are two keys to orienting the photo correctly. And, as Dr. Mantik has explained, the presence of the fatty tissue in the upper-left corner is also a key indicator.
Dr. Mantik viewed F8 in stereo and noted that the upper left corner of F8 shows fat tissue and even a nipple extending outward from the skin of the chest. As Dr. Mantik explains, this fatty tissue would only be visible if F8 showed a posterior view of the head:
On a side note, Humes told the ARRB that F8 showed the EOP entry wound, and Dr. Mantik has confirmed that F8 does show an EOP entry wound almost exactly where Humes placed it (John F. Kennedy’s Head Wounds, pp. 25-29, 62-65).
I would recommend reading Dr. Mantik's section on autopsy photo F8 in his online paper "The Medical Evidence Decoded," pp. 80-83.
https://themantikview.com/pdf/The_Medical_Evidence_Decoded.pdf
Dr. Mantik's best and most up-to-date analysis of F8 is in his JFK's Head Wounds: A Final Synthesis. On page 28 he has a picture of F8 with overlaid orienting graphics to help the read understand what F8 shows.
Dr. Mantik's study is impressive, but two of his conclusions bother me.
Conclusion #5:
Something struck the back (probably from the first shot fired), but did not penetrate. Besides a bullet, other possible projectiles include shrapnel, or even a piece of the street or sidewalk.
The FBI found traces of copper on the holes in the President's jacket and shirt in the back. Shrapnel and pieces of street/sidewalk will not leave these traces.
Conclusion #6:
A projectile entered the throat, but did not exit. The nature of this projectile is still debated, with some (e.g., Lifton) arguing that it was a bullet that was (illegally) extracted before the autopsy, while I have here proposed a second possible projectile, namely, a glass fragment from the windshield. The available evidence does not permit a final choice. That the tracheotomy wound was enlarged, during a surreptitious search for such a projectile, is likely.
He overlooks the fact that the Parkland physicians determined that the hole in the anterior neck was round, 3-5 mm in size, and had all the characteristics of a bullet entrance wound. Therefore, it could not have been a piece of glass.