Was JFK's murder ever meant to go to trial?
By Staffan H Westerberg and Pete Engwall
There is an obvious expectation that the police and other authorities would take
the proper steps to ensure that procedure’s and protocol’s are followed to the
utmost when a President is killed. In the case of John F. Kennedy’s death there are
so many “mistakes” made by law enforcement and “poor decisions” taken by the
Presidents own bodyguard’s that it becomes a clear pattern of ill intent. Here
every step goes in the “wrong direction”.
Researcher’s who have looked hard at the Kennedy assassination have appropriately focused on two different layers of the case: to critically research, verify and challenge the official version of his death; and, at the same time, to try to uncover the real story--what really happened.
Sometimes that sort of thinking will make your head spin. So this article will try to make
connections and links between these two ways of looking at the case, and, in particular, focus
on the Secret Service’s theft of the body from Parkland Hospital.
Screw the law:
There was a dilemma: if a "lone gunman" killed the President, then it was a local crime and fell under Texas jurisdiction. Had Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade claimed there was more than one gunman--and thus a conspiracy to kill the President--the case could legally be taken over by the FBI.
As it stood, “one man did it”, but the FBI took over the case anyway.
At 1:25pm, Justice of the Peace Theron Ward, called DA Wade from Parkland Hospital and
asked whether the Secret Service had permission to take the body to Air Force One and
continue on to Washington. Wade told Ward they had. But did Wade, the people’s
representative, have the right to make that decision? Who would now prosecute and where
would a trial take place – in Washington or in Texas?
Minutes after the phone call, Dallas County medical examiner, Dr. Earl Rose, tried to stop the
casket from being wheeled out of Parkland. It was Dr. Rose who, by law, had to conduct the
autopsy. He had not gotten the word from Wade and proceeded to inform Secret Service
agent Roy Kellerman that they would break the chain of evidence if they took the body,
thereby likely making the case inadmissible in a court of law. Dr. Rose found himself staring
into the muzzle of a pistol. Kellerman´s pistol. He also noticed the Secret Service men behind
Kellerman, equipped with Thompson submachine guns. Admiral George Burkley, who stood
right by Kellerman´s side, worked up some anger and reinforced: "The body is going back to
Washington!"
Amongst many researchers this is a common belief: When "they" planned the murder of
President Kennedy and the cover-up, the conspirators must have known that they had to get the body out of Dallas in order to conceal shots from the front. That is undoubtedly why
“they” tried to get the body out so soon; there was no discussion about protocol or legal
ramifications of taking such an action. Afterwards the Warren Commission could tell the
American people that the Dallas doctors had been mistaken about the Presidents wounds.
“The Family wants…”
Soon after JFK was declared dead at 1.00pm, a struggle began. White House physician,
Admiral George Burkley, told reporters, “The Family wants to take the body back to
Washington”.
Kenny O’Donnell claimed: "Jackie Kennedy's response to me was she would not leave her
husband's body. At that point, I realized that she would not. The doctor had continually
attempted to get her to take some form of sedation. And she had consistently refused, and
told me she would not take anything, that she was going to stay with her husband. I realized
that she was going to stay with her husband, no matter what anybody did, and there was no
possible way of in any way getting her to leave. And so, therefore, the only alternative I could see was that we move the President. It is an assumption I probably would have arrived at anyway, but I arrived at it in this manner."
That’s a comment often used by the men involved in the events on the 22nd of November
1963. “Everybody says Mrs. Kennedy wasn’t about to leave her husband, no matter what.”
And that’s why the body was taken back to Washington.
But why would Jackie demand this? Nobody explains why she wouldn’t stay those three extra hours in Dallas for an autopsy? Did she say she refused to stay for a Dallas autopsy?
Subsequently, it was up to Jackie to decide what would happen to the body… not to mention
the trial.
Why would Jackie Kennedy be the one to decide?
This means that at some time between 1:00pm and 1:25pm, Jackie would have told Burkley
and/or O’Donnell that she wanted to take the body home with her, back to Washington. But
how likely is it that she said something to that effect?
Can you all see it in front of you? Jackie was in shock. Her husband had just been slaughtered
in front of her eyes. She had held his head in her lap and felt the big hole in the back of his
head with her hands. There was blood all over her skirt and legs, blood and brain matter in her hair and in her face. She had held a part of Jack's head in her hand all the way to Parkland.
Jackie probably didn’t know enough about law, protocol and the legal consequences of such an act. Are we to believe that she took command over the entire legal situation? Are we really to believe that she somehow convinced Burkley that the body must go back with her to Washington? Didn’t anyone tell her about the chain of evidence and the fact the murder of
her husband was a Dallas case? Didn’t she think it was important to get a killer
convicted? Didn’t anyone tell her about that, or could it, instead, have been George Burkley
or Kenny O’Donnell who acted the part of an angry man and perhaps reassured Jackie that
“Jack wasn’t about to stay in Dallas one minute more than necessary?” Is that how the "the
family wants to take the body back to Washington" idea came about? Who else, other than
Burkley or O’Donnell, could have decided a thing like that? It could hardly have been
Johnson or Kellerman.
No one cared about the “case”
Of course the medical evidence in the case of the JFK murder is of great importance. It shows that something happened to the body much beyond the reach of any single lone nut or even a Dallas conspiracy for that matter. The medical evidence more or less throws the entire case against Lee Oswald out of court, or, at the very least, greatly impedes the possibility to prosecute a lone assassin or a group of assassins.
