The Head Wounds Revisited

[Gordon Gray]

I have always wondered why it would have been even necessary to alter the body. All they had to do was falsify the autopsy report to fit the desired scenario, which they did, falsify the X rays and photos, which they did, and swear all witnesses to secrecy, which they did. Reading the interviews and depositions of the various autopsy witnesses is like Rashomon. No one tells a consistent story, they have different recollections of time lines, and what they saw. One claimed the body was brought in in the early afternoon and was fully clothed with the head wrapped in a plastic bag. I would love to find one witness there, who saw a shipping casket delivered at 6:35, taken immediately into the morgue proper, opened, a body bag taken out, the president's body, removed from the body bag, and placed on the examining table. I don't believe there is one person who testifies to having seen all of this. For me the most compelling testimony is of the two FBI agents. As O'Neill himself pointed out they were the only ones there with no agenda. They were simply recording what they saw and heard with little understanding of it's implications.

About your post #7 on this thread:

The closest thing to the kind of witness you would likesomeone who saw a shipping casket brought in at 6:35 PMis Paul O'Connor. No, O'Connor was not wearing a watch, but he was inside the morgue and opened the shipping casket, and inside was a body bag. He opened the body bag, and inside was the President's body.

How do we know it was 6:35 PM plus a few minutes?

Because the person who brought the shipping casket to the morgue was the group of men assembled by Dennis David. Among them was Donald Rebentisch. I first interviewed Dennis David in July, 1979, by phone, and his account appears, verbatim, in Chapter 25 of Best Evidence. I interviewed him on camera in October, 1980. Similarly, I interviewed Paul O'Connor, by phone, in August,l 1979; and then on camera, in October 1980. The August 1979conversaton is Chapter 26 of Best Evidence.

All of the above filmed interviews are included in the home video documentary, BEST EVIDENCE: The Research Video.

I interviewed Donald Rebentisch in January 1981. He was one of the group that carried in the shipping casket, and then came back upstairs, there to see Mrs. Kennedy waiting in the lobby for the elevator. So obviously, the coffin in the naval ambulance was empty.

Dennis David told me that he witnessed the arrival of the black hearse with the shipping casket about 20 minutes prior to the arrival of the naval Ambulance carrying Jacqueline Kennedy, which arrived at 6:53 or 6:55 PM. So that would place his obseration at about 6:35 PM.

In 1997, the ARRB found the actual document executed by Sgt. Roger Boyajian, head of the USMC Security Detail at the morgue. That document states that the body was delivered at 18:35 (6:35 PM).

Of course, it would have been nice if there were security cameras placed all around Bethesda Naval Hospital, recording these events, and creating a time-stamped filmed record. But we don't have that. So we have to rely on human testimony, and its via those accounts that its possible to draw the inferences I have drawn, about when the body arrived, in the shipping casket.

I know there's been several attempts to bitch and moan about this data. But I think its pretty good data, and in fact quite definitive.

At to you opening point: "All they had to do was falsify the autopsy report. . " etc. No, its not so easy. Because you can't just have a "conspiracy of liars." The evidence itself had to be falsified, and that's what happened in this case.

Its always seemed ironic to me that the people who talk glibly of high level plots (e.g., DiEugenio and his pals) reject the most important evidence pertaining to exactly that: the alteration of the President's body prior to autopsy.

Former UCLA Law Professor Wesley Liebeler "got it" within minutes of being exposed to this evidence. And that's why he wrote the 13 page memorandum he did, in November 1966, about the existence of such evidence in the files of he WC. So did Doug Horne, when he first read Best Evidence. And when he and Jeremy Gunn had Dr. Boswell under oath, and Boswell drew a diagram, on a medical school skull, of how huge the head wound was at Bethesda, Horne had no doubt that my analysis was correct.

It's the President's body that is the most important evidence in this case, and those that want to argue the case by saying the Single Bullet Theory is wrong, or that there was "more than one assassin"and that's their "conspiracy" are, imho, swimming in the shallow end of the kiddie pool.

The most critical evidence in this case is President Kennedy's body, and the alteration of the wounds, prior to autopsy, is the most important evidence of a conspiracy to obstruct justice in force on the afternoon of November 22, 1963.

DSL
6/16/13; 1:15 AM PDT
Los Angeles, California

To begin with the best evidence IMO, as presented at a trial is not the actual body, but the description of that body as given by testimony of autopsy doctors, their official report, bolstered by photographs, drawings and X Rays. All of which could be falsified. There have been numerous instances of these reports being fudged, faked and falsified in regular murder cases, how much more likely in and autopsy done under military jurisdiction. Secondly, if Mr. OConnor is the best witness to the shipping casket/ body bag/presidents body, did he recall who carried this coffin into the morgie? Was it the honor guard, the two SS agents and FBI agents, the marine security team or the team of enlisted men headed by David? Was he asked? If not, why not? He may not have worn a watch but his partner Jenkins remembers arriving to prepare for the autopsy at around 40 to 30 minutes prior to the beginning of the autopsy, which I would take to be the formal Y incision. Was Jenkins there before or after OConnor arrived? Where did David's team deliver the shipping casket, the cooling antechamber or the morgue proper? What became of the child and the Air Force Col. who were to be examined "subsequent" to the president's autopsy, according to Jenkins? If X Rays were taken after the Y incision according to Custer, this happened after 8:00, so any sightings of the Kennedy entourage couldn't have been of their initial arrival at 7:00. If X Rays were taken during an earlier pre autopsy who took them? Did Custer and R eed take them twice? Why have they never mentioned this? Who placed the president's body back into the ceremonial casket and carried it back to the Navy ambulance, and why does no one recall this happening. It had to have happened if the honor guard carried the coffin back into the morgue at 8:00. Were they present when the body was removed for the second time? Were any of them asked about this? Perhaps all these questions have been answered and I just can't find them on the internet?