Study Questions FBI Bullet Analysis in JFK Assassination
By John Solomon, Washington Post Staff Writer

Published Wednesday, May 16, 2007 by the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... ews&sub=AR


In a collision of 21st century science and decades-old conspiracy theories, a research team that includes a former top FBI scientist is challenging the bullet analysis used by the government to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The "evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed," concludes a new article in the Annals of Applied Statistics written by former FBI lab metallurgist William A. Tobin and Texas A&M University researchers Cliff Spiegelman and William D. James.

The researchers' re-analysis involved new statistical calculations and a modern chemical analysis of the same batch of bullets Oswald is purported to have used. They reached no conclusion about whether more than one gunman was involved, but urged that authorities conduct a new and complete forensic re-analysis of the five bullet fragments left from the assassination 44 years ago.

"Given the significance and impact of the JFK assassination, it is scientifically desirable for the evidentiary fragments to be re-analyzed," the researchers said.

Tobin was the FBI lab's chief metallurgy expert for more than two decades. He analyzed metal evidence in major cases that included the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the explosion of TWA Flight 800 over Long Island in 1996.

After retiring, he attracted national attention by questioning the FBI science used in prosecutions for decades to match bullets to crime suspects through their lead content. The questions he and other raised prompted a National Academy of Sciences review that in 2003 concluded the FBI's bullet lead analysis was flawed. The FBI agreed and generally ended the use of that type of analysis.

Using new guidelines set forth by the National Academy of Sciences for proper bullet analysis, Tobin and his colleagues at Texas A&M re-analyzed the bullet evidence used by the 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations, which concluded that only one shooter, Oswald, fired the shots that killed Kennedy in Dallas.

The committee's finding was based in part on the research of now-deceased University of California-Irvine chemist Dr. Vincent P. Guinn. He used bullet lead analysis to conclude that the five bullet fragments recovered from the Kennedy assassination scene came from just two bullets, which were traced to the same batch of bullets Oswald owned.

To do their research, Tobin, Spiegelman and James said they bought the same brand and lot of bullets used by Oswald and analyzed their lead using the new standards. The bullets from that batch are still on the market as collectors' items.

They found that the scientific and statistical assumptions Guinn used--and the government accepted at the time--to conclude the fragments came from just two bullets fired from Oswald's gun were wrong.

"Matches of bullets within the same box of bullets are shown to be much more likely than indicated in the House Select Committee on Assassinations' testimony," the researchers wrote. "This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets.

"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," the researchers said.

The government's commission that concluded Oswald was the only assassin was little more than a whitewash. There were so many flaws with it, it wasn't funny. Not just bullet fragments but eyewitness testimony was totally ignored. People who had been in combat and who knew what a bullet flying over their head sounded like said that bullets came from the grassy knoll. There were a lot of other things, too many to cover in a post.

About the only ones who believed the Warren commissions report are those who always believe what authority figures tell them without question.