The Point Radio: Reelz Reveals New Evidence On The JFK Murder

This time of year, Americans are reminded of one of the most tragic events in our history – the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A new documentary on The Reelz Channel brings to light an older book that may have surprisingly new evidence to reveal. Plus your favorite new indy comic is probably sold out already, and we go behind the scenes of he new SyFy series, NAKED VEGAS (no, it isn’t about that!) THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

The Point Radio Hey I'm Mike Raub. The JFK assassination still fascinates us to this day. And now, a book from the 90s and a new TV special bring to the light some information that may have finally cracked the case. Plus, your favorite new comic probably just sold out. And are you ready for Naked Vegas? Let's get to The Point.

This is The Point, The Point Radio, get The Point Radio. Back in 1992, author Bonner Mettinger wrote a book about the Kennedy assassination. The book was called Mortal Error, the shot that killed Kennedy. And it brought to light some new information based on facts he'd gathered at the time. Now those facts are being brought to light in a brand new special on the Reels channel called JFK, The Smoking Gun.

And I talked to Bonner about his book, which at the time he wrote it was about an assassination that was almost three decades old. What prompted him to dig into such a cold case? Well, my book chronicles an investigation that had been conducted over a 20 year period by a ballistic expert in Baltimore by the name of Howard Donahue. He'd begun looking at this in 1967 and I hooked up with him in 1989. And he had methodically, painstakingly focused on the ballistic evidence over that period of time.

And then I came in and so we put it together. But it was still, it's kind of a timeless thing. I mean, there's just as much curiosity and doubt and speculation surrounding the assassination today as there was when we did this work back in the late 80s. Not only a time pass since the assassination, but there'd also been tons of urban myths that have pretty much tainted the trail. Was that a problem?

There's no question that the assassination really almost from the start has been surrounded in all manner of speculation, conjecture, misinformation, outright fabrication. So it's enormously convoluted story at this point. And what this individual, this ballistic expert did, Howard Donahue, was to try to cut through that and focus exclusively on the ballistic and medical evidence in developing his theory. And to the extent that people can approach this with an open mind and kind of just turn off everything they've heard for the last 40, 50 years and approach this with new eyes, I think they'll be surprised at what they can learn. So exactly what did his research on Earth?

Donahue, as I said, focused on the ballistic evidence. And there's really, there was three problems with the headshot, in his opinion. A shot from Oswald's location, 60 feet above Elm Street, 235 feet from where Kennedy was hit, would have come from right to left and down at a 16 degree angle. Yet the trajectory through Kennedy's head was not right to left, but left to right. And at a very shallow, almost flat plane, remember he was hit right about at the cowlick and it blew out the parietal bone, the upper right portion of the skull.

His head was turned slightly to the left and tilted forward. But that trajectory had to have been coming from behind him in the left, not from Oswald's location. If Oswald had fired that shot, the exit wound should have been in his cheek, face, somewhere in the front of his head, but that was not the case. So that's problem number one. Problem number two, the entrance wound on the back of Kennedy's skull was six millimeters in diameter.

Lee Harvey Oswald was firing a bullet that was 6.5 millimeters in diameter. Pathologists will tell you that a bullet always makes a hole in the skull slightly larger than its diameter. So if that measurement is correct and we have no reason to think it isn't, it would have been impossible for Oswald to fire that shot. The bullet wouldn't have passed through the entrance hole. And then finally, and probably most importantly, the bullet that Oswald fired was a 6.5 millimeter full metal jacket bullet.

That means it has a thick metal jacket around it. It's designed not to fragment. It's designed to penetrate buildings, to penetrate cleanly through an individual in keeping with the Geneva Convention requirements. So it doesn't break up. If it does, it breaks up into a couple of big fragments.

In contrast, though, the bullet that hit Kennedy in the skull ruptured and fragmented into more than 40 minute lead and copper jacket material fragments. It was described as a lead snowstorm on the X-ray. And that particular performance is, as I say, completely inconsistent with a Carcano rifle, but completely consistent with an AR-15-223 rifle. So based on that evidence, based on eyewitness testimony, based on a number of other factors, Donahue came to the conclusion that that final headshot could not have been fired by Oswald and was instead fired accidentally by a Secret Service agent who was sitting up on the trunk deck of the left rear seat of the follow-up car attempting to return fire on Oswald's position, lost his balance, picked up an AR-15 rifle.

