PROBLEMS
WITH THE JFK AUTOPSY X-RAYS AND PHOTOS:
HAVE
THE JFK AUTOPSY MATERIALS BEEN FAKED OR ALTERED?
Michael T. Griffith
2009
@All Rights Reserved
Third Edition
Lone-gunman theorists maintain that the
alleged JFK autopsy photos and x-rays are genuine, pointing to the fact that
they were authenticated by two expert panels retained by the House Select
Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in the late 1970s. However, those panels
based their "authentications" on a few narrow criteria, and they did
not explain the indications of fakery in the autopsy materials.
Indications that the autopsy x-rays and
photographs are invalid are as follows:
* The HSCA admitted the following about the
photographs:
- They are generally of rather poor
photographic quality.
- Some of them were taken in such a manner
that it is nearly impossible to anatomically orient the direction of view.
- In many of them, scaler references are
entirely lacking, or, when present, are positioned in such a manner that it is
difficult or impossible to obtain accurate measurements of critical features
from anatomical landmarks.
- Not one of them contains information
identifying the victim, such as his name, the autopsy case number, and the date
and place of the examination.
- Due to their lack of documentation and
poor quality, the defense could have challenged the use of these photos as
evidence in a trial, and even the prosecution might have had "second
thoughts about using certain of these photographs since they are more confusing
than informative."
- The onus of establishing their
authenticity would have rested with the prosecution. Harrison Livingstone
correctly notes that this point and the previous one can rightly be seen as an
admission that the photos would have been prima facie inadmissable as evidence
in a court of law, and that the prosecution could have used them only after
establishing their validity (Livingstone, High
Treason 2, 315).
* Earl McDonald of the National Archives,
who trained in autopsy photography under autopsy photographer James Stringer,
has noted other oddities about the autopsy photos. McDonald has compiled a list
of things that should appear in the autopsy photos but that are not found in
them:
- There are no autopsy tags visible in any
of the photographs.
- There are no whole body photographs in the
collection.
- There is no photograph of the brain (at
autopsy) immediately following removal from the cranium.
- There is no photograph of the inside of
the skull following brain removal showing its condition.
- There is no photograph of the reassembled
skull.
- There is no photograph of the chest
cavity.
- There is no extreme close-up of the back
wound.
- There is no wide-angle and/or medium field
view of the cranium viewed from the outside. (I've taken this list from chapter
four of Ed Dorsch's fine online book on the assassination. The book is
available at http://pages.prodigy.net/whiskey99/.)
* The HSCA medical panel authenticated the
x-rays partly on the basis of a right frontal sinus, but if the x-rays are
composites, or if they are in fact the originals but have been altered, an
authentication based on sinuses would not automatically prove
authenticity.
* In the color versions of the right-profile
and top-of-the-head pictures, there are three large bloody red stripes hanging
down on top of Kennedy's hair, giving the appearance of a severe wound at the
top of the head. However, in the black and white reprints of these photos the
stripes are white or light gray. This
is a photographic impossibility, if orthochromatic film was used. With such
film, red turns to black, not to white or light gray. Professional photographer
Steve Mills has said the following about this problem:
Orthochromatic
film, unfiltered, records blue very lightly and red very darkly. This makes perfect sense in [autopsy photos] F1
through F5. Yet, here's a supposedly bloodied scalp in F6 and F7 recorded as
light gray. This can be done with a red filter on ortho film, but the blood
drops on the towel show me this is not the case. The scalp can't be gray and
three bloody spots still be dark if a filter was used.
It is common to use ortho film in forensic photography to show differences and
details in red and blue areas. But this is no proof. The record declares one
type of film, and the photos declare either another or fraud. (Livingstone, High Treason 2, 584)
Mills goes on to discuss indications of
fraud in the Groden color autopsy photos in relation to the stripes and the
scalp:
They [the autopsy
photos] also show Groden's color shots to be frauds. Let me explain.
