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However, lead researcher Cliff Spiegelman stresses the study doesn't
necessarily support the conspiracy theorists who for decades have
doubted Oswald was the lone gunman. "We're not saying there was a
conspiracy. All we're saying is the evidence that was presented as a
slam dunk for a single shooter is not a slam dunk," said Spiegelman,
a Texas A&M statistics professor and an expert in bullet-lead
analysis.
The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that Oswald fired three
shots at Kennedy's motorcade from the Texas School Book Depository
in Dallas. The U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations agreed
in 1979, and found that the two bullets that hit Kennedy came from
Oswald's rifle.
The committee's findings were based in part on the testimony of
former chemist Vincent Guinn, who said recovered fragments came from
only two bullets. Guinn testified the bullets Oswald used,
Western-Winchester Cartridge Co. Mannlicher-Carcano bullets, were so
unique that it would be possible to distinguish one from another
even if they both came from the same box.
But Spiegelman and his fellow researchers, who tested 30 of the
same type of bullets, found fragments were not nearly so rare and
that bullets within the same box could match one another. One of the
test bullets also matched one or more of the assassination
fragments.
The bullets Spiegelman's team used were from two of only four
lots ever produced of this ammunition. The researchers were able to
test for more elements than Guinn and used better quality control
techniques, Spiegelman said.
"This finding means that the bullet fragments from the
assassination that match could have come from three or more separate
bullets," the researchers wrote in a paper detailing their study,
set to be published later this year by the journal "Annals of
Applied Statistics." The study is available on the journal's online
site.
"If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more
separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely, as the
additional bullet would not be attributable to the main suspect, Mr.
Oswald," they wrote.
But Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, which
focuses on Kennedy's life and assassination, said he wasn't sure of
the new study's impact.
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"Their study can't answer anything about the assassination," he
said. "That's my understanding of it because they didn't test the
actual fragments. They tested similar fragments and found that the
test itself is flawed. So that's the end of the road." Conspiracy
supporters believe the study helps prove that Oswald didn't act
alone.
"This is the last of the three important pieces of evidence that
were used to convict Oswald in the minds of the American public to
fall away," said Jim Marrs, whose book, "Crossfire: The Plot That
Killed Kennedy," was one of two used as the basis for Oliver Stone's
conspiracy film "JFK."
"Is this going to solve the case, create further investigation or
change anybody's mind? Probably not, but it supports the contentions
of conspiracy researchers all through the years," he said.
Spiegelman's team included former FBI agent and forensic
scientist William A. Tobin, as well as William D. James, a research
chemist at Texas A&M, located in College Station, about 100 miles
northwest of Houston.
The project began after a New Jersey high school teacher and
assassination buff read about Spiegelman's bullet analysis work and
contacted him about some Mannlicher-Carcano bullets he had bought.
Spiegelman advocates the bullet fragments from the assassination
undergo more rigorous analysis. But he also said there is only a
chance additional testing could offer evidence of another shooter or
show that there were more than two bullets. Additional testing could
also damage or destroy the bullet fragments.
Further testing of the fragments would be up to the National
Archives and Records Administration, the legal custodian of the
projectiles and other evidence used by the Warren Commission.
"We would look if a test was done would it enhance critical
understanding of the assassination," said Steven Tilley, director of
paper records at the National Archives and former head of the JFK
collection.
The last time the fragments were tested was in 1999. The
examination was inconclusive.
[Text copied
from file received from AP
Digital; article by Juan A. Lozano, Associated Press writer] |
