JOHN KING ["CAERULEO"] SAID:
The average ten-year-old child, without a day of medical training, can easily identify which part of a person's head is the back of the head, or the rear of the head, without the slightest possibility of being even slightly mistaken.
You are proposing an absurdity: that adults numbering in the double digits (that would be ten or more) who had years (plural) of medical training, "didn't know" the difference between the back or rear of a person's head, and the side of a person's head, and were all "mistaken" in exactly the same way when they said they saw a hole in the back of JFK's head. And it doesn't require a day of medical training.
I know perfectly well that if I saw a hole in either side of a person's head that the chances are a million to one that I'd confuse that with the rear of the head. Wouldn't you say the same of yourself? Or will you make the astonishing claim that if the hole was on the right or left side of the person's head, you'd confuse that with the back of the head?
I've never seen you make such an absurd claim before, in this newsgroup or on your blog, and I am confident that you will not make it now. Correct?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Hi Caeruleo [John],
I don't know how much plainer I can make my position -- but unless you want to argue that the autopsy pictures AND X-rays are total frauds/fakes, then you really don't have a leg to stand on regarding this "BOH" matter.
And that's because the best evidence (those autopsy pics and X-rays) just simply do not support the Parkland "BOH" witnesses--at all. It's as simple as that. They don't support them.
How anyone can look at the BEST evidence (which are those pictures and X-rays) and then try to make a cogent case for there being a wound here....
....is beyond me. There simply IS NO WOUND where those people have placed their hands. It does not exist, and never did.
Therefore, an alternative explanation for why those people thought they saw what they saw must be available. And, very likely, that explanation is this one (which is the explanation I tend to believe, although I'm still not 100% satisfied with it):
"Dr. Michael Baden has what I believe to be the answer, one whose logic is solid. [Quoting Baden] 'The head exit wound was not in the parietal-occipital area, as the Parkland doctors said. They were wrong...that's why we have autopsies, photographs, and X-rays to determine things like this. Since the thick growth of hair on Kennedy's head hadn't been shaved at Parkland, there's no way for the doctors to have seen the margins of the wound in the skin of the scalp. All they saw was blood and brain tissue adhering to the hair. And that may have been mostly in the occipital area because he was lying on his back and gravity would push his hair, blood, and brain tissue backward, so many of them probably assumed the exit wound was in the back of the head. But clearly, from the autopsy X-rays and photographs and the observations of the autopsy surgeons, the exit wound and defect was not in the occipital area. There was no defect or wound to the rear of Kennedy's head other than the entrance wound in the upper right part of the head.' " -- Pages 407 and 408 of Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History" (c.2007)
JOHN KING SAID:
David, I am sorry, I am trying to be nice, because I respect you a lot, but I am once again disappointed in your reply, and worse, I'm now starting to become annoyed as well. I've seen you do so much better than this on so many other occasions here and on your blog where you have addressed issues substantially and in great detail. I do not understand why you are doing precisely the opposite in your replies to me.
[...]
I'm starting to get the impression that you're just blowing me off, refusing to look at anything I've written, anything, after I took all the time and trouble to post those articles.
[...]
All you're doing here...is just saying I'm wrong without explaining precisely why I'm wrong. To demonstrate that I'm wrong you have to directly address something I actually said. I am still waiting for you to do that for the first time. My rebuttals to your articles were many times more substantial than yours have been to me. I actually addressed directly, and in great detail, each and every point you raised. Why can't you show me the same courtesy?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Hi again John,
Sorry for being so abrupt and short on previous occasions in this forum thread.
You did, indeed, write up multiple lengthy posts about JFK's head wounds, and I appreciate your efforts in addressing them specifically to me. My responses to you were probably too short and too abrupt. My apologies.
Upon re-reading (slowly) your first post in this thread (dated July 13, 2011), I see that you have made some good points indeed, particularly regarding the "hinged" piece of skull that is quite clear on one of JFK's autopsy X-rays. In fact, I've discussed that particular piece of "loose bone" with Robert Harris on a few occasions in the past.
