Kennedy assassination forensic investigation
The forensic investigation of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, which occurred on November 22, 1963, involved extensive examination of evidence to determine the circumstances surrounding this pivotal event in American history. Following the assassination, forensic scientists played crucial roles, particularly during the autopsy and in analyzing the bullet trajectories. The investigation led to the identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the prime suspect, with forensic evidence linking him to the murder weapon and establishing his presence at the Texas School Book Depository on the day of the assassination. Despite the initial conclusions of the Warren Commission, which suggested Oswald acted alone, numerous forensic errors and unanswered questions fueled ongoing debates about potential conspiracies involving various groups. The investigation faced jurisdictional challenges, as no federal laws specifically addressed presidential assassinations at that time. Over the decades, public interest in the case has resulted in numerous analyses, documentaries, and the gradual release of related documents, keeping the discussion alive about the motivations and methods behind the assassination. As of 2023, a significant majority of the documents related to the case are available to the public, allowing continued exploration of this complex historical event.
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Kennedy assassination forensic investigation
THE EVENT: The law-enforcement investigation that followed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy reached conclusions that have continued to be disputed.
DATE: November 22, 1963
SIGNIFICANCE: Forensic scientists played important roles in the investigation of this high-profile crime, particularly in the autopsy and in the determination of the trajectories of the bullets fired.
On November 22, 1963, a presidential motorcade set out from Dallas’s Love Field. Inside the lead limousine, an open vehicle, were Texas governor John Connally, and his wife, Nellie, seated on jump seats. Directly behind them was President John F. Kennedy, seated to the right of his wife, Jacqueline. The motorcade headed toward the Texas Trade Mart, where the president was scheduled to speak at 12:30 P.M. As Kennedy’s car approached Dealey Plaza, cheering crowds strained to see the president and those accompanying him. The motorcade, traveling at eleven miles per hour, was about five minutes from its destination. It turned down Elm Street. To the left was Dealey Plaza, and across Elm Street to the right was the Texas School Book Depository, a seven-story brick building. People inside the building lined the windows to view the spectacle below. Crowds filled the grassy knoll beside the Depository.
Three shots—according to most witnesses—were suddenly heard. The president clutched his throat, and his head jerked backward. Jacqueline Kennedy jumped onto the trunk of the limousine, apparently to retrieve a large portion of the president’s skull that had been blown off. The motorcade sped to nearby Parkland Hospital, where valiant attempts were made to revive Kennedy, whose brain was shattered. He was officially declared dead at 1:00 P.M.
The first priority of the law-enforcement authorities was to determine who shot the president. Witnesses reported seeing someone in a window on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository and seeing that person fire a weapon. One witness, Howard Brennan, provided detailed information about the person standing at the sixth-floor window.
Jurisdictional concerns muddied the investigative process. Although Congress later enacted legislation making presidential assassinations federal offenses, no such law existed in 1963, so the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) could a in the case only on the charge of assault, which carried a five-year maximum penalty. cases fell under the purview of local law-enforcement agencies, in this case, the Dallas Department.
A suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, a twenty-four-year-old former Marine who had lived in Russia and who worked in the School Book Depository, was seen on the sixth floor of the building at the time of the assassination. Three spent bullet casings were found near the window at which he was seen, and a 6.5-millimeter Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, later identified as the murder weapon, was found nearby.
One forensic scientist determined that Oswald’s palm prints were on boxes on the sixth floor and were also on the barrel of the murder weapon. The large brown bag in which Oswald carried the rifle into the Depository and part of the rifle itself had small cloth fragments on them that matched the clothes Oswald was wearing when he was arrested.
Oswald was held and questioned extensively from November 22 until November 24. He never admitted killing the president or killing police officer J. D. Tippit, who had recognized Oswald from descriptions broadcast immediately after the assassination. When Tippit tried to apprehend him, it was alleged, Oswald killed Tippit with a traceable to him.
