Dr Mantik on the Failings & Fraud of Autopsy Pathologist James Humes & Later Experts

Keven Hofeling's annotated "PATHOLOGIST JAMES HUMES" playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwgFpE4V5hJVefVTrr6LecsS5lfuygY0c
Hofeling Summary: "Dr. David Mantik on the Failings and Fraud of Pathologist James Humes and Later Experts":
(00:01) Dr. James Humes was the lead Navy pathologist at JFK's autopsy in 1963, assisted by Dr. Boswell (Navy) and Dr. Finck (Army), with Humes completing 20 years of military service that year.
(01:43-04:08) Humes observed a large hole in the right occiput (back of skull) but initially reported a bullet entry point near the External Occipital Protuberance (EOP); he later moved this entry point 4 inches (10cm) higher during House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) testimony in 1977.
(05:34-07:05) The HSCA focused on a 6.5mm object visible in X-rays that wasn't mentioned in the original autopsy, which contradicted their physics expert's assessment that it couldn't be a piece of metal.
(07:53-10:12) The "single bullet theory" trajectory appears implausible based on the autopsy face sheet, which shows the back wound significantly lower than the throat wound, and the proposed path would have hit bone or punctured a lung.
(11:01-13:40) Humes wrote a supplementary brain examination report despite believing JFK's brain was buried with his body; the reported brain damage pattern is inconsistent with a bullet entry at the EOP.
(14:21-17:48) X-rays show a metal fragment trail across the top of the skull starting at the forehead, inconsistent with the official entry point; Humes described this trail as 10cm lower in the autopsy report.
(18:31-20:11) Multiple witnesses, including Dr. Robert Walker (bullet expert present at autopsy) and Charles Crenshaw at Parkland Hospital, reported seeing an entry wound in the right temporal area (above the ear).
(21:47-24:36) For the HSCA in 1977, Humes changed his description of the entry wound location by 4 inches, moving it from the EOP to the cowlick area, closer to the fragment trail.
(25:19-27:59) Radiologist John Ebersole recalled two phone calls with Dallas during the autopsy and stated 5-6 skull X-rays were taken, though only 3 exist in official records today; two oblique skull X-rays are missing.
(29:15-32:03) The 6.5mm object wasn't observed or discussed on November 22, 1963, but appeared in X-rays by 1967; forensic radiologist John Fitzpatrick, working for the Assassination Records Review Board, couldn't explain this discrepancy.
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Excerpt from Apr 27, 2021 'JFK's Head Wounds' by Dr. David Mantik "
Auto Transcript
0:01
but in 1963 at the autopsy James Humes occupied
0:06
center stage on your left is Boswell his
0:11
assistant both were Navy Pathologists on the right is Dr thinkink
0:18
Who was borrowed from the army that night these photographs were taken in
0:25
1963 in 1992 the Journal of the American Medical Association published their
0:30
interviews with Humes and Boswell things came later that year Humes had signed on with US Navy in
0:40
1943 so in 1963 he was completing 20 years of
0:45
military service which is a magic interval according to an online Source
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in 2017 US military offers very generous pension benefits after 20 years of
0:57
service members can retire with % of their final salary for the rest of their lives I don't know exactly what the
1:04
rules were in 1963 but I suspect Humes had a lot at stake at that
1:11
time Albert Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge for
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knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand while imagination
1:23
Embraces the entire world so imagine with me what it must
1:30
have been like to be at the autopsy on November 22nd
1:39
1963 imagine being a pathologist at JFK Autopsy and having just been told that
1:45
three shots were fired all of them from behind so for a few moments let's
1:51
imagine the scene as I play the role of Humes at the autopsy I see a large hole in the right
1:58
oxit the image here was prepared for the movie
2:05
JFK Robert groden's reconstruction is fairly accurate this is close to what Hume
2:11
saw you can see the large hole in the right rear here which is fairly
2:18
close to what was actually uh seen by
2:23
Humes now pretending to be Humes here again I saw the back of the head
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but I did not see the red spot here and I did not wash the
2:36
hair the large hole extended into the oxit which is this
