COMMENTS FROM STREET TALK NETWORK ABOUT THIS POST-

1. Do your own research on the information provided and then come up with your own conclusions.

2. This article and accompanying links contains many names and other information that can be researched.

3. Trust your gut feeling on information provided as this post may contain slanted information.

4. Keep in mind that the doctors at Parkland had treated many gunshot wounds and knew how to distinguish entry and exit wounds.

5. : Bell remembered receiving “three to five fragments, perhaps four” from Connally’s operation. She said she placed them in an evidence envelope and delivered the sealed envelope to federal personnel. She believed the surviving photograph showed fewer and smaller fragments than she remembered. These statements were recorded officially by the ARRB, but they were made more than 33 years later. ARRB’s Audrey Bell interview report .

President John F. Kennedy arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital shortly after 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963. The medical team concentrated on restoring breathing and circulation. Kennedy was never turned over for a systematic examination, no X-rays were taken, and no autopsy was performed at Parkland. Consequently, the Parkland personnel made important firsthand observations of his visible wounds, but they generally could not determine complete bullet paths or the number and direction of the shots.

The strongest points established by the contemporary Parkland records are:

• Kennedy had a small wound in the lower front of
  his neck. Several witnesses initially thought its appearance resembled an
  entrance wound, but the treating physicians repeatedly acknowledged that a
  small exit wound through soft tissue could look similar.
• Kennedy had a devastating wound involving the
  right side and posterior portion of his head. The location was variously
  described as “right posterior,” “occipitoparietal,” “temporal and
  occipital,” or simply the “back of the head.”
• Because the throat wound was surgically enlarged
  for the tracheotomy and Kennedy’s back was not examined visually, Parkland
  could not reconstruct either bullet’s complete path.
• The later Bethesda autopsy concluded that one
  bullet entered Kennedy’s upper back and exited through his throat, while
  another entered the rear of his head and exited through the right side of
  the skull.
• The attached April 21, 1977 article concerns Dr.
  Robert Shaw’s doubts about whether the bullet that wounded Governor John
  Connally was the same bullet that passed through Kennedy. Shaw treated
  Connally, not Kennedy.
• Nurse Audrey Bell’s recollection of several
  fragments removed from Connally raised a real evidence-accounting
  question, but it does not by itself prove that Connally was hit by a
  separate bullet.

The Warren Commission’s published record identifies 15 physicians as having attended Kennedy at Parkland. Four additional Parkland physicians treated Connally. The complete witness listing appears in Warren Commission Hearings, Volume VI.

What the April 21, 1977 article reported

The attached clipping is an article by Earl Golz headlined “Surgeon thinks Connally not hit by Kennedy bullet.”

Its principal subject is Dr. Robert Roeder Shaw, the Parkland thoracic surgeon who operated on Governor Connally’s chest. According to the article:

• Shaw believed the bullet that entered Connally’s
  back was probably an intact, high-velocity missile.
• He questioned whether a bullet that had already
  passed through Kennedy could have retained the characteristics necessary
  to produce Connally’s chest wound.
• Shaw regarded the condition and number of
  fragments recovered during Connally’s treatment as relevant to determining
  whether the nearly intact stretcher bullet, Commission Exhibit 399, caused
  all the nonfatal wounds.
• The article quoted operating-room supervisor
  Audrey Bell as remembering several fragments, rather than only one tiny
  fragment.
• Shaw nevertheless acknowledged that he was not a
  firearms or ballistics specialist.

There is an important historical qualification: in his 1964 Warren Commission testimony, Shaw agreed that Connally’s elongated entrance wound could be explained either by the bullet tumbling after passing through another body or by its oblique angle of impact. He therefore did not rule out the single-bullet path under oath in 1964. Shaw’s complete 1964 testimony begins here.

The later House Select Committee on Assassinations commissioned neutron-activation testing. In 1978, physicist Vincent Guinn reported that the tested Connally wrist material was consistent with the lead in CE 399. That supported—but did not independently prove every step of—the single-bullet theory. The Washington Post reported the 1978 test results.

Doctors who attended Kennedy in Trauma Room One

The following list uses the Warren Commission’s official classification. Not every doctor examined the wounds closely; several performed only a particular resuscitative task.