JFK researcher Douglas Horne says that having a third “original” autopsy report would make it impossible and inadmissible in a court of law - any court, whether in Texas or in Washington.
The very act of taking the body from Dallas would weaken a case against a perpetrator of the
murder of the President because the chain of evidence would be flawed.
Why has this not been considered, commented upon or investigated?
At any stage in an “honest” series of events, one would expect all participants to stay as close
to the rules as possible. Nobody wants to weaken his or her own position. It is our
understanding that when a chain of evidence or chain of custody is broken, the evidence can
either be thrown out completely, or the jury can be given instructions as to how much
credence they should give the evidence in a given case.
At the time the body was taken from Parkland, there was potential for a trial to take place
against a killer, so there should have been a great desire to preserve the integrity of the case by not violating any rules of evidence. Yet the Secret Service disregarded this and even washed blood and brains from the back seat of the presidential limousine while at Parkland.
Let’s speculate for a moment. Let’s say the case went to trial. Let’s pretend Oswald got an
honest Texas lawyer, who was aiming to give Lee the best legal defense anyone could give.
Let’s imagine this really happened.
What would a prosecutor have to work with? What would be admissible as evidence?
Three “original autopsy reports”? The missing brain, the missing autopsy photographs? Or
how about stopping witnesses from testifying?
In view of a coming trial, autopsy technician Paul O’Connor told the HSCA that he and
others at Bethesda Naval Hospital had to sign orders of silence under the penalty of general
court martial if they talked about what took place in the morgue during JFK´s the autopsy.
This doesn’t show the intention of the Navy sending witnesses to a trial; how would that play
out in a civilian court of law?
We wish to point out, that there is not a single piece of action or evidence on behalf of the
authorities to show they were mindful of the case ever going to trial.
Lack of “police work”
It can be argued that none of the organizations involved (neither the Dallas Police
Department, Secret Service, the FBI nor the Dallas Sheriff’s Office) acted to preserve evidence in this case. As a matter of fact, none of the agencies involved acted in the professional manner that should have been expected.
Here are some examples of the poor police work displayed in connection to the Kennedy
assassination:
* Somehow the Dallas Police “knew” directly that the shots came from the Texas School Book
Depository, and only from the TSBD.
* But the Dallas Police did not seal off the Texas School Book Depository for 30 minutes (and
they were at the scene immediately).
* The Dallas Police let firemen in before the building was sealed off and during the search for
gunman and weapon(s).
* The Dallas Police never sealed off the actual crime scene on Elm Street, where the shooting
took place.
* The Secret Service washed the limousine from blood and brain matter even while the trauma
team tried to save the President.
* The limousine was sent back to Ford and was completely rebuilt, including the windshield,
which thereby destroyed "a crime scene on wheels".
* The Secret Service illegally took the body from the custody of Parkland doctors and appears
thereby to have made it impossible to get a conviction of anybody in the murder of JFK.
* The Dallas Police denied Lee Harvey Oswald legal council, despite Oswald clearly asking for
legal representation in front of news cameras during interviews.
* Notes taken during the interrogation of Oswald were suppressed until their release by the
ARRB in 2007.
* 70 cops were not enough to protect young Lee, who was shot in the stomach on public
television.
* The Dallas Police gave Oswald cardiac massage, which exacerbates the effects of internal
injuries.
* The ten witnesses closest to the killing of President Kennedy were never called to testify.
All these acts and non-acts show that there was scant concern for the preservation of evidence.
One would be hard pressed to see anyone’s apprehension or fear of undermining a future trial against the perpetrator(s) of the crime. It is as if “they” already knew who to blame and he was not about to live long enough to see a trial.
No questions asked
Now, why is there not a single sign that anyone with knowledge of the law even remotely
acted to remedy the quality of the evidence? Why has this question never been asked of
Hoover and Rowley during the first part of these past 50 years? There are several books written on the medical side of this case, but we have yet to see anyone take apart the legal aspects and take all the agencies to task regarding their actions or inactions.
Why would people such as Mark Lane, Jim Garrison, Will Fritz, J Edgar Hoover, Nicholas
Katzenbach, etc. not have contemplated the legal ramifications of these actions as indicators,
i.e., why would not a given legal ramification be considered or how could any agency afford to
ignore it? Who or what could have trumped their legal concerns? Was the entire system
sidestepped? What would Katzenbach, Rowley or Hoover have answered to the simple
question, "What were you thinking?"
The autopsy report left many items incomplete. The paperwork on the purchase of the rifle
was incomplete, to put it mildly. The notes – if any - taken while Oswald was in police custody were suppressed. Nothing in what is the so-called “evidence” actually holds up under any scrutiny. There has, in other words, existed a level, which has been referred to as "the evidence", yet it has hardly been of evidentiary value.
Looking closely at the actions of the policing authorities there never seems to be any doubt as to what to do - in spite of the lack of protocol or signs of discussion and agreements. Anyone not adhering to protocol should have been asked "What was the point with the autopsy, if it wasn’t going to be admissible in court?" - but no one did.
If it’s important to do an autopsy, but not important that it is correctly performed, what does
that say about the total set of circumstances?
If it’s important to have an official investigation but not important that it is correctly
performed, what does that say about the total set of circumstances?
If it’s important to have a National Archive but not important that what is there is an original
or not even a close copy, how can things be missing from a national archive?
It’s to bad that sharp minds like those of Mark Lane, Jim Garrison and others haven’t shouted out loud about the theft of the body. This aspect of the case is at least as important to expose the conspiracy as the medical, the ballistic and the witness evidence. It deserves due consideration.
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