2:43
area as I stated and commenting as Mantic I I
2:49
would say you can do your own stereo viewing with these two images you can check for yourself whether they seem
2:55
authentic
3:01
here's a common myth the scalp was not being stretched over a gaping hole here I know that from
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my stereo viewing at The Archives the image is not 3D as it should be I looked
3:14
at all the pairs of photographs at The Archives and they are essentially all 3D
3:19
as they should be but only here on the back of JFK's head where the image is
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Highly Questionable does it become 2D and that's because the same fake image
3:31
was inserted into each member of the paired photographs shown uh just above
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look for yourself the Pathologists were unable to completely cover the defect with the scalp as they themselves
3:46
admitted speaking as Humes in the posterior skull I originally identify a
3:51
portion of a bullet entry hole the black mark was placed on the
3:58
skull by Hughes here's the uh EOP also marked with the
4:03
black uh Mark there this is the original site that Humes reported to the warrant
4:11
commission and what he started with before the uh house select committee on
4:16
assassinations which I will be calling hsca but before he was finished with his
4:23
hsca testimony Humes had moved the wound all the way up to here
4:30
10 cmers higher or 4 inches and we will come back to that issue and I hope before we conclude you
4:37
can actually see a video of Humes uh testifying before the hsca during which
4:44
he describes um his thinking on
4:49
this Humes I invented a new definition slightly is 4
4:56
in hum speaking I see the skull the AP skull X-ray and I would call this image
5:03
on your left the red arrow here identifies a
5:09
small metallic fragment which lay at the back of the skull this was cited uh in
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their report by FBI agents cyber and O'Neal and I must thank phield rru field
5:23
rru for his Photoshop work here and also Larry Rivera for his offer of assistance
5:30
Humes again I did not see that 6.5 millimeter thing this object
5:38
was actually played the central role in the hsca proceedings they decided that this
5:45
was a cross-section of a bullet and and that this represented reality and reflected where the bullet
5:52
had come in on the back of the head unfortunately for them very stur of
5:58
in their physics expert claimed that this thing could not be a piece of metal unfortunately however Larry didn't tell
6:05
them that that only came up later when he was asked about
6:10
it Humes again I see the throat
6:16
wound near the throat I that's Humes note tissue damage to the
6:23
following at the lung Apex there is a 5 cmet contusion that's 2 in
6:30
and there's also um bruising in the strap muscles of the
6:36
neck I immediately recognized that this meant trauma on Elm Street damage to
6:42
these sites could not be caused by a tracheotomy Dr Perry who did the
6:48
tracheotomy at Parkland would surely not accidentally cause a twoin contusion at
6:54
the top of the lung that's preposterous so I promptly know during
7:00
the autopsy that a projectile had passed through the throat I did not need to speak to Dallas to learn
7:07
this my comment Boswell later confirmed this while at the autopsy they knew
7:14
about the throat wot everol told me the same story and his comments are on a
7:19
recorded interview which is now at The
7:24
Archives uh my comment here again in 1977 BOS well had an epiphany for the
7:32
hsca the original face sheet placed the back wound here where it's marked 7x4
7:38
millimeters indicating its size but he raised this back wound into the neck as shown by the red arrow here
7:46
Gerald R Ford my fellow resident of ranching Mirage concurred with this even
7:53
though he was not at the autopsy Ford nevertheless claimed to know this
8:00
these are identical Woods on the left you see rid Berg's
8:05
drawing for the Warren Commission circled in Blue on the right JFK's shirt at The
8:12
Archives and you can see where the uh shirt was penetrated by
8:18
something but these are supposedly in the official conclusions the same
8:24
wound Robert Frasier for the FBI measured both the single hole in the shirt that you see here and the single
8:31
hole in the jacket is a little more than 5 in below the
8:39
collar this is the photograph of the back wound this is an official autopsy
8:45
photograph still present at the National Archives Glenn Bennett who was in D