Other physicians reported in or near Trauma Room One

These men appear in eyewitness recollections but are not included among the 15 physicians whom Volume VI expressly describes as attending Kennedy:

• Dr. Charles A. Crenshaw accompanied McClelland to the emergency room and
  was remembered by several witnesses as assisting. In later books and
  interviews he stated that he believed the throat wound was an entrance and
  the large rear head defect an exit. Because his detailed published account
  came decades later and he was not questioned by the Warren Commission,
  historians should distinguish it from the contemporary written records.
• Dr. Robert Grossman, a neurosurgeon, was present briefly. Later
  accounts attributed to him were not completely consistent regarding the
  precise location of the head defect.
• Dr. Richard Brooks Dulany was initially near Trauma Room One but primarily
  treated Connally in Trauma Room Two.
• Dr. Robert Shaw briefly looked into Kennedy’s room but devoted his work to
  Connally.
• Dr. George Burkley, Kennedy’s White House physician, asked that
  Kennedy receive steroids because of adrenal insufficiency. He was not a Parkland
  staff physician and did not direct the principal emergency surgery.

What Parkland personnel said about the throat wound

The original wound was partly destroyed as evidence when Perry made the lifesaving tracheotomy incision through it. That was proper emergency medicine, but it made later interpretation more difficult.

Evidence suggesting an entrance wound

• Perry initially said its small, clean appearance
  was suggestive of entrance.
• Baxter said it resembled an entrance wound after
  he learned the suspected weapon’s caliber.
• McClelland thought Perry’s description resembled
  a conventional entrance wound.
• Akin said the thought of an entrance wound
  occurred to him.
• Nurse Margaret Henchliffe said it looked like an
  entrance wound based on her emergency-room experience.

Evidence preventing a firm conclusion at Parkland

• No Parkland physician traced the wound through
  the body.
• Kennedy was not turned over for visual
  examination of his back.
• No X-rays were made at Parkland.
• The doctors’ priority was establishing an airway,
  blood pressure, ventilation, and cardiac activity.
• A high-velocity, full-metal-jacketed bullet
  passing only through soft tissue can leave a comparatively small exit
  wound.
• Perry expressly testified that he could not
  determine whether the wound was entrance or exit without the trajectory. His sworn clarification appears in the Warren Commission record.

Therefore, the most accurate statement is: several Parkland witnesses thought the untouched throat wound looked like an entrance wound, but the Parkland examination could not establish its direction.

What they said about the head wound

There was broad agreement about the injury’s severity but less precision about its boundaries.

Common descriptions included:

• right posterior head;
• right occipitoparietal region;
• right temporal and occipital region;
• posterior skull with exposed brain and cerebellar
  tissue;
• a single large gaping or avulsive defect.

Nurse Diana Bowron, who helped remove Kennedy from the limousine, testified that she saw one large hole in the back of his head and did not see a separate small hole. Carrico similarly described a right occipitoparietal defect containing cerebral and cerebellar tissue. Clark called it a large right-posterior wound. Jenkins’s same-day report described temporal and occipital involvement. Bowron’s sworn testimony is preserved in Volume VI.

These observations are sometimes presented as proof of a shot from the front. That conclusion goes beyond what most witnesses established medically. A large defect may be an exit region, but determining direction requires the complete wound track, bone beveling, internal examination, X-rays and—ideally—an autopsy. The Parkland team did not have those materials.

Parkland nurses and their statements

Diana Hamilton Bowron, R.N.

Bowron helped remove Kennedy from the limousine and wheel him to Trauma Room One. She testified that:

• he was moribund and covered in blood;
• she saw one large hole in the back of his head;
• she did not see a smaller head bullet hole;
• she did not notice another wound until treatment
  was underway;
• she assisted with clothing removal, intravenous
  access and emergency trays.

Her observation of the back of Kennedy’s head is among the earliest recorded Parkland descriptions. Bowron testimony

Margaret M. Henchliffe, R.N.

Henchliffe helped wheel Kennedy into Trauma Room One and prepared intravenous fluids. She testified that:

• she saw Kennedy take two breaths;
• his head was extremely bloody;
• the throat contained a small hole about the
  diameter of the end of her little finger;
• it looked to her like an entrance wound;
• she had practical experience with gunshot
  patients but no formal wound-ballistics training;
• she subsequently accepted that a high-velocity
  soft-tissue exit could resemble the wound she saw.

Henchliffe testimony

Doris Mae Nelson, R.N.

Nelson was the emergency-room nursing supervisor. She:

• prepared the trauma rooms;
• assigned personnel;
• coordinated blood, equipment and security;
• entered Trauma Room One briefly;
• assisted with the death documentation and
  arrangements afterward.