And I, like you, totally disagree with Mr. Harris' theory about a second shot to JFK's head being the thing that caused that "hinged" piece of skull at the very top of the President's head.
Regardless of how much damage was done to JFK's head on 11/22/63, we can know with 100% certainty (at least I am certain of this fact) that ALL of that damage was caused by one single bullet that came from ABOVE and BEHIND President Kennedy. The evidence of only one bullet hitting JFK in the head is too overwhelming to toss aside in favor of ANY theory that a person might be willing to cling to. There's the autopsy report, the testimony of all three autopsy surgeons, and the autopsy photographs and X-rays. And all of those things corroborate each other with respect to the number of shots that struck JFK in the head. And that answer is "one".
JOHN KING SAID:
Look again at that lateral x-ray [pictured below]. The lowermost part of the piece of skull is not quite halfway down the back of the head, and the uppermost part of [it] includes a little of the top of the head. Now imagine him lying on his back and that piece falling open, still hanging onto the scalp, but otherwise not attached. And this business of it being in the upper right rear also is corroborated by several witnesses at Parkland, although they used various terminology.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yes, I suppose you could be right about this. But I'm still having a difficult time envisioning the top-of-the-head skull flap (if it was "open" when JFK was in Trauma Room 1 at Parkland Hospital) causing virtually all of the witnesses to think that the large head wound was in the BACK part of JFK's head. The orientation of WHERE that loose skull flap would have fallen, given those circumstances, just doesn't seem to add up to me.
Here's the best autopsy photo we have to illustrate the exact posture that JFK was in when the Parkland witnesses saw him in Dallas:
Now, it's possible that the President's head wounds didn't look EXACTLY like the picture above when JFK was at Parkland. And I agree with you 100% that it's quite likely that Jackie "closed up" the flap on the upper-right portion of his head, thereby possibly concealing that wound to a large extent from the Parkland observers.
I've speculated about that very thing in the past as well, theorizing that Jackie's handling of JFK's head might very well be the reason why virtually nobody at Parkland mentioned seeing the large right-front exit wound.
But if JFK's head looked anything like the above autopsy photo while he was lying in that exact same position (flat on his back) at Parkland Hospital, I'm then back to my original stance of scratching my head and wondering: How could the Parkland people say that Kennedy's large wound was in the VERY BACK of his head--or UPPER-REAR or LOWER-REAR of his head.
It seems to me that if the top "hinged" part of JFK's head had opened up, then this would have caused the Parkland witnesses to see a huge hole at the VERY TOP of his head--not the REAR of the head (or the right-rear, which is where many witnesses, Dr. McClelland for one, said it was).
So, even if the theory is correct about the top part of JFK's head "opening up" at Parkland, it appears to me that we have a very similar situation regarding the Parkland witnesses that I have brought up before -- i.e., it would seem as though those Parkland witnesses STILL would be wrong about where the actual wound really was.
Because I want to know how a big opening at the VERY TOP of Kennedy's head would equate to the Parkland people seeing a huge hole in the far-right-rear or even HIGH-right-rear portion of his head?
And if the hinged skull flap ITSELF is supposed to be the thing that is confusing the Parkland personnel (instead of the big HOLE that has now been exposed IN THE SKULL of Kennedy via this "hinged flap" theory), I'd have to ask: How did that hinged piece of skull/scalp manage to tuck itself UNDER the head of the President, in order to appear to be at the very BACK (or occipital) part of his head?
I would think that such a loose chunk of skull/scalp from the very top of his head would have fallen on the stretcher, and would not have given the appearance of being a HOLE in the BACK of his head. It would have just been lying there, somewhat flat on the stretcher (it seems to me). But maybe you have other thoughts on what exactly such a piece of loose skull or scalp would have looked like to an observer at Parkland.
