We now move to the witnesses directly behind Kennedy, in perfect position to note an explosion from the back of his head. These witnesses rode in the Secret Service back-up car, trailing the limousine by just a few yards. Sam Kinney, the driver of this car, wrote a report on the night of the assassination which asserted "At this time, the second shot was fired and I observed hair flying from the right side of his head…" Sitting next to Kinney was Emory Roberts, sitting directly behind Kennedy. If a bullet hit Kennedy on the back of the head, or erupted from the back of his head, he would have been the one to notice. Instead, in an 11-29-63 report, he wrote "I saw what appeared to be a small explosion on the right side of the President’s head, saw blood, at which time the President fell further to his left."

On the left running board of the back-up car were two agents, neither of whom commented on the bullet's impact or wound location in their initial reports. 

One of the agents on the right side of the limo, Paul Landis, however, described the impact in a graphic manner. In a report written 11-29-63, he noted  "I heard a second report and saw the President’s head split open and pieces of flesh and blood flying through the air." While vague, this might indeed suggest a bullet's exploding from the back of Kennedy's head.

But between the agents on the left and right sides of the limo sat four more witnesses, two on the jump seat, and two on the rear seat. While Kennedy's close aide Kenneth O'Donnell failed to describe the impact of the fatal bullet or head wound location in his Warren Commission testimony, he and the man sitting next to him on the jump seat, Dave Powers, would in 1970 publish a book on Kennedy, which described: "While we both stared at the President, the third shot took the side of his head off. We saw pieces of bone and brain tissue and bits of his reddish hair flying through the air..." These were Kennedy's friends, both of whom felt one or more shots came from the front, and yet neither of them claimed to see an explosion from the back of Kennedy's head. Years earlier, in fact, Powers had provided a statement to the Warren Commission, which described: "there was a third shot which took off the top of the President’s head..." Thus, O'Donnell and Powers felt the explosion was on the top and side of the President's head--and not on the far back of his head, where so many conspiracy theorists fervently believe the wound was located.

Their impression was shared by George Hickey, one of the two Secret Service agents on the rear seat of the back-up car. On the night of the assassination, he wrote a report on what transpired in Dallas, and noted: "it seemed as if the right side of his head was hit and his hair flew forward." Next to Hickey sat Glen Bennett, who noted, in a handwritten 11-22-63 report, that the fatal bullet "hit the right rear high of the President’s head." While some might take Bennett's statement to indicate he saw the entrance of a bullet near Kennedy's cowlick, the entrance location later "discovered" by the Clark Panel, a more logical assessment would be that he saw an explosion of brain and blood from the right side of Kennedy's skull, to the rear of his head, as in not on his face, and high, as in the highest part of his head visible from behind. This, not coincidentally, would be the top of Kennedy's head above his ear, the location of the impact shown in the Zapruder film. (Should one not agree with this assessment one should feel free to explain how Bennett could have seen an impact at the small red shape seen in the autopsy photos, and fail to note the massive explosion from the gaping hole on the right side of Kennedy's head seen in the Zapruder film, especially when no blood can be seen exploding from the back of Kennedy's head in the film.)

In sum, then, none of the closest witnesses to the side or back of the President saw a bullet impact on or explode from the back of his head. So why is it, again, that so many believe there was a wound on the back of his head? Oh, that's right. ALL those who saw Kennedy at Parkland Hospital said the wound they saw was on the back of his head.

Well, not all... As we've seen, Dr. Burkley, long before the Dallas doctors convened their press conference and told the world the large head wound was on the back of Kennedy's head, had already explained to press secretary Malcolm Kilduff that the wound was in fact by the temple. 

And he wasn't the only one at Parkland to make this assessment. Hurchel Jacks, the driver of Vice-President Johnson's car in the motorcade, arrived at the hospital just moments after the limousine, and witnessed the removal of the President's body from the limo. On 11-28-63, less than a week after the assassination, he filed a report (18H801) and noted: "Before the President's body was covered it appeared that the bullet had struck him above the right ear or near the temple." 

And Jacks wasn't the only one viewing the President at this time. When testifying before the Warren Commission on 3-9-64 (2H112-132), William Greer, the driver of Kennedy's limousine, also claimed to have seen Kennedy's head wound upon arrival at the hospital. He even pointed out its location. Since this gesture would not show up on the record, however, counsel Arlen Specter asked "Indicating the top and right rear side of the head?" To which Greer responded "Yes, sir; it looked like that was all blown off." They later discussed the wounds observed at the autopsy. There, Greer reiterated that the wound was on the "upper right side" of the head and that the skull in this location was "completely gone." The wound proposed by all too many, of course, is not even partially on the upper right side of the head, but is entirely on the far back of the head below the top of the ear. 

There is another witness confirming the impressions of Jacks and Greer. As we've seen, the 11-22-63 diary entry of motorcycle officer Douglas Jackson reflects that he saw Kennedy hit in the head above the right ear. Well, he also saw Kennedy's body as it was removed from the limo at Parkland Hospital. He wrote "I got off my motor, stepped over to the presidential limousine. An agent opened the car door and started to get Mrs. Kennedy out but Mrs. Kennedy said no. It's no need she said and raised up from over Mr. Kennedy. I could see the top of his head was gone, his left eye was bulged out of socket. The agent said "Oh no!" and started crying, pulled his coat off and placed it over Mr. Kennedy's head." 

Well, then, what gives? Didn't any of the closest witnesses to the shooting or Kennedy's body before it entered the hospital say anything suggesting they saw a large wound on the far back of Kennedy's head?

Yeah...one did... Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent riding to the hospital on the back of the limo, while making no initial comment on the impact location of the fatal bullet, would later describe the appearance of Kennedy's head wound both en route to the hospital in Dallas, and then later, after the autopsy in Bethesda. An 11-30-63 report written by Hill relates: "As I lay over the top of the back seat I noticed a portion of the President's head on the right rear side was missing and he was bleeding profusely. Part of his brain was gone. I saw a part of his skull with hair on it lieing in the seat." Hill returned to this later.  When describing the aftermath to Kennedy's autopsy in his report, Hill relates "At approximately 2:45 A.M., November 23, I was requested by ASAIC to come to the morgue to once again view the body. When I arrived the autopsy had been completed and ASAIC Kellerman, SA Greer, General McHugh and I viewed the wounds. I observed a wound about six inches down from the neckline on the back just to the right of the spinal column. I observed another wound on the right rear portion of the skull." Well, this once again, is vague. A wound, whether on the "right rear side" of the head, or simply in "the right rear portion of the skull," could be most anywhere in back of the face, including the area above the ear.

