NARRATOR: In broad daylight,
in front of hundreds of witnesses,
a president is murdered.
An act of horrific violence.
JIM LEHRER: Oh, my God, is he really dead?
I mean, who did this?
NARRATOR: Within hours, a suspect is arrested:
Lee Harvey Oswald.
But two days later, he himself is killed.
MAN: Came out of nowhere.
That was really the origin of a lot of conspiracy thinking.
Somebody's trying to silence him.
NARRATOR: Since that time, millions of Americans have been convinced
that the assassination was not the work of one man,
but a conspiracy.
Can modern forensic science and ballistics crack the case?
MAN: Oh good, we got a good trace.
NARRATOR: Now for the first time,
using state-of-the-art technology...
MAN: I'm interested in the distance
from the knoll to, say, the headshot.
NARRATOR: ...NOVA brings together a team of experts to analyze the gun,
the bullets,
the crime scene...
Two shooters in the plaza.
NARRATOR: ...and the medical evidence.
Physical evidence doesn't lie.
NARRATOR: "Cold Case JFK,"
right now on NOVA.
Major funding for NOVA is provided by the following:
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
And by contributions to your PBS station from:
Additional funding from:
NARRATOR: In the New Mexico desert,
firearms experts tackle an old case
that has never really gone cold...
the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
In 1964, one investigation found there was no conspiracy.
15 years later, a second investigation said there was.
Now, NOVA asks, could more sophisticated forensic science
provide new insights and uncover the truth about JFK's murder?
These men believe it can.
For two years, they've been working
to reconstruct the Kennedy shooting.
They're convinced that ballistics is the key
to cracking the case.
59.5
LUKE HAAG: The JFK case is the classic shooting reconstruction case.
55.
It's probably the most historic case in the last century.
NARRATOR: Luke Haag has been a forensic scientist for 47 years.
His specialty is firearms.
50...
NARRATOR: Working with Luke Haag
is another experienced ballistics expert
who also happens to be Luke's son:
Mike Haag.
MIKE HAAG: Let's go ahead and do one of the vertical angle shots.
We've got a nice area of the barrel right here
that's cylindrical...
MIKE HAAG: My dad is in this business,
and I grew up even in grade school going out
and helping him with case work and research involving firearms.
NARRATOR: Mike Haag is an investigator
with the Albuquerque Police Crime Lab.
He also teaches shooting reconstruction
all over the world.
Do a handgun shot as well...
MIKE HAAG: This part of the class, we're looking at multiple
different calibers of types of bullets going into cars.
The Kennedy assassination is unfortunately not as easy.
NARRATOR: It might seem that
reconstructing the Kennedy shooting,
which happened in broad daylight, should be simple.
JOSIAH THOMPSON: There were hundreds of spectators there,
some 30 people taking photographs,
over 50 law enforcement people in Dealey Plaza.
You would think it would be
the easiest case in the world to solve.
NARRATOR: Among the witnesses is a dress manufacturer
with an eight-millimeter movie camera:
Abraham Zapruder.
He shoots 26 seconds that have become
the most studied home movie in history.
JOSIAH THOMPSON: He keeps the limousine right in frame
through the whole thing,
as shots are fired, bullets are flying,
people are hitting the ground all around him.
Doesn't faze him.
STEPHEN FAGIN: Ultimately, the film becomes
the crucial piece of visual evidence
in the assassination investigation.
NARRATOR: Yet despite all the evidence and witnesses,
the JFK case continues to fuel speculation and debate.
ROBERT BLAKEY: The Kennedy assassination is a lot like a Rorschach test.
If you look at the evidence-- the test--
and you give me a statement about the assassination,
it really tells me more about you
than it does about what happened.
FAGIN: Everything about the assassination
which points to Lee Harvey Oswald,
I can share with you an alternative explanation
which speaks to the possibility of a conspiracy.
LUKE HAAG: The controversies that swirl and develop--
I think there's over a thousand books and articles.
Not a single one of them, to my knowledge,
is written by someone who deals with shooting
and shooting reconstructions.
NARRATOR: So now Luke and Mike Haag
are focusing on the gun, bullets, and crime scene
to try and reconstruct one of the most notorious crimes
of the 20th century.
It happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963, a Friday.
I remember where I was.
I was with my future wife, coming out of a music class.
A fellow who was on staff at the high school came in and said,
"They've shot Kennedy."
I was in kindergarten,
and I remember my teacher burst into the room crying.
A woman ran out of the record store near the corner and said,
"The president's been shot."
I didn't believe it.
I was with Bobby Kennedy the day of the assassination
in a meeting, and we broke for lunch.
I was at Love Field, and I...
Immediately after I got to the city desk,
I called home to talk to my wife,
and I said to her, "Let's get out of this place!"
I was on the left running board of the follow up car
immediately behind the presidential vehicle.
(on radio): The president's car is now turning onto Elm Street
and it will be only a manner of minutes before he arrives...
HILL: All of a sudden,
I heard an explosive noise over my right shoulder,
and I saw the president grabbed at his throat,
and I knew something was wrong.
