JFK Assassination Forum

A couple of snips from “Phantom Shot” by Mike Majerus and Jack Nessan:


Dr. E. Forrest Chapman was a Deputy Medical Examiner in the State of Michigan who had a background in forensic pathology. In 1973, he was allowed to examine some of the Kennedy assassination evidence in the National Archives.

The Warren Commission firearms experts who examined CE 543 failed to mention one other curious thing about the shell casing, something Dr. Chapman referred to as the "dishing effect." When the trigger is pulled and the firing pin strikes the primer at the base of the shell casing, the firing pin makes a small indentation in the soft metal of the primer. Dr. Chapman noticed that the indentation on the CE 543 primer was larger than the indentations on the other shell casings found in the sniper's nest. This indicated that the firing pin had struck CE 543 more than once. The second time the pin struck, the indentation became larger. This was another indication that the shell casing had been used for dry firing. Chapman also noticed that the primer on CE 543 was pushed inward in a concave fashion, and was curved like a bowl or a contact lens. His tests showed that this effect only occurred when the firing pin struck the primer of an empty shell casing. The absence of an explosion meant that it had much less resistance than it did when it was a live shell. As a result, the firing pin pushed deeper into the soft metal of the primer when the shell was empty, causing the concave indentation.

Here is an image from the above referenced book:




And here is an image of CE 543 that (to my eyes) doesn’t show any evidence of dishing or anything else I might associate with dry-firing:




I have been reading the expert WC testimony of FBI agent Robert Frazier and looking at the related images. I cannot imagine that Frazier and his team would have missed any dishing effect and other disfiguring to the primer caused by LHO dry firing the rifle with CE 543 in the chamber as Chapman claims.

Has anyone here researched this subject or know of any evidence that might shed more light on this claim?

TDS is just a cheap cop-out. We are all responsible for words and actions. All of us.
I don't blindly hate Trump. I am from the NYC area, so I've known a lot about him for a long time. 

I know, I want my country back. I want an EPA. I want a Dept of Education. I want a fair and unbiased FCC. I want "Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty" back. I want NPR. I am a former broadcaster. I want a Consumer Protection Agency and other watchdog groups. I want a CDC I trust will act in the best interest of science and of course the public. I want National Park Rangers among other things.  FGS !

I don't want a POTUS that puts 100K vets out of their homes because it was a "Biden Program". Or a WH that cuts off food to a Catholic orphanage because the Pope said some "bad things". Then suddenly, Sean Hannity has to insult the Pontiff.

It is not his White House!  There is a process for renovations, especially of that size. Going to a 20K+ seat public arena in this hated environment is proof enough he doesn't need a ballroom for security reasons. On his visit to China, Pres. XI gave him seeds for Jackie's Rose Garden. Do you really think XI didn't know he destroyed it? Put the White House back or be fined.

The whole world sees how dangerous and reckless Trump is. Long time allies Spain, Italy, Poland, and Germany have turned away from us. France will no longer report its nuclear arsenal to the US, and has taken all of its gold out of NY. Meanwhile our "Sec. of War" was sent home in disgrace from a Normandy Memorial. Now, we're stuck in another useless war in the middle east. This time of our own making. We got Hegseth coming on like its a Holy Armageddon. Israel committing genocide.

I want a closed border as much as anyone but I have a huge problem with these detention centers and kidnapping people on only a civil warrant (if that). It was supposed to be the worst of the worst. Up to 70% are confirmed with no criminal record. Yet, they build more of these camps. why? How many are incarcerated for 6 months or more than a year?  Shouldn't it be a rotating door? Where does the deportation part come in? 

Speaking of deportation, I wonder how many that went to CECOT actually belong there? It only takes one to fail the entire program. Imagine that hell?