So what about Hill's testimony, you might ask? Did he clear this matter up when testifying before the Warren Commission? Some would say so. In testimony taken nearly four months after the shooting, Hill told the Warren Commission: "The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car. His brain was exposed. There was blood and bits of brain all over the entire rear portion of the car. Mrs. Kennedy was completely covered with blood. There was so much blood you could not tell if there had been any other wound or not, except for the one large gaping wound in the right rear portion of the head." Hill's testimony, then, first reflects that the wound was not on A portion of the right rear side, or merely ON a right rear portion of the skull, but instead covered THE entire right rear portion. It then reverses course, and reflects merely that it was IN the right rear portion, which could, of course, be anywhere in back of the face.

So, despite the widespread claims that Hill's testimony is proof the wound was on the back of Kennedy's head, it is, in reality, a confusing mess. With his statements and testimony, Hill had made four references to Kennedy's head wound--three that were unduly vague, and one that was overly expansive, as not even the looniest of conspiracy theorists believes the entire right rear portion of Kennedy's skull was missing. Perhaps Hill, then, when claiming "THE right rear portion" was missing, meant simply to repeat his earlier statement that "A portion of the right rear side was missing," and mis-spoke. While this may be stretching, it explains Hill's subsequent claim, in a 2004 television interview, that, when he first looked down on the President, he saw "the back of his head, And there was a gaping hole above his right ear about the size of my palm" better than that he had forgotten what he had seen, or that he had suddenly, for the first time, more than forty years after his original testimony, decided to start lying about what he saw.

(In 2010, while promoting The Kennedy Detail, a book written by his fellow agent Jerry Blaine, Hill would repeat many more times that the wound was above Kennedy's right ear. Sometimes he would add-in that it was "to the rear." In the book, it said it was "fist-sized." Well, this was all some conspiracy theorists, including James Fetzer, needed. In January 2011 Fetzer started pretending that Hill's comments supported not only that the Zapruder film and autopsy photos are fake, but that Hill's description supported the wound as described and depicted by Dr. Charles Crenshaw in Fetzer's 1998 book Assassination Science. Apparently, it never registered with Fetzer that Hill had also pointed out exactly where he meant when he said the wound was above the ear to the rear, and that, as shown on the slide above, the location pointed out by Hill was much closer to the wound depicted in the autopsy photos than the wound on Crenshaw's drawings...)

"But the men behind Kennedy were all government employees!", some might claim. "What about the witnesses in back of Kennedy on the south side of the street? Certainly, they saw an explosion from the back of his head..." No, no such luck. There were three witnesses behind Kennedy on his left who would have been in a position to see an explosion from the back of his head, should a shot from the grassy knoll truly have exploded from the back of his head, as so many believe. Mary Moorman, whose photo of Kennedy taken just after the shot's impact shows no evidence for such a wound, was interviewed numerous times on the day of the shooting, and would say only that she saw Kennedy grab his chest and slump down in the car. Her friend, Jean Hill, moreover, the woman in red in the Zapruder film, said much the same thing on the day of the shooting. Four months later, however, after much more spectacular reports had been printed, Hill claimed to have seen "the hair on the back of President Kennedy’s head fly up." Note that she still was not claiming to have seen an explosion from the back of his head. No, she didn't even claim such a thing when tracked down and interviewed decades later by conspiracy writer Jim Marrs. Instead, she told Marrs simply that "a bullet hit his head and took the top off." "Top." Not "back." Ms. Hill, in fact. made no claims of seeing the explosion from the back of Kennedy's head so many conspiracy theorists assume she saw until her book The Last Dissenting Witness appeared in 1992. It related "The whole back of his head appeared to explode and a cloud of blood-red mist filled the air." That this was "poetic license" inserted by her co-writer, Bill Sloan, should be readily apparent. If not, one should take into account that by 1992 Ms. Hill was still so confused by what she saw that she told interviewer James Earl Jones and a national television audience that, as "shots rang out", Kennedy "grabbed his throat, and that was the horrible head shot." Kennedy, of course, grabbed his throat long before the head shot.

Well, what of the third witness, then? Well, in his earliest interviews, Charles Brehm claimed to see Kennedy really get blasted and get knocked down in the car. No mention of an explosion from the back of his head. A few days later, however, newspaper accounts of the shooting quoting Brehm claimed he saw "the President’s hair fly up." In 1966, when interviewed by Mark Lane, moreover, he filled in the details, and claimed "When the second bullet hit, there was—the hair seemed to go flying. It was very definite then that he was struck in the head with the second bullet…I saw a piece fly over in the area of the curb…it seemed to have come left and back." While some might wish to take the flight of this one piece of skull as an indication the fatal shot came from the front, they really shouldn't rush to such a judgment. You see, not only did Brehm long claim he thought the shots came from behind, but he paused before he told Lane "the hair seemed to go flying." During this pause, in an obvious indication of where he recalled seeing a wound, he motioned not to the back of his head but to...his right ear. 

Well, were there any other known witnesses to the shooting to report on this wound? Yes. Railroad worker James Simmons, who'd watched the shooting from the railroad bridge on the west side of the plaza, testified during the the 1969 trial of Clay Shaw that it looked "like the top of his head blew off and went up in the air." Top. Well, then what about from further back? Marilyn Willis, standing quite some distance behind Kennedy, told the FBI in June, 64 that she saw the "top" of Kennedy's head blown off, only to turn around and tell a TV audience in 1988 that she saw brain matter blown out the "back of his head," only to turn around yet again and tell Robert Groden in 1993 that the wound she saw was on "this side," while grabbing the right side of her head above her ear.

But no matter how one takes her statements, one should recall that Mrs. Willis was about 50 yards behind Kennedy when he received his fatal bullet, and that should she have actually seen his head wound it was but for a second. This makes her seeing blood and brain blown out the back of his head, when no credible witness closer to him saw any such thing, quite unlikely. In fact, when one considers the numerous eyewitness statements claiming the bullet impacted on the right side or top of Kennedy's head, the Zapruder film's confirmation of a wound in this location, and the autopsy photos' additional confirmation of a wound in this location, one might rightly conclude that the only thing solid about the Kennedy assassination medical evidence is that there was a large wound above and in front of Kennedy's right ear.  