And that weapon tragically accidentally discharged, and that was the shot that struck Kennedy in the head. If the story is true, how would the public react to this back in the 60s? Publicizing this event in 1963 would have done nobody any good. You can understand their perspective. Oswald was trying to kill him.

And the fact that there had been a tragic accident, number one, it would forever taint the Secret Service. It would certainly destroy the life of this particular agent. And perhaps most importantly, from the Kennedy family perspective, it just was not the way that Jack Kennedy should die. I mean, you know, it's one thing that he's a martyr cut down in his prime. It's another that he was the victim of a terrible accident.

And that's just you can see where the Kennedy family logically would want to suppress that fact. But, you know, over the years, there's just been so much speculation about a government on the grassy knoll. And before I hooked up with Donahue and knew much about ballistics and guns, you know, I would have been inclined to believe that. But the more you study the evidence and look at the witness statements and understand what guns can and cannot do, every bullet is like a tiny missile.

And it's got to go in a straight line from the place, from the point that it's fired to the point that it impacts. And there's just no indication based on any of the medical or ballistic evidence that there was a shot from the knoll. And furthermore, you know, I mean, keep in mind, this is 100 feet away. Where's the exit wound on the on the left side of Kennedy's head if there was a shot from that place? Again, this giant wound on his head that couldn't have been an entrance wound.

That's an exit wound. You know, entrance wounds are small. Exit wounds are large. And then there was, you know, dozens of people swarmed to the knoll within a minute of the shooting. So it's very difficult to see how a government up there could have gotten away.

So you put it all together and you try to cut through all the clutter and misinformation and confusion. And really, this is the only explanation that is consistent with the evidence in our opinion. It makes you wonder, assuming that last shot had not been fired, could President Kennedy have survived? You know, he was hit through the through the neck and it grazed his spinal column. He had Addison's disease, which would have complicated his recovery.

But I think the consensus is that if he would have lived, he would have probably been a paraplegic and may have been in a vegetative state. But the odds for infection because of that Addison's disease would have been considerably higher. So, you know, the fact that the bullet went through his trachea, there's a good chance that he would have died anyway. And so, you know, in that respect, maybe this was kind of a terrible blessing. Who's to say?

But I guess we won't know, you know. Bonner's book, Mortal Error, The Shot That Killed JFK is available on Amazon. But the JFK special, The Smoking Gun, runs all this month on Reels. Check your cable listings or get a schedule right now at reels.com. Let's lay it all out. Here's the latest in pop culture.

Comedy Central fans should be glad to know that some of their favorite series are going to be back for more. Brickleberry has been given a third season. Key and Peel, which is averaging almost two million viewers on their Wednesday night slot, got a fourth season OK from the network and Drunk History also will be back for season two on the network all next year. With stuff that's been on the air like Scrubs and Cougar Town, more than likely you're a fan of the work of Bill Lawrence.

And now TBS has a new Bill Lawrence series it's starting and they're giving you a chance to sneak preview it as well. The show is called Ground Floor and it'll be available online on the TBS website starting on Thursday the 7th. It'll continue to be free online until Thursday the 14th when it will launch with two back to back episodes on the network. Thursday night at 10 p.m. Eastern. If you keep a track of books that are already sold out some even though they just hit the stores a few days ago.

Well here's an update for you. Imagine Agents from Boom Studios sold out their first issue. Look for a second printing on that one. Ash and the Army of Darkness which is Steve Niles new book for Dynamite sold out actually before it hit the stores. It landed in there this week and you should expect a second printing there as well.

Sex Criminals number two from Matt Fraction. Rat Queens number two. Both those sold out as well. And again look for second printing soon. Talk to your retailer to be sure you get them.