I am 68 years old. I have voted since 1976. I have always been politically aware. POTUS come and go - sometimes we lean to the right, sometimes left. All within an acceptable margin. Not anymore.  Like a "Super Villain" this actually is the danger of a madman upon the world. His recent "Meet the Press" appearance is just a glimpse into that instability. Congress MUST act. We cannot sustain this.

You choose to ignore the hard photographic evidence that the back wound was caused by a bullet that hit at an upward angle and that the bullet's track tunneled upward. Why? Because, you say, "If that bullet had passed through JFK on an upward trajectory, it would have to have been fired from below and behind JFK. Of course that is a ludicrous proposition."

No, this just shows your severe ignorance and extreme bias. You don't even know the basics of the case. Since Elm Street slopes downward, and since JFK's head and upper torso were leaning slightly forward, a shot fired from the first or second floor of the Dal-Tex Building would have hit JFK's back at an upward angle. Incidentally, the Dal-Tex Building was the same building where Mafia man Eugene Brading was arrested for acting suspiciously right after the shooting, and the same building from which some witnesses said they heard shots fired.

Oh, so you can believe that shot could go through JFK on an upward angle if fired from above and behind him if fired from the Dal-Tex building but not if fired from the TSBD. I'd love to see your calculation that such a shot is feasible from a second floor location but not a sixth floor location.

I should add that the fact that the autopsy photo of the back wound proves the bullet hit and traveled at an upward angle is one of the findings that "the HSCA FPP UNANIMOUSLY concluded." Indeed, this was one of the few FPP findings that Wecht did not dispute. Also, the only way Baden, the FPP chairman, could explain this fact was by assuming that JFK was leaning nearly 60 degrees forward when the bullet struck.

And, oh, well, of course you claim that Connally was "off" when he insisted he was certain he was not hit before Z229, even after he studied a high-quality color print of the Zapruder film under high magnification frame by frame. Somehow he just "missed" the specious pre-Z229 "reactions" that you and other SBT defenders claim to see in the film, even though Connally was the one who actually experienced the shooting and knew himself better than anyone else.

JBC was looking specifically for the reaction he remembered making and found it post Z230. He wasn't looking for the reflexive reaction that he had no memory of making.

Obviously, Connally didn't see any significance in the movement of his right arm in Z226, certainly not as an indication that he'd been hit yet. Z226 merely shows the continuation of a movement he began several frames earlier as he was turning back from looking at JFK. You must be blind to claim that his movement resembles the sudden and dramatic jolting forward of JFK's torso and the upward flinging of his hands and elbows from Z226-232. You must be kidding.

JBC began rotating his  torso to the front a few frames earlier. His arm movement began at Z226 and was just as rapid and dramatic as JFK's arm movement. The up and down motion of JBC's right arm lasted for 9 frames, a half a second, and was immediately followed by the reaction which JBC remembered making.  I don't suppose you have any explanation for what caused JBC's rapid up and down arm flip.

BTW, I'm guessing you're unaware that at the ABA mock Oswald trial, SBT defender Dr. Robert Piziali of Failure Analysis admitted under cross-examination that JFK's Z225 reaction means the bullet must have hit him no later than Z221. Years earlier, Dr. John Lattimer, to his credit, made the same admission.

For years I have been of the belief that JFK/JBC were struck in the Z222-223 window. That's as precise as we can get given the timepiece we have to work with, which is the Z-film. With each frame covering 1/18 second of time, that is as precise as we can get.

You make the hilarious statement that "the claim that JBC could not have held onto his hat after being shot in the wrist is a bogus one based on assumptions by laymen who have no idea what they are talking about." 

Umm, Dr. Charles Gregory, the surgeon who operated on Connally's wrist, said that the shattering of the distal radius bone and the severing of part of the radial nerve would cause immediate and complete loss of function in the hand. Dr. Wecht, a former president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, said the same thing. Even the FPP majority could not agree on how long Connally could have gripped the hat after his wrist was hit, and they made no effort to explain how he could have still held the hat even as late as Z272.

