by
Dr. Henry C. Lee
FROM A FORENSIC science point of view, there is much to be learned from the 1960s’ assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and New York senator Robert F. Kennedy. In both cases, these men were killed at the peak of their popularity. While many have ascribed these murders to lone assassins, forensic evidence reveals inconsistencies, unanswered questions, and the likelihood of unaccounted-for gunmen.
The job of a responsible forensic scientist or criminalist is to reconstruct, if possible, how a particular crime took place. This determination is based on the available physical evidence. It is not the role of the forensic expert to speculate regarding the identity of those who may have been behind a crime or the planning of it. The professional forensic scientist leaves this part of the equation to the detectives and the justice system. We can only collect, analyze, and present the best evidence. It is up to others to draw conclusions from the body of evidence.
For more than forty years, I have investigated thousands of cases, both in my home base, Connecticut, and around the world. Through my work at the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory and at the University of New Haven’s Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science, I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to assist many people to find justice for their loved ones.
The Kennedy cases have intrigued forensic scientists throughout the decades since these assassinations befell America in the 1960s. The assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, is examined in my book Famous Crimes Revisited, coauthored with Dr. Jerry Labriola. My analysis of the evidence and studies conducted by other respected forensic scientists reveal that the bullet evidence, the ballistics, and the autopsy findings point away from the official Warren Commission version. More recently, I participated in the 2008 national symposium at the Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the conference, new bullet evidence was presented. The results of neutron activation (exact composition in parts per billion) of fragments recovered from the JFK assassination showed “no match”—that is, the batches of shells were different. This is an indication of a high probability that more than one weapon was fired.
In the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy, major inconsistencies also exist in the physical evidence recovered at the scene. The shooting took place as the senator walked through a crowded hotel kitchen pantry following his presidential primary election victory speech at Los Angeles’s Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968. Kennedy was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head. However, the alleged gunman was firing from the front at a distance of several feet.
In the summer of 2002, one of the foremost experts on the case, Judge Robert Joling, donated his entire RFK assassination collection to the University of New Haven’s Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science archives. From Judge Joling’s documents and photographs, it is clear that the ballistics and autopsy evidence in the case conflict with the official version of events. While dozens of eyewitnesses saw twenty-four-year-old Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan fire a .22 caliber handgun at Senator Kennedy, the physical evidence reveals a different story.
But such evidence alone cannot tell us why a crime occurred or how a plot developed.
In this latest work on these cases, author Patrick Nolan presents the culmination of more than a decade of research, much of which he has shared with me over the years. His thesis is backed up with compelling evidence and thorough documentation. He has taken what some considered to be open-and-shut cases and, through diligent analysis of facts and the evidence, has found some new answers to the questions surrounding the violent attempts to subvert the national will in the 1960s.
Mr. Nolan’s early background in news writing and college teaching and his perseverance and devotion to this subject have given him the tools to make sound judgments in these controversial cases.
The goal of forensic science professionals is to find the truth. This is also Mr. Nolan’s goal. At the end of the day, it is up to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions based on the best evidence. At the same time, I firmly believe—and I often remind myself and others—“The truth will always surface . . . someday.”
Dr. Henry C. Lee
New Haven, 2013
Dr. Henry C. Lee’s television series, Trace Evidence: The Case Files of Dr. Henry Lee, premiered on Court TV in June 2004. Dr. Lee is the former director of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory and currently Distinguished Professor of Forensic Science at the University of New Haven. He has assisted forty-six countries and investigated more than six thousand major crime cases worldwide.