Chapter 13b: Attack of the Clones

Chapter 13b: Attack of the Clones

Behind the Scenes of the HSCA's Investigation

Fox Autopsy Photo/HSCA Figure 25 Comparison

Since the photograph taken from behind the President’s skull showing the empty cranium seems to confirm the autopsy doctors' description of an entrance wound in the hairline, it’s important that we not only decide for ourselves if it's fake, as we did in the last chapter, but do our best to find out who else has studied this photo, and why they failed to see the bullet hole in the photo, right where the doctors claimed it was.

Unfortunately, there is no record of a photo of the brain cavity taken from behind in the report of the Clark Panel, nor in the report of the HSCA's Forensic Pathology Panel. There is, however, a reference to photos taken of the President’s brainless skull from the front and from above in these reports.

When one looks at HSCA Figure 25, a blow-up of one of these photos purportedly depicting the “exit defect in the margin of the fracture fragment of the right parietal region,” which in the HSCA's opinion resided on the front part of Kennedy's head, by the coronal suture, however, one realizes that an awful mistake has been made, as this blow-up was quite clearly blown-up from one of the photos taken from behind.

What’s going on here? 

Only adding to this strangeness is that Figure 25 was blown up from photo #44, which the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel Report describes (along with black and white photo #17) as “close-ups of the margins of the fracture line in the right front-parietal region after reflection of scalp.”

Hmmm... Beyond that this confirms that the HSCA panel had, indeed, mistaken the back of Kennedy's head for the front of his head, the listing of photo 44 in tandem with photo 17 is a bit odd. Since elsewhere in the HSCA Report, and in several earlier government reports, it was acknowledged that photographs 17 and 18 were the black and white photos depicting an open cranium, and photos 44 and 45 the color photos depicting the same, this raises the question of whether photos 18 and 45 were even shown to the Forensic Pathology Panel. When the Panel discussed the photos with Dr.s Boswell and Humes in 1977, they only showed them photos 17 and 44. Upon discovery of this fact, I at first questioned if photos 18 and 45 were withheld for some reason. It appears, however, that the answer is no, as the panel’s Dr. Petty, when discussing the beveling on the skull with Humes and Boswell, informed them that “this is shown more clearly on the black and white photographs Nos. 17 and 18, probably best in No. 17.”  Well, then why did they use #44 in their final report?  I must admit I’m perplexed.

When one looks closely at the supposed exit defect in Figure 25, one can’t help but be even more perplexed. This exit defect doesn’t appear as round and beveled as the defect in the Fox photos available online. So why wouldn’t the photo available online, which would presumably be either #17 or #18, have been used instead of photo #44? Why did the HSCA use an inferior photograph? Was there something in #17 or #18 that the doctors were trying to hide from the committee? Or was it simply a matter of the pathology panel screwing up and picking the wrong photo to demonstrate the beveling?

Even more to the point, how could the Forensic Pathology Panel possibly believe this photo was taken of Kennedy’s “right frontal-parietal region”--his forehead? Are we through the looking glass here or what? 

Baden Testimony Comparison

To answer that last question--that of whether or not we are through the looking glass here--let me be concise: yes.

On September 7, 1978, Dr. Michael Baden testified before the HSCA and presented the findings of the Forensic Pathology Panel. His testimony was long and thorough, and frequently mind-boggling. Incredibly, his panel had concluded that the mystery photo almost certainly showing skull at the back of Kennedy's head, had instead showed his forehead.

This wasn't even buried in his testimony. At one point in his testimony, he presented Exhibit F-60, explaining “the semicircular defect that I am pointing to corresponds with the black dot present on the previous exhibit” (which was F-58). A quick look at F-60, however, reveals that it is a close-up of the beveled bone at the back of the head in the open cranium photo (previously discussed as Figure 15) What is suspicious, however, is that it was presented in the report not turned the way Baden purports to interpret it, but sideways from his interpretation, as if it was indeed a picture of the back of the head and not the forehead. It’s also a bit odd that, even though this blow-up was taken from one of four photographs--two black and white and two color--that demonstrate the open cranium, Baden made a point of telling the commission it was taken from “the only photograph that shows any internal structure of the President.” When one compares the open-cranium photo to F-58, and follows Baden’s interpretation of the outshoot, moreover, one can easily discern something is wrong. When one lifts the exit defect in the photo to the level of the defect in the drawing, and makes the size of the defects match, one can see that there is entirely too much forehead in the photograph above the defect, and that it clearly is not angled the way the skull would be near the defect in the drawing. There is also the problem, and it's a BIG one, in my opinion, that in this orientation the obvious bullet entrance in the photo is now on Kennedy's left forehead, and unexplained.

While the autopsy doctors have never voiced their disagreement with Baden's interpretation of the photo, it is nevertheless enlightening that they have repeatedly made statements indicating they remembered taking photographs depicting the bullet entrance on the back of the head, both from the outside and from the inside. Not once in all their statements, moreover, have they stated they took a photograph of a beveled outshoot at or near the President’s forehead. In Dr. Humes’ testimony before the Warren Commission, for that matter, he specifically denied there was such an outshoot, and said the only beveling indicating an outshoot discovered at the autopsy was on a large bone fragment discovered in the limousine by the Secret Service. He testified “A careful examination of the margins of the large bone defect at this point failed to disclose a portion of the skull bearing again a wound of--a point of impact on the skull of this fragment of the missile, remembering, of course, that this area was devoid of any scalp or skull at this present time. We did not have the bone” and stressed “the thing which we considered of importance about these three fragments of bone (the ones brought in by the Secret Service towards the end of the autopsy) was that at the margins of one of them which was roughly pyramidal in shape, there was a portion of the circumference of what we interpreted as a missile wound.”

Now compare Dr. Humes' testimony before the Warren Commission to what Dr. Baden told the House Select Committee fourteen years later. He told a new and improved story, a story that, not surprisingly, supported his contention the beveled bone apparent in the mystery photo was part of his proposed exit defect. He testified: “The doctors looked at the bone fragments, took x-rays of the bone fragments, inserted this particular bone fragment against this semi-circle and concluded that they matched and fitted together.”

Now, I used to assume Baden just made this up. But I later realized he got this from Dr. Boswell. Six members of the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel including Dr. Baden interviewed Dr.s Humes and Boswell on 9-16-77, a year before Baden testified before the HSCA. During this interview Boswell and Humes were discussing how far they had to cut to get to the small entrance wound on the back of Kennedy's head. Then Boswell said: "not much, because this bone was all gone and actually the smaller fragment (of the fragments x-rayed on the night of the autopsy) fit this piece down here--there was a hole here, only half of which was present in the bone that was intact, and this small piece then fit right on there and the beveling on those was on the interior surface."

Now I don't know where this came from... There was no mention of this prior to this interview. But what's important to realize is that Boswell was talking about matching up a fragment other than the largest fragment to a beveled entrance on the intact skull, and Baden later testified that they'd matched up the largest bone fragment to a beveled exit on the intact skull.

It seems likely, moreover, that the rest of Baden's panel knew his testimony was nonsense. When discussing the autopsy protocol’s description of the large exit, the report of Baden's panel claims: “The description of the bone fails to recognize either the semi-circular defect or any beveling in the bone fragments still attached to the head.” The panel's report then quotes a February 1965 letter by Dr. Finck to his superior General Blumberg. It records Finck's thoughts as he first inspected the large defect, and relates “No exit wound is identifiable at this time in the skull, but close to midnight portions of cranial vault are received from Dallas, Texas. X-ray films of these bone specimens reveal numerous metallic fragments. Two of the bone specimens, 50 millimeters in diameter, reveal beveling when viewed from the external aspect, thus indicating a wound of exit.” Thus, both Humes and Finck claimed there was no apparent beveling on the intact part of the skull. While Dr. Boswell was less clear on this matter, he told researcher Josiah Thompson on 1-11-67 that the direction of the bullet in the skull was determined by the beveling at entrance, the destruction within the brain, and the beveling on the recovered skull fragment. Thus, he too confirmed there was NO beveled exit on the intact skull! 

Is it reasonable then to believe all three doctors failed to note this beveled exit, when it was really on the edge of the exit defect? Or should we suspect, instead, that the HSCA got it wrong, and that the beveled bone in the photo was not where they claimed it was?

HSCA Outshoot/Autopsy Photos Comparison

I mean, it's not as if the HSCA's exhibits can be relied upon. When one watches Baden's testimony and compares Exhibit F-58 with the autopsy photos one finds that Baden's Panel was claiming the beveled outshoot in the mystery corresponded to a spot on the President’s right forehead between his eye and his ear and just above his temple. One not insignificant problem with this is that this location is visible through the v-shaped tear in Kennedy’s scalp apparent in the right lateral autopsy photo. That solid bone seems to be all around this location, and that the tear of scalp appears to have come as a result of an explosion from somewhere above the President’s ear, at least an inch away, only highlights how unlikely it is for this location to be the location of the beveled outshoot depicted in the mystery photo. While there is no shortage of missing skull back of this location, this is just not the exit location depicted in the mystery photo and the HSCA's exhibits.

Oh, No!

Only adding to my suspicion that the HSCA pathology panel got it wrong, and was blowing smoke, is that while the autopsy doctors have never been able to identify the photo they claimed was taken to show the internal aspect of a bullet's entrance on Kennedy's skull, the pathology panel's report claimed, “Stereoscopic visualization of the inside of the cranial cavity at its depth, after removal of the brain, reveals a semicircular beveled defect in the posterior parietal area to the right of the midline, from which fracture lines radiate corresponding to the entrance perforation indicated in the skull x-rays.” Since Dr. Baden testified that F-60 was a detail of the “only photograph that shows any internal structures of the President at the time of the autopsy” and since there is no photograph showing the entrance wound from the inside listed in any of the photographic reports of the HSCA, it’s clear that this reference to stereographic visualization is a reference to looking at photos 44 and 45 at the same time. Well, where is this entrance? More pointedly, why didn't Dr. Baden point this entrance out in his testimony? Or his panel in their report?  They had exhibit F-60 to work with. The entrance would have to be in there somewhere. Why didn't they show it to the committee?

When one dives further in the report, and reads the section entitled "Course of the Missile Through the Head," it becomes clear the panel didn't spend much time on this photo because they lacked confidence it was really as claimed. While discussing photos 17, 18, 44, and 45, the report reads "The lens was focused on the interior-posterior deepest portion of the wound, apparently in an attempt to depict the interior of the bullet perforation of the posterior region of the skull. In the photograph prepared from color transparency No. 45, the exterior bone fragment with the semicircular defect is more in focus than the base of the skull in the depth of the picture which is out of focus. In the photographs prepared from positive color transparency No. 45, the exterior fragment is out of focus, but the depth of the photograph is in sharper focus. The photographs, also studied using the computer-assisted enhancement technique, show a possible portion of the beveled inner table corresponding to the semicircular margin of the entrance wound at the back of the head in the right posterior parietal bone." What was formerly a revelation was now just a possibility.

While some researchers believe they see an entrance in the far back of the skull (which I interpret as the base of the skull) in the autopsy photo in question, NONE have described this entrance as “a semi-circular beveled defect in the parietal area” nor has anyone noted fracture lines corresponding to the skull x-rays. As strange as it may sound, the description of this defect as both “semi-circular” and “beveled” makes me suspect that Baden and/or the writers of the pathology panel's report, Dr.s Loquvam and Weston, were trying to portray the same beveled piece of bone Baden testified was an exit in front of Kennedy’s right ear as an entrance high on the back of his head!   

But it gets stranger. In April 2006, I was able to obtain some footage of Dr. Baden’s testimony. What I saw made my jaw drop. When the blow-up of the purported exit on Kennedy’s skull, HSCA Exhibit F-60, was brought out and placed on the exhibit stand, it was placed the same way it was printed in the HSCA report, with the bone stretching vertically. Dr. Baden, however, immediately sought to correct this “mistake.” With the photo in his hand displaying the ridge of bone horizontally, and with the defect at the top of this ridge, he grabbed the exhibit and began to turn it to match the photo in his hand.

A World Upside Down

After beginning to turn the blow-up of the small beveled exit to match the photo in his hand, however, something led Dr. Baden to stop and turn it back the other way, so that the large skull defect was now beneath the small beveled exit, which was, in turn, beneath some intact bone.  Since this large defect was the opening through which Kennedy’s brain had been removed, it made no sense to portray this defect as one strictly on Kennedy’s right side.  (That this is, in fact, an error, is demonstrated by Exhibit F-66, presented only moments after Exhibit F-60.  F-66 portrays the large defect as above and behind a beveled exit on the frontal bone, with NO bone directly above the exit.)

Unfortunately, Dr. Baden’s testimony compounded his error: (Image 1, Baden pointing at the skull above the defect in the photos): “This is the front part of the skull of the President (Image 2) in this area” (Image 3)

“and this semi-circular defect that I’m pointing to corresponds (Image 4) with the black dot on the previous exhibit and shows a portion of a gunshot wound of exit as determined by the panel, by viewing, by being able to see beveling, that is the breaking of bone away in a certain pattern as a BB does when it goes through plate glass, causing a beveling on the glass in the direction to which the BB would proceed. This happens when a bullet enters and exits skull bones and other bones and this was a conclusion of the panel that this was an exit perforation.”

Now compare this to the published transcript (with notable changes highlighted):The photograph shows the front right part of the skull of the President and the semi-circular defect that I am pointing to corresponds with the black dot present on the previous exhibit. This is a portion of a gunshot wound of exit as determined by the panel because of the beveling of the outer layer of bone visible in the photographs, which is also described in the autopsy report. Beveling refers to the breaking away of bone in a concave pattern as when a BB goes through plate glass causing a concavity in the glass in the direction in which the BB is proceeding. This also happens when a bullet enters and exits skull bone and other bones. It is the conclusion of the panel that this is unquestionably an exit perforation.”  

After noticing the changes in Dr. Baden’s testimony, and commenting online, I received word from someone who testified before the HSCA (Jack White) that everyone who testified was given a transcript of their testimony and given the opportunity to change their public testimony. While I was well aware that witnesses are allowed to change their statements and depositions in the pre-trial phase of court proceedings it was news to me that anyone could go back and change the transcripts of their public testimony. Since not all of Dr. Baden’s changes were grammatical—the first highlighted section conceals that he pointed to the skull before pointing out the defect, the second highlighted section is new and misleading testimony (as discussed, the autopsy report made no reference whatsoever to a beveled exit on the intact skull, and Dr. Humes' testimony specifically dismissed that such an exit was apparent), and the third highlighted section reflects a degree of certainty not communicated in Baden's actual testimony—one should rightly wonder to what degree the testimony of other witnesses has been changed. If anyone has all the public hearings on tape, and is willing to sit down and record the changes made in the transcripts, it would undoubtedly prove fascinating. While I would like to think Committee members were informed whenever testimony was changed, I don’t think we should make such an assumption. Accordingly, if anyone knows the standard procedures involved in changing public testimony before congress, and whether the HSCA staff followed these procedures, I will include their comments in my next update.

In any event, it seems clear from Baden's testimony that 1) he was confused as heck by the mystery photo, and 2) he deliberately over-stated the case for a single-shooter, firing from behind.

And yet this obvious fact is beyond the grasp of some seeking to prop up the single-assassin conclusion...  On November 22, 2006, while discussing Baden's testimony on the alt.assassination.JFK newsgroup, Marquette University Professor John McAdams claimed: “Baden clearly knows how the photo is oriented, since he correctly says that the top of the photo is the front of Kennedy’s head.” Well, this was like saying that a captain commanding a ship from Cannes to Cairo who washed ashore in Capetown clearly knew what he was doing since he came to port in Africa.

And from there it only got weirder. By 2010, McAdams, apparently incapable of admitting any error by anyone whose "expertise" he needs to rely upon to shore up his single-assassin conclusion, had taken to claiming my observations about Baden's testimony were incorrect, and that Baden had in fact properly oriented the open cranium photo during his testimony. On 10-1-10, on his alt.assassination.JFK newsgroup, he claimed:

No, he put the photo up with the forehead upward, and then used his

pointer to *correctly* point to the forehead.

This is just a silly factoid.

The orientation that Baden used is the one that Stringer would have

seen through his viewfinder.

John

Well, this was just nonsense. Anyone who'd actually watched part 1 of my video series, in which Dr. Baden's testimony is shown, would know that Baden pointed to an area ABOVE the purported exit on the photo, and said it corresponded to an area ABOVE the purported exit on the drawing of Kennedy. This PROVES he thought he put the photo right-side up on the easel. 

And yet McAdams just couldn't accept this. On January 30, 2014, after single-assassin theorist John Fiorentino stepped up on the alt.assassination.JFK newsgroup and told McAdams he was just wrong on this issue, and I made the case that the orientation of the autopsy photo on the easel was inconsistent with the orientation of the drawing Baden showed the committee, McAdams sunk to a new low, and announced: "You are not talking about how Baden oriented the *photo,* you are quarreling with how the drawing was oriented...For some reason, you have this wacky theory of how the drawing was upside down."