The only layman making bogus claims here is you.

The fact that there is disagreement among the FPP is an indication it is not an established fact that JBC could not have held onto his had after being shot through the wrist. If you have proof of which of these medical examiners is right and which ones are wrong, please post it. In absence of such, it is an unproven assertion.

First off, I notice you said nothing about Dr. David O. Davis, Dr. Lawrence Angel, Dr. Fred Hodges, Dr. Doug Ubelaker, Dr. John Fitzpatrick, and Dr. Robert Kirschner, all of whom have presented findings that contradict your version of the assassination. Many more names could be added to the list.

I am under no obligation to track down every obscure name you throw up. For most of these names you did nothing more than asked me if they were amateurs. Some of the names I recognized and I know they are not experts in the field of forensic medicine. For example Dr. Angel is an anthropologist. Dr. Mantik is a radiation oncologist. Do you even know what that is. He treats cancer patients with radiation therapy. Some expert. Just for grins, I did a search on Dr. Davis. The only thing that popped up was that he was listed in the footnotes of an HSCA document.

If you expect me to respond to what these people had to say, you are going to have to do more than just throw their names out and expect me to hunt down the support for your arguments. That's your job. Give me a specific cite to what they said so I can see for myself what if anything these people had to contribute and the context in which it was said. I have no interest in your out of context synopsis of what they said.

Anyway, I take it you're going to continue to dodge the fact that DiMaio said FMJ bullets will never shatter into dozens of fragments and that x-rays that show dozens of tiny fragments rule out FMJ ammo? Let me quote DiMaio yet again on the behavior of FMJ bullets:

In x-rays of through-and-through gunshot wounds, the presence of small fragments of metal along the wound track virtually rules out full metal-jacketed ammunition.. . . In rare instances, involving full metal-jacketed centerfire rifle bullets, a few small, dust-like fragments of lead may be seen on x-ray if the bullet perforates bone. One of the most characteristic x-rays and one that will indicate the type of weapon and ammunition used is that seen from centerfire rifles firing hunting ammunition. In such a case, one will see a 'lead snowstorm'. . . . Such a picture rules out full metal-jacketed rifle ammunition or a shotgun slug. (Gunshot Wounds, p. 318)

Notice two crucial points: (1) In the "rare" cases when FMJ bullets do fragment if they penetrate bone, they will only leave "a few" lead fragments, and (2) if an x-ray shows a "lead snowstorm," this "rules out" FMJ ammo.

DiMaio did not do an in-depth analysis of the JFK case. If he had, he would not have missed the fact that the JFK autopsy skull x-rays show a snowstorm of dozens of tiny fragments in the right-frontal region, the very kind of fragmentation that DiMaio said would never be produced by an FMJ bullet.

You are not citing Di Maio to advance your argument. You are telling us what you think he would have said had he actually reviewed the JFK x-rays. This is typical of the way you try to substitute your amateurish opinions for those of people who actually know what the hell they are talking about.

Incidentally, are you aware that toward the end of his life, DiMaio changed his mind about his earlier endorsement of the SBT? DiMaio was not a long-time student of the JFK case. His review of the case was somewhat superficial, certainly not in-depth. Only after DiMaio began to dialogue with pro-conspiracy medical scientist Russell Kent did DiMaio become aware of the problems that the medical evidence poses for the single-assassin scenario. Kent convinced, or helped to convince, DiMaio that the SBT is problematic. Kent's 2022 book JFK Medical Betrayal: Where The Evidence Lies is one of the best analyses of the JFK medical evidence ever published.

Quote what Di Maio said for himself and your source for the quote. Once again you are substituting your words for his.

Huh? So a forensic pathologist who examined hundreds of bullets recovered from bodies was not qualified to comment on CE 543's condition? Really?

Dr. Chapman examined CE 543 at the National Archives and then conducted his own experiments to determine if a shell dented to this degree could fire a bullet. Not one of the shells in his tests emerged as deeply dented as CE 543.

