In a message dated 12/9/2009 2:13:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, a person interested in the JFK case wrote this to me via e-mail:
The big question for me is: How did the pristine bullet pierce so many layers of clothing and flesh, bone, etc. and emerge so clean? If someone can answer this then I will be sure Oswald is the killer.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
That question is one that nobody can really answer with 100% certainty. But one thing is a certainty: CE399 is a bullet that was fired in Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle, and it is a bullet that was found inside the hospital where the two limo victims (JFK and John Connally) were taken on 11/22/63.*
* Notwithstanding, of course, the continual claims by conspiracy theorists of bullet-planting or substituting with respect to Commission Exhibit 399. But please do consider this important fact: Both the Warren Commission AND the HSCA (comprised chiefly of lawyers) had no problem at all accepting CE399 as the bullet that went through the bodies of both Kennedy and Connally.
Shouldn't the above fact carry at least SOME weight with conspiracy theorists when it comes to the subject of: IS CE399 A LEGITIMATE BULLET IN THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION?
Or do most conspiracy theorists actually and truly believe that BOTH the Warren Commission AND the House Select Committee on Assassinations (which existed 14 years apart from one another) were so evil and so corrupt (or were just plain stupid, in unison) that each of those official agencies would accept the very important piece of physical evidence known as CE399 as a REAL PIECE of evidence, even though (according to many conspiracy theorists) that bullet never touched even one of the victims on November 22, 1963?
That's food for CE399 thought...isn't it?
Let me add one more thing regarding Bullet CE399 and its "clean" status (this being a quote from lawyer and author Vincent Bugliosi):
"One can only wonder why Commission Exhibit No. 399 did not have any blood residuum on it. My only guess is that the blood traces that must have been on it were removed by someone early on at the...crime lab or elsewhere almost as a matter of course. In all the evidence bullets I handled in court in murder cases during my prosecutorial career, none had any visible blood on them.
[...]
Interestingly, [the FBI's Robert] Frazier testified that with respect to the two main bullet fragments found in the presidential limousine [CE567 and CE569], "there was a very slight residue of blood or some other material adhering, but it did not interfere with the examination. It was wiped off to clean up the bullet for examination"." -- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 425 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)(c.2007)
For an examination of other aspects of CE399 and the Single-Bullet Theory,
go HERE and HERE.
Regards,
David Von Pein
December 9, 2009
