File:JFK posterior head wound.jpg

Summary

Drawing depicting the posterior head wound of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The hand at the top is holding a portion of his scalp in place. Made by medical illustrator Ida G. Dox from an autopsy photograph, and published as Figure 13 on page 104 of volume 7 (Medical and Firearms Evidence) of the Appendix to Hearings Before the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives (1979).

Vincent Bugliosi writes in Reclaiming History, Endnote pp. 258–259,

In order for the entrance wound photograph to be taken, the autopsy surgeons lifted the president’s right shoulder from the autopsy table, and rolled him onto his left shoulder. Then, per his own testimony, Dr. Boswell gathered together these loose strands of scalp between his thumb and index finger and drew them forward across the gaping hole in the right front of the skull, thereby making the entrance wound on the back of the president’s head clearly visible to the photographer’s camera (ARRB Transcript of Proceedings, Deposition of Dr. J. Thornton Boswell, February 26, 1996, pp.97, 149–150, 164). Though the act of pulling the loose scalp forward across the top right of the head made the entrance wound visible, it also briefly covered the large exit defect on the right front side of the president’s head.