I jumped off the running board of the follow up car
and ran toward the presidential vehicle.
As I was running, they tell me there was another shot.
I didn't hear it.
Just as I was approaching the president's car,
there was a third shot.
It hit the president in the head.
And then it exploded out the right side of his head.
Blood and brain matter and bone fragments
sprayed out across the people in the car,
across the trunk, myself, and Mrs. Kennedy.
Pulled myself up on the rear of the car,
and Mrs. Kennedy came out on the trunk.
She didn't even know I was there.
She wasn't reaching for me; she was reaching for something
that came off the president's head.
I grabbed her and I put her in the back seat
and I screamed at the driver to get us to a hospital.
NARRATOR: At 80 miles an hour, with Clint Hill sprawled across the trunk,
they head for Parkland Hospital.
CLINT HILL: The president's head was in Mrs. Kennedy's lap.
And she wouldn't let go.
She didn't want anybody to see the condition he was in
because it was horrible.
And so I took off my suit coat.
I covered up his head and his upper back,
and when I did that, she let go.
And we rushed him into the emergency room.
JOHN McADAMS: The Dallas doctors try to save him,
but it was a hopeless case.
There was simply no possibility.
He'd lost too much brain matter.
NARRATOR: Texas Governor John Connally is also wounded.
He will recover.
Back at the crime scene,
witnesses point to the Texas School Book Depository.
As police search the building,
a TV news cameraman shoots this footage.
FAGIN: Deputy Sherriff Luke Mooney
within about 45 minutes of the shooting
discovered three empty rifle cartridges.
NARRATOR: The fired cartridge cases
can be tested and linked to a specific gun.
The cartridge case holds the bullet, gunpowder, and a primer.
When the firing pin strikes the primer,
it creates a spark, igniting the powder,
which accelerates the bullet through the barrel.
After the bullet leaves,
the empty cartridge case is ejected from the gun
so the next cartridge can be loaded.
The process of loading, firing, and ejecting
marks the cartridge case with tiny scratches and gouges
that can be seen under a microscope.
Markings similar to these can prove the three empty cartridge
cases were fired by a rifle also found on the sixth floor.
FAGIN: And it was only about ten minutes later
that the rifle location was found--
a Mannlicher-Carcano wedged between two stacks of boxes.
NARRATOR: The Mannlicher-Carcano, or Carcano,
is an Italian rifle made during World War II.
The serial number shows this gun was ordered through the mail
from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago by A. Hidell,
an alias used by Lee Harvey Oswald.
The Carcano is a military rifle:
something that might be popular with gun collectors,
but is almost never seen by homicide detectives.
LUKE HAAG: In the United States,
shootings then, shootings now,
don't involve military, high-velocity rifles
with hard military bullets.
Robert Frazier, the FBI examiner,
in his testimony said he'd never seen a 6.5 Carcano.
They had no ammunition for this kind of gun
in their reference collection.
This is the FBI!
NARRATOR: Might this highly unusual rifle have characteristics
that can shed light on the Kennedy case?
Luke and Mike Haag acquire one of these rifles for testing.
This is the 6.5 millimeter Carcano.
"Car-cuh-no" is the proper pronunciation,
although most Americans say "Car-can-oh."
It's a mechanically operated bolt action rifle.
It has an offset, inexpensive telescopic sight.
NARRATOR: It's clear that for anyone planning an assassination,
the Klein's ad offered far better guns--
a rifle with a much easier lever action...
(gunshots)
...an American military gun
that could shoot eight bullets without stopping...
(gunshots)
...and a small, lightweight carbine
that could fire 30 rounds
as fast as the shooter could pull the trigger.
(rapid gunfire)
By comparison, the bolt-action Carcano is slow and clumsy.
So why would any assassin choose the Carcano?
LUKE HAAG: It's a matter of price.
This was basically a little less than $13 for the rifle,
and a little more than seven dollars for the scope.
And as far as the awkwardness of it, practice.
NARRATOR: As they test the Carcano, Luke Haag discovers
the bullet may be even more unusual than the rifle itself.
So how do you feel about where the crosshairs were?
NARRATOR: Unlike civilian bullets, it's made with a full metal jacket--
a hard copper shell that surrounds a soft lead core.
LUKE HAAG: Here are four typical military bullets
from the first and second World War.
They're all full metal jacketed bullets.
NARRATOR: They're also pointed.
The Carcano is basically a cylinder.
The cylindrical shape,
with straight sides and no taper or sharp point,
affects how the bullet interacts with the rifling,
spiral ridges in the wall of the barrel
that spin the bullet for stability.
Pointed bullets have much less surface area
contacting the barrel,
so they tend to be less stable as they exit the gun.
LUKE HAAG: They're only gripped by the gun barrel
back at the very end of the bullet.
This allows the rest of the bullet
to do just a little bit of wiggle
as it's going up the barrel and as it emerges from the barrel.
The Carcano bullet,
the rifling begins grabbing it clear up here at the nose.
That's uncommon.
I've never seen any other,
even other 6.5 rifles that do this.
NARRATOR: In 1963, little was known about the Carcano rifle
and its unique ammunition.
