Murder Tales: The JFK Conspiracies

by H. N. Lloyd

  Abraham Zapruder, who caught the assassination on his famous 8mm home movie film, was just one witness who believed that shots came from the right and behind him on the grassy knoll. All in all forty witnesses came forward to say that they at least heard a gunshot coming from the grassy knoll, yet the Warren Commission rejected every single one of these witness statements. The Commission cited that there was no physical evidence to corroborate or uphold what these witnesses said they saw or heard, and therefore what they believed happened; simply didn’t. Then of course the Zapruder film came along; and threatened to blow this assertion right out of the water. The Zapruder film quite clearly showed the President’s head and body being blasted violently back as a bullet entered the President’s head, as if the offending projectile was coming from the front and to the side of the President. This involuntary action seemed impossible for the President to have made if the bullet had entered the Presidents body from the rear; as the Commission insisted. So how did the Commission get around this tricky little problem? Well quite simply really, it never even mentioned the discrepancy. No one outside of the staff at Life Magazine, and of course the members of the Warren Commission; had seen the Zapruder film when the Commission’s report was finally released, so they could easily get away with the subterfuge. When the film did become public, several members of the Commission stated that they did not notice that President Kennedy had been flung backwards by one of the shots. One of the sixteen attorney’s investigating the assassination on behalf of the Commission, David Slawson, flatly denied these denials of knowledge, he stated that everyone noticed the President’s reaction on the Zapruder film, that he openly asked questions to the Commission about the Presidents physical reaction to the bullet, and that ‘everyone was a little bit puzzled’ by the President’s violent reaction. Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the doctors who tended to President Kennedy at Parkland Hospital; was one of those who were annoyed and perplexed by the Commission omitting any mention of the President possibly having been shot from the front. In 1999 he finally went on record as saying, ‘The wounds are consistent with the bullet not having been fired, I think, from the sixth floor of the depository building, from behind the President, but from somewhere around the grassy knoll or the triple underpass, somewhere in the front...having seen that wound, I thought to myself there is no way that could have come from the sixth floor behind him’. The Commission ignored the vital evidence from the film that could have at least raised the possibility of their being a second shooter somewhere in front of the President. With it ignoring the existence of the film it could also ignore the doubts of the medical men who had treated the injured President. Yet over the years further evidence indicating a frontal shooter has emerged from diverse sources. One such researcher was Tom Wilson, who used digital photograph photometry, a process he had created, whereby he was able to peel graphical information layer by layer from photographic imagery; to see things the human eye could not perceive. This was a process Wilson described as being akin to peeling an onion, which he claimed to have used to discover evidence of a frontal shooter. Wilson stated that he had given evidence at several murder trials after using his process to analyse photographic evidence, and stated that his findings were so accurate and precise, if you were to pick a random person from a photograph of a crowd, then he could use his unique technique to diagnose what prescription glasses that random person needed. Another claim made by Wilson was that he could determine what colour things would have been in real life from black and white photographs, such as skin tone and eye colour. Using his technique; Wilson was able to create a 3D model of the injury caused to President Kennedy’s head. This model indicated to Wilson; that the bullet entered President Kennedy’s head through the front right occipital lobe, and then exploded into two, blasting the side of President Kennedy’s head apart, and throwing his body back. Wilson’s work so impressed the Kennedy family; that Teddy Kennedy was able to get Wilson access to the original autopsy photographs taken of President Kennedy, which were held in the National Archive. Using the digital photograph photometry on these photographs, Wilson stated that he could prove that the autopsy shots had been taken after the body had been embalmed; and therefore were not truthful representations of the autopsy; or the body’s original wounds.

  Of course, as always there were those who were sceptical about Wilson’s claims, and argued that his findings were not valid; as he failed to put them up for ‘peer review’ during the course of his lifetime. Also some of his findings were very contentious and bordered on the bizarre; the most obvious of these being that the angle of the frontal shot; indicated to him that the frontal shooter was firing from below ground, possibly firing as the killer peeked out from a manhole cover. Wilson was ultra-secretive with regards to how his digital process worked, and who he shared his results with. He trusted very few people, especially those in authority, and was in the process of suing the federal government, based on what he claimed to have discovered in the autopsy photographs, when he died of a massive heart-attack. Since then no one has had any further access to his work or results, or been allowed to verify the process he used to gain the fabulous truths he claimed to have found. Tantalisingly; Wilson had told fellow researchers at a conference in Dallas; that all his work was carried out on cheap off the shelf software. If people eager to prove or disprove him just paused for a second to consider what he was saying, then they could easily figure out for themselves which software he used; and how he used it, and verify his results for themselves. As yet no one has accomplished this task, and his results remain just as tantalisingly uncorroborated, unloved and largely forgotten. Yet Wilson was just one of a mounting army of people claiming that the Warren Commission was patently wrong; and that evidence of a frontal assassin was there to be discovered if people just had the care and the time to look.