McAdams' invention of the ridiculous "factoid" that Baden was trying to show the committee the photographer's viewpoint when he placed the photo upside down, and that he actually placed the drawing of Kennedy upside down on the easel, is just embarrassing, and reveals both the irrational nature of many JFK "researchers"... and that the "cult of expertise" lives on.

Angel/Baden Comparison

Still, Baden wasn't the only "expert" confused by the photo, or willing to say it helped sell the single-assassin conclusion...when it did anything but...

Let's start by noting that the 1968 secret panel to study the medical evidence, the Clark Panel, led by Dr. Russell Fisher, a close colleague of a number of men on Baden's panel, including Baden himself, failed to note that a beveled exit defect was visible in the photos, and described the open-cranium photographs as follows: “Due to lack of contrast of structures portrayed and lack of clarity of detail in these photographs, the only conclusion reached by The Panel from study of this series was that there was no existing bullet defect in the supra-orbital region of the skull.” Well, my God, the supra-orbital region is the region above the eyes--the forehead!!! And no, this wasn't a typo. As if to stress this point, the Clark Panel's report later repeated "The photographs do not disclose where this bullet emerged from the head although those showing the interior of the cranium with the brain removed indicate that it did not emerge from the supra-orbital region." Well, this is mighty curious, isn't it?

Now jump forward to 8-19-77. Dr. Baden has just reviewed the autopsy materials for the HSCA, and has written a memo to HSCA staffer Kenneth Klein detailing his preliminary conclusions regarding the medical evidence. After propping up the single-bullet theory, he reports: "Another bullet struck the President in the back of the head four inches above and about one inch to the right of the external occipital protuberance causing extensive fractures of the skull and damage to the brain exiting near the coronal suture line about three inches to right of the midline." Now this is even more curious. He purports to have observed an exit wound three inches to the right of the midline of the skull, which is essentially the side of the head. 

Now check out what the forensic anthropology consultant to Dr. Baden's pathology panel, Dr. Lawrence Angel, had to say about all this. His 10-24-77 report to the panel asserts "The exit area through the right frontal above the boss can account for the small semi-circular notch 35 mm above the right orbit, the radiopaque mark near this, and at the upper right part of the track can explain the radiopaque markings on the triangular frontal fragment just in front of the coronal suture above stephanion." While his words might seem confusing Dr. Angel created a drawing to depict this conclusion, and it is not at all confusing. It is clearly taken directly from the "mystery photo" of our discussion. And it clearly shows the exit defect to be exactly where Russell Fisher and the Clark Panel said it was not, 35 mm (about 1 1/2 inches) above the eye socket in the supra-orbital region.

Now let's inject that Dr. Angel was Curator of Physical Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institute, and a noted lecturer on Anatomy, Anthropology, and Forensic Science at George Washington University and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Based upon his resume, one would think Angel's interpretation of the photo would trump that of all others.

And yet, the Baden-piloted HSCA pathology panel rejected Angel's findings. It agreed that the photo showed an exit, as claimed by Angel--but concluded that this exit was not remotely close to where Angel said it was.

And they weren't the only HSCA panel to do so. In keeping with the testimony of Dr. Baden, the HSCA trajectory panel (led by Thomas Canning) depicted the beveled outshoot on the skull at the coronal suture, inches above and to the right of the exit defect in Angel’s drawing.

So why did the HSCA pathology panel reject Angel's findings? Were they concerned for the reputation of their colleagues on the Clark Panel--who had repeatedly claimed no exit on the forehead was apparent in the photos?

Or were they just doing their jobs, and, God forbid, trying to get things right? Not one witness observed an exit wound on Kennedy’s forehead. Such an obvious wound, in a location observed by dozens of witnesses, could not have gone unnoticed. Also problematic is that when one matches the beveled outshoot and nearby fractures of the open-cranium photograph to Angel’s drawing, it seems clear that Kennedy’s eye sockets should be apparent in the photograph. But they are not.

So, yes, it's clear that there was something wrong with Angel's interpretation. And that this was apparent even to the HSCA panel. And that they then opted to find their own location for the bullet's exit--one hidden by Kennedy's hair. Assuming this is so, well, one can then muse that the HSCA Panel found a political solution to a scientific question, and failed to uncover the cause of Angel's error--his unjustified belief the open-cranium photo was taken from the front.

Still, that's just speculation. Is there anything to firm this up? Is there any additional evidence the panel would reject the findings of the clearly-qualified Angel...for political reasons?

Mind the Gap

I believe there is. For when one closely compares the findings of Dr. Angel and the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel to whom he served as a consultant, one finds that the precise location of the exit wound apparent in the mystery photo was not the only conclusion of Angel's with which the panel came to disagree...for reasons all its own.

In his report to the committee, Dr. Angel included several drawings he'd made of Kennedy's damaged skull. In these drawings he demonstrated where he believed the two largest bone fragments found outside Kennedy's skull--the large triangular fragment found in the limousine on the afternoon of the shooting, and the "Harper fragment" found by William Harper in Dealey Plaza the next day--had originally been located.

This seemingly innocent gesture on his part would come to be a huge problem for the committee, however. Dr. Angel proposed that there had been a gap between these two fragments. Well, the HSCA's Pathology Panel, in their own analysis, had concluded that these fragments included portions of a beveled exit of a bullet. If there was a gap between them, as per Angel, then, there would have to have been TWO exits for a bullet on Kennedy's skull.

No, scratch that. THREE exits for a bullet on Kennedy's skull. Dr. Angel had, after all, identified a beveled exit on the mystery photo, which he took to have been an exit on Kennedy's forehead, inches away from the exit locations identified by the HSCA's panel on the triangular fragment and Harper fragment.

Well, this would not do. As we shall see, the HSCA's Panel believed the primary bullet defect by Kennedy's temple too large to have been created by the exit of a small fragment. The impact creating this defect, they concluded, must have come from a sizable bullet fragment--something much larger than any of the fragments later recovered. (This led Dr. Michael Baden, the panel's spokesman, to claim in time that the bullet exited Kennedy's skull intact and only broke up after hitting the windshield strut.)

In any event, the multiple exits suggested by Angel's analysis were quite clearly unacceptable to the panel. They had to find a way around his findings. They needed a miracle-worker.

Flip-Flop

Well, maybe not a miracle-worker, but a holy trinity of sorts: a three-in-one. 

Yes, in one of its most questionable actions--and that's saying a lot--the pathology panel concluded that the three separate exits on Kennedy's skull suggested by Dr. Angel's study of the triangular skull fragment, the Harper skull fragment, and the mystery photo, were really one exit.

And this three-in-one exit wasn't even where Dr. Angel claimed there was an exit... Yep, to get around Angel's problematic placement of a bullet exit on Kennedy's forehead, the panel also decided that the exit in the mystery photo was not on Kennedy's forehead, as claimed by Angel, but at the top of Kennedy's head on the coronal suture.

But this created a new problem. Angel's interpretation of the autopsy photos and x-rays had led him to conclude that the large triangular fragment purportedly found in the limousine was "clearly frontal bone," from the right side of Kennedy's head, from just forward of the coronal suture. The pathology panel's new and improved location for the beveled exit in the mystery photo, however, was, yeah, you guessed it, on the frontal bone, just forward of the coronal suture. 

The two interpretations were thereby at odds. If Angel was correct about the large fragment, then the panel was wrong and the beveled exit apparent on the mystery photo could not reside on the frontal bone. And if the panel was correct about the beveled exit apparent on the mystery photo, then Angel was wrong and the large fragment could not be frontal bone. 

Now one might consider this a draw, and side with the pathology panel.

But it's not as if Angel was alone on this issue...a Don Quixote tilting at windmills...

He had both the Zapruder film and the HSCA's radiology consultant backing his interpretation.

Let us first discuss the Zapruder film. 

Look back up at the slide above. Now note that in F-66, the pathology panel's depiction of the skull's explosion, the large triangular fragment on the right of the drawing explodes upwards...as well it should considering that, in their estiimation, a bullet exited below it, and exploded it into the air. 

Now consider that the fragment was not found in the street or on the trunk of the limo, but on the floor of the limo. Well, this suggests it exploded downwards, correct? And that a bullet exited above its location on the skull, right? 

And now realize that Frame 314 of the Zapruder film shows a large fragment exploding downwards from the skull, and that subsequent frames appear to show it bouncing back up off Kennedy's leg or the floor, or both

Don't believe me? Well, then, see for yourself. 

So the Zapruder film supports that the fragment was frontal bone, as opposed to parietal bone. 

Let us now discuss the radiology consultant.

The 8-4-78 report of the HSCA's chief radiology consultant, Dr. G.M. McDonnel, in which he offered his conclusions, asserts that "a portion of the posterior aspect of the right frontal bone" was missing. Well, this supports Dr. Angel. The HSCA panel had claimed, after all, that not only was no frontal bone missing, but that the posterior aspect of the frontal bone was visible in the mystery photo.

And that's not even to mention the eyewitness evidence suggesting the triangular fragment was frontal bone. Not that the panel looked for such evidence, but General Godfrey McHugh, Kennedy's military aide, would certainly have offered some, if asked. As recounted in David Lifton's 1980 best-seller Best Evidence, Lifton performed a taped interview of McHugh on 11-19-67, in which McHugh claimed he'd helped move Kennedy's body into position for the autopsy pictures, and had a close-up view of the autopsy. Well, McHugh told Lifton that he saw "the bone of the forehead...The front. The top...not completely the top, the forehead" put back into place, and that "as soon as they put back that bone there, it was just like his face had never been hurt..." And that wasn't all. When then asked from where this bone had come, McHugh's answer was even more helpful. He told Lifton "It was brought back. They found it in the car."

So, what did HSCA chief medical consultant Dr. Baden and HSCA staff member Mark Flanagan do to resolve this issue? Their forensic anthropology consultant--an expert on skull anatomy--said the triangular fragment was frontal bone...and their chief radiology consultant said frontal bone was missing...but they couldn't agree the fragment was frontal bone without admitting the beveled defect apparent in the mystery photo was not on the frontal bone, and that there was thereby more than one exit defect on the skull. 

Well, they did what doctors do. They got a second opinion more to their liking. Yep, at the last minute--just weeks before Dr. Baden was to testify--they approached radiologist Dr. David O. Davis and asked him to consult on the x-rays. On 8-23-78, at George Washington University, he was shown the x-rays. Not surprisingly, in retrospect, he concluded "There is absence of a part of the calvarium, beginning near the impact point and extending anteriorly to the coronal suture." 

Now, again, in plain English. The absence of calvarium (i.e. the hole on the top of the head) extended anteriorly to the coronal suture (i.e. it stretched forward towards the front of the head, but failed to extend past the coronal suture, onto the frontal bone)... 

Davis had thereby told Baden (and one can only assume Flanagan) exactly what they were hoping to hear so they could disregard Angel and McDonnel.

Davis' opinion, then, was just what the doctor ordered! Oh my, what a coinky-dink! 

That Davis' opinion was ill-founded, moreover, was confirmed by the next radiologist contacted by the government to comment on the x-rays. On 2-6-96 representatives of the Assassination Records Review Board met with forensic radiologist John J. Fitzpatrick and asked him his impressions of Kennedy's x-rays. The report on this meeting reveals: 

So Fitzpatrick backed up Angel, and McDonnel. And shot down Baden and Davis. (One can only wonder, then, the official reason Davis was consulted, and who put his name forth as the one they should consult.)

In any event, Baden and Flanagan's campaign to make things fit was far from over. A 9-1-78 outside contact report by Flanagan reveals that Dr. Angel has met with Dr. Baden and the HSCA staff "to review skull reconstruction drawings" and now agrees that the drawings are "fair and accurate representations" of his conclusions, as his "original report stating that the largest fragment depicted in original autopsy x-ray #6 was frontal bone was in error." (RIF# 180-10083-10106)

Bingo! To refresh, as of 8-22-78, the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel's forensic anthropology consultant had told them the large triangular fragment found on the floor of the limo was frontal bone, and their chief radiology consultant had told them frontal bone was missing. As the panel had concluded the beveled exit apparent on the mystery photo resided on the frontal bone--and precisely where their consultants had said there was no bone, moreover--this was a problem. A big freaking problem. Unless the panel developed reasons to doubt their consultants, they would be forced to conclude there were two exit defects on the front of the President's skull. Well, then, on 8-23-78, HSCA staff member Mark Flanagan met with radiologist Dr. David O. Davis, and showed him the x-rays, whereby Davis reported no frontal bone was missing. And that cut the legs off the panel's previous radiology consultant, Dr. McDonnel. And then, on 9-1-78, Flanagan and Dr. Baden met with the panel's forensic anthropology consultant, Dr. Angel, to show him how Dr. Baden planned to testify regarding the president's head wounds, i.e. that no frontal bone was missing, and, (at least supposedly) got Dr. Angel to concur. They'd thereby cut his legs off, as well.

And let's not forget that, according to HSCA Assistant Chief Counsel Gary Cornwell, Dr. Baden took Dr. Humes to lunch on 9-7-78, the day of their testimony, and convinced Humes to admit his "mistake" regarding the location of the entrance wound, in exchange for Cornwell's not pressing him too hard on his numerous other "mistakes." So, yikes, that's another set of legs collected by Dr. Baden and the house select committee in the furtherance of Chief Counsel Robert Blakey's agenda--to make the evidence fit (or more specifically--to make the evidence conform to the conclusions of the committee's chief medical advisor, Dr. Michael Baden). 

Well, that's political science, folks. That is, science as practiced in Washington, D.C.  

Now, as we've seen, these events culminated in the 9-7-78 testimony of Dr. Baden, in which he entered Exhibit F-66 (shown on the slide above) as a depiction of the large defect on the top of the President's skull, along with the skull fragments blown from this defect. The large fragment in this depiction was, as one might expect, depicted just above its presumed former home along the coronal suture. 

It was, for that matter, on the opposite side of the suture from where Dr. Angel had initially claimed it had been. 

Yes, it's incredible, but true. Dr. Baden had flipped the triangular fragment over the coronal suture, so that the jagged edge Angel concluded lay in front of the suture, now lay behind the coronal suture. 

Well, how could he do that? To do that he would have to have re-interpreted the fragment as a mirror image of Angel's interpretation of the fragment, right? He couldn't just do that, could he?

Well, actually...yeah, he could. There were no photos taken of the fragment at autopsy, just x-rays. X-rays taken of a bone do not discriminate between top side and underside; they show both at once. Only through careful study can one conclude which side is up on an x-ray, and Baden claimed his panel couldn't tell which side was up on this particular x-ray. So, yeah, he ignored the initial and presumably real conclusions of the HSCA's top forensic anthropology consultant and top radiology consultant, claimed the large triangular fragment was parietal bone, and not frontal bone, and performed a flip-flop of epic proportions.

Now, there was a jaw-dropping problem with Baden's flip-flop. The bottom margin of this fragment in the drawing--that is, the margin of this fragment running along the coronal suture--has a slight curve to it. Well, get this, if one assumes this fragment was where Baden said it was, it curves the wrong way!

Here is an exhibit created by the researcher John Hunt, which was to be a featured exhibit in a book he, tragically, never finished. It demonstrates beyond any doubt that the triangular fragment failed to fit where Dr. Baden claimed it fit. 

Now, Dr. Baden is purported to have attached life-sized paper cut-outs of the skull fragments onto a skull so he could see how they fit together. Well, if this is so, it should have been readily apparent to him that the large fragment only fit forward of the coronal suture, and was frontal bone, not parietal bone. 

Right?

Odd Fragment Out

Yep, 'fraid so...

As first suggested by Dr. Joseph Riley in his presentation at the 1996 JFK Lancer Conference in Dallas (in which he concurred with Dr. Angel's original conclusions re the large triangular fragment and Harper fragment), and as further demonstrated by researcher John Hunt in his ground-breaking article A Demonstrable Impossibility (2007), Baden L-I-E-D about the skull fragments. He just flat-out L-I-E-D. (I'm not sure why I'm spelling this out--perhaps I'm doing it for dramatic effect. But the truth is it still shocks me when I think about a prominent doctor's telling such a whopper in such an important case.)

On the reconstruction of the skull using the paper cutouts, the report of Baden's pathology panel claimed: "The largest of the X-ray fragments—that on which outer beveling and tiny metal fragments are evident—completes a portion of the exit perforation, with the suture line fitting into the coronal suture; the Harper bone fragment completes the circular perforation in the suture line immediately superior to the temporal bone. No other exit or entrance perforation is identified."

Well, we've already demonstrated that the largest fragment did not fit where Baden claimed it fit. But this line about the "Harper bone fragment" is even worse. Take a look at the slide above and see if there is any way to fit the Harper fragment between the purported location of the exit perforation, and the temporal bone, the top of which is marked by Baden himself on Exhibit 58 as residing less than halfway between the exit perforation and the ear. (While the size of the Harper fragment on the slide above is an approximate, the sides of the Harper fragment are indisputably more than 2 inches long. Well, heck. This is roughly twice the distance between the purported exit perforation and the lateral suture line--which designates the top of the temporal bone--in Exhibit 58.)  