But, anyway, via the autopsy photo shown above, I still find it hard to envision a scenario which would have virtually all of the Parkland witnesses somehow seeing what they think is a great-big hole in ANY portion of the VERY BACK of President Kennedy's head. Because, as I've stressed previously (and it's still true today), the autopsy photos and X-rays indicate that there was no hole in the BACK of JFK's head. It is not there. Period. And a hole in the VERY BACK of Kennedy's head IS what the vast majority of Parkland witnesses said they saw. And, I admit, that incongruity is still #1 on my list of things that just do not add up about this murder case (particularly the Bethesda "BOH" witnesses).
JOHN KING SAID:
There's no way that many medically trained adults could all be "wrong" when they say there was a hole in the back of his head.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, I disagree with you here. Because from the hard (and best) evidence that is available, it's fairly obvious to me that all of those Parkland witnesses did, indeed, get it wrong. Because there simply is no great-big hole in JFK's head in the location where those witnesses said there was a big hole.
Now, let me clarify:
I'm not saying that the Parkland witnesses were all a bunch of dumb stumps and I'm not saying that they couldn't tell the front of a person's head from the back of the head.
Although, incredibly, some researchers do seem to want to believe that all of the Parkland witnesses did, somehow, get confused and weren't able to tell the difference between the "back" and "front" and "side", merely due to the fact that JFK was lying flat on his back. Jim Moore seems to be one of those researchers -- Click Here.
But I don't agree at all with some of the things Jim Moore said in his 1990 book, "Conspiracy Of One". I think a much more reasonable answer is that the Parkland witnesses* did not mis-identify the portion of JFK's head that they thought (incorrectly) contained the massive hole, but instead they saw the large amount of blood and brain and gore "pooling" in that exact area of his head (the right-rear-occipital area), and that gore gave the false impression to those witnesses that a big HOLE was located there. When, in fact, it wasn't a deficit or hole at all. It was merely a great-big mess of blood/brain/tissue.
* But I cannot totally reconcile the Bethesda "BOH" witnesses via the above argument, so I have to put them in a different "unsolved" category. I haven't the foggiest idea why people like Custer, Riebe, etc., said they saw a big hole in the right-rear of Kennedy's head. That's a huge head-scatcher for me, that I doubt can ever be fully resolved. But there's no doubt in my mind that Custer, et al, were wrong too, because there simply is no HOLE in the head where those people claimed to have seen one.
JOHN KING SAID:
There was a hole in the back of his head.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I'll have to (strongly) disagree with you again. There is no "hole" in the BACK (i.e., "occipital") part of JFK's head, which is where those Parkland/Bethesda witnesses said they saw a "hole".
I'll admit that the fractured (or "hinged", as we've been calling it) part of the skull at the TOP of the head does extend into what we could call the BACK (or upper-back) of the head. But as I pointed out to Robert Harris in past posts, that TOP-OF-THE-HEAD wound does not corroborate or substantiate the observations of the Parkland/Bethesda witnesses, even if it was hanging down and hinged open when JFK was at Parkland Hospital. Because that top-of-the-head piece of skull is certainly not anywhere near the "occipital" area of President's Kennedy's head:
So, in the final analysis, I'd say I'm pretty much back to where I was prior to reading your lengthy post of July 13th -- i.e., I'm still of the opinion that the Parkland witnesses were incorrect when they said that President Kennedy had a large-sized hole in the back of his head.
And I still hold that opinion even if your theory is correct about the top-of-the-head skull piece being "hinged open" at Parkland. Either way, the Parkland witnesses did not correctly identify the TRUE LOCATION of the large wound they said they saw in President Kennedy's head on November 22, 1963.
Thank you for your posts, John King. You've given me additional food for "BOH" thought. But even with that additional food in my stomach, I still think the Parkland people got it wrong.
David Von Pein
July 15-16, 2011