8:52
Plaza stated quote I saw the shot hit the president about four inches down
8:58
from the right shoulder does that match the redberg drawing
9:10
hardly ridberg later expressed his regret for his misleading JFK diagrams
9:16
but the archives refused his request to view the JFK evidence so he published his own
9:24
book back to Humes again Humes on the single bullet theory
9:29
even though we had no CT scans I knew that this trajectory was unlikely on the right you can see a cross-section
9:36
through the critical area of the uh lower neck on the lower right uh the bullet
9:45
enters the back about 5 cmers to the right of the midline and uh according to
9:51
the pathologist that it exited at about the midline in the throat so there's the trajectory it should have followed but
9:57
it can't do that without crashing into bone which is shown in white here so the spine should have been fractured but of
10:04
course it wasn't Humes made that clear if it happened at a slightly lower
10:10
level it would have punctured the lung but that didn't happen either we have hum's word on that so this is an a
10:18
basically impossible trajectory here we have the autopsy face
10:23
sheet which was prepared that night uh notice that there's a green
10:29
horizontal line at the top and one at the bottom so from this you can tell that
10:35
the the two figures uh should be able to be compared
10:41
with respect to Vertical levels the upper red line goes through
10:48
the throat wound here the lower red line goes through the
10:53
back wound so purely based on the face sheet humans can say of course I knew that the
11:01
back wound was much lower than the throat wound which made the single bullet theory quite
11:08
implausible weeks later I that's Humes again write the supplementary brain
11:14
exam even though Boswell and I both believed that JFK's brain was buried
11:20
with his body now this is rather fantastic how can they write a report on
11:27
an exam of the brain that has already been buried with the body the following Monday but that is what they said that
11:33
is what they believed on the left is a drawing an
11:38
overhead view of nine photographs at The Archives of the
11:44
brain the report described a laceration that went all the way from front to back
11:50
shown by the yellow line and there was essentially no damage to the left side of the brain and you
11:58
can see for yourself the damage to the right side um you can see here this is
12:04
the cerebellum at the back of the head it was totally intact in this
12:12
brain hims can defend himself here by saying well I only had a limited supply
12:18
of spare brains Humes was responsible for the weekly brain cutting session so this was
12:26
right in his bilyy weight what kind I say he might reply I did the best I
12:31
could with this brain this was the closest brain I could find to the actual damage in
12:40
JFK but he could argue that they should get credit for omitting the date we
12:45
don't know when this was done I think the date was deliberately
12:51
omitted back to Humes again I describe a 4.5 CM deep laceration we're talking
12:58
about the distance from vertex to the bottom of the laceration so using Kim's
13:04
own words and 4.5 cmers I've tried to place where the laceration would have
13:11
been this is my work not hum's work he never did place this on a skull but this is consistent with what
13:20
he said 4.5 cmers from the vertex to the bottom of the laceration now here's the
13:26
problem Humes has told the Warren Commission and tried to tell the hsca
13:32
that the bullet entered near the EOP if the bullet entered here how can
13:37
all this brain between the bottom of the laceration and the EOP be intact but
13:43
that's basically what he's telling us it makes no sense whatsoever and Humes could very well say
13:48
I was lucky that Cornwell with the hsca in 1977 did not nail me for this huge
13:55
discrepancy between this laceration which was described in our brain report
14:01
and the EOP entry a few more comments about this lateral skull x-ray since this is the
14:08
first time we've seen it this very dark area here is very large and it's completely
14:15
devoid of brain or soft tissue the optical densities here are about the same as in the maxillary sinus so
14:22
there's nothing in this area on the skull x-rays which are taken
14:27
at the autopsy some people have said that the black area here means that the face the the
14:34
right face is gone and maybe the right eye has gone too but that's not the case we have autopsy photographs uh which
14:42