1) Let's say it
was pan b/w. F6 and F7 would have to be shot with a
blue filter to lighten the stripe. That would darken the supposedly bloody scalp.
You can't have it both ways, i.e., light red and light blue, so there's no red filter either. This would not
work. So, if it's truly pan film, then the scalp is not bloody skin but brain
matter.
2) Let's say it's ortho film. The blue stripe will always be light and
the red will always be dark. No filter is required if the scalp is really brain
tissue, but a red one is still needed to lighten blood. But here the bloody
spots prove this is not the case once again. So do the bloody marks on his
shoulder.
So, here's the
result: They probably used ortho film and no filtering of any kind. that is brain and not scalp. We can see that
no combination of film and filtration can
give you b/w photos that will jibe with Groden’s colors. they
have to be fake. (Livingstone, HIGH TREASON 2, 584-585, original emphasis)
Furthermore, nearly all of the medical
witnesses who have commented on the condition of the top of the head have said
it was virtually undamaged (Livingstone, High
Treason 22, 156, 182; Livingstone, Killing
Kennedy, 254, 255, 256-257; Livingstone, Killing the Truth, 139; see also the discussion herein on the
location of the large head wound). Numerous witnesses reported that the large
head defect was not visible when the back of the head was lying flat on the
table.
* The autopsy photos were supposedly taken
at the morgue of the
Additionally, the left-profile picture shows
a black phone on the wall beside the table, but these autopsy technicians say
there was no phone at that position at the morgue.
* The x-rays of the skull show two-thirds of
the right side of the brain to be gone. All that remains is a torn and
flattened base. Yet, the x-rays also show a trail of tiny metal fragments
across the top of the head on the right side, from the alleged entrance point
in the rear to the forward margin of the supposed exit wound in the right
front. How can this be? What is supporting the metal if there is no brain in
that part of the head?
The fragments in the right frontal lobe are
particularly problematic. Dr. Richard Lindenberg, an expert consultant for the
Rockefeller Commission, noted that in the skull x-rays the entire right frontal
lobe is missing. But the x-rays show
bullet fragments in that lobe. What is supporting those fragments if the lobe
is not there? One cannot have the right frontal lobe missing and still have
fragments seen in it on an x-ray.
* Floyd Riebe, one of the two autopsy photographers,
stated in a filmed interview for KRON-TV in 1988 that the autopsy x-rays and
photos had been doctored in some way, and that the photos did not show the
wounds that he saw on the night of the autopsy. Riebe said he recalled seeing
"a big gaping hole in the back of the head." The other photographer,
James Stringer, stated in a taped interview that he did not take the photos of the back of the head, which show that area
intact, contrary to the testimony of literally dozens of credible witnesses.
Who, then, took the back-of-the-head pictures?
* In the skull x-rays, according to
government-hired experts who have examined them, there does not appear to be a
large defect in the right rear part of the head. Similarly, in the autopsy
photographs of the back of the head, this area of the head is intact. However,
numerous medical professionals and federal agents who saw Kennedy's body have
stated there was a large hole in that part of the skull. Some of these
witnesses include the following:
- Audrey Bell, a nursing supervisor at
- Diana Bowron,
- Dr. Kemp Clark,
- Dr. Charles Crenshaw,
- Dr. Richard Dulaney,
- Dr. John Ebersole,
- William Greer, Secret Service agent, who
drove the presidential limousine.
- Clint Hill, a Secret Service agent who was
taken to the morgue for the express purpose of viewing the President's wounds
and who was also in the
- Patricia Hutton (now
Patricia Gustaffson), a nurse at
- James Curtis Jenkins, a Navy lab
technician at
- Dr. Robert Karnei,
- Roy Kellerman, a Secret Service agent who
was present at the autopsy.