  The Zapruder film, which started this whole argument, has come in for its fair share of criticism over the years. There are many who believe that the film is not a true representation of that day’s events, that the Zapruder film has been doctored in some way to hide or obscure the truth of what really happened. The descent began with Dr. David Mantik, when he wrote a controversial paper that highlighted one blazing inconsistency within the film itself, Dr. Mantik claimed:

  ‘When the camera is stopped and then restarted it takes a finite amount of time for the motor to get up to normal speed. This, in turn, means that for a brief interval the frames will advance slower than normally. Because the frames are advancing slower, the exposure time will be longer for these frames and the images will appear lighter than usual (overexposure). At three separate occasions during the home movie sequence (supposedly on the same film as the motorcade sequence) this actually occurs, and at each occasion such overexposure is visible. However, on the one occasion when the camera apparently stops during the motorcade (just before the limousine appears) an overexposure is not visible. This inconsistency is remarkable and should normally have raised the question of whether the camera actually did stop, or whether the effect is absent because frames had been excised at this juncture’.

  To support the idea of frames being removed from the film, it is interesting to note that it was standard Kodak practice to punch a processing number, after the last image, on the reverse side of the film. If this practice had been followed on the Zapruder film, then the processing numbers 0181 to 0189 should have appeared on the reverse sides of all the nine copies of the Zapruder film made. Yet surprisingly none of the remaining films seem to have been numbered. Also the Kodak lab that allegedly processed the Zapruder film has no record of any rolls of film; that would correspond to the batches that should have included the processing of the Zapruder film. Was this evidence of film tampering? Someone editing things out of the home-movie that someone didn’t want the wider public to see? The truth is even Abraham Zapruder himself didn’t know what he had filmed, he’d handed the footage directly over to Time-Life without watching the footage, in turn Time-Life hand
ed the film over to the FBI. If the footage had been doctored; Zapruder would have been none the wiser. Then there is controversy over the Stemmons Freeway Sign that obscures some of the most vital frames of the film. Dr. John P. Costella stated in ‘The Great Zapruder Film Hoax’ that, ‘The inescapable conclusion is that the Stemmons Freeway sign as seen in the extant Zapruder, film is a fabrication. It does not represent a physically real object that was present during the assassination. Rather, it has been inserted into the film after the event’. Dr. Costella based his conclusions on the absence of what he termed ‘pincushion distortion’. This is an optical effect that causes objects to look pinched towards their centre, and was a common problem with tele-lensed cameras. Dr. Costella asserted that this effect should have massively affected the Stemmons Freeway Sign; if the film had been genuine, the straight lines of the signpost should have appeared distorted near to the edge of the films frames. Dr. Costella believed the Stemmons Freeway Sign was superimposed onto the film; as the pincushion effect was notably missing from the Stemmons Freeway Sign.

  The Presidential head wound highlighted by the Zapruder film wasn’t the only controversial ballistic problem the Warren Commission faced. One of the trickiest problems they were forced to reconcile with a single shooter theory; was the so-called ‘Magic Bullet’. Originally the Commission was happy to say that three bullets were fired and that three bullets hit their targets, one hitting President Kennedy in the back, one hitting Governor Connally in the back, and the third and final fatal headshot. Unfortunately Governor Connally threw a spanner in the works, when he stated under oath that Kennedy had already been shot; and was slumped over by the time Connally had turned around; and then felt himself being shot. This meant that President Kennedy must have been shot at around frames 198 to 199 on the Zapruder film, and that Connally was therefore shot at about frame 240. When the Commission investigators went to Dealey Plaza to view the scene of the crime and reconstruct the fateful day, low and behold if they didn’t discover it would have been impossible for Oswald to have hit anything between frames 168 and 210 of the Zapruder film; because there would have been a bloody great tree obscuring Oswald’s line of sight. The Commission suddenly found themselves having to backtrack; and come up with a new version of events that still made it plausible for there to have been only one shooter firing from a vantage point with no clear line of fire. So the Commission now decided that only three shots had been fired, the first bullet missing its target and bouncing off the pavement, and the third and fatal bullet hitting the President in the head, leaving the remaining second bullets to act in a rather unusual; almost nature defying manner, in order to inflict all of the remaining injuries on both President Kennedy and Governor John Connally. To extricate themselves from the corner they’d now painted themselves into, Commission investigator Senator Arlen Specter came up with the ‘Magic Bullet’ theory. A bullet that was capable, the Commission stated, of inflicting seven separate wounds upon both President Kennedy and Governor Connally. The Commission theorised that the bullet entered through President Kennedy’s upper back, came out through President Kennedy’s throat, entered a curving trajectory where it paused in mid air for a second, before sharply changing direction and entering Governor Connally through his back, the bullet then travelled diagonally through the governors body to exit his lower chest on the right hand side, the bullet then entered the governors wrist on the upper side, exited his wrist again on the lower side after shattering all the bones, before making a sharp left turn; and finally embedding itself in Governor Connally’s right thigh. Of course over the years people found this hard to believe, a bullet acting in a physics defying display of aeronautics unique in ballistic history, zigzagging, changing direction and trajectory mid shot, pausing in mid air, travelling through muscle and bone without slowing or being stopped, indeed coming through the whole incredible ballistic ballet to look pristine and unfired. Well at least it’s assumed the ‘Magic Bullet’ came out of its magnificent aerial magic pristine, you see the bullet assumed to be the ‘Magic Bullet’ was discovered on a stretcher, assumed to have been used by Governor Connally; at Parkland Hospital, and that for me is a lot of doubt and assuming in order to reach such an incredibly contrived conclusion.