But, should one think as one should, ironically, one would be wrong. The initial statements and reports of the doctors attending Kennedy at Parkland reflected an almost universal belief the large head wound was rearward of Kennedy's right ear. In 1967, Josiah Thompson published his book Six Seconds in Dallas. This featured an artist's impression of Parkland doctor Robert McClelland’s description of Kennedy's large head wound. As shown on the "Who to Believe?" slide above, the wound in this drawing was on the far back of the right side of Kennedy’s head. Such a wound is, of course, thoroughly incompatible with the autopsy photos showing the back of Kennedy's head.

In 1979, the HSCA Authenticity Report attempted to smooth this over by declaring: “In disagreement with the observations of the Parkland doctors are the 26 people present at the autopsy. All of those interviewed who attended the autopsy corroborated the general location of the wound as depicted in the photographs; none had differing accounts.” But this declaration proved too little too late. David Lifton would shortly thereafter publish Best Evidence, a book which theorized that the reason the descriptions of the Parkland witnesses differed from those of the Bethesda witnesses was that the President’s body had been altered while en route to the autopsy. Others, such as Harrison Livingstone and Robert Groden, (the latter of whom had worked as a photo analyst for the HSCA), responded to this with theories of their own. No, they would claim, in books showing the autopsy photos illicitly obtained by both Lifton and Groden, it's not that the body had been altered, a la Lifton, it's that the autopsy doctors had lied and that the back of the head photos had been faked. In time, by the late 90’s, after a number of new "back of the head" witnesses had been identified and interviewed, a number of previously withheld HSCA interviews were ordered released by the ARRB, and it was learned that many of these Bethesda witnesses had actually told the HSCA's investigators they'd seen a large wound on the back of Kennedy’s head, and that a still unnamed person had lied about this in the HSCA Authenticity Report.

With that, all faith in the photographic evidence was shattered. Many, if not most, researchers, came to accept Groden's proposition that it was the photos that had been altered and not Kennedy's body. Some, however, came to reject Groden's proposition that the Zapruder film showed the occipital wound described by the Parkland witnesses, and embraced instead Lifton's suspicion that the Zapruder film--which had led many to suspect a conspiracy in the first place--had in fact been altered to, among other things, move the hole on the back of JFK's head to a more acceptable location in front of his right ear. 

This led still others, such as ARRB analyst Doug Horne, to come up with their own unique hybrid theories. In his 5 volume work, Inside the ARRB, Horne explains that, in his view, the body, autopsy photos, x-rays, and Zapruder film were all altered in one way or another. He explains, furthermore, that the body alteration Lifton believed was performed BEFORE the body arrived at Bethesda was in fact performed at Bethesda by Dr. Humes, and that the Bethesda witnesses seeing a large wound primarily on the back of JFK's head saw this wound BEFORE Dr. Humes had altered the wound, and expanded it to include the wound on the top of Kennedy's head more consistent with an assassin's having shot him from behind. In still further opposition to Lifton, Horne holds that the wound on the back of the head was not reconstructed for the autopsy photographs. In opposition to Groden, however, Horne holds that the back of the head autopsy photos were not actually altered, but taken after the FBI had left, with the scalp stretched to hide the true dimensions of the hole. He holds, furthermore, that the x-rays were altered to hide this same hole.

So, in Horne's theory, the autopsy physicians were not deceived, as in Lifton's theory, but were instead prime deceivers.

From reading the comments of Lifton and Fetzer, not to mention the 20 or so equally nasty emails and comments I've received in the years since for--gasp--daring to suspect that the observations of some doctors who didn't even taken notes could be wrong, and that the Zapruder film, autopsy photos, and x-rays could be legitimate, one might assume I've violated some unwritten code among conspiracy theorists.

And indeed I have. By proposing that one can't simply cherry-pick one group of witnesses and say they are right, while ignoring both the first witnesses (the Dealey Plaza witnesses, the Zapruder film) and the best witnesses (the autopsy doctors, the autopsy report, autopsy photographs, and x-rays), I have shat upon the altar before which many conspiracy theorists genuflect. To conspiracy theorists of a particular bent, this is every bit as sacrilegious as my suggestion Dale Myers' animation is a fraud is to single-assassin theorists. 

I mean, let's be consistent. If there is an incident--let's say a fatal car accident--in which both the statements of those witnessing the event and the statements of the tow truck drivers removing the wreckage confirm that the event occurred at the location depicted in the police photographs, you assume the location in the photographs to have been correct, even if the paramedics and first police responders, when asked about it later, recall the accident as happening half way down the block.

So how is this any different?

Well, according to David Lifton, it's very different...

From a 1-27-11 post on the Education Forum (The atypical mis-spellings on this message are Lifton's, and are preserved for the sake of accuracy. Apparently he was falling asleep or in a hurry...or in a hurry to fall asleep.)

I share Lifton's posting in total so the reader can see what I'm up against. In five years, I've made absolutely no head-way with him. He still claims the recollections of the Parkland witnesses are consistent and of prime importance and pretty much all that matters. He now adds, however, that the recollections of the eyewitnesses to the shooting--who, from Lifton's perspective, uniformly noted a wound on the right side of Kennedy's head before it even existed--are of no importance and can be dismissed with the wave of a hand.

Well, this is pretty silly, wouldn't you say? The recollections of a patient's wounds made by emergency room personnel days, months, and even decades after observing the patient are of infinitely more value than the descriptions of the patient's wounds given by eyewitnesses to his shooting only minutes or hours afterward? Says who? Pathologists are the doctors normally used in a court of law to establish the extent and location of a wound, not emergency room doctors and nurses, most of whose job it is to react, and not inspect...and who don't even take notes.

Now, IF the Parkland witnesses all claimed to get a good look at the wound, and all claimed to see a wound in the same location, and had all been willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that their recollections were correct and that the autopsy photographs were fake, I'd be tempted to change my mind.

But they didn't. And those telling you they did are as mistaken as those calling the single-bullet theory a "fact."

Boswell and Johnson

Now, to be clear, Lifton never claimed Boswell as a "back of the head" witness...

Lifton holds, to this day, that the hole on the back of Kennedy's head observed at Parkland had somehow been repaired by the time Dr. Boswell saw his head at Bethesda, and that a wound in front of Kennedy's ear had been added.

