Jim Fetzer
[Editor’s note: A discussion thread for 250 students of the assassination of JFK has been making waves, where I have hailed the moderator, Keven Hofeling, Esq,. a retired attorney, as having “a mind like a steel trap”. I have called him “The New Sheriff in the JFK Community” for the excelence of his commentary, characteristically precise, comprehensive, and thorough. His matery of argument has seemed to me to be impeccable–until now. I posted (what I took to be) a throww away about the body in autopsy photographs not being that of JFK on 11 June 2026: David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., has proven that none of the JFK autospy X-rays in the National Archives is an original. If I am right, then we also do not have a single authentic autopsy photograph of the body of JFK:
From: James Fetzer
Date: Thu, Jun 11, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: J. KEVEN HOFELING ESQ. RE: Dr. Michael Kayser’s Comments About Evidentiary Issues and the Evidentiary Challenges of the JFKA Case
Date: Thu, Jun 11, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: J. KEVEN HOFELING ESQ. RE: Dr. Michael Kayser’s Comments About Evidentiary Issues and the Evidentiary Challenges of the JFKA Case
There’s a glitch in the photographic record, because the Groden photos are not of JFK but of another body, presumably that of “The Major”, who arrived in a casket that Dennis David was ordered not to log in. I believe it’s “The Major” whose body we see repeatedly in photographs displayed here. I called this out in 2017 and in presentations in Portland and Seattle in 2018, but nobody seems to have noticed. See my “False Flags on Five Fronts” (4 February 2018), for the GIF, and https://cosmicconvergence.org/?p=23459
The quote from Edward Reed is of more than passing significance. Lifton was the first to notice Humes spoke of “indications of surgery to the head”, where Reed and Thomas Edward Robinson, the mortician who prepared the body for the funeral, watched as Humes himself took a cranial saw to the skull of JFK to enlarge it to look like something that could have been caused by a shot from above and behind, had Jack been learning far forward, described in mathematical detail in the Bethesda Autopsy Report.
So there are actually three different versions of the back-of-the-head wound. When Groden and I were having breakfast together in Des Moine, IA, before speaking to an advanced high-school class on the assassination, he offered to let me use his photos, which are of course prominent in this post, to which I replied, “But they’re fake!”, to which he made no reply. Yet another fake autopsy photo seems to have acquired a life of its own, where some of our best experts on the medical evidence take it to be authentic:
Bob Livingston, M.D., has explained how Humes called him back–after he had called Humes to emphasize that, given the wound to the throat (which had been described as “a small, clean puncture wound”) had to be a wound of entry, that the neck had to be carefully dissected to trace its trajectory–to ask what it would have looked like had it been a wound of exit instead. As you can see here, he altered the wound (following Bob’s description). But this isn’t JFK, either, but another of “The Major”. Notice that his eyes are open. Charles Crenshaw, who was the last physician to view him at Parkland, participated in wrapping the body in sheets and placing it in the bronze ceremonial casket, and closed his eyes in the process. Even our best medical experts appear to have been played. And the reason Jackie did not go for an open casket was because it didn’t look like Jack, which is because it wasn’t Jack.Jim
Very much to my surprise, Keven took exception to (what I had thought was obvious and posted critiques debunking my arguments. What follows is the latest and most comprehensive attack with my reply.]
From: James Fetzer
Date: Wed, Jun 17, 2026 at 10:14 PM
Subject: Re: J. KEVEN HOFELING ESQ. vs. DR. JAMES FETZER RE: On Larry Rivera’s Blender Photogrammetry Evidence of a Substitute Cadaver in the JFK Autopsy Photographs
To: J. Keven Hofeling
Date: Wed, Jun 17, 2026 at 10:14 PM
Subject: Re: J. KEVEN HOFELING ESQ. vs. DR. JAMES FETZER RE: On Larry Rivera’s Blender Photogrammetry Evidence of a Substitute Cadaver in the JFK Autopsy Photographs
To: J. Keven Hofeling
Postscript
You ask why those shown the photos did not immediately reject them. But which autopsy photos were they shown? Do you know, Keven? Plus we know that the official photographers said that these were not the photographs they had taken. Why have you lost your objectivity by only citing evidence favorable to your side? That’s the fallacy known as special pleading (or “cherry picking”) or (alternatively) the method of selection and elimination by selecting the evidence that is favorable to your side and eliminating the rest. I expected more of you, Keven. Heretofore you have seemed to be a bulldozer for truth–but not in this case.
