Kennedy’s limousine

Superimposed here, on the official drawing of President Kennedy’s Dealey Plaza limousine, is my diagram of the single bullet that went through Kennedy’s neck and Governor Connally’s torso and wrist.

It lines up.

In putting this together, I noticed a few things about how far Connally was sitting from his door. The most important observation is that it appears the governor was about 6 inches from the door, and that put him in the bullet’s path.

A few JFK assassination debates have focused on whether Connally’s seat really was 6 inches inboard. The critics of the single-bullet explanation have pointed to this Warren Commission drawing because it shows Connally’s seat to be just 2.5 inches from the door.

Kennedy snug right. The 2.5 inches from the door appears to be correct. But then two other factors enter the calculations. First, a slight outward taper of the limo interior at Kennedy’s right thigh (because Kennedy had no thick door to his right) put Kennedy’s seat another .5 to 1 inch to Connally’s right. And secondly, unlike Kennedy, Connally was not sitting on the far right edge of his seat. Seated a little to the left, Connally’s torso was about 6 or 6.5 inches to the left of Kennedy’s torso.

The Warren Commission drawing -- the one I've used as the basis for today's illustration -- may have confused some students of the assassination. The original did not show the figures of Kennedy and Connally -- only their empty seats.

Note: Lee Oswald’s non-fatal shot came from a 21-degree downward angle from the rear, relative to flat ground (subtract a 3-degree downward street slope for the angle relative to the car) and from about 7.5 degrees to the rear right, relative to the car's side (as viewed directly from above). The positions align for the single bullet.

The bullet that killed Kennedy was fired 4 seconds later.

Frank Warner

Comments

[Joseph]

I still believe that the angle in the diagram is wrong Frank. Never forget that Dr. Robert Roeder Shaw, Professor of thoracic surgery at the University of Texas Medical School who was Connally's surgeon that day used a medical caliper to measure the angle of the Govenor's back wound. He computed it as 25 degrees downward from the horizontal. Since JFk's wound was 21 degrees it lead him to conclude, "I think it's hard to say the first bullet hit both of these men almost simultaneously." He instead believed that the shot was fired from the opposite side of the building, the southwestern side not the southeastern "Oswald window." This is confirmed by the Warren Commission testimony of Arnold Rowland who stated that he saw a man in that very window with a rifle similar to a 30.06 with a large scope, nothing like a Mannlicher-Carcano. Rowland was a hunter with excellent eyesight. Robert J. Groden. a photographic expert obtained a previously cropped photo of the Tom Dillard press car photograph taken of the sixth floor seconds after the shooting. An enhancement does show a man in that southwestern window. How strange that this man has never come forward even if only to prove the WC Oswald lone-gunman conclusion. I don't believe that any diagram will disprove the testimony of actual witnesses and medical personnel present that terrible day in Dalls.

[George]

"He computed it as 25 degrees downward from the horizontal. Since JFk's wound was 21 degrees it lead him to conclude, 'I think it's hard to say the first bullet hit both of these men almost simultaneously.'"

I think that's a B.S. conclusion as it assumes JFK and Connally were sitting at the exact same angle and that the bullet was not deflected as it passed through JFK.

I would say that the data do not support such a conclusion. Nice try but I don't buy it for one second.

[Samantha]

"He computed it as 25 degrees downward from the horizontal. Since JFk's wound was 21 degrees it lead him to conclude, 'I think it's hard to say the first bullet hit both of these men almost simultaneously.'"-Exactly said.