- Dr. Robert McClelland,
- Doris Nelson, a chief nurse at
Doris Nelson, the
supervising Emergency Room nurse, carefully inspected the body. Ben Bradlee,
Jr., asked her, "Did you get a good look at his head injuries?"
"A very good look," she replied. "Oh, I did see it. When we
wrapped him up and put him in the coffin. I saw his whole head." She was
then asked if the alleged autopsy photos were accurate. "No. It's not
true. Because there was no hair back there. There
wasn't even hair back there. It was blown away. Some of his head was blown away
and his brains were fallen down on the stretcher." (Groden and Livingstone
454)
- Aubrey Rike, an ambulance driver and
funeral home worker in
- Tom Robinson, the mortician who had the
job of putting the President back together after the autopsy in case the family
wanted to take one last look at him. Robinson, of course, had to spend a good
part of his time handling the President's head. He saw and felt the large wound
in the right rear.
- Jan Gail Rudnicki, a lab assistant at
- Roy Stamps, a
- Dr. David Stewart,
It should be noted that according to some
private experts, the anterior-posterior (AP) x-ray does indicate some missing
bone in the occipital region.
* The skull x-rays show a large 6.5 mm
fragment in the outer table of the skull below what government-hired experts
have described as an entrance hole in the top part of the back of the head, in
the cowlick area. However, neither the autopsy doctors nor the radiologist
reported seeing this fragment in the skull x-rays that were taken on the night
of the autopsy (Livingstone, Killing the
Truth, 131-133, 622, 630). When the chief
autopsist, Dr. James Humes, testified before the Warren Commission, he
discussed at length the fragments he observed in the skull and in the skull
x-rays, and he mentioned that he and the other doctors were looking for
fragments to retrieve, yet he said nothing about seeing a 6.5 mm fragment
anywhere in the rear part of the skull (see, for example, 2 H 351-355,
358-360).
Additionally, ballistics expert Howard
Donahue pointed out that it is highly unlikely that the 6.5 mm fragment could
have come from a bullet fired from the alleged sniper's nest. Defenders of the
x-rays speculate that the fragment "sheared off" from the bullet as
the missile entered the skull. But Donahue observed that a bullet fired from
the TSBD, and thus entering the skull at a downward angle, should have
deposited a sheared-off fragment above
the entrance point, not below it. He further notes that he has never heard off
a fully metal-jacketed bullet shearing on impact (Menninger 68, 160). Detective
Shaun Roach, an Australian forensics expert, agrees, saying, ". . . due to
the inherent strength of the 6.5 mm Carcano jacket, I also believe that it
would not shear off a fragment upon
entering the head, then deposit that fragment on the outer table of the skull,
either above or below the wound" (Livingstone, Killing the Truth, 57). In fact, forensic science knows of no case
where a fully metal-jacketed bullet deposited a sheared-off fragment in the
outer table of the skull after striking the skull.
Moreover, the alleged entrance hole in the
x-rays, near which the 6.5 mm fragment appears, is a staggering four inches
HIGHER than the entry point described in the autopsy report. It is extremely
hard to believe that the autopsy pathologists mislocated this wound by a
whopping four inches, especially since one of them, Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, in
effect triangulated the wound to the external occipital protuberance
(Livingstone, Killing the Truth,
129-130).
* Dr. Mantik has concluded the x-rays are
abnormal. Dr. Mantik reached this conclusion after studying the radiographs at
the National Archives with sensitive light-measuring equipment. Dr. Mantik has
noted that the measured light in the large white area on the right lateral
x-rays is "a thousand times the maximum seen in any other x-rays" (in
Dateline Dallas, April 12, 1994, p.