Once again, you present your interpretation of what Chapman had to say instead of presenting Chapman's words, forcing me to guess as to what Chapman had to say. So according to you, his experiments did produce dented shells. The fact they were not dented the way CE543 proves nothing. How big was his sample size? That's a significant point. If he fired 10 rounds and got 3 that produced dented shells and none were dented to the degree CE543 was, that's not terribly significant. You are omitting very important information. If you were to cite your source, I would be better able to judge Chapman's work.

Dr. Chapman also noted that CE 543 has a deeper and more concave indentation on its base, at the primer, where the firing pin strikes the shell, and that only empty cases exhibit such characteristics. Dr. Chapman's findings agreed with those of the FBI, as CE 557 proves. CE 557 is a test shell that the FBI fired empty from the alleged murder weapon for ballistics comparison purposes. It, too, contains the dent in the lip and a deep primer impression similar to CE 543.

Just what do you think that proves?

This is a dishonest, unserious dodge. No one is disputing that a bullet hit JFK in the back of the head. The critical issue is the location of the rear head entry wound and the location of the resulting fragment trail. The FPP simply ducked the issue of the vanishing fragment trail, ignored their own radiology consultants' observations about the high fragment trail's relationship to the phantom cowlick entry site, ducked the issue of how three pathologists could have missed the high fragment trail or mistook it for the vanishing EOP-to-right-orbit trail described in the autopsy report, and declined to cite a single example of an FMJ bullet that had deposited a sizable fragment at the entry site.

Still more of your spin on the evidence rather than citing specific sources.

Even the FPP majority did not float this absurd argument. The head was not nearly as damaged as you are describing, unless you are going to say that all three of the autopsy morticians were blind or lying--not the pathologists, but the morticians, the guys who reassembled JFK's skull after the autopsy. For that matter, even the autopsy photos do not show the skull as damaged as you are describing. Indeed, as you should know, the autopsy photos show the back of the head intact.

OK, I'm going to show you how to do a proper cite. Here is a video from forensic pathologist and neuropathologist Dr. Peter Cummings who reviewed the x-rays and photos from the autopsy.

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=dr%2c+peter+cummings+review+of+the+JFK+autopsy+x-rays&refig=6a29c052d42443d3b3354d61b0553d15&pc=EDBBAN&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3ddr%252C%2bpeter%2bcummings%2breview%2bof%2bthe%2bJFK%2bautopsy%2bx-rays%26form%3dANNTH1%26refig%3d6a29c052d42443d3b3354d61b0553d15%26pc%3dEDBBAN&mmscn=vwrc&mid=C951587E81C979356CF6C951587E81C979356CF6&FORM=WRVORC&ntb=1&msockid=c145eb30650611f18f99e1f35e72b178

I believe this video was part of the PBS Nova program review of the assassination.

Now that I have provided the source, I will summarize and you can look at the cite for yourself to see if I have misrepresented his findings. He states that when a bullet passes through the wall of the skull, it produces primary fracture lines radiating out from the point of entry. At the same time, it creates secondary fractures more or less perpendicular to the primary fracture lines and that resulted in a web of skull fragments, most of which remained attached to the scalp which hell all those individual fragments in place. The exception, of course was the Harper fragment which detached from the scalp and was later found in Dealey Plaza.

When it came to the rear head entry wound, the autopsy pathologists did use a standard point of reference: the EOP. To believe the FPP and the Clark Panel, one must believe that the autopsy pathologists somehow, someway committed the mind-boggling blunder of mistaking a wound above the lambda and the lambdoid suture for wound 10 cm lower, 1 cm above the EOP.

Based on the video I have cited, it appears the original autopsy team did place the wound correctly and the error was by the FPP. I hadn't reviewed this material for years and it was my mistake in trusting the FPP, specifically Dr. Wecht, who said that one of the mistakes by the autopsy team made was to not use standard points of reference. 