But within hours of Kennedy's death,
Dallas police have arrested the man who owns it:
Lee Harvey Oswald.
As reporters swarm in, Dallas homicide cops
keep working the biggest case of their lives.
LUKE HAAG: They had recovered the firearm,
cartridge cases, Oswald's fingerprints.
They had the case sewed up in an excellent way
within two days of the incident.
I give them high marks.
Physical evidence is the main thing that we're relying upon.
I figure we have sufficient evidence to convict him.
JOHN McADAMS: The key evidence,
essentially all of it would have been admissible at trial.
NARRATOR: Police are also learning more about Lee Harvey Oswald.
An ex-Marine with a security clearance,
he's a Communist
who lived more than two years in the Soviet Union,
raising the terrifying question of Russian involvement.
JIM LEHRER: Was he put up to this by the Russians?
As a nation, we would have to take retribution.
We would have to fire back if they killed our president.
NARRATOR: Sunday morning, less than 48 hours since Kennedy's death,
Dallas police start transferring Oswald to county jail.
(gunshot)
ANNOUNCER: He's been shot!
Lee Oswald has been shot!
There's a man with a gun.
It's absolute panic, absolute panic.
There's no question about it, Oswald has been shot.
NARRATOR: On live television, Oswald is shot and killed by Jack Ruby,
a strip club owner with a long arrest record.
JOSIAH THOMPSON: An assassination that came out of nowhere,
that had no explanation, now gets weirder and weirder.
NARRATOR: Now there will be no trial, no answers to the questions:
Did Oswald kill Kennedy?
Did he have help?
Did Jack Ruby silence him as part of a conspiracy?
JEFFERSON MORLEY: Pollsters go into the field, and within a week,
60% of respondents are saying
more than one person was responsible.
JIM LEHRER: There is no question that Ruby killing Oswald
raised, big time, the possibility of a conspiracy.
JOHN McADAMS: Policy makers were very, very sensitive
to talk about a Communist conspiracy,
because it had very important and very dangerous
foreign policy implications.
NARRATOR: Five days later, now President Lyndon Johnson
announces that a commission
headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren will investigate.
BLAKEY: We're looking back at it now
as if all they had to do was just do fact finding.
That's not true.
The need that led to the Warren Commission
was not to find out what happened,
but to assure the American people what didn't happen.
NARRATOR: The Warren Commission will spend ten months investigating.
But before they even start,
some of the most critical evidence
in the crime of the century has been lost forever.
The problem begins at Parkland Hospital
when John Kennedy is pronounced dead.
Dr. Earl Rose, Dallas County Medical Examiner,
is required by law to perform an autopsy.
Well, that was not what we wanted to hear.
We were going to take the president's body
back to Washington.
McADAMS: It doesn't exactly come to blows,
but there's almost the implicit threat
that the Secret Service people
will pull their guns if they have to.
HILL: In the end, they accepted the fact that
that's what was going to happen and did happen.
NARRATOR: They take the body to Air Force One.
HILL: We, the agents who brought the president there to Dallas,
alive, vital, energetic,
and now we're carrying his body in a casket
in the presence of his now widow,
it was very traumatic.
Quite emotional.
LEHRER: Those Secret Service guys were just beside themselves,
you know, trying their best
to be cool and calm and professional.
To lose a president, good God!
There's nothing worse for a Secret Service agent.
NARRATOR: They take the body to Air Force One.
Then, when it seems like nothing else could go wrong
for the Secret Service agents, something does.
HILL: With the handles on,
the casket was too wide to go through the doorway.
NARRATOR: As Jacqueline Kennedy waits, they break off the handles.
Returning to Washington,
again the subject of an autopsy is raised.
THOMPSON: In a bullet murder,
there is no area of evidence more important than the autopsy.
You can infer the trajectory of the bullets.
So the autopsy in the Kennedy assassination
is absolutely critical.
NARRATOR: But the autopsy decision
is made by the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
JOHN McADAMS: The whole Kennedy entourage does not understand the distinction
between just an autopsy and a forensic autopsy.
Kennedy was a Navy man,
so the autopsy's gonna be done at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
A couple of ordinary hospital pathologists
are assigned to do the autopsy.
Meanwhile, nobody asks
whether James Humes and J. Thornton Boswell,
the two hospital pathologists,
are in any way qualified to do this autopsy.
They weren't.
VINCENT DI MAIO: These people were not forensic pathologists.
They knew they weren't forensic pathologists.
But they were military people and they were ordered
to the autopsy, so they had to do it.
NARRATOR: Friday evening, Kennedy's autopsy begins.
They start with X-rays,
which reveal bullet fragments in the brain.
It's also clear that Kennedy had a tracheotomy in the ER
to insert a breathing tube.
But the pathologists don't realize
there's a wound there as well.
They did not know that the tracheostomy,
which they saw, had obscured a wound in the throat.
NARRATOR: Then they find a bullet hole in his back,
which quickly becomes a problem.
McADAMS: They had what was clearly an entrance wound in the back,
and they couldn't account for the bullet.
