David Mantik's Definitive look at the Harper Fragment

[Bob Prudhomme]

Hi Dave

Thanks for posting this. I'm embarrassed to say this is the first time I've read this part of Weitzman's testimony.

Wasn't it Martin or Hargis, the two motorcycle cops at the left rear of the limo, who claimed the spray hit him so hard, it felt like a piece of concrete had hit him? I'm starting to wonder if he wasn't struck by the Harper Fragment.

At least your big enough to admit it, read it and move on... it amazes me as well the number of tidbits I come across that I had not come across before - every day it seems.
Aint the process of learning and sharing great!


After you mentioned that a few others things came to mind.

First, if Hargis was hit with Harper he'd have known it... he described it more of a cloud of blood and debris, like pellets I think he says...
What I do remember (thankx to a PM from vince P) is Boring at the ARRB saying that a large piece of bone was found in the Queen Mary and then recanting.

Is it possible this WAS Harper and it was Boring and the SS who repositioned Harper to be found the next day?


http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/VP/doc1.txt
"After independently recalling that they had searched the cars, Mr. Bo=
ring said that he (Boring) had discovered a piece of skull bone with brai=
n attached14 in the rear of the follow-up car (the black Cadillac convert=
ible called the "Queen Mary"), in the footwell just in front of the back =
seat bench. He said during follow-up questioning that the dimensions of t=
his skull bone-brain fragment were approximately 1" X 2". He said that he=
never picked it up or touched it himself, but that he simply pointed it =
out to Mr. Paterni (Mr. Paterni was Deputy Chief of the Secret Service)15=
=2E He said he did not write a report about this, and he did not know whe=
ther Mr. Paterni had written a report or not."16 For his part, Sam Kinney=
told me: " he found the piece of the back of JFK's head lying in the rea=
r seat of the bloody limousine, exactly were Clint Hill told the Warren C=
ommission he saw the "right rear" piece at (2H141; fellow agents Roy Kel=
lerman [2H85] and Jerry Behn[Sibert & O'Neill interview, 11/27/63] confir=
m this fact)! Sam told me it was "clean as a pin" and that it resembled a=
"flowerpot" or "clay pot" piece. Kinney added: "It was a big piece-half =
his head was gone." When I pressed him on this point and asked him if he =
was sure of the skull piece's orientation, he said, " I don't know what e=
lse it could have been but the back of his head." Realizing the obvious s=
ignificance of this find (made several hours BEFORE the "official" limous=
ine inspection instigated by ASAIC FLOYD BORING), Kinney put in a phone p=
atch to Admiral George Burkley (unfortunately, like many other events, th=
is radio traffic no longer exists on the heavily edited Air Force One rad=
io tapes that are available at the present time [I wonder why?]). Kinney =
had the piece in his suit pocket during his talk with Burkley and during =
the flight back to Washington. Upon landing at Andrew Air Force Base, Bur=
kley got a hold of the skull piece Kinney had."17

What makes Boring's recollections of the limo inspection particularly tro=
ublesome is the fact that he "made very clear during the [ARRB] interview=
that this fragment was in the rear of the follow-up car, not in the rear=
seat of the presidential limousine.Initially, ARRB staff members Zimmerm=
an and Horne had misunderstood Mr. Boring to mean that the bone-brain fra=
gment was in the rear seat of the President's limousine, and Mr. Boring t=
ook specific pains to correct our misunderstanding during follow-on discu=
ssion of this matter." However, Boring called Horne the next day to place=
a correction (and, thus, a retraction) on the record: he now felt that t=
he skull bone-and-brain fragment he saw "must have been in the back seat =
of the President's limousine, and not the follow-up car. He said that his=
stroke may perhaps have had something to do with his error." This may al=
so explain why Boring now has NO recollection of finding any bullet fragm=
ents at all in the limousine (only the skull fragment), and also may expl=
ain why he could not remember, one way or the other, the condition of the=
limousine's windshield and chrome strip.18

Man, that's crazy! How many places can one bone fragment be in? And how many people can find the same fragment? Somebody has to be lying.