On Wed, Jun 17, 2026 at 8:02 PM James Fetzer wrote:
Keven,
I hereby incorporate my previous report of 12 June 2026, which included the following:
Serendipitously, Rick Russo had been sent our recent exchange and called me to
suggest I might want to review “A Conversation\ with Rick Russo” that he had done:
A Conversation with Rick Russo (24 Marcy 2024)
Rick has probably spent the most time with the medical techs of any student of JFK.
It turns out there were two (2) morgues at Bethesda beyond the facility at NAMRI:
(1) The old morgue was in Building 2, where JFK was brought in at 6:30 PM/ET;
(2) The new (built in 1960) was in Building 8, where he was brought at 8 PM/ET.
(3) The disputed photographs, however, were not taken at either but at NAMRI.
</blockquote class=”gmail_quote”>
I am going to address each of Keven’s arguments in sequence but, having offered
courses in logic and critical thinking for 35 years, he commits elementary fallacies.
I am such a fan of Keven that I am still taken-aback by his defense of fake photos.
We know the story Lifton shared of the ambulance chase, the two ambulances, the
two morgue entries, and the existence of two morgues at Bethesda. We also know
of the existence of a third morgue at NAMRI, which Dennis David identified as the
source of the contested photographs including the tiles, the stirrup, and the phone:
So I am presuming that you acknowledge (what I take to have already been proven) that:
(1) the (left side) photos were not taken at either of the Bethesda morgues but at NAMRI;
(2) that (in addition) the so-called “Stare of Death” photograph was also taken at NAMRI;
(3) nevertheless, you still insist as “not proven” that these were not photographs of JFK.
My challenge, therefore, is to demonstrate that these photos, taken at NAMRI, were not JFK.
Notice how odd it is that any autopsy photographs of JFK would be taken anywhere other than
Bethesda. I would have thought that an attorney would regard the fact that they were taken at
NAMRI as prima facie proof that they were taken of a body other than that of JFK, especially
when comparisons with left and right profile photos of JFK are rather different in their features.
This, of course, has been reinforced by Larry Rivera’s overlays, which support a 2-body thesis:
Larry has addressed the question of the authenticity of the images in the autopsy photos in his
JFK: 20th Century Revelations, Vol. II (2025), pp. 225-226, with the following repeatable results:
Larry is highly proficient at doing overlays, including Lee in the doorway. Thus,
“JFK’s high forehead, browline, eye, nose, mouth and chin do not line up at all
The autopsy photos shown here are not of John Kennedy. It’s not even close.”
Larry observes, “When applying a grid profile to the collage, it’s child’s play, illustrating
and thereby proving the autopsy photo showing the left profile is not that of Kennedy”.
Yet you, Keven, imply that I bear a burden of proof for something that’s already proven!
On Tue, Jun 16, 2026 at 10:17 AM J. Keven Hofeling wrote:
Dr. Fetzer,I too am an admirer of Larry Rivera’s work (I for example frequently cite to audio segments of the testimony of the Dallas motorcycle police officers who attested that the presidential limousine stopped at the time of the headshots [including the 4 who were flanking the limo] from Larry’s poscast interviews regarding ‘The JFK Horsemen’), and I wish he would contribute more of his expertise to our email deliberations.
I am also convinced that Blender photogrammetry studies of JFKA photographic evidence should have a legitimate role in the detection of forgeries and fakery, and that Larry has genuine expertise in the utilization of this technology.However, with regard to the study that you have cited below as evidence that the cadaver in the JFK autopsy photographs is not that of President Kennedy, I would want to see something along the lines of the following to corroborate the specific claim: Control samples of other autopsy photos of cadaver faces on heads in which every bone in the face was broken, with fractures throughout the cranium, and an occipital-parietal defect the size of a large orange in the back of the head (or equivelant damage) on which Blender photogrammetry comparisons with photographs of the subject while living shows no morpheological differences with the appearance of the face in the autopsy photographs. My expectation would be that between that degree of cranial damage and associated facial swelling (remember that Robinson also found schrapnel holes in the face during embalming), other comparative Blender photogrammetry studies would also detect significant differences between pre and post mortem photographs of the faces of other autopsy subjects with equivelent cranial damage.