THOMPSON: The doctors are in a quandary
because they got a bullet hole in Kennedy's back,
they do total body x-rays, there's no bullet in the body.
So if a bullet hit Kennedy in the back, where did it go?
NARRATOR: But the doctors aren't shown crucial evidence
that would reveal where the bullet went.
DI MAIO: The clothing had been taken away by the police.
Well, examination of the clothing is part of the autopsy.
It's very important to know.
NARRATOR: Kennedy's shirt collar and tie show a bullet exited his throat,
but doctors don't know that.
Then, they learn a bullet
has been found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital,
so doctors assume it worked its way out of the body
during cardiac massage.
With that, they conclude the autopsy
and the body is taken to lie in state.
Now the doctors must write their report
without access to the body, x-rays, or photos.
DI MAIO: This is crazy!
I mean, these guys saw the wound.
Why can't they see the photos?
And they saw the x-rays only once.
NARRATOR: After speaking with the Dallas ER doctors,
they conclude Kennedy was hit by two shots
fired from behind and above.
One went through his neck, the other shattered his skull.
McADAMS: So the bottom line is
Kennedy did not have the kind of autopsy he should have had.
NARRATOR: Because proper measurements and documentation were not done,
the Kennedy autopsy
will fuel controversy and debate for decades.
But there is another body of evidence still to be dissected,
one that allows the murder to be analyzed
a fraction of a second at a time:
Abraham Zapruder's home movie.
NARRATOR: Testing Zapruder's camera, the FBI learns a crucial detail.
JOSIAH THOMPSON: The Zapruder film chops time up into 18ths of a second.
So you have snapshots every 18th of a second.
NARRATOR: Investigators will use the film to establish a timeline.
The majority of witnesses heard three shots.
The first bullet evidently missed,
and has never been found.
Most agree the fatal head wound was the third and final shot:
Zapruder frame #313.
The earliest sign of trouble is at frame 225,
when the car emerges from behind the sign.
JOHN McADAMS: Kennedy has clearly been hit at Zapruder frame 225.
Connally's not showing obvious pain
until the 235, 236, 237 range.
NARRATOR: Rewinding to before the sign, neither man appears hit.
So clearly, both are shot somewhere between frame 210,
when they disappear, and frame 240,
a time span of 30 frames.
So you've got 30 Zapruder frames, that's all you've got.
And you've got two guys to wound.
NARRATOR: 30 frames is 1.6 seconds.
THOMPSON: But now, whoops,
the FBI tested the rifle, it can't be fired that fast.
It can only...
you need 2.3 seconds to fire it twice.
There's not enough time for a single gunman
to fire two shots during that timeframe.
NARRATOR: So if a single gunman could not wound both men
during that 30-frame interval,
there must have been two shooters-- a conspiracy.
MORLEY: Then, if that were true, you had a hell of a problem.
It was much more convenient
to have one man, one lone nut, was responsible.
NARRATOR: To explain how one shooter could wound both men in 1.6 seconds,
Arlen Spector, a lawyer for the Warren Commission,
concludes Kennedy and Connally were shot by the same bullet.
JOSIAH THOMPSON: The Single Bullet Theory:
an enormous Achilles' heel
in the whole Warren Commission reconstruction.
The theory says a bullet hit Kennedy in the back,
exited his throat, went on to hit Connally,
exited the chest,
hit Connally in the wrist, breaking the radius bone,
and then buried itself very shallowly in his left thigh.
The single bullet theory has traditionally been
maybe the single most controversial thing
that the Warren Commission came up with.
One of the most important people
who didn't believe the single bullet theory
was Governor Connally.
NARRATOR: Connally and his wife Nellie
disagree with the timing of the theory.
MORLEY: Connally said,
"The first bullet hit Kennedy and the second bullet hit me."
And his wife Nellie said the same thing.
NARRATOR: In the film,
Connally does appear to react later than Kennedy,
as if they were not hit by the same shot.
MORLEY: For the single bullet theory to be true,
Governor Connally had to be wrong.
And Connally was completely unequivocal.
"That is not what happened."
And Connally was an experienced hunter;
he was a man who knew his way around a gun.
NARRATOR: Skeptics also point to the condition of the bullet
found on Connally's stretcher.
MORLEY: That bullet was almost pristine.
And that's what's called the magic bullet.
NARRATOR: This is the Carcano bullet the Warren Commission said
caused seven separate wounds in Kennedy and Connally.
McADAMS: People who see the supposed single bullet
will look at it and say,
"It couldn't possibly have inflicted seven wounds,
because it ought to be more damaged than that."
LUKE HAAG: How on earth can a rifle bullet go through two people
and look essentially undamaged?
NARRATOR: Now Luke and Mike Haag are conducting experiments
using a Carcano rifle
to evaluate the single bullet theory.
The first experiment is a test
of the stability and penetrating power of the Carcano bullet.
Could it pass through Kennedy, Connally's torso,
then Connally's wrist, and into his thigh?
And if so, what condition would it be in?
Mike Haag will test fire one round
into one of the oldest ballistic test materials.
LUKE HAAG: Pine boards.
By setting up a group of boards,
you can learn a number of things:
Does the bullet deflect?