In postings found online, in fact, he's made it more than clear he has little respect for researchers, such as Robert Groden and Dr. Gary Aguilar, who cite a number of Bethesda "back of the head" witnesses as evidence the wounds were unaltered between Parkland and Bethesda.

And he actually has good reason to be angry. As we shall see, the descriptions of the Parkland "back of the head" witnesses differ from those of the Bethesda "back of the head" witnesses on a number of key points.

But that's getting ahead of ourselves... For now, we need only realize that the use of Dr. Boswell as a "back of the head" witness is a bit bizarre on its face, seeing as he signed off on the autopsy report in which no scalp lacerations on the back of the head were noted, and seeing as he never ever said anything indicating he'd seen an entrance wound on the front of the head.

But when one looks at his statements to the ARRB--the statements usually quoted by those claiming him as a "back of the head" witness--it becomes even more bizarre.

Here is one of the key statements used by back-of-the-head wound theorists to sell Boswell as a "back of the head" witness:

A. There was a big wound sort of transverse up like this from left posterior to right anterior. The scalp was separated, but it was folded over, and you could fold the scalp over and almost hide the wound. When you lifted the scalp up, you could really lay it back posteriorally, and there was a lot of bone still attached to the scalp but detached from the remainder of the skull. And I think these parts back here probably reflect that.  

And here is Boswell's response to a follow-up question by Jeremy Gunn:

Q. When you say the left posterior, what do you mean?

A. The left occipital area, and that wound extends to the right frontal area. And what I meant was that the wound in the scalp could be closed from side to side so that it didn't appear that there was any scalp actually--scalp missing.

Yep. That's right. Those pushing Boswell as a witness for the wound described by the Parkland witnesses--a gaping EXIT wound of both scalp and skull on the RIGHT back of the head--are using Boswell's recollection of a scalp LACERATION on the LEFT side of the head, (a scalp laceration that could be closed from side to side so that one could not tell any scalp was missing, mind you), as evidence. 

Now, even if one were to accept the ridiculous notion that his statements support there was a gaping wound missing both scalp and skull on the right back side of the head, how reliable are Boswell's recollections?

Not remotely, as it turns out.

More from his ARRB deposition with Gunn:

Q. Do you recall whether there were tears or lacerations in the scalp?

A. Right across here and--

Problem: the word "approximately" is, in this instance, unduly vague. NONE of the other back of the head witnesses described so much skull missing. Clearly Boswell had no idea how big the hole on the skull was before the scalp was peeled back. Clearly he measured the skull defect after the scalp had been pulled back and skull had fallen to the table. Clearly, the best indicator of the size of the hole on the back of the head, then, would be the x-rays, which fail to depict a large hole on the back of the head where Horne and others presume there was a hole...where the Parkland witnesses told them there was a hole...

But, wait, some of those believing Boswell to be a back of the head witness have found a novel way to undermine the credibility of the x-rays...provided, not surprisingly, by Gunn's questioning of Boswell:

Q. Were any skull fragments put back into place before photographs or before X-rays?

A. I think before we took the--the ones that came from Dallas were never put back in except to try and approximate them to the ones that were present. But I think all the others were left intact.

Q. So, for example, was there a fragment that had fallen out at any point that you then put back into its place before a photograph or X-ray was taken?

A. Yes.

Q. What size fragments and where did you place them at the--

A. Well, the one that's in the diagram on Exhibit 1, that 10-centimeter piece I'm sure was out at one time or another. And I think maybe some of these smaller fragments down at the base of that diagram also were out at one time or another. But those were all put back.

So, from leading the clearly elderly and confused Boswell through a series of strange questions designed to support or refute the body alteration theory of David Lifton, Gunn got Horne the answer conspiracy theorists were looking for...that bone was put back in the skull BEFORE an x-ray or photograph was taken. Never mind that Boswell at first specified that the large pieces of missing bone were not put back in the skull, and only said so after being asked the same question a second time. Never mind that the bone Boswell thinks they are talking about did not arrive until near the end of the autopsy, and that NOT ONE witness to the autopsy--let alone, x-ray tech or radiologist--recalled a skull x-ray being taken after the beginning of the autopsy. 

And never mind that Horne himself dismisses this possibility... That's right, in Volume 2 of his 5 volume opus Inside the ARRB, Horne concludes that by the time the skull was reconstructed, the only men able to operate the portable x-ray machine had been sent home, and that no x-rays were taken during or after the re-construction of Kennedy's skull.

Even worse for those trying to twist Boswell's ARRB testimony into something it was not...Horne also concludes the skull x-rays were taken as a series at the beginning of the autopsy.

And it's no wonder.  In The Assassinations, an anthology published in 2003,  Dr. Cyril Wecht and Dr. David Mantik jointly confirmed that the brain, although badly damaged, is nevertheless apparent on the x-rays. This means the x-rays were taken at the beginning of the autopsy, not the end.

Dr. Mantik, to whom many, including Doug Horne, defer on all matters x-ray, has also concluded in his many papers and articles that the bone at the back of JFK's head in his post-mortem x-rays is consistent with the bone at the back of his head in his pre-mortem x-rays.

Let's be clear. Mantik has concluded that the skull in the lateral x-ray is JFK's, but that a white patch has been super-imposed on the right side of the skull on the x-rays. Horne accepts this conclusion. Horne also accepts that the back of the head photos are unaltered, and that the hole he believes should be shown in the photos was obscured through some clever manipulation of the scalp by the autopsy doctors. Neither Mantik nor Horne, then, believe, nor indicate in any of their writings, that a hole on the back of the head was disguised through the insertion of a piece of recovered bone, nor that doing so would create the white patch apparent on the x-rays.

So why do some theorists, purportedly impressed with Mantik's research, Horne's analysis, and Wecht's credentials, suggest that the intact skull on the back of the head on the x-rays and back of the head photos reflects not that the back of the head was intact, or even made to look intact via manipulation of the scalp, but that the x-rays and back of the head photos were taken towards the end of the autopsy, after the recovered bone fragments provided by the Secret Service were stuffed back into the skull?

I mean, that's not only silly, it's in opposition to the findings of the most prominent members of the "hole-in-the-back-of-the-head" gang. It is, in other words, too silly for men not remotely scared of looking silly. 

Still, Boswell is not the only purported back of the head witness whose muddy recollections have been further muddied up and then spun into conspiracy gold. 