From the ARRB Meeting Report summarizing the 6/21/96 in-person interview of Tom Robinson (ARRB MD 180), page 2, under the heading “Visible damage to skull caused by the bullet of bullets (as opposed to damage caused by the pathologists)”:
“-skull fractures: Robinson said that every bone in the President’s face was broken, but that this could not be determined when viewing the body from the front. He also said that there were fractures all over the cranium, including the floor of the skull, saying on another occasion, ‘every bone in his head was broken.’ (Regarding this interior skull damage, it is unclear how much of this was observed by Robinson during the autopsy, and how much during embalming and reconstruction.)”
Primary Source
MD 180 — ARRB Meeting Report Summarizing 6/21/96 In-Person Interview of Tom Robinson, AARC Library:
Other evidence you have cited, includes JFK’s eyes being open in the autopsy photographs despite earlier being closed by the Parkland physicians. The following testimony not only explains the eyes opening, but also further corroborates the extent of the cranial damage attested to by Tom Robinson above:———————————————————— —————————— —————————— ———————– Dennis David:….the right eye seemed to be a little more prominent than it is here in this picture. (photo 1= stare of death)William Law: More prominent as to what?David: Protruded.Law: So it was popped.David: You could say that.———————————————————— —————————— —————————— ———————– Paul O’Connor: His right eye, as I remember, was poked completely out of the orbit, the eye casing. I remember that Dr. Boswell and I looked into the back of the cranium, looking towards the front, and the orbit-the boney casing around where the eye sits was completely fractured.———————————————————— —————————— —————————— ———————— James Jenkins: ….And the only thing is that when they were preparing the body for burial, they had to put a suture in the right eyelid in order to keep it closed because apparently there may have been some bone fracture in that area, but there was no externally visible wound or fracturing there.———————————————————— —————————— —————————— ———————— Jerrol Custer: The eye was more protruded at the time, but there’s nothing to say that the eye wasn’t pushed back in. Because at that time also there was a mortician there doing his work, his job was fixing, making the body more presentable.———————————————————— —————————— —————————— ———————— All above quotes are from William Matson Law’s “IN THE EYE OF HISTORY”
Something here just “pops out at you”–or, should I say, at any objective observer. When you< cite Dennis
David as having noticed (of his right eye) that it was more “protruded”–and then confirms that it was
“popped out”, notice that the right eye in the disputed photographs is not “popped out”, which lends
further confirmation to the 2-body thesis. Yet you simply ignore it.
David as having noticed (of his right eye) that it was more “protruded”–and then confirms that it was
“popped out”, notice that the right eye in the disputed photographs is not “popped out”, which lends
further confirmation to the 2-body thesis. Yet you simply ignore it.
You want to attribute difference in the overlays to differences in pre and post-mortem imagery
due to cranial damage. And you ask for comparisons with other autopsy victims, something I
would only expect from someone who wants to conceal or obfuscate OBVIOUS differences.
David observed a popped out eye in JFK. This body does not have one. This body is not JFK.
And if you want to take the Custer/Jenkins line–“they had to add a suture in the right eye to
keep it closed”–notice the right eye is NOT CLOSED. And (as I have previously reported),
Charles Crenshaw closed his eyes in Dallas and, from my review of rigor mortis, his eyes
should have been closed at the time of the autopsy, which again means those are not JFK.
I find it embarrassing that a person of your intellect would introduce a straw man argument,
implying that unless Larry (or Rick or I) were doing comparative pre and post mortem studies
of subjects having all of their cranial bones broken Larry’s overlays have no evidential value.
After all, if they matched, there would be no question of being the same. But they don’t match.