Is it going to deviate?
And once it deviates,
is it now going to snap or break or deform?
And then, of course, how deep does it go?
NARRATOR: They'll use a timing device called a chronograph
and Doppler radar to measure the speed of the bullet,
as well as high-speed video.
Gun's going hot, range is hot.
Five, four, three, two, one!
(gunshot)
Range is safe.
Velocity 2,089, ten feet beyond the muzzle.
NARRATOR: The instruments show the bullet is traveling
just under 2,100 feet per second as it leaves the gun--
almost twice the speed of sound.
High-speed video, recording 20,000 frames per second,
shows the Carcano bullet is perfectly straight and stable
as it hits the target.
Nice round hole.
Okay, we can see our entry hole.
The wood's intact.
Nothing coming out the back side.
Let's start from the back.
Now we've got something in here.
Clearly feel they're bound together
where we've got that stress crack across the top.
So we're at exactly three feet.
NARRATOR: The bullet has penetrated 36 inches.
But what condition is it in?
HAAG: The nose of this bullet is undeformed;
it's still perfectly round.
This sort of simple demonstration or experiment
shows us a number of things.
That this bullet is a very hard, very stable bullet;
it's just plowed through three feet of pine boards.
These bullets are capable
of passing through two human beings.
NARRATOR: But this test only shows the bullet in one medium-- wood.
In the single bullet theory,
it passes through multiple materials:
Kennedy's neck, then air, then Connally.
So the next step is to recreate what happens
when a Carcano bullet hits human tissue.
It's basically a splash.
We're basically a bag of water.
If you throw a rock into the water, the water parts.
So does muscle tissue to high-velocity bullets.
NARRATOR: To learn how muscle tissue parts
when penetrated by a Carcano bullet,
they'll use two different tissue simulants:
ballistic gelatin and ballistic soap.
Both have the same density and resistance to penetration
as human muscle, but they behave differently
when struck by a bullet.
LUKE HAAG: We're looking at
a temporary cavity in gelatin that opens up, then collapses.
NARRATOR: But ballistic soap freezes the moment in time,
preserving the wound cavity.
HAAG: That temporary cavity is formed
by the splash, by the plow of the bullet through,
but it stays there.
NARRATOR: The pine boards have already shown
that a Carcano bullet can easily go straight through two people.
But the single bullet theory is all about what it does
after it emerges from Kennedy's neck.
Does it remain intact?
Is it deflected?
What happens to its velocity?
How fast was it going?
That's important to know,
what kind of damage can we expect it to do
to another gunshot victim, such as Connally, or to the car.
NARRATOR: In these three feet-- the space between Kennedy and Connally--
lie the answers that prove or disprove
the single bullet theory.
They'll start with the soap.
HAAG: It's very similar to Neutrogena,
that clear amber soap that you can see through.
This has the same density and same resistivity to penetration
as muscle tissue.
I've also put this cloth on here,
so we can see a phenomenon called bullet wipe.
Range is hot.
HAAG: Five, four, three, two, one...
First thing to notice
is this cloth with the bullet hole in it.
The dark ring you see around there
is a phenomenon known to forensic scientists
as bullet wipe.
It's the smudgy material on the surface of a bullet
that literally wipes off
as it pushes through the first surface it encounters.
This is important because it tells you direction:
this is an entry.
There is bullet wipe around the small, round hole
in Kennedy's coat.
Okay, I've removed the cloth and the skin simulant.
Here we have something different.
We have a representative of the temporary cavity,
that the tissue would have been hurled out, propelled out,
but in a real person, or in tissue or gelatin,
it'd collapse back.
This is the exit, and we can see
it's very little different in size than the entry.
Okay, I've sectioned this lengthwise
along the wound track.
And the noticeable things are that it's perfectly straight.
NARRATOR: But near the exit, the wound path gets wider.
Something's happening to the bullet.
This is the entrance.
The bullet stays stable, stable, stable, nose forward.
Over here's the exit, and it's just starting to yaw.
NARRATOR: Yaw means the bullet is changing its orientation in flight.
It's still moving in a straight line,
but it's starting to tumble.
High-speed video shows the bullet beginning to yaw
after it emerges from the soap.
Now they try a shot through gelatin.
Five,
four, three, two, one...
The wound path opens up, then collapses.
And just like firing through soap, the bullet goes into yaw.
Another yawing, tumbling moment.
LUKE HAAG: It's almost in perfect yaw.
Maybe an 80 instead of 90.
NARRATOR: Behind the target is a witness panel,
a piece of quarter-inch sheetrock.
It's three feet beyond the soap,
the same position Connally was in, three feet beyond Kennedy.
The witness panel records the bullet's orientation
after exiting Kennedy's neck.
We've got an intact bullet.
It's not deformed.
We can see the profile of it--
there's the nose, there's the heel or the base--
but it's going sideways.
Here's an actual fired Carcano bullet,
and we can see it's almost perfectly in profile.
Connally's coat has this kind of a hole in it.
NARRATOR: And so does Connally's back, according to his surgeon.
