To: All 2/22/94 From: Joe Riley Re: Contradiction in HSCA Forensics Panel Report Please note: this file, "HSCACON.TXT", was uploaded with an associated figure, "HSCACON.GIF". The figure includes: A. HSCA interpretation of F8. (Sketch provided by Robert Artwohl, M.D. -- the figure is for general orientation and should not be overinterpreted). B. HSCA's drawing of the skull damage and associated skull fragments; note that the skull fragments are not drawn at the same scale as the skull. C. Diagrammatic representation of the general orientation of triangular fragment in HSCA interpretation and Dr. Angel's interpretation. The point is not the exact location but that the HSCA interpretation requires that the triangular fragment be parietal bone. D. Dr. Angel's drawings with graphic enhancement to emphasize triangular fragment. This note addresses a major contradiction in the report of the HSCA Forensics Panel (referred to subsequently as Panel). The topic is technical, but what emerges is simple enough: the Panel contradicts its own evidence in its description of the exit wound. This note addresses a single contradiction involving the triangular skull fragment. There are, I believe, a number of other contradictions, but the number does not matter. The contradiction in the Panel's description of the triangular fragment is sufficient to make the Panel's analysis invalid. The Panel locates the exit wound on the frontal right-hand side of the head at the level of the coronal suture, just above pterion (Fig. 1A, 1B). The evidence supporting this location, as it is interpreted by the Panel, is as follows: First, the exit wound itself is a semi-circular defect in the skull; the margins of this defect are beveled outward . Both the shape and beveling of the defect are consistent with an exit wound. Accepting this defect as an exit wound, the question is, where is this defect located? Second, the defect is clearly defined in a series of autopsy photographs, collectively referred to as the Group 5 photographs (see Fig. 1A). The location of the exit wound depends, then, on how the Panel interprets the Group 5 photographs. Third, the Panel examined X-rays and photographs of recovered skull fragments. A large triangular fragment was examined at the time of autopsy; one tip of the triangular piece indicated outward beveling and metallic fragments were seen in the X-rays at this location. In addition, one edge of the triangular fragment was along the coronal suture. Both the prosectors and the Panel believed that this tip formed part of the exit defect. A second (larger) fragment, the "Harper" fragment, was not available at autopsy. The Panel report states that the Harper fragment completes the exit wound. There is a contradiction in the Panel's description of the exit wound and the Panel's interpretation of the triangular fragment . This fragment was described by Dr. Angel as "clearly frontal" [and for good reason ], the Panel accepts that the coronal suture is located along one edge of the fragment, and at no point does the Panel record any objection to the characterization of the triangular piece as frontal bone. However, if the posterior edge of the triangular fragment is coronal suture (as it is in Dr. Angel's diagram), the Panel's interpretation of F8 is invalid, since the frontal bone must be intact in the Panel's interpretation of F8. The Panel's resolution of this conflict is indefensible and inexcusable: in order to preserve it's interpretation of F8, the Panel report "flips" over the triangular piece and makes it parietal bone (see Fig. 1C). The characteristics that led Dr. Angel to characterize it as "clearly frontal" are convincing, but if that were not enough, there simply isn't enough space for the triangular piece to fit into the parietal area; more disturbing, however, there is no rationale given in the report nor acknowledgment that the triangular fragment is now interpreted as parietal bone. The conclusion is simple: the Panel's analysis of the exit wound is invalid and depends upon a systematic misrepresentation of the Panel's own data. That the conclusions of the panel are invalid does not, by itself, provide the final answer to how John Kennedy was killed.