I mean, there's just no way it could fit, right? As seen on the previous slide, Exhibit F-66--another drawing made under Dr. Baden's direction--shows the triangular fragment fitting into the forward-most part of the skull defect. There is no room for the Harper fragment to fit BELOW this location. There is, in fact, only intact skull below this location on the side of the head. But even if one is to assume Baden decided he was wrong about this, and that he'd decided there was a hole on the side of the head, there is simply no way the notch believed to show a bullet defect on the Harper fragment (the uppermost corner of the Harper fragment in F-66) abutted the beveled notch on the triangular fragment. NOT without the other corners of the Harper fragment crossing over onto the temporal bone (the bone surrounding the ear), and the sphenoid bone (the bone just forward of the temporal bone, and below the purported bullet defect).

So why did Baden pretend that it fit? Well, that's a good question, but maybe it had something to do with the fact that the only doctor to study the actual fragment and put his thoughts on record (Dr. Cairns) thought it to have been occipital bone (the thickest bone in the skull) and the most qualified doctor to study the photos of the bone (Dr. Angel) thought it to have been parietal bone (a moderately thick bone). Perhaps Baden felt that, in the face of such opposition, he couldn't just turn around and claim this bone was temporal bone, the thinnest bone in the skull.

And besides, even if the Harper fragment could fit into the location proposed by Baden, there was no reason to believe it did. Angel--the skull expert--concluded that near the "short upper edge" of the fragment "vascular foramina on the inside and a faint irregular line on the outside indicate sagittal suture." (Note: the sagittal suture runs from front to back down the middle of the top of the skull.) Angel had thereby concluded that the fragment came from the top of Kennedy's skull, and not from the side, where Baden claimed it had originated. And the side made no sense to begin with. The Harper fragment was found eighty feet or so in front and to the left of where Kennedy was sitting at the time of the impact. It is almost certainly the large fragment seen flying upwards in the Zapruder film. Well, why would a bone fragment entirely on the right side of Kennedy's head, believed to have been BELOW the passage of a bullet from the crown of his head down to his temple, rocket upwards in such a manner?  

The Harper fragment was odd fragment out. Evidently, Baden, or someone working with his panel, realized that placing the Harper fragment towards the back of the head a la Angel in his drawings, and a la Baden himself in F-66, meant the exit on the Harper fragment was a separate exit from the presumed exit on the coronal suture. And this wouldn't do. They wanted there to be one exit. Period.

So they lied about it, and made out that the Harper fragment--supposedly parietal bone--came from a part of the parietal bone where they didn't even think there was missing bone. And where it couldn't even fit if there had been missing bone...and still be parietal bone.

I mean, it's really quite clear here that someone was blowing smoke. And Hunt, in his article, makes it quite clear that this someone was Baden. Hunt reported that, despite his persistent inquiries, the National Archives was unable to locate the skull on which Baden had supposedly matched up the cutouts, or even the cutouts. And worse, far worse, Hunt revealed that Figure 32 of the December 1978 final draft of the report of the pathology panel, which, in the report's own words, showed Baden's Exhibit F-66 "with the attached bone fragments replaced in approximate anatomic position and the four separately received bone fragments replaced in the remaining defect" was nowhere to be found in the report as published in March, 1979.

A 12-20-78 memo from HSCA staffer Andy Purdy to Chief Counsel Robert Blakey shines more light on these shenanigans. This memo (RIF #180-10129-10023) reveals: "Dr. Baden and I reviewed the Committee's exhibits which dealt with the JFK medical evidence and discussed the evidentiary significance of these materials with regard origin of missile causing the damage." Purdy then moved on to discuss the x-ray showing the three skull fragments found in the limo and the plaza and brought to the autopsy by the Secret Service. Purdy then reveals: "Dr. Baden said he and the Forensic Pathology Panel worked with Dr. John Ebersole (who took original x-rays) to determine which side of the bone fragments is which. They were unable to make this determination. From this x-ray the panel cannot see beveling at all, much less which direction it is. The panel had to rely upon the autopsy doctors description of their reconstruction of the head which they said enabled them to determine that there was beveling evident on the largest of these three fragments in the area of the metal fragments visible on the x-ray." Purdy then proclaims: "The autopsy doctors also indicated that this beveling lined up on reconstruction with the semi-circular defect which our doctors say is the exit of the bullet because of the beveling they say they see on the enlarged, somewhat unclear photograph of the margin of the excavated skull cavity."

Well, first of all, as we've seen, the autopsy doctors did no such thing. Dr. Boswell made a single mention of matching up beveling, but Dr. HUMES never said that, and, in fact, testified that no beveling was found on the intact skull. 

And, second of all, well, let's recall that first line. Purdy and Baden "reviewed the Committee's exhibits which dealt with the JFK medical evidence and discussed the evidentiary significance of these materials with regard origin of missile causing the damage." It seems likely then, that Figure 32, which presumably showed the Harper fragment in a location incompatible with its sharing an exit with the triangular fragment, and was not revised to show Baden's purported discovery of its actual location along the coronal suture, failed its review and was made to disappear...

Along with the skull and the paper cut-outs of the fragments...

Now, this conflict between Angel and the panel's conclusions, and the panel's inability to get its conclusions to add up, supports that something was just plain wrong with their interpretations of the evidence. The Clark Panel's insistence there was no exit on the forehead apparent in the mystery photo, and Angel's subsequent assertion that the mystery photo shows precisely that, is also curious, and can be taken as an indication that the Clark Panel knew the photo, when interpreted as showing the forehead, suggested as much, but were reluctant to either 1) come to yet another conclusion in clear conflict with the statements of the autopsy doctors, or 2) conclude the mystery photo did not show forehead, but the back of the head. If the photo showed the back of the head, after all, it would mean there was what appeared to be the beveled exit of a bullet on the back half of Kennedy's head. And this just would not do.  

The mystery photo--and the belief among these doctors that it was taken from the front--was quite clearly at the center of this chaos.

Now, that doesn't prove it was wrongly interpreted as showing the front of the skull, as I have come to believe, but it sure supports that possibility...

The V-Shaped Irregularity

As does the fact the panel's other consultants were equally confused by the photo...

Let us now discuss the Authentication Report of Dr.s Ellis L. Kerley and Clyde C. Snow, forensic anthropology consultants to the HSCA. Kerley and Snow were given a specific task--to determine the authenticity and consistency of the Kennedy autopsy photos and x-rays, in other words, to determine whether or not the body in the photos and x-rays was that of President Kennedy. In this light, then, it is not surprising that Kerley and Snow admitted that "we did not concern ourselves with the description and location of the wounds or of their nature and significance, since this was clearly the responsibility of the forensic pathology consultants." Nice dodge. This as much as admits that, IF they thought it possible (or even probable) the "mystery photo" showed the back of the head, they wouldn't say as much, as that would be stepping on the toes of the Pathology Panel.

But did they think it possible? I suspect so. It's subtle, but it's in there. In their discussion of "The Issue," Kerley and Snow relate that some of the autopsy photos, "particularly close-ups, were taken in such a manner that it is nearly impossible to anatomically orient the direction of view." Well, that's clearly a reference to the "mystery photo." They then relate that, if these materials were offered for use in a trial, "even the prosecution might have second thoughts about using certain of these photographs since they are more confusing than informative." Hmmm... I read this as a warning to the pathology panel and the house select committee in general. They're saying "you shouldn't claim this photo shows the front of the head, because many are bound to think it does not, and you'll lose them if they come to think you've pulled a switcheroo."

Even so, Kerley and Snow's report concludes “The photographs of group 5 (Note: group 5 is described as “Anterior-superior”--from the front and from above), which show the cranial cavity with the brain removed, are somewhat more difficult to evaluate. One feature of interest is the outline of the fractured margin of the frontal bone that is partially visible in the foreground of these photographs. A deep V-shaped irregularity in this margin is also visible in photographs of group 1 in which the scalp is partially reflected to expose the underlying bone.” (Note: they can't even get the group numbers right. Group 1 is the left lateral view, which shows no defect. They clearly mean group 2, the right lateral view.)

Amazingly, Kerley and Snow's impression of the "mystery photo" was in disagreement with both Dr. Baden's and their fellow forensic anthropologist Dr. Angel's impressions of the photo. In Dr. Baden's viewpoint, after all--or at least in the viewpoint he was supposed to present to the committee--the skull in the background of the bone in the foreground was the right back of Kennedy's skull. Now compare this to Kerley's and Snow's impression, in which the v-shapes in group 5 and group 1 align. In their impression, the background of the bone in the foreground is most obviously the left back of Kennedy's skull! (This is shown on the slide above).

When one looks closer, in fact, it becomes clear that the photos of group 5 and group 2 don't align at all. The angles of the foreheads and the locations of the eye sockets are all wrong.

So what were Kerley and Snow thinking?

While it's hard to say for sure, it seems perfectly reasonable--given the disclaimers they'd included in their report--to assume that Kerley and Snow had been pushed, and pushed hard, to shore up the pathology panel's claim the mystery photo showed forehead. If so, well then it follows that they made up some crap, and just threw it out there, under the belief nobody would read it anyhow. (If so, well, they were almost right.)

That they were just writing what they thought they were supposed to write is supported, moreover, by what they wrote next. After writing that the v-shapes in groups 5  and 1, I mean 2, match, they wrote: "The anterior margin of the cranial defects also corresponds in shape to the fractures observed in the cranial x-rays." Uhhh... The jagged edge of the defect across the frontal bone in Kerley and Snow's interpretation of the mystery photo is not apparent on Kennedy's x-rays. No radiologist has said as much, anyhow. And no one else, from what I can recall, has either. While some laymen, such as Harrison Livingstone, and one "expert", Dr. John Lattimer, have at one time or another claimed the forehead is missing on the x-rays, the consensus among those viewing the x-rays in the archives, including conspiracy theorists such as Dr. David Mantik, is that the forehead is intact on the x-rays. 

Back to the Forehead

As the years passed, moreover, yet another consultant to the HSCA pathology panel presented an interpretation of the mystery photo...that was at odds with the pathology panel's interpretation of the photo.

Yes, in the build-up to the release of his book, the JFK Myths (2005), HSCA wound ballistics consultant Larry Sturdivan shared his most recent interpretations of Kennedy's wounds with the assassination research community. And--you can't make this stuff up, or rather, you can, but the truth is so much more ludicrous--he not only claimed the open cranium photograph (from hereon called the "mystery photo") depicted a presumably beveled exit on Kennedy's forehead, a la Dr. Angel, but an entrance wound by the EOP, a la the autopsy doctors.

This was most surprising. The autopsy doctors, whose impression of the entrance wound is now shared by Sturdivan, were most adamant that there was no missile exit in the frontal bone. This is demonstrated by the following exchange between Dr. Humes and Dr. Angel before the HSCA pathology panel.  

Dr. Humes: “This is not frontal bone where that semi-circle is—it’s either temporal or parietal bone, Dr. Angel.

Dr. Angel: "I don't see how it can be. That's what it looks like to me."

Dr. Humes: "That's exactly what it is."

And might I also insert that Dr. Angel, who first described the beveled exit on the forehead, supported the Clark Panel's analysis, and concluded there was no entrance wound by the EOP?

So, yeah, Sturdivan's interpretation of the photo and wounds is a hybrid of something old (the bullet entered by the EOP) with something relatively new (the beveled bone in the mystery photo is on the forehead).

Arrggh!

Now, to be clear, Sturdivan has retreated from the HSCA's position the beveled bone on this photo represents an exit. 

And he may not be wrong. Surprisingly, one can find support for Sturdivan's current belief the beveled piece of bone in the foreground of the mystery photo, while appearing to reflect the passage of a bullet, does no such thing. During the 1992 ABA mock trial of Oswald, Dr. Roger McCarthy, who'd been conducting test firings on human skulls in anticipation of his appearance, testified: "Skulls are very inhomogeneous--by that I mean they've got different layers and they've got different form and they are not a homogeneous material that is all the same, that always responds to the same impact. In fact, some of the skulls we shot--and this is another one that I shot--actually developed a beveled wound, with a knockout, and it wasn't anywhere near the bullet."

And yet... Arggh!

Let's be clear. With the JFK Myths, Sturdivan was presenting yet another interpretation of the mystery photo... I mean, the final report of the HSCA's pathology panel claimed one could see the internal aspect of a bullet hole in the cowlick in the background of this photo, and here Sturdivan comes alone, decades later, and says "Not so fast!", and says the internal aspect of this bullet hole is visible low on the back of the head, by the EOP, and not 4 inches higher, in the cowlick.

Well, how hard can it be to look at a photo, figure out what it shows, and then figure out what that means?

So Arggh! Again!

For here was the HSCA’s own wound ballistics expert rejecting their conclusions regarding both the entrance location of the fatal bullet on the back of Kennedy’s head, and the exit location of this bullet toward the front of his head. And yet, even so, no one in the national media apparently noticed this change of opinion or thought it worthy of bringing to the public’s attention...

So, what's up with that? Are the findings of Dr. Baden and his HSCA pathology panel sacrosanct, whereby doubts among their consultants are not to be acknowledged in the national press?

And, if so, what does that say about my own findings? If Sturdivan can express doubt about the panel's conclusions and have it go unreported, well, then, what chance do I have in gaining national attention for the facts I've already presented? Slim? None?

l mean, I'm not clueless. I understand why the media relies on experts. It's not often, after all, that a layman looks at some photos and reads some books on a field and then points out error after error made by those who work in that field, and have devoted their lives to that field.

But there are two ways to skin this cat. One is to try to impress you with what I know. And the other is to show you how little they (the supposed experts to whom the government and media defer) know.

So let's start with Dr. Baden.

(Note: the rest of this chapter consists of my analysis of Dr. Baden's statements regarding the Kennedy assassination, and his resultant lack of credibility. I then expand it discuss his fellow panelist Dr. Werner Spitz's similar lack of credibility, and the lack of credibility for the HSCA's forensic pathology panel as a whole. This is done in great detail. It will be tedious to some, if not most. If you've already come to question the credibility of this panel, or more specifically their credibility when they interpret the open cranium photograph as depicting Kennedy's forehead, well, then you just might want to skip ahead to the next chapter. If you choose to read on, however, well, I suspect it will prove worth your while.)

Above: Dr. Michael Baden, in his blue period.

Baden's Reign of Error

Once one realizes that the head of the HSCA's forensic pathology panel testified with one of his key exhibits upside down, and lied about his orientation for the skull fragments, of course, one should rightly wonder why. Was Dr. Baden really so befuddled by the head wounds? If so, well, we shouldn’t place much stock in his assertion that the bone in the mystery photo is forehead. If not, then we need to figure out why he would deliberately testify in a manner that could only sow confusion among the Committee.  

On 7-16-07, researcher Barb Junkkarinen related something on the alt.assassination.jfk newsgroup that supports the possibility Baden was simply confused by the photograph. She comforted single-assassin theorist extraordinaire David Von Pein, who'd been honest enough to admit he couldn't make sense of the photograph, by telling him "Baden by the way, turned my 8x10 glossy of that photo round and round then thrust his hand holding the pic in the air and shrugged his shoulders when I asked him to orient it for me at a little private lunch meeting 6 or 7 of us were able to have with Wecht and Baden in Monterey, Calif a few years ago. He didn't have a clue how it should be either."

If the photograph was so difficult for Baden to understand, then why did he testify about it, and use it as evidence the shots came from behind? And why did he hide that he couldn't get the pieces of Kennedy's skull to fit?

Perhaps he answers this himself. In his 2001 book Dead Reckoning, he writes: "Physicians may be the worst witnesses. They are often swayed by whoever asked them to be an expert. If that lawyer is smart enough to ask their advice, they conclude, he must know what he is doing. That being the case, physicians therefore adopt whatever the lawyer tells them as the facts of the case and become, if only subconsciously, an advocate for the lawyer rather than an independent adviser."

Of course, Baden considers himself beyond such seduction. In his 1989 book Unnatural Death, he recounts how disgusted he was with HSCA chief counsel Robert Blakey when Blakey came to him at the last minute and asked for his help in finding medical evidence for a conspiracy. Naturally, he told Blakey he couldn’t do such a thing. This pillar of decency, of course, also disapproves of the widespread availability of the autopsy photos. In his book Dead Reckoning, he writes: “It is a shame. This is not a procedure that should be viewed by anyone other than those who need to know the details in the pursuit of truth.” In light of this statement, one might think he'd shy from using the photos for his own profit. But one would be wrong. On January 9, 2008, an episode of Dr. Baden's HBO series Autopsy featured several of Kennedy's autopsy photos, some in full color. Presumably, Baden thought that placing black lines over Kennedy's eyes made the photos fit for broadcast, and that it was better for him to make money off these slightly edited photos than have somebody else put them up on the internet for educational purposes, and for free.