Far be it from me to defend the autopsy doctors, but Finck was a board-certified forensic pathologist who had considerable experience with gunshot wound cases. He certainly would have been able to distinguish between a wound 1 cm above the EOP and a wound above the lambda and the lambdoid suture. Humes was no forensic pathologist, but he was board-certified in anatomic pathology, so he, too, certainly would have seen the difference between a wound 1 cm above the EOP and a wound above the lambda and the lambdoid suture.

Another flimsy dodge. The FPP made no effort to explain these problems. Indeed, thanks to Baden, the FPP simply ignored the observations of their own radiology consultants when it came to the high fragment trail's relationship with the cowlick entry site, i.e., the fact that the trail starts 5 cm above the cowlick site and 2 cm to the right of it.

And the only thing the FPP said about the large presumed fragment located 1 cm below the cowlick site, i.e., the 6.5 mm object, was that it was "rare" for FMJ bullets to deposit such a fragment at the entry point. Yeah, that was putting it mildly. Revealingly, the FPP declined to cite a single case where an FMJ bullet had ever done this, and no one has yet been able to cite such a case.

Of course, now we know from multiple optical-density measurements that the 6.5 mm object is not metallic but is an image that was ghosted over a somewhat smaller genuine metal fragment 6.3 x 2.5 mm in size and over some much smaller fragments next to the 6.3 x 2.5 mm fragment. 

One, these facts pose no problem for my theory of the shooting, but they destroy yours. Two, I have a whole lot more expertise than you do in these fields. I've been studying them for years. Three, I have already explained these facts. Four, many medical and ballistics experts, along with some physicists and research scientists, have discussed the problems that these facts pose for any single-assassin theory, including Dr. Roger McCarthy, Dr. Gary Aguilar, Dr. Michael Chesser, Dr. Halbert Fillinger, Dr. David Mantik, Dr. Greg Henkelmann, Dr. Arthur G. Haas, Dr. Art Snyder, and (later in his life) Dr. Cyril Wecht.
 
This is exactly what you do, and exactly what you have done in this thread. I have explained and documented the nature and implications of the contradictions between the autopsy report and the autopsy skull x-rays, between the autopsy brain photos and the autopsy skull x-rays, between the autopsy report and the autopsy photos of the head, etc., etc. In response, you have done little else but duck and dodge. When you haven't ducked and dodged, you've lamely appealed to the FPP as the final authority, ignoring the problems with the FPP's work and ignoring the fact that the FPP themselves hammered on the contradictions between the autopsy report and the autopsy brain photos and between the autopsy report and the autopsy skull x-rays. 

Forgive me if I am not impressed by your analysis of the medical evidence and the autopsy report. As I have pointed out to you on several occasions, neither your nor i are competent to analyze the autopsy evidence, especially given that we have seen only a small fraction of the autopsy evidence and what we have seen are lower quality images that what was produced at autopsy. The fact remains that not a single qualified medical examiner who has seen the original autopsy materials disputes the fact that JFK was killed by two shots fired from above an behind him, perfectly consistent with those shots haveing been fired by LHO. There is no medical or forensic evidence of any kind that either JFK or JBC was struck by a weapon fired from any other location other than the sniper's nest.

You sound like a Flat Earther claiming that no one has presented any actual evidence that the Earth is round. You have no idea what evidence WC critics have presented because you've read almost none of their research.

I've spent 35 years online challenging CTs to present their evidence that someone other than Oswald took part in the crime. Every time I make that challenge, all I get is a dial tone. Never any actual evidence. I even made that challenge to you recently. Did I miss your reply or did you dodge it like almost all of your fellow CTs have done over the years. If I don't know about this evidence of which you speak, it's not for lack of trying.

Just for the record, I don't consider your amateurish anaysis of the aiutopsy materials to be evidence.

