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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan

JFK: 60 Years of Questions

Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan

CrimeOnline and iHeartPodcasts

True Crime

4.81.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2023

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

November 22, 1963. John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was shot and killed during a presidential motorcade in Dallas, Texas. The President is taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital. By law, Dallas County Coroner Dr. Earl Rose had jurisdiction over the case and should have performed the autopsy. However, against Dr. Earl Rose protestations, the body of President Kennedy was wrapped in a sheet, placed in a casket with a broken handle, and flown over 1,300 miles away to Washington DC, where 2 naval doctors, who had never conducted a forensic autopsy , performed the autopsy on John F. Kennedy.

Join Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack as they take a close look at the autopsy that was so bad 60-years later questions are still being asked.

Time Code Highlights


00:01:21 Discussion about the ripple effect of the assassination of JFk

00:04:31 Discussion of the moments following the shooting of JFK in Dealey Plaza

00:06:02 Talk about how autopsy "Standard Procedures" were not followed

00:06:51 Texas state law and jurisdiction over investigation and autopsy

00:07:58 Board Certified Forensic Pathologist Doctor Earl Rose was chief medical examiner for Dallas, Texas at the time and was at Parkland Memorial Hospital

00:09:22 Discussion JFK body taken from Dallas to Washington DC for autopsy

00:10:59 Talk about Secret Service preparing for President trips.

00:11:36 Discussion of JFK physical condition after being shot.

00:12:52 Talk about injuries to JFK, at least 2 gunshot wounds.

00:13:31 Discussion of tracheotomy that was performed to establish an airway

00:15:04 Discussion of Dr. Earl Rose and how his experience was dismissed

00:16:23 Dr. Earl Rose KNEW he was looking at a Murder Investigation.

00:17:47 Discussion Dallas County had jurisdiction over the body.

00:19:03 Talk about autopsy of JFK should have taken place in Dallas

00:20:08 Talk about previous Presidential assassination, Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley and their autopsies.

00:22:10 Discussion of Dr. Earl Rose did the autopsy for Oswald, Officer Tippit, and Jack Ruby.

00:23:36 Discussion of JFK body being taken to Washington DC

00:25:16 Comparing Bethesda Naval Hospital to Walter Reed Hospital

00:26:04 Discussion about doctors chosen to perform JFK autopsy

00:28:42 Talk about why doctors turned bullet wound into tracheostomy

00:29:55 Presidents body wrapped in sheets. Head wrapped in gauze

00:31:09 Discussion of JFK clothing, tie changed the trajectory of round.

00:32:58 Discussion about clothing worn during the assassination

00:33:44 Talk about "magic bullet" going through JFK and Governor Connally,

00:35:08 Discussion Secret Service agents washed interior of Presidential limo.

00:36:03 Talk about crime scenes - bone fragments found and turned in later

00:37:02 Description of President's head, skull came apart in doctors hands.

00:38:04 Discussion of Assessment

00:40:02 Talk about x-rays that were done on body

00:41:58 Description of the Bethesda autopsy suite

00:43:51 Ballistics expert Dr. Pierre Fink, forensic pathologist, came to Bethesda

00:44:53 JFK brain was removed before Dr. Fink arrived

00:46:05 Description of "Brain Loafing".

00:47:22 The autopsy of JFK was not a complete autopsy

00:49:21 Discussion of "family wishes" as it applies to the murder of the president.

00:50:48 Compare autopsy of John F. Kennedy and Robert F Kennedy

00:52:36 Discussion about other pathologists available to do autopsy on JFK

00:55:09 No way to know if other injuries suffered by JFK could have been lethal

00:56:04 Commentary - no excuse for what happened with autopsy of JFK

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. I lived in the mountains from the hometown as a college professor.

0:19.0

Up in the North George Mountains and Blue Ridge Ridge Mountains specifically.

0:23.0

There was a place I'd like to go to every now and hop in my truck,

0:26.0

sometimes by myself, many times with my son in tow.

0:30.0

My wife and I would go up there on the weekends as well.

0:35.0

And it's one of those places that's untouched.

0:38.0

It's a federal park. It's called Windfill Scott,

0:42.0

and there's actually a Lake Windfill

0:44.2

Scott up there. And when you see it it's surrounded by Hemlock trees and these big

0:51.0

beautiful indigenous ponds, some hardwoods.

0:55.0

The lake is stocked with trout.

0:58.0

But you know the thing about that lake is that on the surface it's

1:02.0

absolutely gorgeous.

1:04.0

The water seems almost untouched and you can take photos up there and it's like it's frozen in time, a place of beauty.

1:11.0

You almost hate to disturb the water, but the moment you pick up a stone and you throw

1:17.1

it as you're standing on the bank into the middle of it, there's a ripple that goes out and anything that's on the surface is affected.

1:27.0

Even the picture you have in your mind's eye of it is disrupted.

1:32.0

And for that moment in time you've changed the face of that

1:37.4

otherwise pristine environment. I think at least in my way of thinking that 60 years ago in Dallas, Texas, that's kind of what happened.

1:50.0

That's what happened on November 22nd, when our president, as Tom, John of Kennedy, was shot.

1:57.2

Because there were those times prior to President Kennedy, having been assassinated, murdered, and those times afterwards.

2:09.6

And we as a country, I think at least my generation, marks that time that way.

...

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