If it sounds like I'm angry with Baden, it's only cause I am. Beyond his testifying with his exhibit upside down, he's spread more misinformation about the Kennedy assassination than just about anyone alive. It's my strong belief that someone so out of touch with the case should not be permitted to pass himself off as an expert. Consider...

Baden's Reign of Error 2013 Part 3

On 11-22-13, Dr. Baden appeared on the Opie and Anthony radio show to debate the Kennedy assassination with his long-time friend and colleague, Dr. Cyril Wecht. When first discussing the single-bullet theory, Dr. Baden bragged "It's not a theory; it's a fact." He then offered up some highly dubious theories in support of this "fact." He related that "The first bullet misses and hits a curb" and that at the time of the second bullet, Connally "is in a straight line for the bullet going through the back, chest, arm, and thigh." Well, this was a bit strange. Neither the Warren Commission nor the HSCA concluded the first bullet hit a curb. Presumably, Baden was thinking of Gerald Posner's book Case Closed, and confusing its defense of the Oswald-did-it conclusion with the conclusions of the investigations claiming Oswald did it. It's intriguing, moreover, that Baden failed to say WHEN this second bullet hit Connally. The HSCA, for which Baden served as chief medical consultant, we should recall, claimed the single-bullet was fired circa frame 190 of the Zapruder film. Most of those supporting the single-bullet theory now claim it was fired circa frame 224. Well, the angles between Kennedy and Connally changed considerably within those 34 frames. One can't just claim Connally was in a straight line, then, and expect anyone who knows anything about the case to believe it. One would need to specify when the shot was fired--who was right, and who was wrong. That Baden failed to do so, then, suggests he was just blowing smoke.

He subsequently confirmed this suspicion. When Dr. Wecht argued that the Warren Commission's own tests prove the single-bullet theory is nonsense, and pointed out that the bullet the commission had fired into a goat's rib sustained far more damage than the bullet purported to have struck Governor Connally in both his rib and wrist, Dr. Baden responded not by following the usual trail, and claiming the bullet striking Connally's rib and then wrist had been slowed before doing so, but by insisting "When a bullet hits dry bone, it deforms more than when it hits clothing, skin, blood, and living bullet (sic, he means bone), so that the testing of a bullet against dry goat bone will damage a bullet much greater than a bullet going through a body." Well, this was Grade A obfuscation. Pure syrup. Everything you will ever read on wound ballistics will tell you that living bone is more resistant than dry, brittle bone. And besides, the goat rib fired upon for the commission was attached to a goat at the time--a LIVE goat!

Baden's Reign of Error 2013 Part 2

On 11-9-13, Dr. Baden made a few brief appearances in a Fox News Special on the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination entitled 50 Years of Questions. His appearances were brief but filled with errors. When discussing the bullet fragments on the x-rays, he shared: "Whether it's soft-nosed or hard-nosed, fragments will develop if the bullet strikes hard bone, skull, and be left behind. That's typical for military ammunition." (While it's true that military ammunition will at times break up upon striking bone, Baden's theory about the shooting holds that the bullet leaked a trail of lead from its base as it traversed the skull, and didn't actually break-up. There's no support for such a thing in the wound ballistics literature.) Later, Baden told a story intended to explain the confusion regarding Kennedy's autopsy. Interviewer John Hemmer started the story "There was a naval photographer." Baden then finished his thought: "who was trained to take autopsy photos. And then a Secret Service person comes up to him and asks him if he has authorization to be there, confiscates the camera, exposes the film, and chases him out of the autopsy room. They have somebody else from the Secret Service who had never taken photos of a dead body, and he doesn't take the right photos." (Uhh, yikes. Baden is wrong about this. The naval photographer chased from the room was an assistant autopsy photographer. His boss, the top autopsy photographer for the Navy, John Stringer, remained throughout the autopsy and took numerous photos at the direction of the autopsy doctors.)

Baden's Reign of Error 2013 Part 1

Dr. Baden is quoted several times in The Day Kennedy Died, a book put out by Life Magazine for the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination. In a section of the book devoted to reasons people suspect a conspiracy, in a sub-section on the disappearance of Kennedy's brain, Dr. Baden is called upon to explain why the disappearance of the brain isn't a legitimate cause for concern. He offers: "Some people have said 'Oh, there was another bullet in the brain,' but x-rays were taken to show this wasn't true." Well, this is totally deceptive, a strawman argument if ever there was one. The problem with the disappearance of Kennedy's brain isn't that people thought there was "another bullet" in it, but that some, including Kennedy's personal physician, who viewed his body and his brain, suspected there was more than one bullet trajectory through it. And that, strangely, it was never sectioned to see if there was such a trajectory. Baden almost certainly knows this, and his pretending otherwise is pretty suspicious.  

Baden's Reign of Error 2009

The 6-28-09 Houston Chronicle featured an interview with Baden in which he briefly discussed the Kennedy assassination. It reported: “In 1977, Baden reviewed forensic pathology reports from the John F. Kennedy assassination for the U.S. Congress. 'Two and only two bullets struck Kennedy from behind, from the area where Lee Harvey Oswald was seated,' he says. 'The first bullet missed, hit the curb. The second struck him in the back and came out his neck. Five seconds later, he was shot in the head.' Well, hold it right there. This is totally deceptive. These were not the findings of the forensic pathology reports studied by Baden, the findings of Baden's own panel, or even the findings of the House Select Committee. His panel made no judgments as to which shot missed, and where it landed. His panel's conclusion a shot hit Kennedy in the back and exited his neck, for that matter, was related to their belief he was leaning forward when hit--and was unsupported by the evidence before them. And the HSCA concluded that the fatal head shot followed Kennedy's first being hit by 6.7 seconds, not 5. So...what's going on? Did Baden really ditch the conclusions of the House Select Committee and embrace the subsequent findings of authors Lattimer, Posner, and Bugliosi? Had he become not a spokesman for the congressional committee, but an advocate for the Oswald did-it crowd?

Baden's Reign of Error 2008 Part 2

It appears so. On 8-18-08, Baden made an appearance on the Opie and Anthony Radio Show. This show was later put up on youtube.

Above: Dr. Michael Baden on HBO, 2008. Only in America...

Baden's Reign of Error 2008 Part 1

In the 1-09-08 episode of Autopsy, Dr. Baden's program on HBO, he reviewed the evidence in the Kennedy assassination, and made a number of inaccurate claims. Here is a healthy sample.

Baden's Reign of Error 2004

On November 22, 2004, Dr. Baden made a brief appearance on the History Channel program Investigating History: The JFK Assassination. This afforded him just enough time to make two false statements.

Baden's Reign of Error 2003 Part 2

On November 21, 2003, Dr. Baden spoke at the Wecht Conference at Duquesne University. In attendance at this conference, and in his audience, were a number of his fellow forensic pathologists. There were also dozens of amateur experts on the Kennedy medical evidence. While one might think that Baden did a little studying before his appearance, in order to avoid embarrassment, one would be wrong. Here, as on HBO, he appears to be "winging" it.

Baden's Reign of Error 2003 Part 1

An AP article on Baden found in the 4-20-03 Ketchikan Daily News briefly quotes Baden on the Kennedy assassination, and shows him to be as full of stuff as ever. It relates: '''With Kennedy the people who did the autopsy didn't know the difference between an exit wound and entrance wound,'' he said. 'It was a conspiracy of ignorance.''' This, of course, was just not true. Dr. Finck knew the difference between entrance wounds and exit wounds and drew diagrams for the Warren Commission demonstrating as much. Baden's comment also avoids the big issue--the one he couldn't bring himself to discuss in a nationally-syndicated article. And that is that his panel shared the conclusions of the "people who did the autopsy" as to which wounds were of entrance and exit, and that it was the location of these wounds that were in dispute, with not a single eye-witness supporting his own interpretation of the entrance location on the back of the skull.

Baden's Reign of Error 2000

On 2-20-2000, Dr. Baden met with a number of JFK assassination researchers, including Dr. Gary Aguilar and Dr. David Mantik, for an extended lunch and discussion of the case. While this was designed as an informal discussion, Dr. Baden has, both prior to this meeting, and after, presented himself as an expert on the case. As a result, the mistakes he made in this discussion are worth noting and his bogus claims worth quoting.

It seems more than a coincidence, for that matter, that the recording of Dr. Baden's interview of Finck proves both that Finck held his ground with Baden--by refusing to concede that the entrance wound was really in the cowlick--and that Dr. Baden subsequently misrepresented Finck's statements in a manner suggesting Finck had acquiesced and admitted his incompetence. Dr. Baden's "mistakes" in this discussion, then, suggest that he is either a brazen liar, or capable of believing whatever he'd like to believe.

Or maybe he was just old... He was 65 in January, 2000, scarcely a dinosaur but most definitely a senior...

Nope, not going for it. A quick review of Baden's 9-7-78 HSCA testimony shows that he'd told the House Committee: "Some people assume authority and upon others authority is thrust as happened to Dr. Humes. He was later to become president of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists. A well experienced hospital pathologist in the scheme of things, he had not been exposed to many gunshot wounds and had not performed autopsies in deaths due to shooting previously: neither had the other autopsy pathologists present. So they were required to do an autopsy that by experience and by the way our society is structured in the United States, is reserved for forensic pathologists and coroner's pathologists. As a result of that, certain things didn't happen."

He had thereby testified before Congress that Dr. Finck had never performed an autopsy for a death due to shooting, and that Finck was not a forensic pathologist on 11-22-63. Well, as we've seen, this just wasn't true. Even worse, Baden knew this wasn't true when taking Finck's testimony on 3-12-78, less than 6 months before testifying before congress and telling them the opposite. Hmmm... Could it be that Baden's latter-day mistakes are not just reflections of his having a bad long-term memory, but are, instead, reflections of his never having grasped the facts in the first place?

Let's keep digging and see...

Baden's Reign of Error 1995

On October 21, 1995--almost certainly as a favor to his long-time friend Dr. Wecht,--Dr. Baden participated in a discussion of the JFK assassination medical evidence at the COPA conference in Washington. Although he dominated the discussion, he was at the same time the most dominant speaker, and the least coherent. Much of what he said was wrong. While defending the Clark Panel's re-interpretation of the head wound location, and his own panel's confirmation of this higher location, for example, he claimed that, "Pierre Finck had never done an autopsy on a gunshot wound before." As we've seen this wasn't true. But he was just getting started. Shortly thereafter, he alibied his own panel's difficulty understanding the evidence by admitting they hadn't seen a lot of wounds made by military ammunition. This was true. But he claimed the bullet killing Martin Luther King was military ammunition as well. This was not.

Dr. Baden's incoherence during this discussion is probably best demonstrated in the passages transcribed below. He has been asked about the single-bullet theory, and, more specifically, whether or not Dr. Humes was aware of Kennedy's throat wound on the night of the autopsy:

"When Dr. Humes did that autopsy he did not know that there was a bullet wound in the neck...As many of you will recall--when they found--they turned the body over and they found a bullet wound in the back, and they couldn't understand where that bullet went. Remember, somebody stuck a finger in and pulled it out to the doc--the bullet must have turned around and come out. Remember that? I'm not making this up. You can't make that--this stuff up. The reason--reason he did that is because they couldn't understand what happened to the bullet in the back because they didn't realize that the bullet in the neck was an exit wound. And, whether everybody else in that autopsy room knew about it or not it was Dr. Humes who was doing the autopsy. Dr. Finck was up there but he didn't contribute to the autopsy at all. He was just observing. And Finck thought that if he did anything wrong--this is what, uh Boswell, what Humes said--is if I did anything wrong then Finck would have said something, but since he didn't say anything I thought I was doing the right job. It wasn't until 24 or 36 hours later that Boswell--that Humes--spoke with--Perry?--Perry on the telephone and found out that there was a bullet wound in the neck and that's how he reconstructed the trajectory, going from the back to the neck. And that's--after which he--and that's why he got the measurements wrong--because then he made up some of the measure--he approximated the measurements and then he burnt his own papers. His own--the own papers he had are destroyed. I'm strongly--it was my impression then and it is now--whatever telephone calls were made--that Humes--the nature and the way he did the autopsy--and his description of how he then changed the measurements a couple--a day or two later after speaking to Perry--that he didn't know that there was an exit wound in the front of the neck."

Hmmm... The highlighted passages above are all nonsense. No one ever said the bullet initially suspected of having fallen back out the back wound actually turned around before coming back out. That's an invention. (So yes, he could make this stuff up... and was just getting started.) He is also wrong about the participation of Dr. Finck in the autopsy. Dr. Finck arrived late--after the opening of the body and the removal of the brain--but largely took over after that point, when they were trying to establish the direction of fire. And Baden is also wrong about the time elapsed before Dr. Humes called Dr. Perry. Dr. Humes called Dr. Perry first thing Saturday morning--which means he called Dr. Perry roughly 8 hours after the conclusion of the autopsy, after they both had got some sleep. That's a far cry from the the full day's delay claimed by Dr. Baden. And, finally, Dr. Baden is flat-out wrong about Dr. Humes and the measurements. Dr. Humes claimed the measurements used in the final autopsy report were all measurements made during the autopsy. He didn't make them up. Nor did he "approximate" them a day or two later. Dr. Baden's claim he did so is unfair.

But, as it turns out, not unprecedented.

Baden's Reign of Error 1994

A January 16, 1994 column in the Schenectady New York Daily Gazette on the premiere of Dr. Baden's upcoming HBO program "Autopsy" offers a few choice comments by Baden on his experience with the HSCA. Amazingly, Baden claims that although numerous mistakes marred Kennedy's autopsy, "what we found was that the mistakes made in the Kennedy autopsy were ones that were commonly made in all autopsies in 1963." This is incredible. He can't possibly believe it was "common" for a team of doctors, including a forensic pathologist, to claim a bullet entered low on the skull, when it really entered 4 inches higher, and then repeat this claim TWICE after reviewing the autopsy photos and x-rays. He can't possibly believe, furthermore, that it was "common" for such an incorrect claim to be confirmed by a number of other witnesses to the autopsy, and for not one witness to recall seeing a bullet entrance where he claims it to have actually been located. It's also hard to believe Baden honestly believes it was "common" for pathologists to describe a wound as an exit in their autopsy report that they never even probed, or recognized as a bullet wound--as was done with Kennedy's throat wound. Perhaps then Dr. Baden was thinking of the autopsists' errors of omission--such as their not removing the neck organs,  or their failure to weigh the brain before the supplemental autopsy--when he said the mistakes at Kennedy's autopsy were "common." If he was really trying to push that it was "common" for a team of doctors to misrepresent a wound's location to the extent he believes the entrance on the back of Kennedy's head was misrepresented, after all, one is left with the unsettling probability Dr. Baden was blowing smoke and trying to deceive the public.

Baden's Reign of Error 1993

A January 24, 1993 AP article (found in the New York Daily Gazette) shows that Dr. Baden had just made an appearance at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and had decided to take this opportunity to publicly denounce Oliver Stone's film JFK. He is quoted as saying "The bottom line is: the Warren Commission got it right...It was two bullets from behind, and only two bullets that struck the President. Oliver Stone got it wrong." He also, however, took this opportunity to trounce those performing Kennedy's autopsy. The article continued: "Baden said the congressional panel found that the doctors who did the autopsy of Kennedy had never done a gunshot autopsy before." Well, this, as we've seen, wasn't true. But it gets worse. The article continued "'A lot of things were done wrong' in the Kennedy autopsy, Baden said. 'They made a lot of foolish mistakes.' Those mistakes included inaccurate measurements and drawings and initial confusion over whether the bullet wounds were exit wounds or entrance wounds. That confusion fueled much of the speculation that the president had to have been shot by more than one gunman, Baden said."

Well, that's just hooey. The autopsists' initial appraisal of the wounds as to entrance and exit were the same as Baden's final conclusions. Perhaps, then, he was confusing the autopsists at Bethesda with the emergency room doctors at Parkland Hospital. And what "measurements and drawings" was he talking about? If he meant those regarding the head wound, well, then, he was at least being consistent with the findings of his panel. But, if he was alluding to the government's former position holding that the location of the back wound on the face sheet had been in error, and had innocently contributed to the belief there was a conspiracy, well, then, he was repeating a factoid long pushed by men like Fisher and Lattimer, and had in the process disputed his own finding supporting that the location of the mark on the face sheet was accurate.

That Baden was more interested in pushing his own agenda, and selling his own wares, than in making accurate statements, moreover, is suggested by another passage in the article: "Baden said he doesn't believe that the incompetence of the original medical examination of Kennedy was part of a cover-up. 'As much error as there was, that's still what's going on in this country in most murder cases,' he said. 'The tragedy to me about JFK isn't that this was a sinister plot that's been covered over, but that the way the investigation was done is the usual way murder investigations are done in this country.'" 