In test after test, the Carcano bullet
moves straight through tissue simulant,
but tumbles when it reenters the air.
LUKE HAAG: Time after time,
the instant this bullet is back out into the atmosphere,
it goes into yaw.
That was a real surprise.
I can't explain it,
but from a science standpoint, it's repeatable.
NARRATOR: A bullet hitting sideways has much more resistance,
which helps explain Connally's wounds.
HAAG: Just like holding your hand
out the window of a car going 90 miles an hour,
so you feel a lot of resistance;
if you put your hand like that, you feel very little.
So when the bullet hits Connally,
it's now going sideways and it does a lot of damage.
NARRATOR: The sideways bullet has a bigger profile and is slowing down.
That makes it easy for it to break bones
without much damage to itself.
And, in fact, the stretcher bullet is damaged.
McADAMS: If you look at it end-on, it's mashed very considerably.
It's actually in an oval shape, not round.
So it has suffered some damage.
NARRATOR: And it's exactly the type of damage a bullet would get
from hitting sideways.
Operating on Connally's wrist, doctors found bits of lead.
Luke Haag thinks the soft lead was squeezed
out of the bullet's hard copper jacket
like toothpaste from a tube, because it was going sideways.
A soda can filled with soft plastic illustrates.
If I put forces on this this way and keep it straight,
it's strong.
If I put force on it like this...
now it's going sideways.
Some of the lead gets squeezed out.
Because now the bullet's sideways when it hits hard bone,
some of this breaks off.
NARRATOR: A straight line through JFK's neck,
elliptical holes in Connally's back and coat
with no bullet wipe,
bits of lead in the wrist, a bullet noticeably flattened,
with lead bulging out the bottom,
and tests showing the Carcano bullet
consistently turns sideways.
To Luke Haag, the single bullet theory adds up.
HAAG: There's no reason not to conclude
that the single bullet theory as proposed by Arlen Specter
is the correct one.
NARRATOR: But there's another Warren conclusion
some find hard to accept:
that the fatal head shot, the third shot,
entered from the rear.
It will take 12 years for this controversy to erupt,
because the public has never seen
the Zapruder film in motion until March 1975.
Because this is very heavy.
It's the film shot
by the Dallas dress manufacturer,
Abraham Zapruder...
NARRATOR: When they're shown the film in motion, viewers are stunned
to see the direction Kennedy moves when he's hit in the head.
GERALDO RIVERA: And now, at the bottom of the screen, the head shot.
That's the shot that blew off his head.
And as you can see clearly,
the head is thrown violently backwards.
Kennedy goes backwards like this.
Back and to the left.
He's thrown backwards and to the left.
If he's hit by a bullet from behind,
why would his head go in the direction
that the shot came from?
It seems more likely that he was driven backwards
by a bullet from the front.
But the Warren Commission had been telling us all along
he got hit in the back of the head.
That convinced a lot of people there had to be a conspiracy,
because they assumed he was thrown back and to the left
by a shot from the right front.
MORLEY: If there was a shot from the front,
then there were clearly two gunmen,
and there was some kind of conspiracy.
And that tidal wave of public concern and anger, really,
eventuated in the formation of the House Select Committee.
NARRATOR: In 1976, the House Select Committee on Assassinations
begins investigating the murders
of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
Three years later, many of their conclusions agree
with the Warren Commission:
Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots;
the first probably missed,
the second hit Kennedy and Connally,
the third-- the head shot-- killed Kennedy.
But there is one major difference,
and it's a bombshell.
The House Select Committee finds there were two gunmen;
there was a conspiracy.
The evidence for this startling conclusion
is audio recordings from a police motorcycle.
Some say the recordings indicate a fourth shot.
But they've been controversial from the beginning.
Experts disagree about what's on the recordings.
And the analysis of them has been roundly criticized.
In 1982, the National Academy of Sciences
examined the acoustic evidence.
McADAMS: They concluded, no,
these conclusions are simply invalid.
MORLEY: And so the acoustic evidence,
while I find it very interesting,
I would say it's not decisive.
NARRATOR: But controversial recordings aside,
what did witnesses actually hear?
A fair number of witnesses said the shots came
from the Depository
and a fair number from the direction of the grassy knoll.
NARRATOR: The grassy knoll is a slight rise
on the northwest side of Dealey Plaza.
If there were a gunman here,
that could explain a shot from the right front.
But many witnesses simply weren't sure
where the shots came from.
McADAMS: A fair number of people,
when asked where the shots came from,
said there was no way to tell,
there was too much reverberation.
(gunshots, shouting)
NARRATOR: The Kennedy assassination is just one example
of the difficulty of pinpointing gunshots.
Locating where shots are coming from is hard for anyone,
even trained soldiers.
Especially in urban environments.
MICHAEL HARGATHER: It's a major problem for our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan
to be able to understand where shooters are
in these urban environments.
Multiple buildings, multiple locations
that the shock waves reverberate off of
can give us multiple sound signatures.
NARRATOR: At New Mexico Tech, Professor Michael Hargather studies
shock waves caused by explosions.
Using a special high-speed camera,
extremely bright focused light and a reflective screen,
his team takes pictures of sound.
