Single Bullet Theory - Theorized Path of The Bullet CE399

Theorized Path of The Bullet CE399

The following description assumes that bullet CE 399 hit high, at the sixth cervical vertebra rather than the third thoracic vertebra: The 6.5 millimeter, 161 grain, round nose military style full metal jacket bullet, which was manufactured by the Western Cartridge Company and later stored nearly whole in the U.S. National Archives, was first theorized by the Warren Commission to have:

• ballistically arced very slightly while traveling 189 ft (58 m) in a downward net angle of 19 degrees (allowing for the 3 degrees downward slope of Elm Street), after an initial supersonic rifle exit muzzle velocity of 1,850 to 2,000 feet per second (560 to 610 m/s), then entered President Kennedy's rear suit coat at about 1,700 feet per second (518 m/s),

• impacted, then entered President Kennedy 2 inches (51 mm) to the right of his spine, creating a wound documented size of 4 millimeters by 7 millimeters in the rear of his upper back with a red-brown to black area of skin surrounding the wound, forming what is called an abrasion collar. This abrasion collar was caused by the bullet's scraping the margins of the skin on penetration and is characteristic of a gunshot wound of entrance. This abrasion collar was photographically documented to be larger at the lower margin half of the wound, which is strong evidence that the bullet's long-axis orientation at the instant of penetration was slightly upward in relation to the plane of the skin immediately surrounding the wound; however, the skin of Kennedy's upper back slopes inward, and the Croft photo (taken at Zapruder frame 162, shortly before Kennedy was hit) shows the President slumped forward. This would suggest that a shooting position above and to the rear of Kennedy was possible

• damaged the President's first thoracic vertebra. (There is debate whether the bullet itself struck the vertebra and caused this damage, or whether a pressure cavity wave created by the bullet's passage was responsible),

• passed through his neck. Warren Exhibit CE 386 reported contusion (bruise) of the apex of the right lung in the region where it rises above the clavicle, and noted that, although the apex of the right lung and the parietal pleural membrane over it had been bruised, they were not penetrated. This is consistent with a bullet passing through the neck, immediately over the top tip of the right lung (the pressure wave causing bruising to both pleural membrane and apex of lung), but without penetrating the thoracic cavity, or the lung beneath.

• After passing through the neck, the bullet exited President Kennedy's throat, at the centerline below the President's Adam's apple. Within three hours of the assassination, this neck frontal wound was described in an afternoon press conference by the Parkland trauma room #1 emergency physician, Doctor Malcolm Perry, after he attended to the frontal throat wound, as being an "entrance wound". Doctor Perry stated the neck frontal wound "appeared to be" an entrance wound three times during his press conference. However, medical researchers have found that ER doctors frequently make mistakes with regard to entrance and exit wounds, and both Perry and Dr. Carrico, the other attending ER doctor, later testified at the Warren hearing that with a full jacketed bullet the wound in the front of the throat could have been either an entrance or exit wound; the Parkland ER doctors also never examined the wound in the back and could make no comparisons with it. Within nineteen hours of his press conference statement (but after the autopsy had already been completed), Doctor Perry also described via telephone to Doctor Humes, one of the three U.S. Navy Bethesda Hospital military autopsists, that the neck front wound was originally only "3 to 5 millimeters" in circular width before doctor Perry attended to the front throat wound (Humes documented Perry's "3 to 5 millimeters" wound size by writing it down during the phone conversation),

• passed through both sides of his shirt collar-front in alignment with the collar button buttoned, about 7/8 inch below the center top collar button and collar button hole, in line with the throat wound, and with the threads in both bullet-slits forced outward, showing this to be an exit wound,

• nicked President Kennedy's tie-knot on its upper left side. Upon clearing the tie-knot the bullet had slowed to about 1,500 feet per second (457 m/s) and had started to tumble,

• traveled the 25.5 inches (650 mm) between President Kennedy and Governor Connally,

• impacted and entered Connally's back just below and behind his right armpit creating an 8 millimeter by 15 millimeter elliptical wound, indicating that bullet was fired from an acute angle to the entrance wound point, or that the bullet was tumbling, having hit something (presumably Kennedy); according to Connally, the impact of the bullet was very forceful. In terms of the physics of this impact, this means that the bullet imparted part of its momentum to Connally's body and therefore the bullet's momentum changed (in speed or direction or both) upon entering his body;