It's interesting that here, in 1993, Dr. Baden told a crowd that the mistakes made by Kennedy's autopsists were the usual kind of mistakes still made in this country, and that the next year, in 1994, he specified that the mistakes made by Kennedy's autopsists were common mistakes in 1963. Perhaps, then, he'd realized that his earlier statement had been a gross overstatement. Or maybe, just maybe, he'd actually believed there had been a tremendous improvement in the quality of autopsies performed in the year 1993. With him, it's hard to say. 

Baden's Reign of Error 1992 Part 2

Baden makes a brief appearance in the CBS Reports special "Who Killed JFK? Facts, Not Fiction." He dismisses the back-and-to-the-left movement of Kennedy's head in the Zapruder film by pronouncing "In real life, we have lots of films, lots of people shot on film...Sometimes the body goes toward the bullet; sometimes it goes away from the bullet." He then tries to explain the movement of Kennedy's head: "He does move backwards towards the bullet, for a number of reasons. One, he becomes limp and the car is moving forward--so, a limp body will fall backwards if the car is moving forward." He then adds: "There's a reverse jet-effect where brain tissue and blood coming out from the right side of the head can cause the brain to go backwards. The bottom line is you cannot predict how a person is gonna react when shot."

Well, my God, which is it? That the car leaped forward just as Kennedy got shot in the head, which isn't true, or that an explosion of brain and blood caused his head to leap backward, which isn't true, or that, gadzooks, you just can't predict how a person is gonna react when shot, which...you guessed it...also isn't true? (While one can't always predict which way a body will fall when shot, one can with great confidence predict that a body receiving a blow of any kind will move, however slightly, in the direction of that blow.)

Baden's Reign of Error 1992 Part 1

While I have not viewed the actual newsclip, the NBC Universal website lists a summary of a newsclip from May 20, 1992, in which Dr. Baden's comments on the autopsy of President Kennedy were pitted against author Mark Lane's comments on the autopsy. This summary makes a specific reference to the then-recent articles in JAMA, in which Dr.s Humes and Boswell defended the integrity of the original autopsy, and heavily criticized Dr. Baden for his comments on the autopsy. This criticism of Baden goes unreported, of course. No, this summary presents Baden and Lane as opposites, when they were actually both attacking the competence of the original autopsists, for very different reasons. While the summary is sparse, moreover, it gives just enough detail to suggest that Dr. Baden was once again shooting from the hip, and essentially making stuff up. The summary reports:"BADEN SAYS AUTOPSY ON JFK WASN'T PERFORMED BY TRAINED PATHOLOGIST BUT DISCREPANCY DOESN'T REMOVE FACT THAT 2 BULLETS FROM REAR KILLED JFK. HE SAYS INITIALLY DOCTORS THOUGHT BULLETS ENTERED FROM FRONT BUT FINAL CONCLUSION OF AUTOPSY REPORT IS CORRECT."

While unclear, we can probably assume that in saying "no trained pathologist" the summary means to relate that Baden claimed no trained forensic pathologist was involved with the autopsy. This, as we've seen, was not true; Dr. Finck was a trained forensic pathologist.

The next line is also problematic. We can probably assume that in saying "Doctors thought bullets entered from front" the summary means to relate that Dr. Baden said the autopsy doctors initially thought bullets entered from the front. They have never admitted such a thing, of course. Perhaps, then, Baden was thinking of the emergency room doctors. If so, however, he has made an embarrassing mistake. 

Above: Dr. Michael Baden testifying before the HSCA. 

Baden's Reign of Error 1989 

In his first book, Unnatural Death, published 1989, Dr. Baden presented a chapter on the Kennedy assassination. One might think that Dr. Baden, concerned about his reputation, would be sure to make his book as accurate as possible, and review the reports and findings of the House Select Committee before committing his thoughts for posterity. But one would be wrong.Among Baden’s claims: 

As you can see, this trip down the lane of Baden's memory reveals that, over time, he's latched onto a lot of myths, and forgotten a lot of evidence. He repeats the same old canards over and over. "So what?" you might say. "By 2013 Baden was an old man. By 1989, when Unnatural Death was published, he'd already been away from the case for ten years. Of course, he made some mistakes.  What does that have to do with the accuracy or inaccuracy of his initial investigation for the HSCA?" Well, what if the evidence suggests that Baden didn't forget all that much about the case, and that the real problem is that he never KNEW that much about the case? That's right. Beyond his testifying with his autopsy photo upside down, beyond his falsely testifying that Dr. Humes had testified to finding a beveled exit on the intact skull, beyond his falsely testifying that Dr. Finck was not a forensic pathologist and had never performed an autopsy on a gunshot victim, there's additional evidence that he was simply ignorant of the basic facts he was charged with investigating.

Baden's Reign of Error 1980 

In January 2008, on the JFK Lancer website, researcher Randy Owen posted a transcript of a seminar conducted by Dr. Baden in Toronto, Ontario, in November, 1980. November 1980 was but 2 years after Dr. Baden testified before the HSCA, and but a year and some months after the printing of his panel's report. He was but 46 years old, discussing a case he had worked on from when he was 42 until he was 44. And yet...he was already making tremendous mistakes.

From all these mistakes it seems clear that Baden was never truly an expert on the case. Not even close.

But, to be fair, neither were the other members of his panel.

 

The Remarkable Dr. Spitz

Let's take, for a second example, Dr. Werner Spitz. Dr. Spitz had not only co-authored a prominent forensic pathology textbook, Medicolegal Investigation of Death, with Dr. Fisher of the Clark Panel, but he'd been Dr. Fisher's protege at the Maryland State Medical Examiner's office, and had been a colleague of the Clark Panel's Dr. Morgan at Johns Hopkins University. He'd also been a member of the Rockefeller Commission's medical panel, and had confirmed Fisher and Morgan's findings. His subsequent show of support for the Clark Panel's findings through the conclusions of the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel, and through his subsequent comments, should then come as no surprise. 

His appearance on the HSCA Panel, however, was a bit of a surprise at the time. According to an extensive article on the HSCA's investigation, published in the July 1979 issue of Gallery, the HSCA had specifically requested that members of the pathology panel be "noncontroversial." This was almost certainly a dig at Dr. Thomas Noguchi, a "coroner to the stars" in Los Angeles, who'd been heavily criticized and investigated. But this should also have meant Spitz's banishment, seeing as he'd spent much of the 2 years between his stints on the Rockefeller Commission Panel and HSCA Panel at the center of a criminal investigation, which, while not leading to an indictment, nevertheless confirmed that he'd 1) set up a private medical institute while working as Wayne County, Michigan's Chief Medical Examiner, which operated from the county's morgue, and used county employees and equipment, without reimbursement; 2) removed 7,000 pituitary glands from cadavers passing through the county's morgue, which he resold at a profit to his institute; 3) resold blood, brains, and urine from a number of cadavers in the morgue, at a profit to his institute, 4) conducted autopsies on infants as part of a state-wide study on crib death, which were reimbursed by the state to his institute, even though county employees and equipment were used; and 5) fired weapons on cadavers in the county morgue in order to test their wounding patterns, without receiving permission from the families of the cadavers, or the county. 

It is presumed then that someone, almost certainly Dr. Baden, intervened on his behalf.

They certainly appear to be birds of a feather. Since his stint on the HSCA panel, Spitz, as Baden, has made numerous suspicious and inaccurate statements about the Kennedy assassination medical evidence. These mistakes, moreover, suggest that Spitz, as Fisher, was less than forthcoming on what the evidence suggests, and that Spitz, as Baden, never took the time to study the case.

Spitz's strange comments on high-powered rifle wounds

In his book's chapter on gunshot wounds, Spitz claims "In the case of a high-powered rifle, the external appearance of the entrance wound does not materially differ from that of a gunshot wound inflicted with a handgun or an ordinary rifle." To demonstrate this point, he makes reference to a photo showing a small entrance wound on the back of a head, closely resembling the supposed entrance near the cowlick on the back of Kennedy's head. Notably, he does not identify the type of rifle fired nor the distance from which it was fired. He then proceeds to describe the massive internal damage created by such a bullet. For this he makes reference to another photo. Only this one shows a massive wound on the top of the head, closely resembling what is supposedly the exit on Kennedy's head. The caption for this photo, however, explains "Shot from a .30-.30 rifle fired from about 60 feet. The wound of entrance is indicated by arrows." The large size of this entrance, of course, DOES "materially differ" from that of a gunshot wound inflicted by a handgun, and this, in turn, raises the question of why the distance of the shot in the first photo was not noted.

Spitz's caginess on this issue is no one-time thing, mind you. On 11-17-88 Dr. Spitz defended the Warren Commission's findings on Detroit radio station WXYT. When asked about the President's head wounds, he was most forthcoming. He asserted: "The right upper quadrant of the head was more or less demolished. It is not unusual for a high-powered rifle to do this. A mistake was made insofar that the the back of the head was never shaved. There is every reason to believe that the entrance wound was up toward the top of the head namely in the area of the cowlick. The hair in that area, due to the peculiar way in which the hair turned like in a whirlpool--the skin is a little bit more visible in that area than in other parts where the hair is combed over. That bullet hole--if it is a bullet hole--looked very very suggestive of a regular usual bullet wound of entrance like we see thousands of. It is known--and we have seen this many many times--that high-powered rifles, whereas they cause lots of damage at the exit, cause a bullet wound of entrance which does not look any different from any other bullet wound of entrance, even from a small caliber handgun."  

Well, my gosh, by gosh... This is utter hogwash! Spitz's suggestion that the entrance wounds created by high-velocity rifle bullets on the skull at distances as short as 100 yards are identical in appearance to the entrance wounds created by low-velocity small-caliber handgun bullets on the skull is only refuted by most every book or article on wound ballistics ever written (save his own). 

I mean, something is just strange here. Spitz does not designate "high-powered rifles when firing military ammunition" or any such thing. He says simply "high-powered rifles." The explosive effects of hunting ammunition at both entrance and at exit when fired by a high-powered rifles has long been noted. Spitz, furthermore, would have been far more familiar with this kind of high-velocity rifle wound than he would have been with the wounds normally created by Oswald's rifle. There is simply no way he could have forgotten the nastiness of such a wound, or be of the belief that small-caliber handguns when fired from a distance could create wounds equally as nasty. The high-powered rifle firing soft-nosed hunting ammunition tested in The Discovery Channel's 2008 program JFK: Inside the Target Car, we should remember, completely exploded the first simulated human head fired upon in the program, and severed it from its neck.

Let's reflect... Handbook of Legal Medicine, by Dr. Alan R. Moritz, the mentor to Dr. Spitz's mentor, Dr. Fisher, and a member of the Clark Panel, reports: "Rifles or carbines manufactured for big game hunting or as military weapons ordinarily use ammunition with a large powder charge to ensure high velocity and long carrying distance. The kinetic energy of such a projectile may be so great as to have an explosive effect on impact quite different than that produced by most pistols or revolvers or by rifles designed for small game hunting. Regardless of the range of fire, the explosive effect of such a bullet at the site of entrance may be great enough to make it difficult to recognize just where the bullet struck and whether it was entering or leaving the body at that place."  

And Dr. Moritz was far from alone. Forensic Pathology, a Handbook for Pathologists, edited by Spitz's close colleagues Dr. Fisher and Dr. Petty, confirms: "Wounds from revolvers, pistols, and rifles will have characteristics which vary depending on the velocity of the bullet (which is the largest factor determining the destructive energy)...Increasing the velocity of projectiles increases geometrically the quantity of energy produced and this produces perforating wounds with unusual features: bone may literally be pulverized, soft tissue laceration may be widespread and at considerable distance from the track of the projectile, lacerations may be observed within the intima of arteries; exit wounds may be unusually large."

As these "unusual features" are related to the velocity of the bullet, and the velocity of the bullet is greatest at entrance, it makes no sense whatsoever for Spitz to imply these features would go unnoticed at entrance.

There's also this... The HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel, of which Spitz was a senior member, concluded that a high-velocity bullet had struck Kennedy high on the back of his skull. To this end, when discussing Kennedy's x-rays and an obviously displaced section of the rear of his skull, the panel's report described: "embedded in the skull in the lower region of this defect is a radiopaque shadow which, in the opinion of the panel, is a fragment of the missile." As the nose and base of this bullet were found on the front seat of the limousine, moreover, it is logical to assume that this fragment came from the middle of the bullet, and that the bullet broke up upon entrance. But even if one assumes this fragment somehow leaked out of the back of the bullet, a la Baden, it still follows that this bullet was deformed upon entrance.

If a high-velocity bullet had broken up upon entrance, (or merely become so deformed that a large fragment would be forced out of its base), of course, the appearance of this entrance would not be that of a "regular usual wound of entrance." I mean, that's not exactly a stretch.

That Spitz believed the bullet broke up upon entrance is confirmed, moreover, by an unexpected source. In 1992, writer Bonar Menninger published Mortal Error; this was built upon the research of a Maryland gunsmith named Howard Donahue. Donahue contended that the explosion of the bullet striking Kennedy's skull was inconsistent with 6.5 mm ammunition. Donahue's discussion of the fatal bullet's behavior with members of the HSCA Panel was especially intriguing. According to Menninger, when Donahue asked Spitz about the break-up of the bullet, Spitz "suggested that the bullet's impact with the skull would have caused the slug to disintegrate explosively in the manner in which it did." 

Well, okay, this is consistent with the findings of the Warren Commission.

Now compare this to what Dr. Baden is reported to have told Donahue. Baden is reported to have said that the bullet striking Kennedy didn't explode at all, and that "Most bullets, not all, when they hit bone, will cause some lead to come out sort of like fine sand on the x-ray. It doesn't fragment."

Well, GEEZ, fellas, make up your minds, will ya? Did the bullet somehow not fragment while leaving a slice from the bullet on the back of Kennedy's head--and a trail of fragments across the top of his brain--as per Baden? Or did the bullet fragment like all bullets of its type do when striking skulls, and leave no signs of this fragmentation at the bullet entrance, and large fractures at the exit more consistent with the exit of an intact bullet--as per Spitz? 

Both explanations are unsatisfactory and at odds with the wound ballistics literature, not to mention common sense. (This is discussed in more detail in chapter 16b.)

So why did Spitz, regularly and repeatedly, imply that the entrance of a rifle bullet on the skull looks like the entrance of a handgun bullet on the skull? Was he trying to cover up that the supposed entrance to Kennedy's skull in the cowlick could pass for being a handgun wound, but bore scant resemblance to the kind of massive wound one would expect from a high-velocity bullet, fired from less than a hundred yards away, and fragmenting on the skull?

Perhaps Spitz was just confused. Perhaps he had remembered that, under certain circumstances, a handgun wound can give the appearance of a rifle wound. According to Moritz, "If the muzzle of the gun was in close contact with the skin at the moment of firing, a large entrance wound may be produced by the explosive effects of the expanding gases in the tissues. Similar destructive effects may result from the impact of a high velocity bullet such as those fired from most military rifles, machine guns, and some sporting guns." Unfortunately for Spitz, though, this is a one-way street. While holding a muzzle to the body can make a handgun wound look like a rifle wound, there is no reason, outside the bullet's having been fired from hundreds (or in some circumstances, thousands) of yards away, that a high-velocity rifle wound of the skull would look like the "regular usual" wound made by a handgun of small caliber. 

Or perhaps Spitz was ill-informed. By the 1980's, much had been made of the M-16's mechanism of wounding, whereby it left small wounds at entrance on the body but created massive internal damage as a consequence of the bullet's tumbling and breaking up inside the body. Perhaps Spitz was of the misguided belief then that the impact of a 160 grain bullet on a skull would bear the same resemblance to a small caliber handgun bullet on a skull as the impact of a 55 grain M-16 bullet would on a body to a small caliber handgun bullet on a body. Perhaps Spitz, who in daily life had seen far more handgun wounds and shotgun wounds than rifle wounds--by a ratio of probably 100 to 1--had simply failed to realize that the bullet striking Kennedy was far larger, and would have behaved much differently, than the M-16 bullet of so much discussion.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, Dr. Spitz was being deliberately deceptive about the nature of high-powered rifle wounds to conceal that the entrance wound proposed by his friend Fisher, and confirmed by not one but two panels on which he himself resided, was most certainly not the entrance of a high-velocity bullet fragmenting on the back of the head. Dr. Spitz had, after all, told the Rockefeller Commission in 1975 that he'd performed "high velocity rifle test firings for the sake of learning their effect," but that he had never published his results. The possibility that Dr. Spitz was being deliberately deceptive is supported as well by the strange fact that he subsequently published a drawing of the autopsy photo of the back of the head in his book, and that this drawing not only failed to depict the small dark shape present in the entrance location described by Dr. Humes, but the surprising wing of scalp apparent by Kennedy's temple, signifying the supposed exit of the bullet.   

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

But Spitz's apparent failure to appreciate or acknowledge that the entrance wound on the back of Kennedy's head should not have appeared to be a "regular usual wound" was not his only "mistake." Nor his strangest...