demonstrate clearly that uh JFK is Right face and um even even the view from the
14:49
anterior was essentially uh intact the Parkland uh Personnel agreed with that
14:55
one other item we should note is this metal fragment Trail which is uh
15:01
demonstrated by these tiny white spots all the way across the top of the skull that trail starts right at the forehead
15:07
as you heard from Mike Chester last week but this is the famous fragment Trail which is of course totally inconsistent
15:13
with the bullet coming in here more of this
15:18
later Humes at the autopsy on November
15:24
22nd we saw cerebellar damage but the brain We examined later had intact
15:30
Thell the high fragment Trail on the x-rays would have meant a second head
15:37
shot so this must be one head shot here but Hume said the bullet entered here so
15:44
he can't have it both ways he knows that two head shots means conspiracy so he's
15:49
been back into a corner so the high fragment Trail on the x-rays would have meant the second head
15:56
shot so we had to rewrite the autopsy report and describe the cerebellum as
16:03
intact so the photographs of the brain in the archives today do show intact
16:09
sarabellum so he was going to put his money on that
16:14
horse Humes again I am forced to offis skate And even lie when necessary so
16:20
I've listed here hum's response to all of the dilemmas he faced number
16:26
one hum speaking again I see the large occipital hole so I obfuscate he doesn't
16:33
deny that it's there but he really doesn't pay attention to it nor does he describe it number two on the x-rays the
16:40
fragment Trail is too high it implies another head shot so I lie and in the
16:45
autopsy report I described it as 10 centimeters lower this gets him into real trouble
16:52
with the a ARB in 1996 number three the autopsy uh
16:58
cerebellum was damaged but it disagrees with the fake brain so I simply ignore the
17:07
cerebellum number four on the X-rays I see metallic debris near the
17:12
forehead you heard about that from cheser last week I also see the forehead entry wound in the skin on the
17:20
photographs so I iniz the wound and I ignore the metallic
17:25
debris I see bruising in the throat tissues I know this means trauma while JFK was still alive so I must lie and
17:33
claim that the tracheotomy hit all this damage I had two phone calls with Dallas
17:38
during the autopsy so I lie or else everyone would know that I knew about the frontal throat
17:44
entry I see a temporal bone entry near the right ear so I ignore it I correctly
17:51
identify a right EOP entry at the back of a skull but I later mislocate on
17:56
video for the hsca and we'll see more of this I had no choice that entry had to match the high fragment
18:04
Trail to cover my tracks I had to write different Au types of reports at different
18:09
times especially after the exam of the fake brain I had no
18:16
choice if this had not been JFK Robert carai would have performed the
18:22
autopsy like James Jenkins the technologist who stood at the table all
18:28
night long with a pathologist and like Dr Robert Walker a bullet expert who was there Dr
18:37
carai also recalled a wound on the right side of the head in the temporal area approximately above the right
18:44
ear this information from about Dr Walker came quite recently as you see at
18:51
the bottom on May 19th in an email from Dr Don Curtis who
18:56
was uh very much involved in this case too at Parkland
19:03
Hospital Charles khaw saw an entry right there at the
19:10
hairline I could not locate a higher resolution image so I copied this from
19:15
my original um 1992 VHS tape which I had recorded live if anyone has a better
19:24
resolution image I would loow to get it
19:29
this is an artist rendering of a photograph seen by Quenton Schwin in Rochester New York the home of eastn
19:36
Kodak Rochester was also home to Hawkeye Works where the zaper film may have been
19:45
modified and now Humes I hope for the best and I
19:51
succeeded until the hsca in 1977 and the ARB in
19:57
1996 then all hell broke loose especially in front of the ARB with Doug
20:03
horn but I got to play golf in for three more years until 1999 when I died of lung cancer just
20:11
like everol and took all of my secrets to the Catholic Corner in heaven and got to meet my fellow Catholic
20:18
JFK but meanwhile I kept my pension and even got a military promotion later LBJ
20:24
even gave me presidential cuff links after I served as his pathology
20:32
Humes again the hsca interviewed me in 1977 they wanted to know about that
20:39
entry room so I changed my mind and pointed to the car Lake Area there he
20:44