MORE QUOTES:———————————————————— —————————— —————————— ———————— CE 387 Pathological Examination Report:…the eyes are blue, the right pupil measuring 8 mm. in diameter, the left 4 mm.There is edema and aechymosis of the inner canthus region of the left eyelid measuring approximately 1.5 ma. in greatest diameter. There is edema and ecchymosis diffusely over the right supra-orbital ridge with abnormal mobility of the underlying bone.———————————————————— —————————— —————————— ———————— MR. GUNN: I notice that this photo is different from the first view that we took a look at. The eye, at least on the right side, appears to be open. Actually, both eyes appear to be open. Do you recall whether the eyes were open during the course of the autopsy?DR. J THORNTON BOSWELL: I don’t recall that that was a point of interest. I think we just moved back and let the photographer take the picture, and I think maybe positioning the body may have had something to do with stretching the eyelids. But I don’t think we made any attempt to take the pictures with the eyes open or closed.MR. GUNN: So the difference on whether the eyes were open or closed would not be of any material significance in terms of the timing of the photographs?DR. J THORNTON BOSWELL: No.———————————————————— —————————— —————————— ———————— MR. GUNN: Do you have any recollection as to whether the eyes of President Kennedy were open at any point during the autopsy?JOHN T. STRINGER: Yes.MR. GUNN: Were they open at all points during the autopsy?JOHN T. STRINGER: Well, they kept trying to close them, and they’d open again.———————————————————— —————————— —————————— ———————— Arlen Specter: Upon your arrival in the room, where President Kennedy was situated, what did you observe as to his condition?Malcolm Perry: At the time I entered the door, Dr. Carrico was attending him. He was attaching the Bennett apparatus to an endotracheal tube in place to assist his respiration. The President was lying supine on the carriage, underneath the overhead lamp. His shirt, coat, had been removed. There was a sheet over his lower extremities and the lower portion of his trunk. He was unresponsive. There was no evidence of voluntary motion. His eyes were open, deviated up and outward, and the pupils were dilated and fixed.———————————————————— —————————— —————————— ———————— Here is the problem, Dr. Fetzer: If the points cited above — which you have offered as evidence of a JFK body double at autopsy — were presented to a jury, I would expect that opposing counsel would respond by presenting the evidence above, point out that of the 40 or so medical and law enforcement professionals that were shown the Fox set of bootleg autopsy photographs when they came out that not a single one of them exclaimed “that is not the body of the President that I worked on /witnessed!” (although there were many that exclaimed that the intact back of the head “was gone!”), and opposing counsel would go on to present numerous other examples of unsubstantiated body double theories (such as those involving Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign, and the more recent Charlie Kirk body double theories), would throw out terms like “looneysville” and “La La Land”, and the jury would laugh us out of Court!
WOW! This is fascinating. Keven here alludes to my proofs that Hillary Clinton has used
body doubles on many occasions, even including national debates with Bernie Sanders
and with Donald Trump. Several fallacies are committed here, including the ad hominem
(“If Fetzer’s wrong about Hillary, then he’s also wrong about JFK”) and appeal to popular
sentiments (Most people do not believe Hillary used body doubles; therefore, Hillary did
not use them), which I spent 35 years teaching undergraduates to detect and to avoid:
Deception Galore: Faking Hate Crimes and More
Unless, of course, they wanted to deploy them for rhetorical effect, as you, Keven, do here.
I don’t have a Charlie Kirk double theory, but I (and my colleagues) have proven that it was
a staged event. EGAD! We even have a rehearsal crisis-actor-crowd video broadcast
over ABC (with 100s running away from an empty tent as practice for following their script),
no blood (in a setting that should have had blood splatter everywhere), and a wound that
moves around on his neck (because it was CGIed in). Take a look and decide for yourself:
Charlie Kirk Assassination HOAX EXPOSED: No Blood, Fake Footage, Mossad Plot & Zionist Money
For an experienced attorney and very smart guy like Keven to cite irrelevant and immaterial
studies in this context–especially when I have already provided massive proof of 2 bodies–
(a) the photos in question were not even taken in one of the Bethesda morgues but at NAMRI;
(b) the superpositions do not match (when presumably they would were these the same body);
(c) the real body had a (right eye) “popped out”, but the body in these photographs does not;
(d) the eyes are open when (given onset of rigor) they ought to be open (Charles Crenshaw).
which establishes (what I would take to be) dispositive proof of 2 bodies. And it may never
have crossed their minds that it wasn’t JFK’s body just as it seems not to have crossed yours.
That’s the way things work in the real world. Body double theories might be good for selling books, and attracting podcast audiences, but without actual legitimate substantiating evidence, they are used to discredit legitimate JFK assassination research and turn us into a laughingstalk…
Didn’t the CIA suggest in its memorandum on dealing with Warren Report critics to cite their having
financial interest and other improper motives (like selling books and attracting podcast audiences)?
Keven here implies that (a) through (d) are not “actual legitimate substantiating evidence”, which
is OBVIOUSLY FALSE. (a) though (d) constitute “actual legitimate substantiating evidence”.
And there’s a great deal more “actual legitimate substantiating evidence”, including the skull flap.
In the HSCA photos and drawings, JFK had a skull flap attached to his head. Where has it gone?
Since there was a skull flap on the body of JFK–which Thomas Robinson also described–
but no skull flap on the body shown in these photographs, they can’t be one-and-the-same.
