Inexplicable Wounds made by Special Bullets

[Bob Prudhomme]

Tumbling bullets will still travel in a more or less "straight and true" line.

The evidence is Dr. Shaw's measurements of the original entrance wound, elliptical in shape and 1.5 cm at the longest. Shaw measured the angle that the bullet passed thru Connally's body at 25 degrees. Dr. Gregory described the entrance wound as rounded and .75 inches long (this is longer than Shaw's measurement).

The alleged bullet is roughly (don't want to start a new argument here) 3 cm long and 6.7 mm in diameter. To make a elliptical hole 1.5 cm at its widest, you need an angle of incidence of 34 degrees. To make a wound .75 in. at its widest you need an angle of incidence of 49 degrees. Since both these figures exceed Shaw's bullet path angle of 25 degrees, the bullet must have been tumbling, or precessing.

Precession is the small gyrations (wobbles) the rotating bullet makes as it spins on its long axis. The Earth has a fairly stable rotation, it spins once a day but takes 30,000 years to precess around its axle (something on the order of 36,500 spins per degree of precession). Rifled bullets precess more than that, but, unless the precession is very very small, the bullet will not fly straight. You cannot explain the difference between 25 degrees, and 30 or 49 degrees with precession.

BTW the angle of the WC "sniper's nest" is somewhat less than 25 degrees, depending on when the first shot was fired. The FBI exhibits show an angle of 23 degrees, but that was when JFK was behind a tree (looking from the sniper's nest). Had the shooter waited till JFK emerged from behind the tree, the angle would be less than 23 degrees.

The FBI calculated the angle of the "third" shot (without reference to which one caused which wounds) at about 15 degrees down. If Connally wasn't hit in the chest till after the headshot, you have a tough time explaining the 25 degree downward angle, not to mention the greater than 25 degree angle of incidence.

A larger downward angle than the one from the alleged sniper's nest proves to me one of 2 things: The shooter's position is wrong, or the victim was leaning backwards off the vertical line to make up the difference.


Other notes: Shaw in March 1964 was of the opinion that multiple bullets were needed to cause Connally's wounds. When pressed, he looked for a Zapruder frame in which Connally's body was in the correct position for one bullet to produce the wounds; he picked Z frame 236. Gregory testified that the entrance wound in the back contained no metallic fragments or mohair fibers (probably indicating it was the first time this bullet hit anything); however, it would have had to pass thru coat and shirt to reach skin, so this observation is probably incorrect.


There is another problem here for the Dan Rather scenario. Gregory says that the wrist entry wound (dorsal) was 5 cm from the wrist, and the exit wound (palmar) was 1.5 cm from the wrist. The bullet was moving towards the wrist as it transited the arm. Far as I can see, there's only one way for this to be possible for a rear-entering right to left bullet path...the elbow has to be farther to the rear than the wrist. The Dan Rather scenario (with Connally reaching back as he is hit) seems unlikely in that you'd have a hard time placing your hand far enough to the back (with your elbow bent) to intercept the missile before it hits the rear part of the armpit and get a track moving towards the hand.

I think the only way to put your wrist in the path of the missile is to bend your arm completely, tight in to the body, palm facing down, then place the dorsal side of your wrist just under and to the left of the right nipple, so that the bullet enters the wrist after leaving the chest.

If we do the conversion, 1.5 cm. (Dr.Shaw's estimate of the longest diameter of the entrance wound) equals .59 inch. As Dr. Gregory did not operate on the chest wound, and likely never examined it:

"Mr. SPECTER - Now, did you have any opportunity to observe the wound on the Governor's chest?
Dr. GREGORY - I could see the wounds on the Governor's chest, but I could see them only through the apertures available in the surgical drapes, and therefore I had difficulty orienting the exact positions of the wounds, except for the wound identified as the wound of exit which could be related to the nipple in the right chest which was exposed."