is he moved it from here to here after all that's closer where the
20:51
closer to where the fragment Trail was that's up here still doesn't really match but it's it is closer
21:00
you can listen to this testimony on YouTube the link is
21:06
there this encounter occurred on September 16th 1977 I want you to
21:11
remember that date uh for a good reason as you'll see later September 16th so
21:17
for the hsca then Humes moved the entry site there was only one
21:22
only one bullet he moved it from here to here 10 cm or 4 in
21:33
before the hsca during this encounter Gary Cornwell who was deputy chief asked
21:40
me some tough questions and he took all the credit for my 4-inch move Cornwell regarding the posterior
21:47
skull entry quote do you now have a more cons well-considered or different opinion end quote Humes quote I think I
21:56
do have a different opinion and uh a few minutes later he adds this
22:02
comment I erroneously previously identified the entry site end quote
22:08
Cornwell is this 4-in discrepancy explainable end quote Humes I have a
22:13
little trouble with that you can also read about Cornwell's uh recounting of these events
22:20
in his book
22:26
Humes this is my final statement to the hsca quote I and my associates are quite
22:32
elated in fact that all the subsequent findings of the panel are in basic concordance with our
22:40
findings Mantic this is my rejoiner in other words don't worry about four
22:48
inches the video of hymns with the hsca will be played after my lecture so sit
22:56
tight hum can claim that he was blindsided he could say I
23:01
did not know in time that critical autopsy photographs would be
23:07
destroyed or that critical autopsy photographs would be altered or that
23:12
some skull x-rays would be deliberately lost and that the three exan skull
23:18
x-rays would be decisively altered and he would be right about
23:23
that in 1992 when Kims was interviewed by the Journal of the American Medical
23:30
Association he recanted his hsca testimony and the Journal of course
23:35
ignored his backsliding here's what he told the journal quote the fatal wound
23:41
was blatantly obvious end quote Humes recalls quote again the entrance wound
23:48
was elliptical 15 mm long and 6 millim wide and located 2.5 cm to the right and
23:55
slightly above the external occipital prot tuberin so my comment is hum's 4-in move
24:03
for the hsca just went up in smoke ADV vanished but HS has some
24:10
excuses number one he was placed into a spray jacket he had no choice but to write misleading autopsy reports if he
24:19
had refused conspiracy would have been apparent to wall due to the obvious frontal
24:24
shots number two he inserted misleading eyewitness stat into the autopsy report
24:30
of course he didn't know they were misleading but in fact eyewitness statements are virtually never included
24:36
in an autopsy report as Dr sirel W has advised me number three he did not have
24:42
JFK's clothing number four he did not know about the Harper fragment which was
24:48
not even cited by the Warren Commission he did not know that the Magic Bullet was
24:53
bogus or that the FBI had two bullets that night but did know and he never
24:59
told us about the two brain exams for that he is
25:07
culpable but hums was a respected professional I accept that I don't think
25:12
he was incompetent after all he directed The Weekly brain cutting sessions at
25:18
thetha and Gary Cornwell in his book real answers besides the strong respect
25:24
he got from the forensic pathology panel of the HS
25:30
CA we turn next to the radiologist John everol like me he was actually a
25:36
radiation oncologist he recalled to me two phone calls that he uh remembered
25:45
had occurred with Dallas during the autopsy the first one at about 10:30 at
25:50
night uh this conversation has been recorded and has been placed at the National Archives you can listen to it
25:56
yourself Perry who did the tracheotomy at Parkland originally also recalled two
26:03
phone calls and he initially stated that they were on November 22 William Manchester who wrote The
26:09
Death of a president cites two phone calls during the autopsy Robert carai who we've discussed
26:17
before quote he told the ARB staff that he was aware of hearsay that Dr CES had
26:22
called Dallas to talk to a surgeon later in the evening before the body left the morg and
26:29
quote John everol also recalled for me during my phone conversations five to six skull x-rays
26:37
there are only three in the official collection today Gerald kuster the technologist also confirmed this to me
26:45