Keven has previously cited David Josephs and the claim that the ears match. But Larry and
Rick have done better, cleaner, and more accurate studies show that the ears do not match:
In fact, it’s not even close. We also have a pretty good idea where the face of the 2nd body
came from. Part of the genius of taking the body from Dallas to Bethesda is that, as a former
Naval officer, JFK’s medical records were stored there. Thus, as I have previously observed,
if they needed a chest X-ray to conceal damage done by the bullet that passed through the
windshield–shards of which caused tiny wounds to the face, which Keven mentioned above
Thomas Robinson had found and David Mantik explained–they could not only have another
chest X-ray but a genuine JFK CHEST X-RAY. But they also took photographs of him there.
Rick has found earlier photographs suggesting that they may have been used for the double:
From some perspectives, the nose appears to be an artificial contrivance (a prosthetic nose):
Thee may be no colorized photos of the “Stare of Death” because they only had black-and-white:
The body in the disputed photographs looks much younger and less mature than JFK at time of death:
Here are some photos of a much younger JFK, where the body double image falls in between:
So we actually have at least 10 lines of actual, legitimate, substantiating proof as follows:
(1) the photos in question were not even taken in one of the Bethesda morgues but at NAMRI;
(2) the superpositions do not match (when presumably they would were these the same body);
(3) the real body had a (right eye) “popped out”, but the body in these photographs does not;
(4) the eyes are open when (given onset of rigor) they ought to be closed (Charles Crenshaw);
(5) some of the bodies in the record have skull flaps, but others do not (implying more than 1);
(6) the ears (typically taken as decisive as fingerprints) do not match (guaranteeing 2 bodies);
(7) earlier Bethesda photographs appear to closely resemble the face of the new body double;
(8) from some perspectives, the nose appears to be an artificial contrivance (a prosthetic nose);
(9) no color version of the Stare of Death, perhaps because they only had the black-and-white;
(10) the body double looks to be much younger and less mature than JFK at time of his death.
Scientific reasoning entails four steps or stages (as I have explained in many places; see, for
example, “Propensities and Frequencies: Inference to the Best Explanation”, and elsewhere:
PUZZLEMENT: Something doesn’t add up, such as conflicting reports about the autopsy, the
autopsy photographs, different ambulances, multiple morgues, and photographic anomalies;
SPECULATION: What hypothesis might possibly explain these many anomalies and resolve
our puzzlement? Could there have been more than one body featured in these photographs?
ADAPTATION: What is the probability of the available evidence (1)-(10) on the hypothesis (h1),
only one body was involved, in contrast to hypothesis (h2), more than one body was involved?
The probability of (1)-(10) on hypothesis (h1) there was one and only one body = zero.
The probability of (1)-(10) on hypothesis (h2) more than one body was involved = high.
Inference to the best explanation thus supports the following as previously asserted:
(1) The old morgue was in Building 2, where JFK was brought in at 6:30 PM/ET;
(2) The new (built in 1960) was in Building 8, where he was brought at 8 PM/ET.
(3) The Major was at NAMRI undergoing a parallel autopsy while JFK was in the
old (for wound alteration) before he was taken to the new (for the official autopsy).
EXPLANATION: When the evidence “settles down” and points in the same direction, then we
are entitled to accept the best supported as true in the tentative and fallible fashion of science.
Lingering question. Why would an experienced lawyer whom I myself have described as having
“a mind like a steel trap” obfuscate and dissemble in relation to (what I regard as) the missing
piece of the puzzle regarding the mysteries of Bethesda Hospital? While Keven concludes as
follows, there’s nothing respectful of me, Rick, Larry, or (even) JFK at work here, sad to say.
Jim
Respectfully,Keven——————-
From: James Fetzer
Date: Mon, Jun 15, 2026 at 8:57 AM
Subject: On Larry Rivera on the JFK Autopsy Photographs
To: J. Keven Hofeling
Keven,
Larry Rivera has addressed the question of the authenticity of the images in theautopsy photos in his JFK: 20th Century Revelations, Vol. II (2025), pp. 225-226:
I don’t think this leaves a lot of room for doubt about it. I highly recommend:
Larry has been responsible for some of the most cutting-edge JFK research of thepast decade, including confirming Lee in the doorway; that Lee’s passport was notvalid for travel to Cuba; that the whole Mexico City narrative was a fabrication; andthat the extant autopsy photographs are not of the body of John Fitzerald Kennedy.Jim
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