PAT SPEER SAID:
>>> "A New Perspective on the Shots That Killed The President. .... Shot #1. Approximate firing time: Zapruder frame 188. Hit Kennedy in back around 190, fell out in limousine. (Possibly a hand-loaded bullet.) From: the sixth floor window of the TSBD." <<<
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The above scenario totally ignores the fact that the oak tree was
obscuring the view of any assassin in the 6th-Floor southeast corner
window at precisely Z188. (And I assume that Mr. Speer is talking
about the "Sniper's Nest" window above when he says "sixth floor
window of the TSBD", and not a different window on the 6th Floor of
that building.)
Among other things, the oak tree snafu is one of the main reasons I
disagree strongly with the HSCA's conclusion that JFK and John
Connally were struck by the SBT shot at approx. Z-Film frame 190.
The Warren Commission's May 1964 exacting tests and reconstructions of
the shooting and the trajectory from Oswald's sixth-floor window
indicated (and are so noted in plain English on Page 98 of the WCR)
that the oak tree totally blocked a shooter's view of the passing
limousine at Z188 and all following Z-Film frames until Z210, with the
exception of Z186 (which is why author Mark Fuhrman uses that exact
frame for his version of the first shot fired by Oswald, via his
incorrect anti-SBT/Lone Assassin scenario purported in his 2006 book,
"A Simple Act Of Murder").
Z188, according to the only official report available on this precise
timeline issue (the Warren Report), was not a viable shooting frame
for Oswald (or anyone else whom a CTer wants to invent as having fired
the shots from the TSBD in lieu of the man who so obviously did fire
them--Lee Harvey Oswald).
You should have sided with Mr. Fuhrman's timeline, Pat, and used Z186.
It would have been better for your theory. Unless you want to think
that a gunman just went ahead and fired through the tree at Z188
anyway, and got lucky (somehow) when the passing bullet went right
through the tree branches and managed to hit the target of JFK's body
anyhow, despite the foliage being in the bullet's path.
Although, to be fair, Mr. Speer does say, per his above-referenced
article, that he thinks Z188 was the "approximate firing time" for
shot #1. And since Z186 is only two-eighteenths of a second away from
Z188, I guess he can always fall back on that word, "approximate".
And, to be honest, I've fallen back on that same word on several
occasions too when discussing various aspects of the JFK case --
aspects that can only be reasonably assessed by prefacing the
discussion with that word "approximate", since certain variables will
forever be unknowns as far as being able to nail down some things to
the Nth degree or to the exact square inch; e.g., the precise
positioning of victims John Kennedy and John Connally in the limousine
at the exact instant each man was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald's single
bullet (CE399).
>>> "Shot or shots #2. Approximate firing time: Zapruder frame 222. Hit Kennedy in hairline at frame 224, exited his throat. Connally wounded in his chest, wrist, and thigh. Wounds seem instantaneous, but most probably came from separate bullets fired from an automatic weapon. From: most likely the upper floors of the Dal-Tex Building." <<<
Of course the above is nothing but pure outright conjecture coming
from a conspiracy theorist bent on trashing the official version (ANY
"official" version) of how the two victims were really wounded on
November 22, 1963.
The above silliness authored by Patrick (involving a make-believe
bullet that struck President Kennedy at the "hairline") totally
ignores, of course, Page #117 of the Warren Commission Report and
Page #43 of the HSCA Report and the Autopsy Report signed by all
three autopsists, which all declare that JFK was struck by ONLY TWO
BULLETS. Not three and not any other number except TWO.
But CTers who like to invent their own brand of "evidence" and
disappearing bullets and made-up-from-whole-cloth wounds on President
Kennedy's body will, naturally, not have a desire to stick with the
facts that were arrived at by such uninformed, fly-by-night people and
organizations such as the Warren Commission, the House Select
Committee on Assassinations, and the three autopsy doctors who had
their hands on the dead President in November 1963.
Right, Patrick?
>>> "Shot #3. Approximate firing time: Zapruder frame 310-311. Hit Kennedy near the temple at frame 313. Bullet fragmented. One piece of its core may have continued on to cause the wound to Tague around 319. From: the sixth floor window of the TSBD." <<<
This is a new one! A CTer has the fatal head shot coming from the
correct place (Oswald's Sniper's-Nest window in the Book Depository),
but the CTer has the bullet (somehow) striking President Kennedy "near
the temple", instead of the entry point for the bullet being where it
positively was located--in the BACK of JFK's head!
Now THAT sure sounds like a "magic" head-shot bullet to me.
>>> "Sound or Shot #4. Approximate firing time: Zapruder frame 320-327. Missed or possibly not even a shot. Quite possibly a loud firecracker used as a diversion device. From: somewhere west of the Texas School Book Depository, possibly the railroad yards." <<<
More pure CTer speculation, being based on the reactions of a few
(very few) confused and terrified witnesses in Dealey Plaza.
The sum total of all the evidence is that Shot #3 from Lee Harvey
Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle (the fatal head shot) was the last
gunshot fired or the last loud gunshot-like noise heard by the vast
majority of witnesses in Dealey Plaza on November 22nd.
Even the HSCA's since-destroyed "4th Shot" scenario based on the
Dictabelt police radio tape has the head shot being the last shot
fired (among the 4 shots included in that now-debunked two-assassin
theory).
>>> "Harold Norman's statements, so often used to prove that Oswald was the lone assassin, not only reflected that Kennedy was hit by the
first shot, but that only two shells dropped to the floor in the firing sequence." <<<
Via Harold Norman's session on the witness stand in London, England, in
1986, during the television docu-trial, "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald",
Mr. Norman can be heard saying the following things:
VINCENT BUGLIOSI -- "So you heard a total of three shots?"
HAROLD NORMAN -- "Yes sir."
BUGLIOSI -- "Did it sound to you like a rifle was being fired directly above you?"
NORMAN -- "Yes sir."
BUGLIOSI -- "Was there any OTHER reason, in addition to the sound of the rifle, any other reason why you believed the shots were coming from directly above you?"
NORMAN -- "Yes sir."
BUGLIOSI -- "And what is that?"
NORMAN -- "Because I could hear the empty hulls--that's what I call them--hit the floor; and I could hear the bolt action of the rifle being pushed back and forward."
BUGLIOSI -- "You're familiar with a bolt-action rifle?"
NORMAN -- "Yes sir."
BUGLIOSI -- "And by 'hulls', you mean cartridge casings?"
NORMAN -- "Cartridges."
BUGLIOSI -- "How many did you hear falling to the floor?"
NORMAN -- "Three."
BUGLIOSI -- "Is the sound of that bolt action, and the ejection of the cartridge casings, and their falling to the floor something that you're going to remember for the rest of your life?"
NORMAN -- "Yes sir."
BUGLIOSI -- "One more question....at any time on the morning of the assassination did you see any stranger or strangers in the Book Depository Building?"
NORMAN -- "No sir."
David Von Pein
February 2008
LINK TO ORIGINAL POST (FEBRUARY 3, 2008)
