Acoustical evidence
According to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, a
Dictabelt recording of the Dallas Police Department radio dispatch transmissions from November 22, 1963 was analyzed to "resolve questions concerning the number, timing, and origin of the shots fired in Dealey Plaza".
[112] The Committee concluded that the source of the recording was from an open microphone on the motorcycle of H.B. McLain escorting the motorcade
[113] and that
"the scientific acoustical evidence established a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy."[114]
The acoustical analysis firm hired by the Committee recommended that the Committee conduct an acoustical reconstruction of the assassination in Dealey Plaza to determine if any of the six impulse patterns on the dispatch tape were fired from the Texas School Book Depository or the grassy knoll. The reconstruction would entail firing from two locations in Dealey Plaza—the depository and the knoll—at particular target locations and recording the sounds through numerous microphones. The purpose was to determine if the sequences of impulses recorded during the reconstruction would match any of those on the dispatch tape. If so, it would be possible to determine if the impulse patterns on the dispatch tape were caused by shots fired during the assassination from shooter locations in the depository and on the knoll.
[115]
In 1978, at the behest of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, members of the Dallas Police Pistol Team participated in an acoustical reconstruction by firing both rifles and pistols from the locations selected by the researchers. During the acoustical reconstruction, the Dallas Police marksmen had no difficulty hitting the targets.
The House Select Committee's firearms experts "...testified that given the distance and angle from the sixth floor window to the location of the President's limousine, it would have been easier to use the open iron sights." The Warren Commission tests had been carried out on the assumption that Oswald, who they and the Committee concluded fired the shots, used the telescopic sight.[115]
An article which appeared in
Science & Justice, a quarterly publication of
Britain's Forensic Science Society, found there was a 96% certainty, based on analysis of audio recordings made during the assassination, that a shot was fired from "the grassy knoll" in front of and to the right of the President's limousine.
[116][117]
Medical evidence
Some assassination researchers have pointed to testimony or medical evidence suggesting that at least one of the shots fired at President Kennedy came from a location other than the Book Depository.
[118][119] Roy Kellerman, the Secret Service agent seated next to the driver in the presidential limousine, testified that he saw a 5-inch-diameter (130 mm) hole in the back right-hand side of the President's head.
[120] Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who sheltered the President with his body on the way to the hospital, said: "
The right rear portion of his head was missing."
[121] Later, in a
National Geographic Channel documentary, Hill described the wound as a "gaping hole above his right ear, about the size of my palm."
[122]
Robert McClelland,
one of the Parkland Hospital doctors who attended to Kennedy, testified to the Warren Commission that the back right part of Kennedy's head was blown out, with posterior
cerebral tissue and some
cerebellar tissue missing.
[123][124]
Some critics skeptical of the official "
single bullet theory" state that the trajectory of the bullet, which hit Kennedy above the right shoulder blade and passed through his neck (according to the autopsy), would have had to change course to pass through Connally's rib cage and wrist.
[125][126][
page needed] Kennedy's death certificate, signed by his personal physician Dr.
George Burkley, locates the bullet at the third thoracic vertebra—which some claim is too low to have exited his throat.
[127][128] Moreover, the bullet was traveling downward, since the shooter was in a sixth floor window. The autopsy descriptive sheet displays a diagram of Kennedy's body with the same low placement at the third thoracic vertebra.
[129] The hole in back of Kennedy's shirt and jacket are also claimed to support a wound too low to be consistent with the "single bullet theory".
[130][
better source needed]
[131][132][
better source needed]
On the day of the assassination,
Nellie Connally was seated in the presidential car next to her husband, Governor John Connally. In her book
From Love Field: Our Final Hours, Nellie Connally said that she believed that her husband was hit by a bullet that was separate from the two that hit Kennedy.
[133]
There is
conflicting testimony about the autopsy performed on Kennedy's body, particularly as to when the examination of his brain took place, who was present, and whether or not the photos submitted as evidence are the same as those taken during the examination.
[134] Douglas Horne, the
Assassination Record Review Board's chief analyst for military records, said he was "90 to 95% certain" that the photographs in the National Archives are not of President Kennedy's brain. Supporting Horne was Dr. Gary Aguilar who stated: "According to Horne’s findings, the second brain—which showed an exit wound in the front—allegedly replaced Kennedy's real brain—which revealed much greater damage to the rear, consistent with an exit wound and thus evidence of a shot from the front."[135]
Paul O'Connor, a
laboratory technologist who assisted in the autopsy of President Kennedy, claimed that
the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital was conducted in obedience to a high command.[136][137]
In his book
JFK and the Unspeakable,
James Douglass cites Dr. Pierre Finck’s testimony at the trial of Clay Shaw as evidence that Finck was "...a reluctant witness to the military control over the doctors' examination of the president's body".
[138][139]
Oswald's marksmanship
The Warren Commission examined the capabilities of the Carcano rifle and ammunition, as well as Oswald's military training and post-military experience, and determined that Oswald had the ability to fire three shots within a time span of 4.8 to 5.6 seconds.
[140] According to their report, an army specialist using Oswald's rifle was able to duplicate the feat and even improved on the time. The report also states that
the Army Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch test fired Oswald's rifle 47 times and found that it was "quite accurate", comparing it to the accuracy of an M-14 rifle. Also contained in the Commission report is
testimony by Marine Corps Major Eugene Anderson confirming that Oswald's military records show that he qualified as "sharpshooter" in 1956. But this is confronted with more detailed record of his shooting abilities. According to official Marine Corps records Oswald was tested in shooting, scoring 212 in December 1956 (slightly above the minimum for qualification as a sharpshooter - the intermediate category), but in May 1959 scoring only 191 (barely earning the lower designation of marksman - the lowest category of skilled shooter, but still above undesignated shooters). He never approached the highest marksmanship category in the Marine Corps - the Expert. Conspiracy theorists such as Walt Brown and authors such as
Richard H. Popkin contend that Oswald was a notoriously poor shot, his rifle was inaccurate, and that no one has ever been able to duplicate his ability to fire three shots within the time frame given by the Warren Commission.
[141][142] FBI marksman Robert Frazier who tested the rifle in two sets of tests testified to the Warren Commission that he could not reach the 5.6 second mark for firing three shots and all his shots fired five inches high and five inches to the right due to an uncorrectable deficiency in the telescopic sight.[143]