Following questioning on November 24, Oswald was being returned to jail. As he was escorted through a crowd of reporters and police officers toward the vehicle that was to transport him, Jack Ruby, a petty mobster with connections to organized crime, lunged from the crowd and shot Oswald once in the abdomen. Oswald, told that he was dying, was urged to confess, but he refused. He was rushed to Parkland Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 1:00 P.M.
Application of Forensic Science
Investigators determined that Oswald had purchased the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that killed Kennedy on March 12, 1963, from a Los Angeles mail-order company; six weeks earlier, he had bought from the same company the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver that was used to kill Tippit. Both purchases were made in the name of A. Hidell, and both were shipped to a post office box rented in Oswald’s name. Handwriting analyses confirmed that the orders submitted in the name of A. Hidell were in Oswald’s handwriting.
Questions soon arose concerning whether Oswald acted alone in killing the president or whether he (and possibly Jack Ruby) was part of a conspiracy, perhaps related to or even to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Forensic psychologists examined possible motivations for Kennedy’s assassination, focusing on political considerations related to such dissident factions as the Mafia, enclaves of Cuban refugees, and others who might wish Kennedy dead.
President Lyndon B. Johnson established a seven-member commission to investigate the assassination. The commission, headed by Earl Warren, chief justice of the United States, studied the forensic on the trajectories of the bullets fired in the assassination and declared that they had entered Kennedy’s body from the back. In its formal report, the Warren Commission conjectured that one of the bullets had ripped through Kennedy and then entered Connally’s body, passing through his back, chest, right wrist, and right thigh, and that a third bullet had gone astray, striking no one in the motorcade.
The Warren Commission dismissed some forensic evidence that suggested that at least one bullet had entered Kennedy’s body from the front. Witnesses who had been on the grassy knoll near the School Book Depository claimed that one shot came not from the sixth-floor window of the building but from the grassy knoll. They insisted that they had heard a shot and smelled gun smoke. The Warren Commission declared this invalid and dismissed it. Had this testimony been accepted, a conspiracy theory would have replaced the lone-assassin theory the commission espoused.
When Oswald died, the case against him was strictly circumstantial, although seemingly airtight. Still, so many loose ends remained and so many forensic errors were later detected that the conspiracy theory persisted. In 1979, a committee of the House of Representatives that investigated the assassination concluded that Oswald probably had not acted alone but was part of a conspiracy. In 1998, however, a congressional review board invalidated the 1979 finding and concluded that Oswald had acted alone. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, essays, documentaries, and other media have further illustrated the continued debate over the method and motive of the assassination. By 2023, 99 percent of the documents relating to the assassination had been released to the public.
Bibliography
Fuhrman, Mark. A Simple Act of Murder: November 22, 1963. William Morrow, 2006.
Holland, Max, editor. The Kennedy Assassination Tapes. Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
"JFK Assassination Records." National Archives, 4 Apr. 2024, www.archives.gov/research/jfk. Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.
Kurtz, Michael L. The JFK Assassination Debates: Lone Gunman Versus Conspiracy. U of Kansas P, 2006.
Lane, Mark. Rush to Judgment: A Critique of the Warren Commission’s Inquiry into the Murders of John F. Kennedy, Officer J. D. Tippit, and Lee Harvey Oswald. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966.
Netzley, Patricia D. The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New Discovery Books, 1994.
"November 22, 1963: Death of the President." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/november-22-1963-death-of-the-president. Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.
Palamara, Vince. JFK: From Parkland to Bethesda; The Ultimate Kennedy Assassination Compendium. Trine Day, 2015.
President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 1964. St. Martin’s Press, 1992.
Semple, Robert B., editor. Four Days in November: The Original Coverage of the John F. Kennedy Assassination by the Staff of The New York Times. St. Martin’s Press, 2003.
Wallenfeldt, Jeff. "Assassination of John F. Kennedy". Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 Oct. 2024, www.britannica.com/event/assassination-of-John-F-Kennedy. Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.