13; see also Livingstone, Killing Kennedy,
79-87). (For the record, Dr. Mantik, B.S., M.S., Ph.D., M.D., is a
board-certified radiation oncologist and the Director of Radiation Oncology at
* The Select Committee's medical panel
claimed that in the lateral skull x-ray fracture lines radiate outward from the
proposed cowlick entry site and correspondingly from the 6.5 mm fragment that
now appears in the skull radiographs. But Dr. Mantik points out that these
lines do not actually radiate from this location:
On the AP
[anterior-posterior] view, however, these lines do not actually extend to the
proposed entry site; they stop short of it. Dr. David O. Davis [an HSCA
consultant] was careful to choose his words: ". . . the linear fractures
seem to more or less emanate from the
embedded metallic fragment." Unless they unequivocally extend to this 6.5
mm object they cannot represent fracture lines caused by a posterior skull
bullet. On the contrary, based on the radiographs and on Boswell's diagram,
several of these obvious fracture lines may lie in the
inferior orbital rim and not on the posterior skull at all. The inferior
orbital rim fractures were confirmed by radiologist Seaman [another HSCA
consultant]: "Fractures were evident through the upper part of the right
eye, including the top and bottom of the right orbit." If these fractures
lie on the anterior skull surface they cannot, of course, represent fracture
lines emanating from the proposed cowlick entry site, and therefore, they
cannot be used as evidence of a cowlick entry. (Livingstone, Killing the Truth, 613)
* Dr. Humes, the chief autopsist, removed a
large bullet fragment behind the right eye's supraorbital ridge. Humes told the
Commission that this fragment was "visible by x-ray just above the right
eye." In other words, Humes removed this fragment after it had been x-rayed in the skull. Moreover, to further
complicate matters, Dr. Wecht and Dr. John Lattimer have stated that the large
right-eye fragment did appear in the
skull x-rays that they examined a few years later at the National Archives
(i.e., after the Clark Panel completed its work).
* So far the 6.5 mm object seen in the skull
x-rays has been referred to herein as a "fragment." However, Dr.
Mantik discovered that this "fragment" is really not a bullet
fragment! After direct study of the x-rays, coupled with optical density
measurements, Dr. Mantik found that this object is composed of an artificial
image that was superimposed over the image of a smaller, genuine bullet
fragment. Dr. Mantik has even duplicated the process by which the image of the
6.5 mm object could have been created. This image could only have been added to
the x-rays after the autopsy. Dr. Mantik discusses these important findings in
the recent book Assassination Science:
Experts Speak Out On The Death of JFK (Chicago:
Catfeet Press, 1998), edited by Professor James Fetzer of the
* Bethesda x-ray technician Jerrol Custer
has stated that on November 23, the day after the autopsy, he was instructed by
his superiors to tape bullet fragments to pieces of skull and then to x-ray
them. At the time, Custer was told these x-rays were for a "bust" of
JFK's head, but no such "bust" has ever surfaced. Custer suspects the
radiographs he was ordered to take on November 23 were used to make the autopsy
x-rays (Livingstone, High Treason 2, 219, 554).
* According to Dr. Lattimer, the photographs
of the President's brain show the cerebellum "to be intact." However,
several
One
In all, seven of the
* In the autopsy photos of the back of the
head, the occipital region is undamaged. But there is considerable evidence
that these pictures have been doctored, or that they are entirely fake. For
example:
- As discussed above, there is massive
eyewitness testimony that there was a large defect in the right
occipital-parietal area.
- The AP x-ray of the skull indicates, or
suggests, missing bone in the occipital area (Livingstone, Killing the Truth, 630, citing a letter from Dr. Gary Aguilar, Dr.
Wayne Smith, Dr. Anthony White, Dr. Patricia James, and Dr. Mantik).
- Two of the autopsy pathologists, Dr. Humes
and Dr. Pierre Finck, reported that the large defect extended into the
occipital region.
- The autopsy report itself says the large
wound extended "somewhat into the temporal and occipital regions"
(WCR 540).