and most importantly these two gentlemen never spoke to one another after the autopsy so there was no collusion here
26:52
CER specifically recalled two oblique skull x-rays that no longer exist
26:59
so what about these later government experts how did they mislead us the hsca parens pathology panel
27:07
trusted the photographs some of which you have not seen and they ignored the
27:12
autopsy pathologist even when they disagreed with the
27:18
photographs but they were not told that there was no Providence for the photographs they were not told that the
27:24
camera did not match the photographs and here's another myth they all believed that the x-rays were as
27:31
immutable as God himself we know that's not true now of course the real problem
27:36
was that they had never actually worked in the dark room so they did not know how x-ray copying was
27:44
done what about the later government Radiologists what they missed or
27:50
deliberately ignored number one the fragment Trail is centered at the front of the skull with
27:56
many tiny pieces right at the forehead as you heard last week from Dr Michael Chesser I agree with
28:02
that this clearly implies a frontal shot number two the forehead wound in the
28:08
photos seems consistent with this number three the magical materialization of the
28:15
6.5 mimer object is totally absurd its
28:21
absence on the lateral x-ray is also observed this is not physical
28:26
reality number five the missing upper temporal bone on the x-rays we will return to this issue the white patch we
28:33
will discuss that there is an absence of Emulsion under the t-shaped inscription
28:38
which we will also discuss it's interesting to note that the warrant commission did not utilize the autopsy
28:44
materials so the hsca was really the first government investigation to
28:51
include these items later government
28:56
Radiologists miss all three Clues to x-ray alteration optical density was totally
29:03
outside their worldview no one ever mentioned that possibility and the white patch which we
29:09
will discuss is indeed otherworldly the 6.5 millimeter object
29:14
simply cannot materialize like a magician's rabbit between 1963 and
29:19
1967 nobody saw it on November 22nd no one discussed it on November 22nd it's
29:27
totally absent from the record and I suspect from the uh original
29:32
x-rays this 6.5 M millimeter object cannot be absent from JFK's lateral
29:37
x-ray which it is this is not physical reality if you see something from the
29:44
front you should also be able to see it from the side on the X-ray that's not the case here these experts were too
29:50
obtuse to look for missing Emulsion under the t-shaped inscription more about this later furthermore the forehead shot was
29:58
obvious tiny metal fragments precisely at the forehead cannot possibly imply a posterior
30:04
shot Russell Morgan was the sole radiologist for the Clark panel which
30:09
released its report in 1968 based on work they had done in
30:16
1967 here's the newspaper article whose uh headline says expert
30:22
backs waren report if you read the report it really should have said expert question s war in report look at this
30:31
highlight the key questions remaining this is Russell Morgan
30:37
talking are those of a possible conspiracy that's hardly the war
30:45
report so Russell Morgan had his own Brun hog here let's read this highlight
30:51
the fragmentation depicted in the X-ray that's the fragment Trail we've been talking about was so severe that had to
30:58
wonder if it was a so-called dum dum or hollowpoint bullet as opposed to the kind which was found on the floor beside
31:05
Cony said Dr Morgan I'll show you those uh photographs a little later
31:13
here so for Russell Morgan this was the last ditch effort to
31:19
cya the above article appeared in the Lancing State Journal on here's that
31:24
famous date September 16th 197 7 do you remember that date hum's above testimony
31:31
occurred on September 16th 1977 the very same day that Morgan almost
31:38
recounted was this a coincidence it was the same day that the American public saw the skull
31:45
xeries for the ARB a forensic radiologist the so-called ultimate
31:52
expert was enlisted John Fitzpatrick the forensic radiologist confessed that he could not
31:59
solve the Paradox of the 6.5mm object but he ignored my optical density data
32:05
and in response to my letter he offered only cliches instead for the a RB he returned
32:14
for a second day just to stare helplessly at this 6.5 millimeter fate
32:21
and he never explained it ironically his expertise was in childhood brain TR trauma not in x-ray
32:29
orary