  In 2004, Dale Myers; a well respected computer animator, recreated Dealey Plaza, the cavalcade, and the ‘Magic Bullet’ in order to prove the ballistic balletic theory one way or the other. The 3D computer model Myers created; utilised a computer programme which factored in all of the real world physics and physical factors that might have come into play to influence the bullet that day in November 1963. Myers was able to recreate a complete 360 degree view of the assassination, factoring in wind speed and direction, physical barriers such as air pressure, clothing and the density of such obstacles; including muscle and bone, everything that could conceivably have affected a bullets behaviour and trajectory that day. Using this simulation and the real world physics it depended upon; Myers claimed to have finally proved that the Warren Commission was correct in its Magic Bullet assertion. It all hinged on the alignment of Governor Connelly and President Kennedy at the moment of the bullets initial impact, it would be impossible for a single bullet to have done all the damage alleged if Connally had been sat directly in front of President Kennedy, however taking the original measurements of the car; Myers claimed that Connally had actually been sat not directly in front of President Kennedy but six inches to the left, and a full three inches lower than the President in what was known as ‘the jump seat’. On top of this Meyers concluded that Governor Connally was in the middle of turning to face President Kennedy when the bullet impacted. This meant that the Magic Bullet did not have to suddenly change trajectory mid flight, it was still travelling in a straight line as it left President Kennedy’s body and hit Governor Connally, it was his misrepresented positioning in the car, and the fact that the Governor had been turning his body, that made it look as if the bullet had changed trajectory mid flight. Myers strengthened his theory with the hypothesis that Governor Connally had misremembered the moment he himself had been struck by the Magic Bullet. Connally believed the he had been hit at around about frame 236 on the Zapruder Film. Myer’s argued that at around frame 230 on the Zapruder Film, Connally suddenly moved his arm up; and his jacket bunched up, Myer’s believed this was actually the moment Connally was hit by the contentious bullet, a full six frames earlier than Governor Connally originally surmised. If this were true then the Magic Bullet no longer had to make that inconvenient split second mid air pause before hitting the governor. All the inconsistencies had been ironed out, simply by factoring in the change of Governor Connally’s position in the car.

  A single bullet fired from a rifle high up in the Texas School Book Depository could have acted in such an unusual manner as the Magic Bullet. It wasn’t magic at all, it had always been travelling in a straight line, it was simply the Governor being sat in such an unusual position and being hit at a different time to what had originally been believed; that had made the lump of lead seem so extraordinary. One would assume that would be the end of it, modern science and technology finally proving what had simply been a contentious theory up to that point, of course nothing is ever that simple. Not everyone was happy with the 3D model, researcher Pat Speers went back to the original measurements of the car and argued that Myers had been wrong in his belief that Governor Connally had been sat six inches over to the left of President Kennedy. Therefore the bullet was on the wrong trajectory when it entered the governor in the computer simulation, and couldn’t have been travelling in a straight line. Myers admitted that the position of Connally’s seat had been erroneously moved from its proper place in his 3D model; for reasons of ‘clarity’. The origin of this confusion was, Meyers argued, that the seat hadn’t actually been six inches over in the real car, but this is where Connally must have been sat for the single bullet theory to work. Therefore Myers assumes that for some reason Connally had not been wholly sat on the jump seat, he h
ad in fact only half been sitting on the seat, with half his bum hanging over the edge of the seat. So as not to confuse viewers of the TV show the model had been commission for, Myers felt that the simplest explanation had been to just move the whole seat; rather than have to go into a silly explanation that the governor had not been sat on the seat properly. Why was the governor sat in such an uncomfortable position? Well, Mr Myers can’t explain why the governor would be sat with his arse hanging over his car seat. Meyers claims he meant no deliberate subterfuge in making this change for ‘clarity’. So we are, despite the high science involved, left in quite a quandary again, was it a case of one man’s wrong timings and predilection for unusual and uncomfortable seating positions; or conspiracy?