Dr. Gregory's estimate of .75 inch would, of course, be nowhere near as accurate as that of Dr. Shaw, who actually operated on Connally's chest wound. Coincidentally, we should think very hard before we attempt to use the long dimension of the entrance wound, 1.5 cm., as any kind of proof of a tumbling bullet entering Connally's back. The official dimension of the entrance wound on the back of JFK's skull, as determined by the Bethesda autopsy, is 15 x 6 mm. As we all know, 15 mm = 1.5 cm. Has anyone ever suggested the bullet that struck JFK in the back of the head was tumbling?

Further proof the bullet was not tumbling when it entered, and did not tumble in the wound, can be found in Dr. Shaw's testimony:

"Dr. SHAW. The bullet, in passing through the Governor's chest wall struck the fifth rib at its midpoint and roughly followed the slanting direction of the fifth rib, shattering approximately 10 cm. of the rib. The intercostal muscle bundle above the fifth rib and below the fifth rib were surprisingly spared from injury by the shattering of the rib, which again establishes the trajectory of the bullet.
Mr. SPECTER. Would the shattering of the rib have had any effect in deflecting the path of the bullet from a straight line?
Dr. SHAW. It could have, except that in the case of this injury, the rib was obviously struck so that not too dense cancellus portion of the rib in this position was carried away by the bullet and probably there was very little in the way of deflection."

So, we have a bullet that follows the course of the 5th rib for 10 cm., is not deflected by the rib as the rib is quite soft and porous at this point, offering little resistance and, MOST IMPORTANT of all, the muscles above and below the 5th rib are completely untouched.

As these intercostal muscles are also in contact with the 5th rib, perhaps you could explain to me just what particular axis the bullet was tumbling on.

This is a problem I have always had with the SBT supporters. A bullet supposedly enters the back of JFK's neck, making a neat little hole, and exits his throat; making such a neat little exit wound that, 50 years later, we are still arguing over whether it is an entrance or exit wound. Most people with any experience with bullets would tell you the bullet was on a straight and true path, and not tumbling, when it exited JFK's throat; just as you would expect a long 6.5mm bullet to be doing. Then, for no reason whatsoever, the bullet begins tumbling in the short space between JFK and Connally, striking Connally in the back and leaving an oval shaped entrance wound 1.5 cm. on its longest axis. Here is what Dr. Shaw had to say about the elliptical entrance wound on Connally's back:

"Mr. SPECTER. My question would be that perhaps some tumbling might have been involved as a result of decrease in velocity as the bullet passed through President Kennedy, whether there was any indication from the surface of the wound which would indicate tumbling.
Dr. SHAW. The wound entrance was an elliptical wound. In other words, it had a long diameter and a short diameter. It didn't have the appearance of a wound caused by a high velocity bullet that had not struck anything else; in other words, a puncture wound. Now, you have to also take into consideration, however, whether the bullet enters at a right angle or at a tangent. If it enters at a tangent there will be some length to the wound of entrance.
Mr. SPECTER. So, would you say in net that there could have been some tumbling occasioned by having it pass through another body or perhaps the oblique character of entry might have been occasioned by the angle of entry.
Dr. SHAW. Yes; either would have explained a wound of entry."

(notice that Specter, the little weasel may-he-rot-in-Hell-for-all-Eternity is really pushing the tumbling notion. He would have done well selling life insurance)

Of course, if the bullet did NOT pass through JFK, as most of us with more than ten working brain cells know it didn't, why would the bullet be tumbling?

The most amazing and inexplicable thing about the course of this bullet is that it made a 5 cm. (2 inch) exit wound just below and to the left of Connally's right nipple. At what point did it go from making a narrow tunnelling wound to blowing a 2 inch hole out of his chest?

It then goes on to make a 2.5 x .5 cm. wound directly over the radius bone on the back of Connally's wrist. It shatters the radius bone and, according to Dr. Gregory, the wrist surgeon, goes THROUGH the radius bone and exits the palm side of the wrist leaving (you won't believe this) a 1.5 x .5 cm. EXIT WOUND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In short, a bullet hit Connally's wrist (travelling sideways) square on the radius bone, went through the radius bone, and left an exit wound SMALLER than the entrance wound in Connally's back.

And you wonder why I call the wounds Inexplicable.