He wasn't even the only member of the autopsy team to have his words so twisted.

As Boswell, autopsy photographer John Stringer signed the November 1, 1966 inventory of the autopsy photos and x-rays.  The final page of this inventory bearing their signatures claimed that it listed "all the x-rays and photographs taken by us during the autopsy."  It is almost certain these are the photos and x-rays in the archives today. And yet, when interviewed on behalf the ARRB in 1996, Stringer failed to recognize the photos of Kennedy's brain as photos he'd taken at the supplementary examination of Kennedy's brain. He thought he would have done a better job identifying the photos themselves when taken; he thought he'd have used a different kind of film; and he didn't remember taking one of the views.  Well, this, of course, is interesting.

But conspiracy theorists of all stripes have taken from this that the photos were switched out to hide a hole on the back of the brain, a hole proving once and for all that the shot killing Kennedy came from the front and blew out the back of his head.

And that's just nonsense. I mean, if the 78 year-old Stringer could tell by looking at the photos in 1996 that they were not taken by him, wouldn't he have been much better able to tell in 1966, just a few years after their taking, when he was but 48?  Well, then why didn't he say so, or remember his thinking so?  In 1977, moreover, the HSCA asked the then 59 year-old Stringer to go to the archives and look at the autopsy photos. The report on his doing so reflects that, while he was uncertain he'd taken the black and white photos of the brain, the brain itself gave the appearance of the brain he'd photographed, and that the brain, as Kennedy's brain, was not sectioned (cut into quarters). While some, including Doug Horne and writer Jim DiEugenio, are fond of pointing out that Stringer told the ARRB that autopsy photographers who objected to things, such as rushing through the autopsy, didn't "last long," this by no means suggests he would have readily gone along with someone switching out his photos, as they so ardently believe.

Nor does it make much sense. By Horne's own admission, the 78 year-old Stringer's memory had by 1996 faded so badly that he couldn't even remember being contacted by the HSCA, let alone visiting the archives on their behalf. It follows then that the confusing aspects of his ARRB testimony may simply have been a reflection of his age, and the passing of time. It makes little sense, after all, to assume Stringer would readily admit what all too many now perceive as as an important truth--that he did not take the brain photographs--but then lie about the nature of Kennedy's head wounds in order to "get along." What, are we to believe Stringer was so stupid he didn't realize his disowning the brain photos was bound to raise some questions? 

Consider... When first contacted by Doug Horne on behalf the ARRB, and asked to describe the large head wound, Stringer told Horne "there was a fist-sized hole in the right side of his head above his ear...It was the size of your fist and it was entirely within the hair area. There was s sort of flap of skin there, and some of the underlying bone was gone." When under oath in his ARRB testimony, moreover, Stringer further confirmed that, no matter who took the brain photos, there was NO large blow-out wound on the back of Kennedy's head.  When asked to describe Kennedy's head wounds, he at first described a small wound on the occipital bone near the EOP,  "about the size of a bullet, from what you could see." He then described the large head wound: "Well, the side of the head, the bone was gone. But there was a flap, where you could lay it back. But the back - I mean, if you held it in,  there was no vision. It was a complete head of  hair.  And on the front, there was nothing - the  scalp. There was nothing in the eyes. You could have - Well, when they did the body, you wouldn't have known there was anything wrong."

He was thereby describing the wound depicted in the autopsy photos and not the wound proposed in the conspiracy literature. Which only made sense... He had, after all, signed an inventory in 1966 in which it was claimed the autopsy photos were those he'd taken, and had, upon studying these photos a second time in 1977, confirmed this by explaining to the HSCA's investigators what he was trying to portray as he took each shot. He had, moreover, told an interviewer from the Vero Beach Press-Journal in 1974 that the fatal bullet "had entered the right lower rear" of Kennedy's head and had come "out in the hair in the upper right side, taking with it a large chunk of his skull."

While Mr. Stringer had also intimated (in a 1972 phone call with David Lifton) that the "main damage" to Kennedy's skull was on the back of the skull, it's not entirely clear that Stringer was describing the damage to the skull apparent before the reflection of the scalp, or after. It's fortunate then that Stringer got a chance to clarify this issue in his ARRB testimony. He explained that when he first saw the skull, the scalp at the back of the head "was all intact. But then they peeled it back, and then you could see this part of the bone gone."

And if one should still have doubts Stringer was claiming there was NO large hole on the back of Kennedy's head where conspiracy theorists believe it to have been, Stringer explained under further questioning by the ARRB that the occipital bone was "intact" but fractured, and that he could not recall any of it missing upon reflection of the scalp.

So, yes, it's clear. Those believing Stringer to be honest and credible when claiming he didn't take the brain photos, and then using this to suggest there was a blow-out wound to the back of Kennedy's head, are behaving like the Warren Commission in reverse: taking snippets of someone's testimony, propping these snippets up as proof of something, and then finding ways to hide or ignore that the bulk of the witness' statements suggest something other than what they are trying to prove. 

Now, this is fairly common behavior, on all sides of the discussion. But what is unusual in this circumstance is the strength with which those pushing this view hold onto two mutually exclusive ideas: 1) Stringer is a brave truth teller, and PROOF the brain photos are not of Kennedy's brain, and 2) Stringer is a gutless liar, out to protect the status quo by pretending there was no hole on the back of Kennedy's head. 

I trust I'm not alone in finding this a problem. As far as Doug Horne, not only does he push in his book that Stringer lied about Kennedy's head wounds to the ARRB, he asserts that Stringer first publicly reversed himself from the descriptions he'd provided Lifton (in the 1972 phone call) in 1993. This avoids that in the 1993 article cited by Horne, Stringer's 1974 comments, in which he'd accurately described the wounds depicted in the autopsy photos, were discussed, as well as the fact that a TV crew inspired by Lifton's book interviewed Stringer in 1988, only to shelve the footage when Stringer told them the autopsy photos were accurate depictions of Kennedy's wounds. This, then, raises as many questions about Horne's integrity as Stringer's. That Stringer was describing the wounds shown in the autopsy photos as early as 1974, after all, cuts into Horne's position that Stinger reversed himself on the nature of these wounds as a response to Lifton's book, published seven years later, in 1981.

But Boswell and Stringer are far from the only witnesses whose statements have been abused in such a manner.

