[SystemSafety] The Third Bullet

Heath Raftery hraftery at restech.net.au
Mon Nov 4 23:43:06 CET 2013


FWIW, this is similar to the theory in a book I read when I studied the 
event in high school. Our task was to offer an explanation, I had no 
idea, so my father handed me a book called "Mortal Error: The Shot That 
Killed JFK" by Bonar Menninger. Certainly made my essay easier to write!

Heh, now that I read the Wikipedia page I see it was based on the same 
guy's theory - ballistics expert Howard Donahue - as the documentary you 
refer to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Error:_The_Shot_That_Killed_JFK

Heath

On 4/11/2013 6:55 PM, Les Chambers wrote:
> A television show on the JFK assassination  aired in Australia last night.
>
> Synopsis:
>
> JFK: The Smoking Gun is a two-hour docudrama based on the book of the
> same name by former Australian police detective Colin McLaren. He claims
> to have spent years on “the forensic cold-case investigation of JFK’s
> assassination” and says he believes he has found “the smoking gun” that
> killed the president. His conclusion is that a Secret Service agent
> George Hickey accidentally shot and killed Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald
> did indeed shoot, but only one bullet hit Kennedy.
>
> McLaren's candidate scenario is as follows:
>
> Three shots are fired at JFK.
>
> The first one (fired by Oswald) misses, ricochets off the road and some
> shrapnel strikes the president. He is heard to say "God I've been hit."
>
> The second one (fired by Oswald) hits JFK in the back of the neck and
> passes through also striking Connolly, the governor of Texas.
>
> George Hickey in an open top  secret service escort car directly behind
> the president's vehicle unlatches the safety catch on his AR 15 assault
> rifle and stands up accidentally discharging his weapon and killing the
> president. He then falls back into his seat. This third round is a
> "frangible" round exploding inside the president's head. It is the fatal
> shot.
>
> At least four witnesses at street level claimed they smelt gun powder.
> Others testified that they saw Hickey stand up and sit down in the
> following vehicle. McLaren concludes that the third round could not have
> come from Oswald's weapon as he was too far away, too high up in the
> book depository and downwind of the witnesses (a gunpowder smell from
> his weapon would not have reached the crowd). He also deems it
> incredible that Oswald would be firing both frangible and nonfrangible
> rounds.
>
>   The rest of McLaren's supporting evidence is based on the alleged
> bizarre behaviour of the Secret Service after the assassination.
> According to McLaren they actively prevented an autopsy being carried
> out on the president and spirited his body back to Washington. The
> photographs taken both on the street and at the initial examination in
> the hospital were confiscated by the Secret Service. The president's
> brain went missing and has never been found.
>
> Is this all old news? I had not heard it before. How could it be that no
> one in the crowd saw Hickey actually discharge the weapon (one witness
> said she thinks she saw a flash "... and men firing back" - the enquiry
> did not pursue this line of investigation). It also seems incredible
> that the Secret Service would protect one of their own (as claimed by
> McLaren) after he committed such a blunder.
>
> Any comments.
>
> Cheers
>
> Les



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