Her testimony provides important confirmation of who was present, but she did not give a detailed independent interpretation of the bullet wounds. Nelson’s contemporary affidavit and other Parkland records

Ruth Jeanette Standridge, R.N.

Standridge was the emergency-room head nurse and assisted with the response and paperwork. She was identified by witnesses as being in the treatment area, but the most extensive preserved testimony attributed to her concerns hospital procedures and the stretchers rather than a definitive wound interpretation.

Audrey N. Bell, R.N.

Bell supervised Parkland’s operating and recovery rooms. Her importance lies in two separate subjects:

1. Kennedy: In a 1997 Assassination Records Review Board interview, Bell said Perry turned Kennedy’s head slightly so she could see a right-rear occipital wound. She said she did not see the throat wound.

2. Connally: Bell remembered receiving “three to five fragments, perhaps four” from Connally’s operation. She said she placed them in an evidence envelope and delivered the sealed envelope to federal personnel. She believed the surviving photograph showed fewer and smaller fragments than she remembered. These statements were recorded officially by the ARRB, but they were made more than 33 years later. ARRB’s Audrey Bell interview report

Phyllis Hall, R.N.—later claim requiring caution

In much later interviews, nurse Phyllis Hall claimed that she saw a pointed bullet or projectile near Kennedy’s head or neck on the cart. This claim is controversial because:

• it does not appear in a contemporaneous sworn
  statement;
• there is no documented chain of custody
  connecting such an object to Kennedy;
• no corresponding bullet is established in the
  official Parkland evidence records;
• recollections published decades after an event
  normally carry less evidentiary weight than same-day notes or 1964 sworn
  testimony.

Her story should be reported as a later recollection, not as a documented recovery of a bullet from Kennedy.

The four doctors who treated Governor Connally

These doctors are essential to understanding the 1977 clipping:

The official Warren Commission reconstruction said one bullet entered Connally’s right back, traversed his chest, exited below the right nipple, passed through his right wrist, and entered his left thigh. The Texas State Library summarizes that official path and preserves Connally’s clothing.

What can responsibly be concluded about the bullets?

Kennedy

The Parkland evidence supports two visible wound complexes:

1. a small anterior throat wound; and

2. a massive right-posterior/right-sided head wound.

Parkland did not establish:

• the location of Kennedy’s upper-back entrance
  wound;
• the precise track connecting the back and throat;
• the small head entrance wound;
• the number of bullets;
• the exact shooting direction;
• whether Kennedy and Connally were struck by the
  same nonfatal bullet.

Those conclusions came principally from the Bethesda autopsy, photographic evidence, the limousine, clothing, firearms testing and the Zapruder film—not from Parkland alone.

Connally

Shaw’s 1977 doubts and Bell’s fragment recollection are legitimate historical evidence against treating the single-bullet theory as something personally established by every Parkland doctor. But neither observation scientifically identifies a second gun or a separate bullet.

The Warren Commission concluded that CE 399 most probably caused Kennedy’s back-and-throat wounds and all of Connally’s wounds. It acknowledged some disagreement among Commission members about that probability. Read the Commission’s complete trajectory and firearms analysis.

Final assessment

The fairest evidence-based conclusion is:

The Parkland witnesses gave powerful firsthand evidence about the appearance of Kennedy’s wounds, especially the small throat wound and extensive right-rear head destruction. Several initially considered the throat wound suggestive of entrance, while numerous witnesses located a major defect toward the back of the head. Nevertheless, Parkland’s emergency examination was not a forensic autopsy and could not by itself establish bullet direction, complete trajectory, number of shots, or whether one bullet struck both Kennedy and Connally.

Later interviews—including doctors’ YouTube appearances—are valuable for understanding what they remembered and how their opinions developed, but contemporaneous medical notes and sworn 1964 testimony deserve the greatest evidentiary weight.

Video and documentary resources

• Parkland Doctors Discuss the Kennedy Assassination—Part 1
• Governor Connally’s filmed discussion of the assassination
• Overview of the 2023 documentary JFK: What the Doctors Saw
• CBS interview with Dr. Robert McClelland

Additional Videos by Street Talk

1. Bombshell doctor who treated Kennedy at Parkland Hospital

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQGSmYSaKiA

2. Parkland Trauma Room

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuZCxT88cMo

3. Dr. Robert McCelland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySO0pLcN5ww

4. JFK doctor’s chilling revelation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PflSFiEB-So