Looks like Christopher McQuarrie will be involved in writing and directing a live action adaptation of the classic outer space anime Starblazers. At least that's according to report this week from Deadline. You might recall that Christopher won an Oscar for writing the usual suspects. And also has been working on directing on films like The Way of the Gun and Jack Reacher among others. Meanwhile the Starblazers project has been languishing around for years now since the 1990s.

And at one point even was involved as a possible project from Disney. In a move a lot of insiders said was no real surprise DC Comics is leaving the Big Apple and heading west. They'll be concentrating to move their offices out to Burbank California sometime around 2015. And of course that puts them close to their parent company Warner Brothers which in the world of corporate synchronicity all seems to work. From a historic perceptive it is a big move after decades in the city.

Marvel Comics will remain as the only comic publisher from the major big two remaining in New York City. And while they are also owned by a California based company there's no plans at this point for Marvel to make the move west anytime soon. Well don't get too excited about saying goodbye to how I met your mother just yet there may be a spin-off. Now before you get all upset about this keep in mind it will not involve any of the current characters. In fact other than new characters being introduced on the current series there will be no connection between the two.

The show will be similar in tone this time with a female lead looking for the love of her life. No word yet on whether this is official or certainly in no news on any casting for the project. Naked Vegas is sci-fi's newest original reality show and despite that title it's actually based on the art of body painting. Showrunner Terrence Michael told me that in the span of the show we'll get to see the whole process of the art. Yes this show is very much a process show although you know it's where the show isn't really to teach people how to body paint.

We definitely are are explaining things along the way you know this is how you get this color this is how you do shading. This is this is how you achieve this effect. The show very much is about there's a huge challenge and a huge optical and how the hell are they going to do that and make it out of paint. So what sort of types will be explored? Yeah we're going to see a lot of optical illusion where you know the based on where the audience is standing they're going to not see the models painted. We're going to see some some more hardcore sci-fi comic geek stuff like cosplay like steampunk.

Those both add a lot of props and attachments so they're not just dealing with the body paint in those in those events. You know we obviously have some big events we have the Jabbawockeez so we're dealing with people that have to be painted but also have to not advance. With Penn and Teller they the challenge was that they had to paint contortionist and you know many contortionists have never been body painted before so. They're taking their clothes off and having to paint. And then there's some more like scientific type too where they have to be super exact.

You know there's a celebrity chef called Pellegrino. She was on Top Chef and Bobby Flay and she needed these models painted with exact replicas of some of her dishes. So it wasn't like a cartoon version of it. It had to be exactly like the photographs. Same thing when they did when they painted bodies for luxors. Bodies the exhibition where they did the circulatory system and muscular system and skeletal system. So they're there they have to get very very exact and smart for them you know they're artists they they try to interpret things the way they want to have their own flares. I want to hear more about the optical illusion idea so for that I went to Siri Star and nix her in.

Try to pull off a lot of optical region and in doing that trying to fool somebody die with having add on is the best way like I do a technique called double cake lingerie. And what I'll do is 95% of the luxor body paint and the last 5% I'll actually add a small add on like little bows or pieces of lace or grounds so that when people do look at it they're like oh she's just wanting lingerie. And then they look back again and they realize it's body paint and that was part of the problem I was having when I first started body paint and clothing. Was that it looked so realistic that people didn't look twice they just automatically thought it was you know model lingerie. So then how do you add on to where if they turn to the side to have a piece taken off the shoulder you know it kind of pulls the eye and then they look twice at it to kind of figure out what it is.

New episodes of naked Vegas every Tuesday on sci fi and as always you can see more right now at sci fi dot com. That's it for right now we're back early next week to kick it all off with a whole new bunch of pop culture. Between now and then keep up with everything and get the point radio dot com listen on your desktop or your laptop free and get the point radio dot com. Take us along on any mobile device with the idea radio app get that at nine at radio dot com or in the app store say place apple users can grab our app as well which is free under the point radio and pop culture. The podcast turns up every week a couple of different times on websites like ComicMix dot com and Michael Davis world dot com and the iTunes podcast directory to follow us on Facebook and Twitter under the point radio and we'll see you back here in a few days.

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