Nor the most ridiculous. One of the strangest "back of the head" witnesses, in my opinion, is Tom Robinson, one of Kennedy's morticians. The stealth with which conspiracy theorists, in an attempt to acquit Lee Harvey Oswald, present Robinson's words to suggest Kennedy was shot from the front, is truly a wonder to behold.

This is how researcher Michael Griffith presents Robinson in his online essay The Head Shot from the Front.

JFK and the Unthinkable

"The Parkland Hospital doctors were the best eyewitnesses to the President's wounds. They had at least 20 minutes, and some had longer, to examine the President's injuries immediately after the shooting. The doctors' oral and written statements provided the only reliable clues to the snipers' locations and bullet trajectories..."

From this one might assume the witnesses presented were at Parkland and had 20 minutes or more in which they viewed the President's wounds. But this is far from the case. Only 10 of these witnesses were at Parkland and very few of these witnesses got much of a look at the President.

When one studies the photos of these witnesses, moreover, there's a bigger surprise. Many of these purported "back of the head" witnesses are not actually pointing to a wound location on the back of their heads, as one would guess, but are instead pointing out a wound location on the top or side of the head, at locations just as close or closer to the wound location depicted in the autopsy photos and x-rays as the wound location depicted in the so-called "McClelland" drawing...the drawing they'd purportedly "verified."

(Although Groden, in The Killing of a President, claims Dr. McClelland himself made this drawing, he is clearly mistaken. In June, 2010, Josiah Thompson, who first published the drawing, wrote me and confirmed that while this famous drawing--which has come to represent the "actual" location and appearance of the president's large head wound to many, if not the majority, of conspiracy theorists--was based upon Dr. McClelland's description of the large head wound to the Warren Commission, Dr. McClelland had in fact "had nothing to do with the preparation of the drawing.")

And it's not as if Groden is the only one making false claims about these witnesses... Here is how Dr.s Mantik and Wecht address this issue in The Assassinations, published 2003: "The compilations of Gary Aguilar, M.D., have convincingly shown that the Parkland Hospital physicians and nurses, and even the Bethesda autopsy personnel themselves, almost unanimously recalled a large hole at the low right rear of Kennedy's head." And, as if to prove their calling this wound "low" was not a mistake, they later ask "Was cerebellum missing at the low right rear, where the Parkland medical witnesses (including six physicians) saw massive trauma?" Now, look back at the photos in Groden's book reproduced on the previous slides... Is it a true statement that these witnesses "almost unanimously" pointed out a wound location at the LOW right rear of their heads? NO. NO. And HELL NO.

Groden starts out with the photos of four witnesses who claimed to have seen the shooting.

While Beverly Oliver claims to have been one of the closest witnesses to the shooting, many if not most long time researchers doubt her claims, as she only came forward years after the shooting, and told some pretty wild stories. Even so her description of a wound on the back of the head is in keeping with the wound described by Dr. McClelland, and the drawing prepared by Phillip Johnson. Back of the head witness.

Although Phil Willis made several statements over the years indicating he thought the fatal shot blew out the back of Kennedy's head, he was clearly repeating what his wife and daughters had told him. You see, he'd testified before the Warren Commission that he was not looking at Kennedy at the time of the head shot. Not actually a witness.

Although Marilyn Willis, Phil's wife, was a witness to the head shot, and said the wound was on the "back" of Kennedy's head, when ultimately asked to point out the location of the wound she saw from 50 yards or so away, she pointed to a location high on the top of her head above her right ear. Top of the head witness. 

While deaf-mute Ed Hoffman only came forward years after the assassination, and while his stories of watching the shooting from a nearby freeway and then seeing Kennedy's wounds as the limo passed underneath were never fully accepted, he was at least consistent on one point: he always placed the head wound on the top of Kennedy's head. Not always in the same way, mind you. While the photo in Groden's book shows Hoffman with his hand over the crown of his head, and his fingers over the wound location shown in the autopsy photos, other photos found online show him with his hand forward of this location, and more in line with the wound seen on the autopsy photos. Top of the head witness.

Groden then presents the photos of ten witnesses observing Kennedy's wound at Parkland Hospital.

As one might expect, the head wound location pointed out by Dr. Robert McClelland is fairly consistent with the head wound location depicted in the drawing by Johnson based upon McClelland's Warren Commission testimony. Fairly consistent but not fully consistent. McClelland's hand in the photo is, in fact, almost entirely above his ear, which places the wound about two inches higher on the back of his head than in the drawing. This is not surprising. As previously mentioned, Josiah Thompson, who'd arranged for the drawing's creation, insists that Dr. McClelland had actually had "nothing to do with" its creation. And it's not as if McClelland's recollections were reliable anyhow...

Although he stood at the head of Kennedy in the ER at Parkland and was thus well-positioned to note his fatal wounds, McClelland's initial report claimed the fatal wound was on Kennedy's left temple, and not his right. While he would later claim he wrote this after Dr. Jenkins led him to believe there was a separate entrance on the left temple, this fails to explain why Dr. McClelland wrote that "The cause of death was due to massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple." By writing "of the left temple," as opposed to "to the left temple," McClelland had failed to indicate there was any wound anywhere but on the left temple. This suggests that, perhaps just perhaps, Dr. McClelland actually thought the large head wound was near Kennedy's right temple, and that he'd confused his right with his left after looking at Kennedy upside down. Now, this might seem unfair. Dr. McClelland appears to be a very nice man, and has been most helpful to researchers and writers. But some of his claims are clearly wrong. In 2009, he told a Canadian radio interviewer that the "massive" wound on the back of Kennedy's head was "at least five inches in diameter." Such a wound would, of course, envelop the entire head. When discussing the drawing made for Thompson with the ARRB, moreover, after noting that "the edge of the parietal bone was sticking up through the scalp. And that's not on this picture" McClelland made another monstrous gaffe, adding "but what we were trying to depict here was what the posterior part of the wound looked like. In other words, it's not the entire wound. It's simply the posterior part of it and what I thought of as the critical part of it at that time and still do." Yep. That's right. Dr. McClelland had in time come to believe both that the wound stretched further forward than as depicted in the "McClelland" drawing...and that he'd participated in the creation of the drawing.