Spitz's strange comments on Kennedy's hair

As hard as it may be to believe, in recent editions of Medicolegal Investigation of Death, Spitz makes an even stranger mistake. He writes "One of the gravest errors made in the autopsy of President John F. Kennedy was the fact that the back of the head was never shaved. Thus, to this day, speculation and innuendos persist regarding the exact location of the wound, and some even claim that this shot came from the front or the grassy knoll, at the right side of the President's motorcade, suggesting a conspiracy by at least two assassins."

Well, this is, as promised, strange. The "speculation and innuendos" holding that Kennedy was shot from the front have nothing to do with the failure of the autopsy doctors to shave the back of Kennedy's head, and have everything to do with the statements of the emergency room doctors in Dallas. I mean, does Spitz really mean to imply that the autopsy doctors might have found the wound on the back of the head described by the emergency room doctors, if only they'd shaved Kennedy's head? The only doctor in Dallas to inspect the head wound, Dr. Clark, specified that there was no scalp over this large gaping wound, so how could there be hair? 

The thought occurs then that Dr. Spitz knew full well that the failure to shave Kennedy's head had nothing to do with the widespread belief the head shot was fired from the front, but was being cute about it. Was he trying to avoid mentioning that the descriptions of the head wound by the doctors in Dallas placed it in a different location than the descriptions of the head wound by the doctors in Bethesda, and that the panel on which he served concluded that each of these groups of doctors incorrectly recalled the location of the wounds they observed?

Perhaps. An article on Spitz found on the Wayne State University website confirms his feeling that the failure to cut JFK's hair led to some major mistakes. The author of this article, Amy DiCresce, explains "Part of the confusion and chaos over Kennedy's death was the inaccurate original autopsy report, but Dr. Spitz says there's a simple explanation for that. Kennedy was autopsied by a pathologist who had never done a gunshot autopsy before. Furthermore, he points to his head saying, 'To this day, we don’t know if the bullet entered exactly here or here. The wound was never shaven. You should never make a determination on a bullet wound without cleaning it and photographing it properly. It’s the only way you can see the details.'" 

Well, this is better, but still not good. While in his book Spitz insinuated that the failure to shave Kennedy's head had prevented the autopsy doctors from convincing others there was no exit on the back of the head, he at least now acknowledges that this failure, if anything, led to Dr. Humes inaccurately measuring the entrance wound location. But who is he kidding? The failure to shave Kennedy's hair could never in a million years have led Dr. Humes--and his entire autopsy team--to think the top of Kennedy's skull--where Spitz claims the wound was actually located--was the BOTTOM of Kennedy's skull--where Humes and his entire autopsy team claimed the wound was located. No, the only ones actually confused by Humes' failure to shave Kennedy's head were those tasked with subsequently studying the autopsy photos--men like Dr. Fisher...and Dr. Spitz.  

And Spitz is well aware of this... Let's recall that he told his radio audience in 1988 that "There is every reason to believe that the entrance wound was up toward the top of the head namely in the area of the cowlick. The hair in that area, due to the peculiar way in which the hair turned like in a whirlpool--the skin is a little bit more visible in that area than in other parts where the hair is combed over. That bullet hole--if it is a bullet hole--looked very very suggestive of a regular usual bullet wound of entrance like we see thousands of."

"That bullet hole--if it is a bullet hole..." Spitz had thereby let it slip that he wasn't exactly sure about the so-called cowlick entrance and, in the process, had suggested that his anger toward the autopsists for not shaving JFK's head was related as much to his own difficulty in interpreting the autopsy photos as anything else.

An April 3, 2005 article in the Macomb Daily, based on an interview with Spitz, supports this speculation, and suggests that Dr. Spitz continues to search for someone--anyone--to blame for his frustration. The article quotes him as follows: "Jackie was upstairs in the hospital and sent down an order not to cut any hair."

Hmm, this detail about the First Lady is quite a revelation... but is apparently untrue.

A subsequent interview published in the November 21, 2013 Macomb Daily found Spitz adding to this story. Here he related that at some point in time he contacted Dr. Humes and asked him, personally, "'‘Why didn’t you shave the skin around the bullet wound in the head? What happened to the President’s brain? Where are your notes from the autopsy?” The article then continued: "One of the gravest errors made during the president’s autopsy, in Spitz’s opinion, was that the back of the head was never shaved. It left speculation and innuendo regarding the exact location of the wound. “Jackie was upstairs in the hospital and sent down an order not to cut any hair,” Spitz was told. Those orders were passed on to Humes who, as a military man, followed them."

Well, this is interesting. For two reasons. One is that it implicates Dr. Humes as the source of the "Jackie wouldn't let me" excuse. In 1992, when interviewed in the Journal of the American Medical Association and given the chance to explain all the shortcomings of Kennedy's autopsy, head autopsist Dr. James Humes proclaimed "The wounds were so obvious that there was no need to shave the hair before photographs were taken." As far as can be determined, Humes never wavered on this point. As a result, we can only suspect the story about Mrs. Kennedy ordering the hair not be shaved was someone's invention. Someone named Dr. Werner Spitz...

Which brings us to point two... Two is that Spitz's ongoing complaints about the hair suggest what he will not just come out and say--that he was never sure the red spot in the cowlick was the entrance wound noted at autopsy, and that he continues to have his doubts.

And yet, Spitz proceeded to tell the Macomb Daily: "This was not a complicated case.

Other strange comments by Spitz

As if to show us just how un-complicated, then, the 2013 Macomb Daily article gave Spitz some rope, and allowed him to explain two of the supposedly un-complicated issues surrounding the case. As to how and why Kennedy's brain disappeared, "Spitz said it could be something as simple as it was lost in the craziness of the moment or misplaced among the other brains in the morgue." (Now, that would be interesting, seeing as the brain was last seen in the National Archives, years after being taken from the morgue.) According to the article, Spitz then took on "JFK’s 'rearward jerk” after the fatal shot. That brief movement had long convinced skeptics that the fatal shot had come from in front of Kennedy. Spitz, however, explained it away by saying it took a moment for the driver to comprehend the tragedy that was unfolding behind him, and that when he did, he accelerated, sending what was at that point a lifeless body backwards."

Well, this malarkey was disproved decades before. Apparently, Spitz, the supposed man of science, refuses to do the homework necessary to understand this case.

And it's not just when speaking off the cuff that Spitz spews nonsense. In the three editions of Medicolegal Investigation of Death released subsequent to his stint with the HSCA, (in 1980, 1993, and 2006) Spitz has claimed "The wound in the front of JFK's neck was circumferentially abraded, resembling an entrance wound to inexperienced examiners at the autopsy."

Yikes. Feel free to read that again... Could Spitz really be suggesting that the autopsy doctors mistakenly concluded the throat wound was an entrance?

Amazingly, yes. A May 13, 2006 article in The Journal Gazette reports that Spitz, while explaining why so many people are of the mistaken belief shots came from the front, "contended that the original autopsy – done under extreme pressure – erroneously concluded an exit wound in Kennedy’s neck was an entry wound because of an abrasion around the wound. That abrasion was likely caused by the knot of the former president’s tie, Spitz said, adding that it is not uncommon for clothes pressed tightly against the skin to cause such an abrasion." 

And Spitz apparently repeated this claim to WXYZ-TV on 11-21-13. An 11-22-13 article on the station's website presented a brief newsclip of Spitz, and further reported on Spitz's claims regarding the autopsy. It repeated: "The pathologist who performed the autopsy also was inexperienced in analyzing gunshot wounds. He saw an abrasion around the wound on the front of Kennedy's neck, at the collar of his shirt. The pathologist knew abrasions formed around entry wounds. He didn't realize abrasions also form at exit wounds covered by fitted clothing. His initial belief that there was an entry wound on both sides of Kennedy's body led people to believe shots were fired from two locations."

And Spitz was just getting started. On 11-22-13, the 50th anniversary of the assassination, Dr. Spitz made an appearance on the Fouts Forum, an online video program hosted by the Mayor of Warren, Michigan. There, he once again claimed: "The pathologists who did the autopsy did not recognize that the bullet wound in the neck was an exit wound, not an entrance wound. Consequently, the president was not shot in a cross fire, but was shot from the back only, from the sixth floor of the book depository. And the bullet wound of exit in the neck looked like an entrance bullet wound because it had an abrasion, a scraping all the way around, like a bullet wound of entrance. And that that is an exit with the scraping because as the skin was moved outwards by the bullet as it exited it scraped on the neck tie and shirt of the president." He then proceeded to claim that when Dr. Perry cut through the small wound in Dallas while making the tracheotomy incision it made it even harder for the autopsy doctors to tell that this wound was an exit not an entrance.

He then told the whopper of all whoppers. He claimed that after he'd inspected the autopsy evidence for the Rockefeller Commission that he personally confronted Dr. Humes at his office at St. Johns Hospital and asked him how he could have concluded both the back wound and the neck wound were entrance wounds, when no bullets were discovered in the body, and that Humes told him why he screwed it up (presumably, Spitz means by this that Humes told him he saw an abrasion collar on the neck wound) and that he then hung his head and said "'You're right' and then became very emotional, very upset, and said "I'm sorry, I messed it up." (In his zeal, Spitz repeated this story about 20 minutes later, only this time adding in that Humes almost cried.)

Uhhh, WOW. There's just a few huge problems with this. One is that the original autopsy did not conclude Kennedy's throat wound was an entrance wound. That Spitz not only makes this mistake, but has repeatedly and consistently made this mistake since 1980, furthermore, suggests that HE HAS NEVER ACTUALLY READ THE AUTOPSY REPORT. Two is that there was no abrasion ring around the throat wound noted at autopsy. The autopsy doctors saw only a tracheotomy incision during the autopsy, and thought it was just that, a tracheotomy incision. This suggests, furthermore, that Spitz HAS NEVER EVEN READ THE TESTIMONY OF THE AUTOPSY DOCTORS.

Even worse, the doctors at Parkland Hospital, who did think the wound resembled an entrance before cutting through it with a tracheotomy incision, thought so primarily because of its extremely small size, and never mentioned an abrasion ring in their testimony. This suggests again that Spitz HAS NEVER EVEN READ THE TESTIMONY OF THE PARKLAND HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTORS.

And then there's the whopper of all whoppers, in which Spitz claimed he told Humes he should have been wondering what happened to the bullet creating the back wound, and Humes told him he was right, when everyone present at the autopsy testified that a large percentage of the autopsy was taken up with a search for this bullet. Well, this indicates that Spitz was not only ignorant of the most basic facts about the autopsy, but was...making stuff up.

Above: Dr. Werner Spitz, in one of his many court appearances, arguing with the evidence.

Spitz in Fantasyland

Should one not believe me, well, there are more golden nuggets from Spitz's Fouts Forum interview. For one, Spitz also claimed that the reason Kennedy's brain wasn't sectioned was because it had been thrown out by an over-eager orderly who was trying to make room by throwing out all the brains in buckets that had been sitting against the wall. (This avoids that the brain was studied after fixation, and then placed into the National Archives.) He then denied that anyone would have a reason to make Kennedy's brain disappear! For two, Spitz claimed Jackie Kennedy testified that she climbed out onto the trunk of the car to get away from the bullets and that Clint Hill's claim she was reaching for a piece of her husband's brain was "ridiculous." Now, on a rant, he then claimed the back wound presented in the HSCA's report was inaccurately drawn by Ida Dox and that the bullet hole really looked just like the nearly perfectly round bullet holes in forensic texts. He then topped things off by claiming CE 399 barely grazed Connally's thigh bone, and was then found on the floor of the limo. (Officially, nothing grazed the thigh bone, and the bullet was found on a stretcher.)

(Yes, yes, he said all this stuff. Check it out yourself, here: Spitz Spewing Nonsense.)

That Spitz refused to actually study the evidence, and preferred to make stuff up, is suggested, furthermore, by his earliest interviews on the subject. The June 2, 1975 edition of Medical World News, written just after Spitz first viewed the evidence for the Rockefeller Commission, boasts an article on the medical evidence, with input from Dr.s Fisher, Spitz, and Wecht. While discussing the fatal head shot, Dr. Spitz claims: "One bullet entered from the rear of his skull and exited near his right eye." Near his right eye? As the exit location later identified by the HSCA's Panel is at least three inches from the right eye, this suggests Dr. Spitz was so ill-informed regarding the specifics of the assassination in 1975 that he, as Dr. Angel a few years later, just ASSUMED the "mystery photo" was taken directly from the front, and that the beveled exit in the photo was therefore directly above the eye. He never realized that none of the doctors inspecting Kennedy's body on the day of his death noticed such a wound. And he never realized this because HE NEVER READ THE REPORTS AND TESTIMONY OF THE AUTOPSY DOCTORS AND NEVER READ THE REPORTS AND TESTIMONY OF THE PARKLAND HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTORS. (Sorry about the all caps...)

One might rightly suspect then that Spitz, as Baden, is simply unreliable, and equally as likely as Baden to repeat half-baked nonsense when discussing the assassination...and assassinations....

Manufacturing Consensus 

If Spitz and Baden were simply wrong about Kennedy, for that matter, it should not be surprising. There is simply no evidence the doctors on the HSCA panel ever thought of themselves as anything but consultants. A consultant will tell you, for a price, what he knows or thinks he knows. An investigator, which is what the committee needed, will tell you what he's discovered after reading everything relevant to the case, and conducting actual research.

A brief study of the events leading up to Baden's testimony suggests that the members of the HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel were just consultants, and low-paid consultants at that. In an article available on the Wayne University website, in which Dr. Spitz discusses his work for the HSCA, he complains "You know how much I got for that opinion? I got $121, which paid for the airplane ticket to Washington and back. Otherwise, they didn’t give me anything."

If he was understating his pay, it wasn't by much. On 9-28-78, in the statements of Chairman Louis Stokes before the HSCA (found in the FBI files on the Mary Ferrell Foundation website), at the close of their public hearings, he discussed the finances of the committee. He noted that they'd paid $25,000 for 101 man-days to their pathology consultants. That's total. For nine top pathologists and a number of radiologists. 101 man-days. That's less than 10 days apiece. This pales in comparison to the $75,850 and 198 man-days devoted to studying the dicta-belt evidence, and re-enacting the shooting in Dealey Plaza. This is less than half the $50,000 and 270 man-days spent studying and enhancing the photographs. To put this small number of man-days in proper perspective, one need only consider that, by Stokes' own account, the creation of medical illustrations for the committee  took 78 man-days. Since by quick count only seven illustrations were created, this means that the pathology consultants spent approximately as much time evaluating, discussing, and writing about the evidence, per person, as it took the committee's medical illustrator, Ida Dox, to create one drawing. 

And what did the pathology consultants do on their 101 man-days, less than 10 days apiece?

Well, they were good enough to tell us in their report. The doctors who'd never seen the autopsy photos and x-rays before, including Dr. Baden, got together at a House of Representatives office on 9-15-77. At this meeting, a number of documents related to the assassination, including official reports, Warren Commission testimony, and articles on the assassination were "made available."  These documents, mind you, which are listed in the report's addendum A, and which would take a normal person at least a week to read and comprehend, should have been required reading BEFORE the panelists had even set foot in Washington. And yet, they were only "made available." There's no mention of photo-copies being passed out for home study. Not that there was much time for home study. They re-convened at the National Archives the next day to inspect the autopsy evidence. During this session, they met with Dr.s Humes, Boswell, and Angel as well. This is the meeting where Dr. Humes said the "cowlick" entry appeared to be dried blood. This is the meeting where Dr. Angel said the exit was on the frontal bone. (Both of these statements were ignored by the Panel.) On the 17th, they once again visited the archives. (The panel's report says they met with the autopsy doctors during this session, but the transcript for the interview with the autopsy doctors says it took place on the 16th. Go figure.) On the 18th, this panel re-convened at the House Office Building, to "discuss the individual findings and commit to writing its opinions relative to the evidence viewed." Their report explains: "At that meeting, it became apparent that the members were in substantial agreement with respect to the interpretation to the evidence." Note that there was no radiologist present to help them analyze the x-rays. Note also that these doctors were civilians and that none of them had studied military rifle wounds, let alone the wounds caused by Mannlicher-Carcano rifles. Note further that the Warren Commission testimony of Dr. Alfred Olivier, who'd studied the wound ballistics of the rifle, and the 1965 report he'd written on his studies, were not included in addendum A, although "Rockefeller panel reports", presumably including Dr. Olivier's own brief report to the Rockefeller Commission in 1975, were included. While Dr. Baden, in his 1980 Toronto speech, would admit that his panel "knew very little about" Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition (a fact confirmed in 1986 by panel member Charles Petty, who admitted during testimony in a televised mock trial that he'd never inspected a single wound of its making), and while Baden would later admit to the 2003 Wecht conference audience that "medical examiners as well as neurosurgeons and trauma surgeons, we don't see much in the way of military rifle ammunition" and illustrate this by admitting that a New York City coroner inspecting "1200 gunshot murder victims" would probably find that "none of them" were by military rifles, he didn't see fit to bring a doctor familiar with this ammunition onto his panel.

