Warren Commission (05 of 26): Hearings Vol. V (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (05 of 26): Hearings Vol. V (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Mr. SPECTER. Would you describe that as being a straight line?
Dr. OLIVIER. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. I now hand you a picture marked Commission Exhibit No. 850
and ask you what that represents?
Dr. OLIVIER. These are pieces of clipped goatskin, clipped very
shortly. There is still some hair on it. These were placed, these
particular ones were placed over the tissues. This would be placed over
the entrance side of the animal.
Mr. SPECTER. When you say "this," you are referring to a piece of
goatskin which is marked "enter"?
Dr. OLIVIER. Marked "enter." The one marked "exit" was placed on the far
side of the tissues and the bullet passed through that after it came
out of the tissues.
Mr. SPECTER. For the record, will you describe the characteristics,
which are shown on the goatskin at the point of entry, please?
Dr. OLIVIER. At the point of entry the wound holes through the skin
are for all purposes round. On the exit side they are more elongated,
two of them in particular are a little more elongated. The bullet had
started to become slightly unstable coming out.
Mr. SPECTER. And how about the third or lower bullet on the skin
designated exit?
Dr. OLIVIER. That hole appears as more stable than the other two. In
all three cases the bullet is still pretty stable. The gelatin blocks,
there were gelatin blocks placed behind these things too, and for all
practical purposes, the tracks through them still indicated a stable
bullet.
Mr. SPECTER. Are there any other conclusions which you would care to
add to those which you have already indicated, resulting from the tests
you have heretofore described?
Dr. OLIVIER. Well, it means that the bullet that passed through the
President's neck had lost very little of its wounding potential and
was capable of doing a great deal of damage in penetrating. I might
mention one thing showing how great its penetrating ability was. That
say on one of the gelatin shots, it went through a total, counting the
gelatin block, it went through plus the backing up blocks of gelatin,
it went through a total of 72-1/2 centimeters of gelatin, was still
traveling and buried itself in a mound of earth so it has terrific
penetrating ability. This means that had the bullet that passed through
the President's neck hit in the car or anywhere you would have seen
evidence, a good deal of evidence.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Olivier, in the regular course of your work for the
U.S. Army, do you have occasion to perform tests on animal materials
where the characteristics of those animals materials are sufficiently
similar to human bodies to make a determination of the effect of the
bullet wounds in human bodies?
Dr. OLIVIER. Yes; I do.
Mr. SPECTER. And did you have occasion to make a test on goat material
in connection with the experiments which you ran?
Dr. OLIVIER. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Are you familiar with the wounds inflicted on Governor
Connally on November 22, 1963?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account