• completely destroyed 127 millimeters (5 in) of Connally's fifth right rib bone as it smashed through his chest interior at a documented 10-degree anatomically downward angle, (post-operative x-rays document that some of the metal fragments remained in Connally's wrist for life and were buried with him many years later. There were no fragments seen in any chest x-rays)

• exited slightly below his right nipple, creating a 50 millimeter, sucking-air, blowout chest wound,

• passed through Connally's shirt and suit coat front, seen in commission photos five inches (127 mm) to the right of the suit coat right lapel, and even with the lowest point of the right lapel,

• slowed to 900 feet per second (274 m/s) (subsonic), and entered through Connally's right upper (outside) wrist, but missed his suit coat sleeve. It penetrated the doubled French cuff shirt sleeve at the wrist area but did not penetrate the cuff on exit (in 2003 Nellie Connally described in her book “From Love Field” that Connally's right hand solid-gold “Mexican peso” cufflink was struck with a bullet, and the cufflink was completely shot off during the attack. This is not evident from the physical appearance of the shirt which bears no mark, tear or hole at the cufflink area. Connally’s cufflink was apparently never found — thus never entered — into the assassination evidence),

• broke his right radius wrist bone at its widest point, depositing metal fragments, (post-operative x-rays document that some of the metal fragments are still buried with him),

• exited the palm (inner) side of Connally's wrist,

• slowed to 400 feet per second (122 m/s) and entered the front side of his left thigh, creating a documented 10-millimeter nearly round wound,

• buried itself shallowly into Connally's left thigh muscles,

• then fell out at Parkland Hospital, perhaps when Connally was undressed,

• landed on Connally's gurney,

• was discovered by hospital engineer Darrell C. Tomlinson on one of two gurneys on the ground floor of the hospital. Although Tomlinson testified to the Warren Commission in 1964 that he was not sure on whose gurney he found the bullet, he has gone on record independent of the Warren Report, stating that he found the bullet on the gurney next to the one that transported Connally to an operating room table on the second floor of the hospital.

Regarding the bullet that he remembered impacting his back, Connally stated, "...the most curious discovery of all took place when they rolled me off the stretcher and onto the examining table. A metal object fell to the floor, with a click no louder than a wedding band. The nurse picked it up and slipped it into her pocket. It was the bullet from my body, the one that passed through my back, chest, and wrist, and worked itself loose from my thigh." Connally does not say how he determined this object to have been a bullet, rather than his missing gold cufflink.

The Warren Commission's "single bullet," according to all documentation:

• had no thread striations (fine lines etched onto a copper encased bullet tip and/or bullet side casing by clothing threads when the bullet first penetrates clothing threads),

• was marked with no blood,

• was marked with no human tissue,

• had no pieces of clothing attached,

• had lost 1.5% of its original average weight,

• had a composition that was consistent with the composition of the metal fragments recovered from Connally (see section on neutron activation analysis).

This "single bullet," which was full metal jacketed and specifically designed to pass through the human body, was deformed and not in a pristine state as some detractors claim. Though a side view seems to show no visible damage, a view from the end of the bullet shows a significant flattening which occurred when, according to the theory, the bullet struck Connally's wrist, butt end first. The metallurgical composition of the bullet fragments in the wrist was compared to the composition of the samples taken from the base of CE 399.

Several of the same type 6.5 millimeter test bullets were test-fired by the Warren Commission investigators. The test bullet that most matched the slight side flattening and nearly pristine, still rounded impact tip of CE 399 was a bullet that had only been fired into a long tube containing a thick layer of cotton. Later tests show that such bullets survive intact when fired into solid wood and multiple layers of skin and ballistic gel, as well.

CE 399 is stored out of the public's view in the National Archives and Records Administration, though numerous pictures of the bullet are available on the NARA website.

Ballistics experts have performed test shots through animal flesh and bones with cloth covering. Under the assumption of an adjusted relative position of President Kennedy and Governor Connally within the car, some, but not all, of the Warren Commission ballistics experts considered it possible that the same bullet that passed through the President's neck may have caused all of the governor's wounds. The Warren Commission as a whole wrote that it was persuaded that the President's neck wound and all of the governor's wounds were caused by a single bullet, although three of the seven members, Sen. Richard Russell, Rep. Hale Boggs, and Sen. John Cooper, have stated that they did not support the theory because it did not fit the evidence.