It's actually worse than that. Since at least his appearance in Robert Groden's 1993 documentary JFK:The Case for Conspiracy, in which he holds a copy of the drawing up for the camera and declares "This is the drawing I had made for Josiah Thompson's book," McClelland has claimed a connection to the drawing. In 1994, what's worse, he signed a copy of the "McClelland" drawing for researcher Brad Parker and indicated that he'd personally created the drawing. According to Thompson, of course, McClelland had nothing to do with the drawing's creation. He did not draw it. He was not consulted on its creation. Nothing... Ouch. The fallibility of human memory... Back of the head witness who does not support the accuracy of the McClelland drawing.

Dr. Paul Peters, on the other hand, has tried to have it both ways. Although he had repeatedly claimed the wound he saw was in the "occiput" or the back of Kennedy's head, and is pictured in Groden's book pointing to this location, he also told Nova, after being shown Kennedy's autopsy photos in 1988, that the autopsy photos were "pretty much as I remember President Kennedy." He later confirmed his support for the legitimacy of the autopsy photos, furthermore, by telling Gerald Posner that the "head wound is more forward than I first placed it. More to the side than to the rear." When interviewed by the ARRB and given yet another chance to claim the autopsy photos and x-rays were fake, moreover, he claimed instead that "I was amazed when I saw the first x-ray of the skull — the lateral skull of the extent of the fragmentation of the skull. I did not appreciate that I think because a lot of it was covered by scalp at the time we worked on him. We were doing a resuscitation, not a forensic autopsy." He had thereby deferred to the accuracy of the x-rays. Back of the head witness who does not support the accuracy of the McClelland drawing, and defers to the accuracy of the autopsy photos.

Fortunately, Dr. Kenneth Salyer was a little more consistent. But only a little. From his Warren Commission testimony to the present day, he always claimed the wound was primarily a temporal wound...on the side of the head. The photo in Groden's book, moreover, shows him grabbing the side of his head, just above his ear, an area at least as suggestive of the wound in the photos as the one in the "McClelland" drawing. Side of the head witness.

Dr. Charles Crenshaw, of course, became a star witness for the supposed wound on the "back of the head" when he wrote a book on his experiences in the early nineties. The problem with Crenshaw as a witness, however, is that, not only did he fail to see Kennedy for more than a few seconds, his recollections were not recorded prior to the publication of the "McClelland" drawing showing him how other Parkland witnesses purportedly recalled the wound. Back of the head witness.

Dr. Ronald Jones, as Peters, has claimed many times in many ways that the wound was on the back of Kennedy's head. In the photo in Groden's book, however, he points to a wound location slightly to the side of the wound on the "McClelland" drawing. In 1992, furthermore, he described the wound as a "side wound." To the ARRB, ultimately, he explained his confusion, insisting "it was difficult to see down through the hair," and by admitting "All my view was from the President's left side."  He then clarified his position to researcher Vincent Palamara, first admitting that he really didn't have "a clear view of the back side of the head wound. President Kennedy had very thick dark hair that covered the injured area" and then offering "In my opinion it was in the occipital area in the back of the head." He had thereby made it clear that he'd failed to see the large hole missing scalp and bone depicted in the "McClelland"drawing. Back of the head witness who does not support the accuracy of the McClelland drawing, and defers to the accuracy of the autopsy photos.

As the first doctor to inspect Kennedy upon his arrival at Parkland, Dr. Charles Carrico would certainly have been in good position to accurately note the wound location on Kennedy's head. While the wound location he points to in Groden's book is actually a bit too high for anyone to claim he confirmed the "McClelland" drawing, it's really academic. You see, on January 11, 1978, Dr. Carrico was interviewed by the HSCA staff, and specified that the head wound was "five to seven centimeters, something like that, 2 1/2 by 3 inches, ragged, had blood and hair all around it," and was "located in the part of the parietal occipital region...above and posterior to the ear, almost from the crown of the head."  Uhhh, this is clearly NOT the wound depicted in the McClelland drawing. In 1981, when the Boston Globe asked him specifically about the "McClelland" drawing, moreover, Carrico replied  "it was a very large wound as indicated in the drawing. However, I do not believe that the large wound was this far posterior since, one thing I can be certain of, is that we were able to see the majority, if not all of this wound, with the patient laying on his back on a hospital gurney. The location of the wound represented in the drawing suggests that it would barely have been visible, if visible at all, with the patient laying in such a position." When asked to comment on the HSCA's tracing of the back of the head photo, in which the back of the head is intact and the wound is above the ear, moreover, he told them there was "nothing incompatible" between what he remembered and the drawing. Well, that oughta seal it, but if that's not enough, Dr. Carrico eventually made his rejection of the McClelland drawing's accuracy crystal clear. In 1992, he told single-assassin salesman Gerald Posner that if he and his colleagues had initially claimed the head wound was in the occipital bone, instead of the parietal bone, they "were mistaken." Yep. It's a slam dunk case. Dr. Carrico rejected the accuracy of the McClelland drawing, and deferred to the accuracy of the autopsy photos. Back of the head witness who does not support the accuracy of the McClelland drawing, and defers to the accuracy of the autopsy photos.

Although Dr. Richard Dulaney made a number of statements over the years suggesting the large head wound was on the back of Kennedy's head, the wound location he points to in Groden's book and video is up at the top of the head...as close to the wound depicted in the autopsy photos as the one depicted in the "McClelland" drawing. Only making matters worse for those claiming him as a "back of the head" witness, moreover, is that, after being shown the autopsy photos, he told the television show Nova in 1988 that he failed to see "evidence of any alteration of (the) wound in these pictures from what I saw in the emergency room." Top of the head witness who defers to the accuracy of the autopsy photos.

Nurse Audrey Bell is similar to Dr. Crenshaw in that, while she has been consistent in her claim that the wound was on the back of Kennedy's head, there is no record of her making this claim prior to the 1980's, long after the "McClelland" drawing was published in Six Seconds in Dallas. Back of the head witness.

Justice of the Peace Theran Ward is also similar to Dr. Crenshaw, in that he really didn't get much of a look at the head wound. Even so, when one looks at the interview with Ward in Groden's Case for Conspiracy video, and in the image on the slide above, it's clear that Ward, much as Dr. Salyer, felt the wound was on the side of Kennedy's head, and not the back. Side of the head witness.

This brings us to the final Parkland witness presented in Groden's book. And he wasn't even a witness... While ambulance driver Aubrey Rike claimed to feel a hole in the back of Kennedy's head as he helped put his body in its casket, he has always admitted the head was covered at the time, and that he never actually saw the wound. As a result it's possible Rike was mistaken, or merely confused by the fractured bone on the back of the skull seen on the x-rays. Not actually a witness.

