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JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate / Re: Fourth Edition of "Forensic Science and President Kennedy's Head Wounds"
« Last post by Stewart Fillmore on Today at 01:27:36 AM »Two SBT wound-ballistics tests (one of Lattimer's tests and an Australian test) actually duplicated all the wounds posited by the SBT, but in both cases the bullets emerged visibly more damaged than CE 399.
And, of course, both of those tests assumed that JFK and Connally were aligned in a way to make the wounding possible in the first place, when in fact the most advanced, sophisticated SBT trajectory analysis ever done, the 2023 Knott Lab analysis, found that the two men were not aligned in a way that would make the SBT theoretically possible. In addition, the few pro-SBT trajectory analyses have had to make demonstrably invalid assumptions about the size of Connally's back wound (doubling its size), the size and nature of the wound path through Connally's chest (ignoring the fact that it was rather narrow), and JFK and Connally's positions and rotations (putting the men in positions and/or rotations that are wholly unsupported by the photographic evidence).
I’m not aware of Lattimer duplicating the overall shot with dummies set up in the same relative positions as JFK and JBC as Alex Krstic (the Australian test) did on the Unsolved History episode. Lattimer duplicated several elements of the SBT but if he did an overall reconstruction, I’d like to see his results if you can tell me where I could find it.
The Krstic test actually set up the reconstruction pretty rigorously following the parameters of the shot with JFK and JBC in their relative positions. They marked the entry point approximately 14 cm below the dummy’s mastoid process. They shot from 60 feet up and hit just a little low and left of the aim point. They showed a graphic from a side view showing the bullet exited in JFK’s chest, well below the throat. They failed to show the actual exit point but through a narrator said the single bullet theory worked. The bullet’s nose was flattened and the bullet shaft bent. The narrator explained that the nose was flattened because the bullet struck two ribs in the test—otherwise it would have been very similar to 399. They forgot to add that 399 struck JBC’s wrist bone.
But you’re absolutely correct about the alignment issues. My testing on both the range and with a 1:1 model of the limousine using mannequins and stand ins, has revealed neither the vertical angle (slope), nor the horizontal angle (right to left direction) of the shot works. The 17 degree slope of the shot exits 2 1/2 inches below the throat with an entry on the suit coat 5 3/8 inches below the top of the collar (with the coat bunched approximately 2 inches). It gets further out of whack with the 13 degree right to left aspect of the shot. My testing has revealed JBC’s midline sitting centered in a 20.5 inch wide jump seat placed 2.5 inches from the car door had to be moved 9 inches inboard for the shot to align. This was done with string run through pre cut holes in the mannequins/stand ins clothes at the exact FBI measurements. The string forces the geometry and I think is more compelling than animated reconstructions.