HARGATHER: We can literally photograph the invisible:
small density differences within the air.
What we're going to see here with the shadowgraph system is
we're going to see a line
that is the shadow cast by that shockwave.
Down...
HARGATHER: That line represents the interface
between the unshocked ambient air
and then what we call the shocked air
behind that shock wave.
HARGATHER: John, you ready?
Ready!
Camera's ready.
NARRATOR: Photographing a high-speed rifle bullet
reveals two different shock waves.
One, V-shaped, is created by the bullet traveling faster
than the speed of sound,
the other by the gases that propel it.
HARGATHER: There's really multiple pieces to this event.
The bullet, we can talk about it being supersonic
as it exits the gun,
because it's traveling faster than the speed of sound.
And the burning of the gunpowder,
that produces what we call a muzzle blast.
NARRATOR: So, with a supersonic rifle bullet, like the Carcano,
an observer can hear two sounds: the crack of the bullet passing
followed by the blast of the gun that fired it.
Like so.
All bouncing and echoing between the buildings in Dealey Plaza.
HARGATHER: In a complicated geometry, like Dealey Plaza in Dallas,
you could get multiple shock reflections in that geometry.
And so someone could hear multiple sounds
from a single shot.
NARRATOR: But regardless of what people heard,
was a shot from the grassy knoll even possible?
To hit Kennedy from the right front,
possibly explaining why he moved back and to the left,
what trajectory would the bullet have had to take?
In 1963,
the Warren Commission had to calculate trajectories manually.
Today, investigators have a different tool:
3D laser scanning.
TONY GRISSIM: What the laser scanner does is it spins around
and it makes millions and millions of laser measurements
that are very, very accurate.
And the result is it greatly enhances
the data collection process at a crime scene.
Say I want to do a high-res scan here
on the sixth-floor window...
NARRATOR: Laser scan specialist Tony Grissim
is working with ballistics expert Mike Haag
to create a 3D virtual model of Dealey Plaza.
The laser system is going to put a laser
up into the mirror system, which directs it
at a 90-degree angle over to this enclosed cube.
And then when the laser rotates around the scene,
you're able to come away with 360 degrees of data.
NARRATOR: The first step is to scan from multiple points in the plaza,
including the sixth floor of the Book Depository.
MIKE HAAG: When I first started in this business,
if you went into a typical crime scene, you might walk out
having used your tape measure, your roller wheel.
And it was inevitable that you would realize later
that you missed a measurement.
Do we know the camber of the road?
Do we know how high the curb was?
Did you take it?
I didn't take it. Did you?
It's all in the computer.
We've done a panoramic scan already;
now we're going to do what's called a detailed scan
just of the actual window.
NARRATOR: Processing such a huge amount of data will take weeks.
When it's done, all of Dealey Plaza--
every building, window, streetlamp and tree--
exists in a computer, accurate to an eighth of an inch.
Mike, can we go and take a vantage point
looking at the grassy knoll and pick some points
and look at distances and trajectory from there
to the limousine location when the headshot actually occurred?
The 3D laser scan data allows me to look at any shot I want to,
including the grassy knoll shot,
the shots from the sixth floor, missed shots, anything.
NARRATOR: It's all about angles and distances.
I'm interested in the distance from the knoll
to, say, the headshot and the knoll to the neck shot.
NARRATOR: Mike Haag wants to evaluate a grassy knoll trajectory.
Maybe right about behind that tree, around in there.
Could we also see
what the vertical angle would be, the downward angle.
So, from the top of the stockade fence, for example,
to the president's head.
McCORMICK: Sure.
MIKE HAAG: If it came from the knoll,
we're looking at about 105 feet. That's correct.
NARRATOR: When the distances and angles are all calculated,
the answer is clear.
MIKE HAAG: So 105 feet,
-4 degrees downward if we define horizontal as zero.
NARRATOR: In the 3D virtual Dealey Plaza,
a trajectory from the grassy knoll to Kennedy is possible.
MIKE HAAG: The distances are certainly within realm
of a typical firearm,
but you would have to have had an entrance wound
in the front right area of the president's head.
NARRATOR: Clearly the right side of Kennedy's head
is terribly injured; his skull is shattered.
But is this devastating damage an entrance wound?
The only way to know for sure
would be to examine Kennedy's skull.
Since that's impossible,
a team at the Boston University School of Medicine
will instead try to virtually reconstruct
Kennedy's head wound.
Greg Mahoney is a forensic artist;
James Pokines, a forensic anthropologist.
Leading the team is Peter Cummings,
a pathologist who specializes in gunshot wounds to the head.
What I typically do with a gunshot wound to the head case
is I'll try to reconstruct the skull
by taking the fragments and putting them back
into the place where they belong anatomically.
NARRATOR: Several fragments of Kennedy's skull were recovered,
from his scalp, the limousine and Dealey Plaza.
To see if there's any sign of a shot from the grassy knoll,
the team tries to piece together the fragments.
Cummings hopes that reconstructing the skull
will show whether or not
there's an entry wound in the right front.
When the process is complete,
the team sees only evidence of a rear entry wound.