Now, this is quite an oversight. It would seem apparent that forensic pathologists unfamiliar with the wound ballistics of military ammunition are as under-qualified to comment on the wounds created by such ammunition as trauma room surgeons are under-qualified to comment on the entrance/exit nature of the wounds they seek to heal. In other words, it's not their specialty; they're out of their depth.

Still, it's not as if there were dozens of doctors in the forensic science community who were familiar with the wound ballistics of military ammunition, and could offer valuable insight as to the nature of Kennedy's head wound. A perforating rifle wound of the brain, created by military ammunition, was, in fact, quite the rarity. To wit, Tables 252 and 254 of the U.S. Army text Wound Ballistics (1962) show just how rare. Of 7,773 wounds treated at a military hospital in Korea, but 1275 (16.4%) were head wounds. Now that may not be much of a surprise. But this is. Of these 1275, only 4 (1 in every 319) were rifle wounds of the brain, and but 2 (at most) were perforating rifle wounds of the brain. 

Now let's put this in context. Let's say a military doctor treats 10 wounds a day, 6 days a week. That's 60 a week, 3,000 a year. Let's say he serves 2 years. That's 6,000 wounds. That's a lot of blood. A lot of stitches. But not a lot of rifle bullets in the brain. Maybe 4. 

And this wasn't a recent development. The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, Vol. 11 (1927) notes that the department treated 174,296 battle injuries, 10,452 (5.99%) of which were gunshot wounds to the head. It then notes that 1,106 (10.58%) of these head wounds proved fatal. It then presents the following chart. 

Well, how about that? The fatal wound as presented by the HSCA Pathology Panel was a perforating wound (Classification VIII) of the parietal region. There were but 7 such wounds observed by the Medical Department of the United States Army during WWI! Of 174,296 wounds! 

Now, yes, of course, that's a bit nit-picky. So let's include ALL fatal perforating bullet wounds. That's but 24...of 174,296 wounds! 

Well, wait, this excludes Classification VII (perforating wounds involving the orbitonasal region--the eyes and middle of the face--or the auripetrosal region--the bone in back of the ear.) Now, there's a reason these are separated from Classification 8, and that's that the bullets creating these wounds only traveled along the surface of the brain. Still, okay, that's another 163--bringing the grand total to 187. Of 174,296 wounds!

So, yes, Dr. Baden and his panel were at a disadvantage. Not only was their extensive experience inadequate when it came to interpreting Kennedy's wounds, but those with real experience with wounds like Kennedy's head wound were few and far between. Wounds such as Kennedy's head wound were rarely received. And those receiving them rarely survived long enough for a doctor to inspect them, or report them. 

So how did Dr. Baden try to cover this inadequacy? Did his panel hit the books and/or call up military doctors with the experience necessary to interpret Kennedy's wounds? No. Of course not. Forensic Pathologists such as Milton Helpern and Cyril Wecht had made great hay of the fact Kennedy's autopsy had been performed--and botched--by the military. Now it was the civilians' turn. Baden's panel of civilian Forensic Pathologists were gonna set the matter straight without the help of the military. 

So what did Baden do?

Above: an unidentified person crouches over the body of Bernard McGuigan, an unarmed Irishman shot in the head by a British soldier on Bloody Sunday, 1-30-72. McGuigan had been trying to help Patrick Doherty, a similarly unarmed Irishman shot down like a dog by a British soldier. Eleven unarmed protesters were killed in total. In a cruel twist of fate, moreover, the lies and incompetence that helped the killers of these Irishmen escape justice would infect the HSCA's 1978 investigation of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, a man notoriously proud of his Irish heritage. 

The Marshall Plan 

Well, as admitted in his 1980 Toronto speech, and repeated in his appearance at the 1995 COPA conference in Washington, Dr. Baden contacted a man named Tom Marshall to find out more about wounds created by military rifle ammunition. Here is what he told the COPA audience: "Even though in New York City we may have 2,00 homicides a year, none of them are military rifles--or very few are. I, in fact, called up Tom Marshall at the time--who is the medical examiner of Northern Ireland--to discuss the nature of the wounds he was finding in Northern Ireland, which were all rifle wounds."

There is no record, alas, of what was said in this phone call.

So who was Tom Marshall? Marshall had been the State Pathologist for Derry, Northern Ireland, on January 30, 1972. As such, he'd been charged with performing and supervising the autopsies of 14 civilians slaughtered by the British Military in the infamous "Bloody Sunday" massacre. Although Baden told his Toronto audience he'd contacted Marshall to determine if full-jacketed ammunition could pass through Kennedy and Connally, and suffer little damage, he said this was only "part of the reason."

We can only assume, then, that another "part of the reason" was to ask about the head wounds suffered in the "Bloody Sunday" massacre. Articles and reports found online reflect that three of the "Bloody Sunday" victims were shot in the head. The bullet striking one of these victims, Michael McDaid, was reported to have entered his left cheek, leaving an 8 mm by 5 mm wound, and to have exited below his right scapula, 9 inches lower on his body, leaving a 2 cm by 1.5 cm wound. The bullet striking a second victim, John Pius Young, was reported to have traveled on a similar trajectory, entering just below his left eye, leaving an 8 mm by 5 mm wound, and exiting from the left side of his back, 12 inches lower on his body, leaving a 2 cm by 1 cm wound. These wounds, it's clear, bore little resemblance to the large explosive wound on Kennedy's skull. This leaves us with but one victim whose wounds might support Baden's interpretation of Kennedy's wounds. The autopsy report of Bernard McGuigan, written by Dr. Marshall, claims the bullet striking McGuigan had "entered the left side of the head about three inches behind the left ear and had made its exit through the right orbit having produced extensive fractures of the skull and laceration of the lower parts of the brain." The entrance wound was reportedly 8 mm by 4 mm, the exit wound reportedly 5 cm by 3 cm.

So what could Baden have learned from this? While McGuigan's skull was badly damaged, a la Kennedy's, it did not have the large gaping hole of Kennedy's. And this even though it had been hit by a more powerful weapon. The British Military's shooters had used 7.62 mm ammunition during this shooting. This ammunition is approximately 15% more powerful than 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition. Well, then, it seems possible Baden found the confirmation he'd been looking for in the small size of the entrance wound on the back of McGuigan's skull, in comparison to the exit wound.

It would subsequently be revealed, however, that Dr. Raymond McLean had attended the post-mortem exams of the Bloody Sunday victims at the request of the Catholic Primate of Ireland, and had studied McGuigan's x-rays, and had observed that there there was "gross pathological damage" to McGuigan's skull, and had noted "several fragmented pieces of metal (about forty in number) throughout the interior" of his skull. Well, this led some to wonder if McGuigan hadn't in fact been shot by a dum-dum bullet, a question the Bloody Sunday Inquiry was unable to rule out some 30 years after the shooting, in part because one of the paratroopers involved in the massacre, Paratrooper AA, had come to allege that two of his comrades, Paratroopers BB and CC, had fired 10 and 22 dum-dum rounds into the crowd, respectively.

Well...perhaps that's it. Perhaps Marshall thought McGuigan had been killed by standard military ammunition, when he'd actually been killed by a dum-dum bullet. Perhaps this error had led Marshall to tell Baden that full-metal jacketed military ammunition would break up within the skull, and completely shatter the skull in the process. Although, this does little to explain how the bullet killing Kennedy was able to strike a more formidable blow upon his skull than the more powerful bullet striking McGuigan's skull, such an assertion by Marshall may have been enough for Baden to conclude that the so-called "trail of fragments" through Kennedy's brain was not atypical, and that there was nothing particularly strange about Kennedy's head wound. 

But it's not as simple as that... In his report on McGuigan's wounds, Dr. Marshall made no mention of any metal fragments within McGuigan's skull, and instead reported: "There is extensive laceration of the cerebellum, medulla, pons, mid-brain, and the undersurface of the cerebral hemispheres, the tissue containing a number of bone fragments." He then tried to stick to his guns. In 2002, when viewing the x-rays, he told the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, "It is most likely that these are the bone fragments I found in the brain and mentioned in my report. Had any metal fragments of any useful size been present in the skull, I would have extracted them during the course of the autopsy examination and mentioned them in my autopsy report." After a more thorough inspection of the x-rays, he then backed down, if only a bit, and acknowledged that the fragments may have been metal fragments, but insisted that: 1) he had no recollection of the fragments, nor of Dr. McLean's studying the x-ray and noting the fragments during the autopsy; and 2) if he had noticed the fragments, and had failed to report them in the autopsy report, it was because "when I cut the brain the predominant feature was bone fragments. Now amongst those dozens, hundreds of bone fragments there were, presumably, 10, 20 very, very small pieces of metal, very small, apart from that little bit there, and so I reported what was the predominant feature, and that is the bone fragments. The metal fragments were so small as to not be of any significance and that little piece there, which is also very small, was, presumably, of no help." Under more heated questioning, he further offered that the existence of these fragments failed to suggest that a dum-dum bullet had been used, as the bullet "ploughed through the base of the skull and was thereby slowed down, and in that slowing process it gave up energy and it gave up energy to such an extent that the head blew up" and that "Under those circumstances it is not surprising that some bits of metal came off and that is what we are seeing there."

Well, the Bloody Sunday Inquiry's Forensic Experts, Dr. R T Shepherd and Kevin O'Callaghan, didn't buy what Marshall was selling. They concluded that the fragments were in fact bullet fragments, and that the 7.62 mm bullet striking McGuigan (assuming it was a 7.62 mm bullet) had either been defective, weakened through an impact with a previous target (which they thought unlikely, due to the small size of the bullet's entrance), or deliberately weakened (a la a dum-dum bullet). 

Well, I'll be... It follows, then, that they considered the bullet fragments in McGuigan's skull atypical, and not what one would expect from a stable 7.62 mm bullet. And it follows as well that they suspected Marshall had either lied in his initial autopsy report to hide that McGuigan was quite possibly killed by an explosive bullet, or was not nearly the expert Baden assumed he was.

Let's consider a related possibility, then, if only to give Marshall the benefit of the doubt. Let's assume he told Baden that full-metal-jacketed high-velocity military ammunition was capable of wounds like he'd observed on McGuigan, and that Baden took from this that 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition was capable of the wounds observed on Kennedy. Well, under the circumstances, was this a reasonable conclusion on Baden's part? 

Hell, no. The rifle firing the fatal shots on McGuigan was a FAL rifle, firing a 7.62 cartridge, at relatively close range. A bullet fired from such a rifle is presumed to travel around 2,700 feet per second, so we can assume it was traveling 2,500 feet per second upon impact with McGuigan. The bullet striking Kennedy's skull, on the other hand, is presumed to have been traveling around 1,800 feet per second. 

So what's the difference? As discussed in a May 1967 article in the British Journal of Surgery, "With very high velocities, for example over 2500 feet per sec, the expansion of the temporary cavity might be so violent that the elasticity of the surrounding tissue is no longer able to contain it and the damage becomes explosive in character." Well, this is exactly what was claimed for the bullet killing Kennedy by the HSCA Pathology Panel and its Wound Ballistic consultants Larry Sturdivan. According to this article, such an explosion "might" have occurred should the bullet have been traveling 2,500 feet per second or greater. But the bullet presumed to kill Kennedy wasn't. It was traveling around 1,800 feet per second. 

Now here's the fun part. The co-author of the article suggesting the bullet killing Kennedy was not traveling fast enough to create a wound that was "explosive in character"? Dr. Tom Marshall, State Pathologist for Northern Ireland.  

Leave it to George

In any event, having done little or nothing to shore up their inadequate knowledge on military rifle wounds, beyond contacting the quite possibly ill-informed Marshall, Dr. Baden and his panel selected Dr. George Loquvam to write a report on their findings.

The other sub-panel, made-up of Dr.s Wecht, Spitz, and Weston, who had previously viewed the autopsy materials, met at the House Office Building on 9-22-77, went to the Archives on 9-23, and re-convened at the House Office Building on the 24th. The panel's report notes that "The material listed in addendum A was made available to this sub-panel at this initial meeting. The material listed in addendum B was made available at the  second meeting at the National Archives. All members of both sub-panels were allowed unlimited access to these materials for individual examination." This confirms that the materials in addendum A, which should  have been required reading, were merely present in the room, and not handed out for study. On the 24th, Dr. Wecht offered a dissenting opinion on the evidence to this panel. As with the other sub-panel, no radiologists or military wounds experts were present during their analysis and discussion. This panel selected Dr. Weston to write a report, reflecting their views. 

In retrospect, it certainly seems more than a little suspicious that Dr. Wecht, whose disagreement with the single-bullet theory had long been established, was disenfranchised by the structure of the panel. By having 6 doctors meet and come to a conclusion without Wecht's being present, and then having him meet as one of a trio of doctors--where the other two had already committed themselves to supporting the single-bullet theory and the proposition there was but one gunman--Wecht's influence on the panel's conclusions had undoubtedly been minimized. This structure also prevented him from meeting Dr.s Humes and Boswell on 9-17-77, and asking them the questions he'd felt needed to be asked.  

And that's but the half of it. On October 18, 2013, at the Wecht Conference in Pittsburgh, I spoke to Robert Tannenbaum, an assistant on the House Select Committee, who'd hired Dr. Baden as its chief medical consultant. I asked Tannenbaum how the members of the forensic pathology panel were selected, and how it came to be that a nine-member panel purportedly convened to give an impartial and independent appraisal of the medical evidence included the former Dallas County medical examiner, the current Dallas County medical examiner, two former assistants to the Clark Panel's Dr. Russell Fisher, another who'd trained under a former assistant to Dr. Fisher, six who'd published in anthologies edited by Dr. Fisher, and only one, Dr. Cyril Wecht, who, while having once studied under Fisher, had no recent ties to Dr. Fisher, or the city of Dallas. His answer was surprising. He told me that 1) he thought Dr. Baden was open-minded about the assassination, and gave him the authority to corral the best and brightest forensic pathologists in the country onto the panel, and 2) he told Dr. Baden there was just one guy who had to--really had to--be on the panel, and that was Dr. Cyril Wecht.

So, yeah, Wecht was Tannenbaum's choice, not Baden's. It seems way more than a coincidence, then, that Dr. Baden set up the panel in a manner isolating Wecht, and cutting off his influence.

Now back to our timeline. On 3-10-78, Dr.s Loquvam, Weston, and Baden met at the Archives to look at some photographic evidence, after which all panel members met with the photographic panel. The next day, the full panel deposed Dr.s Ebersole and Finck, and met with members of other panels to compare findings. Apparently, this was the first time they met with Larry Sturdivan, the HSCA's wound ballistics expert, who just so happened to have been a subordinate to Dr. Alfred Olivier, the Warren Commission's wound ballistics expert. The next day, 3-12-78, they again talked with Dr. Finck. This is the meeting in which Dr. Baden tried to pressure Dr. Finck to agree that the entrance on the skull was in the cowlick. Afterwards, the panel discussed their findings. In Dr. Wecht's dissenting opinion, contained within volume 7 of the HSCA report, he notes that although the report of the first sub-panel claimed they were in "substantial agreement with respect to the interpretation to the evidence" after their first inspection of the evidence the previous September, that, during this subsequent meeting, with Wecht in attendance, "other members of the overall FPP expressed strong differences of opinion." If so, these differences of opinion were not reflected anywhere in the final report. Instead, the final report holds that the panel came to a number of agreements during this discussion: they agreed that either Dr. Coe or Dr. Petty would continue to work with with the photography panel; they agreed that Dr. Weston would represent the panel at a preliminary review of the enhanced photographs and x-rays; and they agreed that Dr. Weston would combine his and Loquvam's reports into a final report. (HSCA Chief Counsel Robert Blakey would later admit to Vincent Bugliosi that Weston's final report was in fact far from final, and that Weston's report was reviewed and re-written by Dr. Baden and HSCA staff members Andy Purdy and Mark Flanagan before undergoing further review and re-writing by Blakey and Dick Billings, a long-time Life Magazine employee hired by Blakey to assist in the writing of the report.)

That's it. This confirms that the bulk of the panel never saw the enhanced photos or x-rays before coming to their conclusions. This confirms that the bulk of the panel never saw the reports of the HSCA's radiology consultants, Dr.s McDonnel (dated 8-4-78) and Davis (dated 8-23-78 and 12-22-78) before coming to their conclusions. This confirms as well that, when Dr. Baden testified in September 1978, it had been six months since he'd discussed the evidence with the bulk of the forensic pathology panel.

While Baden's lack of familiarity with the case is not a crime, one should expect a lot more from the HSCA's top medical expert, and the man to whom Vincent Bugliosi turned to answer his questions about the medical evidence. One might hold that Baden is a nice man. But his work on the Kennedy assassination has been, in many a man's opinion, an embarrassment to his profession.