And you might want to keep in mind that you are in the minority among Americans and Europeans on the JFK case, whereas I am in the majority.

LOL! You bet. I guess you're forgetting that the HSCA "attacked the findings of the WC" and concluded (1) that the WC failed to follow up on valid leads that pointed to conspiracy, (2) that two gunmen were involved, (3) that a shot came from the grassy knoll, (4) that the damning Silvia Odio account is credible, (5) that Ruby had significant Mafia ties and lied about how and why he shot Oswald, etc., etc. I guess you're also forgetting that three of the seven members of the WC "attacked the findings of the WC." I guess you're also forgetting that WC staffer Wesley Liebeler said the WC's portrayal of Oswald's marksmanship and his alleged shooting feat was "simply dishonest."

The HSCA got hoodwinked by the acoustical science presented to them. They failed to vet it or obtain peer review of it. Had they done so, they would have found it was junk science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_Dictabelt_recording

Richard E. Sprague, an expert on photographic evidence of the assassination and a consultant to the HSCA, noted that the amateur film the HSCA relied on showed that there was no motorcycle between those riding alongside the rear of the presidential limousine and H.B. McLain's motorcycle, and that other films[22][failed verification] showed McLain's motorcycle was actually 250 feet behind the presidential limousine when the first shot was fired, not 120 to 138 feet. There was also no motorcycle anywhere near the target area.[23]

Adult magazine Gallery published a pull-out laminated cardboard recording, like those on the back of Cereal boxes, of the Dictabelt recording in its July 1979 issue.[24] Assassination researcher Steve Barber repeatedly listened to that recording and heard the words "Hold everything secure until the homicide and other investigators can get there" at the point where the HSCA had concluded the assassination shots were recorded.[3] However, those words were spoken by Sheriff Bill Decker about 90 seconds after the assassination, so the shots could not be when the HSCA claimed.[25]

The FBI's Technical Services Division studied the acoustical data and issued a report on December 1, 1980 (dated November 19, 1980). The FBI report concluded that the HSCA failed to prove that there were gunshots on the recording and also failed to prove that the recording was made in Dealey Plaza. In fact, using the techniques of the previous investigators, the FBI matched a gunshot recorded in Greensboro, NC in 1979 with the sound that was supposedly a shot from the grassy knoll – purportedly suggesting that the initial investigation's methods were invalid.[26]

National Academy of Sciences
After the FBI disputed the validity of the acoustic evidence, the Justice Department paid for a review by the National Academy of Sciences, an organization operating with a Title 36 congressional charter.

On May 14, 1982, the panel of experts chaired by Harvard University's Norman Ramsey, released the results of their study.[27] The NAS panel unanimously concluded that:

The acoustic analyses do not demonstrate that there was a grassy knoll shot, and in particular there is no acoustic basis for the claim of 95% probability of such a shot.
The acoustic impulses attributed to gunshots were recorded about one minute after the President had been shot and the motorcade had been instructed to go to the hospital.
Therefore, reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman."

    The homeless stuff has been front and center. Including those receiving the cash. I get tired of people crying "where's the proof" and then when they lose they claim they got "robbed". Kamala being front and center. A week ago Tues is exactly why I watch CNN and MSNOW on election night. I also trace the returns county by county as they come in. CNN routinely posts a map permitting this LIVE county by county tracing EVERY Major Election. And you know the fix is in when ALL Networks resort to reporting % differences between candidates instead of actual VOTE TOTAL DIFFERENCES. These people are dumbing down the electorate so they will NOT be aware of the radical vote switching that is ongoing in front of their very eyes.
    And since when does "AP" get to decide when a candidate is in or out of a runoff? The media running with an "AP" declaration is part of the rigging. "AP" is not different than "NPR". Totally biased and in-the-bag.

Show some real evidence. We know his 2020 rant is garbage.
At this point, Trump is either outright lying or delusional to the fact that he lost.