Everything I've seen is consistent
with a relatively simple scenario.
Bullet enters here and comes out roughly in this area.
I don't know where the exit wound is.
There's not a discrete exit point.
NARRATOR: But this is only an experiment,
using publicly available copies of autopsy photos and X-rays.
To learn more, Cummings goes to the National Archives,
where the high-quality originals and Kennedy's clothing are kept.
The Kennedy family has granted him access on NOVA's behalf,
but no cameras are allowed.
CUMMINGS: It was a real honor.
It's something that I grew up with.
As a boy, seeing the Zapruder film was one of the things
that really fueled my interest in doing forensics.
This was John F. Kennedy and I was handling his clothing.
Even though I went there for a very specific reason,
a scientific reason,
certainly that moment wasn't lost on me.
The photographs themselves are crystal clear.
The sharpness is amazing.
You can get a lot of detail from them.
Much better than anything you can find
that's publicly available.
NARRATOR: Even so, they're not perfect.
A photo intended to document the entry point is unclear,
because for whatever reason,
the autopsy doctors did not shave the head wound.
The brain yields more information.
This is a drawing of President Kennedy's brain
that was done for one of the investigative committees.
We see the wound track that extends from the occipital pole,
the back of the brain, the back tip of the brain,
all the way up through the front of the brain.
NARRATOR: A shot from the grassy knoll would have exited
through the left side of Kennedy's brain
but that is largely undamaged.
Moving on to an X-ray of Kennedy's skull,
multiple fractures are evident.
To Cummings, the pattern of fracture lines is a clue
to the bullet's direction.
CUMMINGS: As the bullet impacts the skull,
the fracture lines will radiate off from that point of impact.
As that's happening,
the head is also expanding
from this incredible pressure wave
that's occurring inside the head.
NARRATOR: In tests at the Biophysics Laboratory,
an Army research center, Carcano bullets were fired
into human skulls filled with ballistic gelatin.
First, the impact of a bullet entering from the rear
causes fractures to radiate forward.
But almost at the same instant,
a pressure wave inside the gelatin causes a second wave
of fractures in a perpendicular direction,
just like what Cummings sees on the Kennedy X-ray.
So you have these long fractures that'll radiate out
from an entry wound and then you have these concentric fractures
that happen perpendicular to the original fracture lines.
NARRATOR: If Kennedy had been shot from the grassy knoll,
the primary fracture lines would radiate backwards
from the front.
But the X-ray shows the opposite:
they radiate forward from the rear.
Based on this fracture pattern in the skull,
I think we can definitively say no.
There was no shot from the side or from the front.
NARRATOR: But there is one lingering mystery:
where exactly was the entry wound?
For 50 years, confusion over its precise location
has fueled controversy.
The autopsy doctors said it was low.
The House Committee put it four inches higher.
One scientist thinks the autopsy doctors were right.
Larry Sturdivan is an expert in wound ballistics.
He worked at the Army's Biophysics Lab
where the skull tests were done.
Sturdivan thinks the House Committee assumed
there must be a straight line from the bullet's entry to exit,
in order to line up with the sixth floor window.
STURDIVAN: Probably the reason that they developed
the higher impact point was simply to explain the fact
that that sort of line could line up
with the schoolbook depository window.
I don't know why they assumed
that it had to make a straight path.
NARRATOR: But in the test at the Biophysics Lab,
Carcano bullets did not follow a straight path inside the skull,
because they were deformed on impact.
STURDIVAN: The bone is hard enough
and strong enough and dense enough to deform the bullet.
When it destabilizes, it begins to yaw.
As soon as it begins to yaw,
it develops a lift force like an airplane wing.
And it will inevitably take a curved path.
NARRATOR: This is consistent with the physical evidence.
The bullet that hit Kennedy's head fragmented,
leaving pieces in the brain and in the car.
Sturdivan thinks the pressure wave created by the bullet
inside the brain also explains Kennedy's movement backward.
STURDIVAN: The tissue inside the skull
was being moved around.
It caused a massive amount of nerve stimulation
to go down his spine.
Every nerve in his body was stimulated.
Now, since the back muscles are stronger
than the abdominal muscles,
that meant that Kennedy arched dramatically backwards.
NARRATOR: After 50 years, one of the most witnessed murders in history
is still discussed and debated.
Science can explain some things:
how a relatively intact Carcano bullet could wound two men
and how a shot from behind
could cause Kennedy's backward movement.
But when it comes to the Kennedy assassination,
there are some explanations science cannot provide.
McADAMS: History doesn't always make sense.
Here's a nothing person
who brought down the leader of the free world.
LEHRER: In a few seconds,
one guy gets off three rounds-- chook, chook, chook.
Changes the course of history forever.
NARRATOR: No experiments can show why someone would take a rifle
to a high window and pull the trigger.
But they can show it's probable that Lee Harvey Oswald did
and that his shots alone killed President John F. Kennedy.
The essence of good forensic science
is to look at what are the competing explanations
of an event.
And if you can rule out that which is impossible,
that which remains-- however seemingly improbable--
is the truth.
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