Trust Us, We're The Experts

I'm not the first to question his competence, moreover. Dr. Baden was asked to head the HSCA panel in 1977. At that time he was but a deputy medical examiner. In August 1978, just before his testimony, however, he was appointed Chief Medical Examiner for the City of New York. He held on to this position all through the hearings. By the next summer, however, around the time the HSCA's report was published, Mayor Ed Koch decided to relieve him of his duty. Early articles on this action reflect that Dr. Baden was accused of, among other things, presenting sordid details on the death of former Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller during a February 3, 1979 lecture at a local hospital. (Baden was reported to have claimed that Rocky had died while fornicating with an aide.) Baden was also accused of losing evidence and being impolite to assistant district attorneys. One early article, in the August 1, 1979 L.A. Times, reflects that Baden conceded that there had been "personality" problems on four cases, and that "In two, evidence problems of a minor nature developed." Baden then turned around and sued both Mayor Koch and the City of New York for his reinstatement. This fight went all the way to the U.S. Court of Appeals, with the Court deciding that Baden's demotion was within his probationary period, and that he was thus not entitled to a hearing before his dismissal. While the ruling on his appeal, available online, makes note of Baden's claim that he was "removed from his position because of the exercise, by him and members of his family, of their right of free speech," a 10-30-87 New York Times article, also found online, claims only that Koch removed Baden "after receiving negative reports from Dr. Reinaldo A. Ferrer, then the city's Health Commissioner, and from Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan District Attorney" and that they "contended, among other things, that Dr. Baden had lost important evidence in homicide cases and had been unresponsive to requests from superiors." A July 9, 1982, New York Times article on Dr. Baden's trial, furthermore, affirms that this was the official reason for his dismissal and quotes Baden's own assessment of his reputation following the revelation of these charges: ''I became overnight almost a pariah in my profession because of the nature of the charges against me,'' he said. He added that the charges had damaged his credibility and ''immediately affected my ability to testify in court'' as an expert in major homicide cases."

In the interests of fairness, it should be noted here that Dr. Baden, in his 1989 book Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner, offers a defense against these charges. He does so, however, at the cost of his profession, and the credibility of his work with the HSCA Pathology Panel. When discussing the difficulties he had getting along with a big city DA like Morgenthau, he writes "What is really wanted is an elastic man, one who will stretch and bend his findings to suit the DA's needs and the political climate. Truth and excellence play no part in this arrangement. Numbers are what count, getting convictions for the DA, and the ME's office exists for that purpose. Its own purposes are always subordinate to somebody else's agenda." He then describes the specific pressure put on Medical Examiners (ME's) to twist the evidence and say that murdered women have also been raped; he reports, to the detriment of the credibility of his fellow pathologists, that "Most ME's do it." He then discusses a number of cases where political pressure influenced the findings of the ME. He later concludes, to the detriment of his profession, that: "In murder, medical examiners who can't figure out the cause of death tend to go along with the police theory. Instead of arriving at their own independent conclusions, ME's just become rubber stamps. There is nothing deliberately dishonest about this. The police want to solve the murder, and the ME, mistakenly thinking he is there to serve them, adopts their theory." Baden offers no compelling reason for his readers to believe the investigation of a president's murder would be less pressure-packed than the investigation of a possible rape, and no compelling reason to believe the pathologists on the HSCA panel would be less eager to please the powers that be than the ME's described in his book. Perhaps, then, he was trying to tell us something.

Dr. Baden's subsequent career has been no less controversial. The 2006 book Postmortem, by Stefan Timmermans, explores the sociology of medical examiners. It received a rave review from the Journal of the American Medical Association. In a chapter on the importance of witness credibility, Timmermans discusses Baden's 1997 testimony in defense of Louise Woodward, a nanny accused of shaking an 8-month-old to death. Timmermans recounts how Baden testified on behalf of Woodward that the infant's injuries were not necessarily caused by shaking and may have been older fractures caused by a fall or impact. He testified: "Shaken doesn't explain anything about the autopsy or pathology. That is just speculation. An impact would cause all those injuries." The prosecution was prepared for this, however, and countered Baden's testimony by reading into the record Baden's testimony from a previous trial before the very same judge. When representing the prosecution at this earlier trial, Baden had claimed "from a medical examiner-pathology point of view, it was the hemorrhaging about the brain and eyes that are characteristic and pathognomonic of shaken-baby syndrome." By claiming there were injuries characteristic of shaken-baby syndrome when testifying on behalf of the prosecution in the earlier case, and then claiming there were no injuries characteristic of shaken-baby syndrome when testifying in defense of Woodward, Baden had demonstrated that his opinions lacked substance and changed with the weather. Having thus damaged Baden's credibility, the prosecutor then pressured him on every element of his testimony, gaining Baden's admission that he'd not reached his "expert" opinions independently, but had followed the interpretive lead of other doctors involved in the case. In the end, according to Timmermans, the prosecutor "not only managed to show that Dr. Baden might be expressing opinions about evidence he did not completely grasp but also allowed him to contradict himself and others" and had "so reduced his credibility that any difference of opinion he might have with a colleague would reflect not superior knowledge but idiosyncrasy."

Above: Dr. Michael Baden testifying in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

Dr. Baden has embarrassed his profession in other ways as well. At times, Dr. Baden has collected exorbitant fees from defendants of widely-presumed guilt, and offered extremely speculative testimony in return. This has helped create the impression that his testimony--and the testimony of other celebrity pathologists, as well--was for sale, and could be obtained by the highest bidder. In the most notorious example, Dr. Baden collected approximately $165,000 for his assistance to O.J. Simpson during his trial. This culminated in his telling jurors that in his expert opinion either more than one knife was used to kill Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown, or that a specially constructed double-edged knife had been used. He also claimed it would have taken Ron Goldman 15 minutes to die, which stretched out the time of the killings, and cast doubt on Simpson's guilt. He then suggested that Nicole Brown Simpson had had a late snack, and that this was why the amount of food in her stomach at autopsy suggested she'd been killed closer to the prosecution's estimated time of death of 10:15-10:30 than the defense's proposed time for her death, 11:00, when Mr. Simpson had an alibi. At one point in his testimony, things grew so heated between prosecutor Brian Kelberg and Baden that Kelberg demanded to know if Baden's opinions could be backed up by any scientific studies, and Baden replied that people can't be studied "like worms" and that "We can't do control studies of feeding somebody and killing them."

Baden also received a reported $110,000 from Phil Spector during his first trial (in which Baden's wife functioned as Spector's attorney). In a dramatic and controversial twist to the case, Baden told jurors that the blood spatter on Spector's jacket didn't necessarily mean he was near his purported victim at the moment she was shot, but perhaps only reflected that she'd coughed blood on him after she'd shot herself, with her last breath. He even got his old HSCA colleague, Dr. Werner Spitz, to back him up on this.

The precise exchange between prosecutor Alan Jackson and Spitz on 7-26-07 (found in an online blog, which I'm assuming is reasonably accurate) is most informative, as it reveals not only the depths to which Baden and Spitz would go for a paying client, but the contempt they hold for those with expertise they do not share, and whose opinions are in opposition to their own.

Jackson: “So, and you are not an expert in blood spatter, but in your opinion, even if there was no blood found anywhere beyond the hem of Lana Clarkson’s skirt -there was no blood on her thighs, no blood on her calves, no blood on her feet or her shoes or the carpet underneath her – even so, the jacket can still be six feet away and have blood on the left side of it?”

Spitz: “Yes, that’s what I am saying, because the velocity of the blood – you wouldn’t expect to have it close by the source – you would expect it to be farther away.”

Jackson: “So, the spray came out of Lana Clarkson’s mouth, and Phillip Spector was just so unlucky that here he was, 6 feet away from her, and all of this spray ended up on his jacket – but nowhere else – not behind him or in front of him or below him or above him – Just on Him??”

Spitz: “Well, when you say all of it – you make it sound like you have a bucket full – he has all of 18 spots on him, which includes some spots that have been described as transfers.”

Jackson: “So in your opinion , doctor, and you agree that all of the experts – even the defense experts – they all say that Lana has spatter on her dress – and what you are telling this jury is that when the gun went off, spatter came out her mouth, and some landed on her dress, but the rest of this spatter – it jumped and skipped her thighs and her knees and her calves and her shoes and jumped and missed the carpet and all of this spatter landed on Phillip Spector’s jacket?”

Spitz: “You are probably correct in that description – but it didn’t have to jump, the amount of spray she had was quite small – it came out of her mouth and a little dripped down some spray onto the hem of her dress…”

Jackson: “So it changed trajectory? It went down on her dress and then completely made a 180 degree turn and flew across the room 6 feet to get onto the jacket?”

Spitz: “Well, now you are making it sound like those people who criticized the so called magic bullet theory in the Kennedy assassination …”

(So here we have Spitz trying to hide behind his purported expertise, and insinuate that those questioning his and Baden's new nonsense are as out to lunch as those questioning their old nonsense. The irony of his response seems lost on him. He seems totally unaware that the majority of Americans--and thus the majority of jurors on the panel--who've looked into the Kennedy assassination for more than a moment have come to dismiss the "magic bullet" theory he finds so compelling. And this was no momentary brain fart, mind you. While testifying for the prosecution in a hearing regarding convicted murderer Larry Swearingen in March 2012, and recounting his vast experience, Spitz defended his findings on the JFK case by claiming that "By far, the majority of Americans today believe" that Kennedy was not shot at from two directions, but shot from behind by "Mr. Oswald." I mean, really, where does he get this stuff?)

Jackson: “You are aware, doctor, are you not, that Stuart James, a paid defense expert, a man highly regarded in his field, completely disagrees with you. He says, in fact, that the spatter pattern on the jacket, which is millimeter and sub millimeter in size, is consistent with a high velocity spatter. Are you aware of that?”

Spitz: “I did not discuss that with him”.

Jackson: “Doctor, I don’t care what you discussed with other witnesses outside of this courtroom – are you aware that this was his testimony before the jury?”

Spitz: “No, I am not aware of that.”

Jackson: “Would you defer to those experts in other areas and sciences that have more expertise than you?”

Spitz: “At this point, I don’t know what I’m deferring and not deferring – all I know is that if I saw something for myself, I would not defer, and I know that this can happen.”

Jackson: “Really? How many times have you seen blood spatter come out and then skip all these targets and find another target and then change trajectory and find another target?”

Spitz: “Not spray that deliberately as you put it changes trajectory – you are assigning volition to something that has no volition…”

Jackson: “Doctor, isn’t it a more reasonable inference just that simply put Phillip Spector’s jacket was closer in proximity to the blood letting event?”

Spitz: “No – because he would have more than 18 little spots on him – you would have a different density – you would have a large amount of tissue…:”

Jackson: “Doctor, didn’t you say yesterday that there was very little blood spatter in this case?”

Spitz: “I don’t remember saying that.”

Jackson: “Well, wouldn’t you agree that the blood spatter in this case would be limited?”

Spitz: “It would be limited to that which would occur from a wound by a .38 caliber missile into an area that is highly vasculated and under arterial pressure – and this is like a garden hose, these arteries, and when these arteries are cut, the blood can be like a garden hose under pressure and the blood can easily reach a ceiling 12 feet high.”

Jackson: ”Well Doctor, she didn’t cut an artery, so that is irrelevant.”

Spitz: “It is not irrelevant at all – no, she didn’t cut the jugular or the carotid, but every artery is under the same pressure.”

Jackson: “So where is all the blood on the ceiling? Where is the blood on the carpet?”

Spitz: “Her head wasn’t pointing at the ceiling.”

Yes, you read that right. Spitz contradicted himself. In the beginning of his testimony he'd pushed that a fine spray of blood could have been coughed up by the victim, or splashed back from the victim, only to land on Spector's jacket six feet away. Under intense questioning, however, he'd changed course and suddenly started claiming that a bullet passing a bunch of arteries--even if it missed the jugular and carotid arteries--would create a wound in which blood spewed out like a garden hose. He then used the small amount of spray found on Spector's jacket to suggest Spector was across the room from Clarkson when she was shot. Only he, OOPS, overlooked that there was no evidence this garden hose-like spray of blood occurred outside his highly-paid imagination. I mean, really, have you ever seen water squirt from a garden hose with such velocity and precision that nothing lands between the nozzle and the plant being watered, six feet away? It bears noting, moreover, that Spitz readily accepted that a high-velocity bullet passed through Kennedy's neck, within millimeters of his arteries, and that blood did not spew from Kennedy's neck like a garden hose.

Exchanges like the one above, in which it is readily obvious Spitz was presenting a defense for his client (a man he admitted was paying him 5,000 dollars a day), whether the evidence supported him or not, makes me wonder if the term "pathological liar" is a reference to someone who can't help but lie, for pathological reasons, or a reference to someone who lies so readily they could have a successful career as a pathologist. I'm serious. 

Above: Dr. Michael Baden testifying in the Phil Spector murder trial.

When one studies the Spector case, in fact, it's hard to come to any conclusion other than that Baden and Spitz knowingly lied for money. At another point in the case, a former member of the defense team testified that Dr. Baden had been handed a piece of the victim's tooth at the crime scene, and that he'd failed to present this evidence to the authorities. Dr. Baden, of course, vehemently denied these charges. Even if one assumes Dr. Baden was telling the truth on this matter, however, and assumes further that Dr.s Baden and Spitz both sincerely believed their testimony in the Spector trial, it's impossible to believe they would have testified as they did if they'd been hired by the prosecution. 

Spitz, for that matter, would outdo himself in his defense of suspected child-killer Casey Anthony. To offset that duct tape was found across Anthony's daughter's skull, and that the little girl was murdered, Dr. Spitz claimed that his examination of the little girl's skull contents indicated that the skull had changed positions after the brain had decomposed, and that, therefore, someone could have removed the skull and planted the duct tape on the face to frame her mother. He then faulted the original medical examiner for not opening up the girl's skull. When confronted with the fact his own textbook said nothing about opening up the skull of a skeletonized body to examine the "brain dust," and that he was unaware of any textbook in which such an act was discussed, the tide began to turn. When Prosecutor Jeff Ashton then pointed out the difficulty involved in replacing the duct-taped skull in its original position, with strands of hair draped over it, etc, Dr. Spitz claimed the medical examiner could have staged the autopsy photos. According to news reports, when then asked "So your testimony is the medical examiner's personnel took the hair that wasn't on the skull, placed it there?” Spitz testified: ”The person who took this picture, the person who prepared this, put the hair there." When then shown the crime scene photos showing the hair and duct tape etc in the same position as they were in the autopsy photos, Spitz, according to Ashton's book Imperfect Justice, grew belligerent, and insisted the crime scene photos may also have been staged...by the police.

So, wow. Spitz (and presumably Baden, whose wife was briefly Anthony's attorney) were not above proposing a massive cover-up involving medical examiners and law enforcement officers when the evidence suggested the guilt of a paying client whose crime was killing, perhaps even accidentally, her daughter...

Hmmm... We can only imagine then what kind of a conspiracy they'd have dreamt up should their paying client in 1978 have been Lee Harvey Oswald, a communist-sympathizer accused of murdering the President.

The Repetition of History...

On 12-27-2007, seven Pakistani doctors examined the body of their country's former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, who'd been assassinated only hours before. Their report on her wounds reads as follows:

A Pakistani government spokesman took from this that Ms. Bhutto had hit her head on a handle of her open-topped security vehicle while reacting to the explosion of a nearby suicide bomber. This explanation satisfied almost no one, however. Within days, a number of top American forensic pathologists had joined a growing chorus of doubt and dismay. They couldn't understand why no autopsy had been performed on Ms. Bhutto. They couldn't understand how Ms. Bhutto could incur such a wound, simply by bumping her head. On 12-31-2007, an article appeared in the New York Times, expressing both the doubts of these doctors, and their own theories on the cause of Ms. Bhutto's death. It read, in part:

A video of Bhutto's assassination soon surfaced. It showed a man firing a pistol at Ms. Bhutto as she fell into the car, and a violent explosion after she'd already fallen inside. It indicated she was not shot by a rifle, or hit by any shrapnel. Most watching the film believe she is in fact shot by the pistol. Some even go further and speculate that this bullet entered the back of her neck before exiting from the 5 cm by 3 cm defect described in the report of the doctors. A study performed by Scotland Yard, however, failed to support this. It claimed instead that the shots fired at Ms. Bhutto had missed and that, as originally surmised by the Pakistani officials, Ms. Bhutto had died after hitting her head. The controversy continues.

The controversy over Ms. Bhutto's death is nevertheless informative. It shows that you can get a report signed by seven doctors that many experts will believe is wrong. It shows as well that you can get three opinions, from three experts, in which the conclusions of these doctors are disputed, and that these three experts can also be wrong. And, finally, it shows that some experts, particularly those affiliated with the HSCA forensic pathology panel, are more than willing to offer up their opinions on controversial cases before obtaining the relevant evidence.