- We now know from recently released files
that Dr. Ebersole, who was the radiologist at the autopsy, told HSCA
investigators that a sizable occipital
bone fragment arrived late that night from Dallas (Livingstone, Killing Kennedy, 259). Understandably,
Dr. Ebersole said the photos of the back of the head did not show the large defect as he recalled it (Livingstone, Killing Kennedy, 41-42). When shown one
of the back-of-the-head photographs, Dr. Ebersole told HSCA investigators that
his recollection was that the large defect was in the occipital region, and
that he "certainly" could not
state that the image seen in the photo was "the way it [the back of the
head] looked" (Livingstone, Killing
Kennedy, 41).
- Similarly, Dr. Boswell made it clear to
the HSCA that part of the rear entry wound, which he and the other pathologists
said was located in the middle of the occiput, was contained in a piece of
missing bone that didn't arrive until late that night. Thus, according to Dr.
Boswell's detailed description to HSCA investigators, that late-arriving bone
fragment would have had to be mostly or entirely from the occipital area.
Perhaps the above evidence explains why
Saundra Kay Spencer, who processed the autopsy photos that Secret Service Agent
James Fox brought from the autopsy, told the Assassination Records Review Board
(ARRB) that she did not process any
of the autopsy photos now in evidence, i.e., that the autopsy photos that she
processed were different from the autopsy pictures now in evidence. She also
told the ARRB she did not process any black and white photos, only negatives
and color positives. This suggests the black and white autopsy photos were
processed elsewhere, and that there were two
sets of autopsy photos
Joe O'Donnell, who worked with White House
photographer Robert Knudsen, told the ARRB that Knudsen showed him autopsy
photos that showed a grapefruit-sized hole in
the back of the head. This is yet another witness who saw a sizable wound
in the rear of the skull.
In light of this evidence, how can any
credence be placed in the alleged autopsy photos of
the back of head, which show no damage to the occipital region, especially
since these photos were allegedly taken prior to the start of the autopsy?
Some experts assert that the x-rays are
authentic but that they have been misinterpreted by the government-hired
consultants and pro-WC doctors who have examined them. For instance, Dr. Randy
Robertson, a radiologist who has examined the x-rays at the National Archives,
says they show that two bullets struck President Kennedy in the head, and that
one of them entered from the front. Dr. Joseph Riley has likewise concluded the
skull x-rays show that two bullets struck Kennedy's head. And, Dr. Mantik and
others maintain that the AP x-ray at the National Archives gives indications of
a sizable right-rear defect.
Much of the controversy surrounding the
skull x-rays could be cleared up if the originals were to be released for
detailed, prolonged examination by independent experts. In the meantime, the
conflicts between the x-rays and the photographs remain, and the photos that
show the back of the head intact are strongly contradicted, not only by the AP
x-ray, but by the huge amount of eyewitness testimony that there was a large,
gaping wound in that area.
Bibliography
Dorsch, Ed, The Kennedy Assassination For The Novice,
online book at http://pages.prodigy.net/whiskey99/.
Fetzer, James, editor, Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out On The Death
Of JFK, Chicago: Catfeet Press, 1998.
Groden, Robert and Harrison Edward
Livingstone, High Treason: The
Assassination Of President Kennedy and the New
Evidence of Conspiracy,
Lifton, David, Best Evidence,
Livingstone, Harrison Edward, High Treason 2,
-----, Killing Kennedy and the Hoax of the Century,
-----, Killing
The Truth: Deceit And Deception in the JFK Case,
-----, Stunning New Evidence in the JFK Case,
Marrs, Jim, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed
Menninger, Bonar, Mortal Error: The Shot that Killed JFK,
Posner, Gerald, Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK,
----------------------------------------------
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael
T. Griffith holds a Master’s degree in Theology from The Catholic Distance
University, a Graduate Certificate in Ancient and Classical History from
American Military University, a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from
Excelsior College, and two Associate in Applied Science degrees from the
Community College of the Air Force. He
also holds an Advanced Certificate of Civil War Studies and a Certificate of
Civil War Studies from