From:
BEFORE HISTORY DIES: THE STORIES SURROUNDING THE JFK ASSASSINATION
THAT STRIPPED AMERICA OF HER INNOCENCE, by Jacob Carter
<Quote on>
Q. I have a question about the head wound you saw on President
Kennedy. I want to ask you this question in detail, because some say
that you're mistaken in the way you just described the wound in the
back of his head. Some claim because you didn't turn the President
around, you might be mistaken, because they claim there was never a
wound in the back of President Kennedy's head. Could you describe what
you said in detail or tell us if you ever looked behind his head to
confirm a wound in the back of his head?
A. Well, that's not quite true. I was standing at the back of the
head; I was standing about 18 inches above the back of his head, so I
was looking directly down into a wound in the back of his head that
was probably five or six inches in diameter. It included most of the
right part of the back of his head and a little bit of the back part
of the top of his head. It was a massive wound, and all of the brain
of that part of his head had been blown out. So, I got a very long
look at that directly over a period of five or six minutes while Dr.
Perry and Dr. Baxter were exploring the neck and putting in a
tracheotomy line.
I just stood there and looked down into that wound, so I wasn't
diverted from anything else. I just looked into that wound for around
three or four minutes before he was pronounced dead, so I have a very
vivid impression of what the wound looked like in the back of his
head.
Q. So, you have no doubt in your mind that there was a wound in the
right rear portion of President Kennedy's head?
A. Oh gosh, no more so than the sun comes up every morning. I saw that
directly as I said from a distance of maybe 18 inches above it, and
stared at that wound for five or six minutes before he was pronounced
dead.
Q. Did the other doctors see the same thing?
A. No. They weren't in the position I was in. Dr. Perry and Dr. Baxter
were working on the president's neck, doing the tracheotomy. So, they
turned all their attention towards that, not the wound at his head.
And, people who were walking around the trauma room didn't get
anything but indirect glances at the head. I had the best and most
direct view for the longest period.
Q. Now, I want to ask you about the autopsy photos of President
Kennedy. If I am correct you have viewed those photos at the national
archives?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you believe, from what you originally saw at Parkland, in
regards to the President's wounds, that the autopsy photos have been
tampered with, or do you think that they are pulling President
Kennedy's scalp up and it's hiding the wound in the back of his head?
A. That's what I thought (the latter option) because one of the
pictures shows that the back part of his head was intact, and I had
seen it blown out. But I discounted the significance of that when I
first saw that, because when I looked at that picture it looked like
the autopsy doctor had pulled a flap of scalp over that hole in his
head. I can see his thumb and forefinger in the top of the picture
pulling the scalp forward.
But then I was later told by some of the people who were at the
autopsy, that no, that had not been a flap pulled up over the wound,
but was the way it had been there showing the whole back of head
intact.
Well, I knew that wasn't right. I didn't speculate that I may be
wrong. No, I knew exactly what that wound looked like and the back of
his head was gone on the right side, five or six inches in diameter. I
didn't get a complete idea of the wound until many years later when I
saw the Zapruder film and I put that together with what I saw in
Trauma Room One and it looks to me like he was hit from the front. His
head explodes, literally, and he's thrown violently back and to the
left.
People always ask me if I saw a wound from the front; no, I did not
because I didn't get a chance to examine his body that carefully. All
I got to see was that massive hole in the back of his head, so I'm
making the assumption that there was probably a smaller hole somewhere
near the hairline of the right side of his scalp and it blew out the
right side of his skull.
Q. Is it possible for a bullet to hit someone in the right side of
their head and blow out the same side?
A. It's possible, but not probable.
Q. People argue that if President Kennedy was shot from the grassy
knoll, the left side of his head would have been blown out, and not
the right, because the entry of the bullet would have come from the
right hand side where the knoll is located. "What do you make of that
assessment?
A. No, people who say that really don't have any conception of bullet
wounds.
Q. Do you think you couldn't see the entry wound because of the damage
on his head?
A. It was bloody and there was a lot of hair, and also we didn't get a
chance to examine him closely. All we saw him was five minutes, and
all I could see was the back of his head.
Q. What do you think happened for the rear wound to be covered up in
the autopsy photos?
A. Well, I think it's only that one picture. I discounted that picture
because I thought someone was pulling the scalp over it, but someone
told me they weren't, but it sure looked like they were. I think they
were, so I was not mystified by saying it doesn't look like what I
saw. The wounds that I saw when that flap is not coveting them were
just the kind of same wounds that I had seen in Trauma Room One. That
picture where they are pulling the flap up was the only one out of
several photos, which didn't jive with what I saw.
Q. Do you think they didn't want people to see the wound in the back
of the head?
A. No. I think whenever you make a series of autopsy photos, if they
were trying to do that they wouldn't have shown any of the open wounds
that weren't covered with the flap and it was apparent that he had a
big hole in the back of his skull on the right side. I don't think
they were trying to cover it up or they wouldn't have shown those
other photos.
Q. You have been quoted as saying that you have seen the president's
autopsy photos that show a great defect in the back of his head?
A. Yes. I've seen them, and that's what I saw.
Q. Is it possible that if JFK has been shot from behind and nowhere
else, that he could have a wound like you saw in the back of his head?
A. That can happen, sure. In other words, if he was shot from above
and the bullet came down from above at about a 45 degree angle, it's
possible that that hole could have been made that way. But putting the
whole thing together, after I had seen the Zapruder film as well as
what I had seen directly, it seemed clear to me that he was shot from
the front, from the grassy knoll, because of the way his body was
thrown backward and to the left; that was consistent with my view of
the wound when I first saw it, that this was an exit rather than an
entrance wound.
<end quote>
.John
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