Two of the monumental problems facing lone-gunman theorists, two problems they have yet to credibly explain, involve the low fragment trail described in the autopsy report and the obvious high fragment trail on the JFK autopsy skull x-rays.
The autopsy doctors wrote in the autopsy report, and repeated in their WC testimony, that during the autopsy they observed a fragment trail that ran upward from the rear head entry wound, which they said was slightly above the external occipital protuberance (EOP), to a point just above the right eye, i.e., the right supraorbital ridge. The supraorbital ridge is also called the brow ridge because it is the bone beneath your eyebrows. I quote the autopsy report:
Roentgenograms [x-rays] of the skull reveal multiple minute metallic fragments along a line corresponding with a line joining the above- described small occipital wound and the right supra-orbital ridge. (p. 4). However,
no such fragment trail appears on the existing autopsy skull x-rays. This fact was confirmed by the HSCA’s medical panel (FPP), was confirmed by the three ARRB forensic experts, and has been confirmed by numerous private experts, including Dr. David Mantik, Dr. Mike Chesser, Dr. Robert Livingston, Dr. John Lattimer, and Dr. Gary Aguilar.
The only fragment trail that appears on the extant skull x-rays is the high fragment trail that is plainly visible near the top of the head. It is a whopping 5.9 inches (15 cm)
above the EOP. The majority of the fragments in the trail are clustered in the right-front part of the skull.
Incredibly, the autopsy report says nothing about this fragment trail—absolutely nothing, not one word.The high fragment trail is also 1.9 inches (5 cm)
above the alleged “revised” entry site that was proposed by other experts years after the autopsy, i.e., the cowlick entry site. The cowlick site, first proposed by the Clark Panel in 1968, then the Rockefeller Commission’s medical panel in 1975, and then the FPP in 1979, is markedly higher than the autopsy report’s EOP site—it is 3.93 inches (10 cm)
above the EOP site. The extreme implausibility that three pathologists could so severely mislocate the entry wound is another major problem for the lone-gunman theory, but I will not discuss it in this post.
There are only three explanations for why the existing autopsy skull x-rays do not show the low fragment trail described in the autopsy report:
One, the autopsy doctors committed the unbelievable blunder of mistaking the high fragment trail for a trail (1) that started a whopping 5.9 inches (15 cm) lower, (2) that was in a different bone of the skull (parietal vs. occipital), and (3) that ran at a downward angle instead of an upward angle from the back of the head, even though they had the EOP, the lambdoid suture, and the lambda as reference points (keep in mind they reflected the scalp so they could examine the wound in the skull). A first-year medical student would not make such an astonishing blunder.
Two, the autopsy doctors saw no fragment trail that ran from the EOP to the right eyebrow but falsely said they did (1) because they wanted to strengthen the case for the EOP entry site, (2) because the high fragment trail did not align with the EOP site, and (3) because there was no wound on the back of the head that they could associate with the high fragment trail.
Three, the low fragment trail was removed from the autopsy x-rays, or its fragments were removed from the skull and the skull was then x-rayed again, because some of the people involved in the medical cover-up recognized that the low fragment trail, like the EOP entry site, would pose unsolvable problems for the lone-gunman theory.
If the low fragment trail was present in Kennedy’s skull on the night of the autopsy, the people who were running the medical cover-up decided to get rid of it. Why would they have done this? Because the low fragment trail supported the EOP entry site, and because they could not allow the autopsy skull x-rays to show two separate fragment trails, since this would have clearly indicated two head shots.
Dr. Michael Chesser, a neurologist who has examined the autopsy materials at the National Archives, has concluded that those who were doing the medical cover-up moved the rear head entry wound partly because the EOP site and the autopsy report’s exit point do not line up with the high fragment trail:
I think that one of the reasons they moved the entry wound up was due to the fragment particle trail shown in the right lateral skull x-ray. If a line is drawn from the Warren Commission entry site and the proposed exit site, you’ll notice that the particle trail doesn’t correspond with these sites. The prominent particle trail is located in the upper portion of the skull.
Now if you do the same for the HSCA entry and exit sites, you’ll notice that the line is closer to the particle trail, but it still doesn’t seem to correspond. (Michael Chesser, “A Review of the JFK Cranial x-Rays and Photographs,” 2015, http://assassinationofjfk.net/a-review-of-the-jfk-cranial-x-rays-and-photographs/.)Dr. Chesser then explains why the high fragment trail is consistent with a shot to the right-frontal region:
I am just one of many who believe that the entry site responsible for this particle trail was in the right frontal region, at or just above the hairline. If you notice the location, I’ve moved it up slightly from the skull defect which I think represents the entry site, because the right side of the frontal bone had separated and had dropped in relation to the left frontal skull. (“A Review of the JFK Cranial x-Rays and Photographs”)