We now move to the Bethesda "back of the head" witnesses... The statements of these witnesses, purported to confirm the Parkland doctors' account of the wounds, should seal the deal if there was really a wound on the back of the head behind the ear.

Unfortunately, they do no such thing. While radiology tech Jerrol Custer made many statements over the years indicating that he thought the autopsy photos and X-rays were faked, he actually told the ARRB, after having finally been shown the original X-rays, that they were indeed the ones he took on 11-22-63, and that he had been in error. This, of course, was years after the publication of Groden's book. Even so, when one watches Groden's video, JFK: The Case For Conspiracy, one can see that Custer was never really a "back of the head" witness, as he does not point out a wound on the back of Kennedy's head, as suggested by the frame used in Groden's book, but drags his hand across the entire top of his head while claiming the wound he saw stretched "From the top of the head almost to the base of the skull..." He was thereby describing the wound's appearance after the scalp was reflected, and the brain was removed. (In support of this proposition, it should be noted  that he'd also claimed there was no brain in the skull that he could remember.) Entire right side of the head witness. Defers to the accuracy of the autopsy photos.

Ditto Paul O'Connor. While O'Connor, as Custer, had made many statements over the years suggesting the autopsy photos and X-rays had been faked, his credibility, seeing as he'd depicted the wound location in the upper right quadrant of the back of the head in a drawing he'd created for the HSCA, and then moved it to beneath the top of the ear years later, was questionable. In Groden's video The Case for Conspiracy, moreover, O'Connor repeated Custer's performance almost word for word, stating there was "an open area all the way across into the rear of the brain right there," while pointing out the dimensions of this hole--basically the dimensions of the hole after Kennedy's scalp had been reflected, and his brain had been removed. O'Connor, as Custer, also claimed no brain was in the skull when he observed the large defect. He was thereby, like it or not, supporting the accuracy of the autopsy photos and the official story of the wounds. Entire right side of the head witness.

Ditto ditto assistant autopsy photographer Floyd Riebe. Much as Custer, Riebe made many statements suggesting the autopsy photos were fake--in Groden's book, he even pointed at the location of the wound in the "McClelland" drawing. Once shown the original photos by the ARRB, however, he, too, deferred to their accuracy. Back of the head witness who defers to the accuracy of the autopsy photos.

This leaves us with Frank O'Neill, an FBI agent who observed Kennedy's autopsy. While O'Neill claimed the large head wound included part of the back of Kennedy's head, he always placed this wound at the top of the back of the head, inches above the wound in the "McClelland" drawing. He also claimed, in his report on the autopsy, that a "high velocity bullet had entered the rear of the skull and had fragmentized prior to exit through the top of the skull." His recollection of the wounds is therefore more supportive of the wound described by the autopsy doctors than of the wound depicted in the "McClelland" drawing, which shows, after all, a blow-out wound on the back of the skull... not the top of the skull. Top of the head witness.

On July 22, 1992, Dr. Crenshaw was finally interviewed by the FBI. The report on this interview asserts that Dr. Crenshaw claimed that "The head wound was located at the back of the President’s head and was the approximate size of Doctor CRENSHAW’s fist. It extended from the approximate center of the skull in the back to just behind the right ear, utilizing a left to right orientation, and from a position a couple of inches above the right ear to the approximate middle of the right ear utilizing a top to bottom orientation." The report further explained that Dr. Crenshaw’s "description which indicates that the wound extended from the hairline back behind the ear and to the back of the head was ‘poorly worded" in his book and that "The correct description indicates that the wound was located entirely at the rear of the head behind the right ear.” Okay, so here we finally get some clarification. Crenshaw has indeed retreated from the descriptions of brain damage in his book, and is now claiming, in opposition to what he told 20/20, that the wound stretched from the right top of Kennedy's head behind his right ear to the middle of the back of his head.

So, what's the problem?

The problem is that, in 1997, when asked by the ARRB to mark the head wound location on an anatomy drawing of a skull viewed from behind, Crenshaw placed this wound almost entirely on the occipital bone, behind and almost entirely below the top of Kennedy's ear. This is about two inches below and further back from the location he'd described to the FBI.  More telling, when asked to mark the wound location on a lateral drawing of the skull, Crenshaw placed the wound on the occipital and parietal bone, an inch or so lower, and perhaps as much as two inches forward, from the location he'd marked on the drawing from behind. Something is just wrong here. While the upper margin of the wound location depicted by Crenshaw in The Killing of the President was roughly at the level of the middle of the forehead, the upper margin of the wound on this lateral drawing was roughly at the middle of the eye socket. This raises serious, and I mean serious, questions not only about Dr. Crenshaw's memory, but his grasp of basic anatomy.

But what about Nurse Audrey Bell? Well, no surprise, she fared no better with the ARRB than Crenshaw. Beyond telling David Lifton in 1982 that the head wound was so localized on the back of the head that she couldn't see it from Kennedy's right hand side, she'd made few comments on the wound location over the years. Apparently, for good reason. When asked by the ARRB to depict the wound location on an autopsy drawing of a skull viewed from behind, sadly, she depicted the wound even lower on the occipital bone than Crenshaw. She depicted it so low, in fact, that, it was in clear contradiction with the earliest reports and statements of Dr. William Kemp Clark, the only doctor at Parkland to actually examine the wound, and even Dr. McClelland, who told the Warren Commission that "the parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp and seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half." 

Her recollections on this wound just have no credibility. Much as Crenshaw, she couldn't even be consistent from one drawing to the next. While she depicted the wound both above and below the level of the External Occipital Protuberance on the anatomy drawing presenting the skull as seen from the rear, she presented the wound entirely above the EOP on the drawing of the lateral view. (This is seen more clearly in Volume 1 of Doug Horne's Inside the ARRB than on the slide above.)

Thus, Crenshaw and Bell were thus not only inconsistent with each other, and the only doctor to examine the wound at Parkland, but with themselves. While they might have been the most fabulous people on God's green Earth, their decades-after recollections of Kennedy's head wound location are clearly just not credible.

So much for the oft-repeated claim that the Parkland staff were "trained witnesses" and could not mistake a wound on the top of the head for a wound on the back of the head... Crenshaw and Bell either couldn't orient a simple anatomy drawing, or were unable to remember where they'd marked the wound only a few seconds earlier.