EXPERT EXAMINATION OF RIFLE, CARTRIDGE CASES, AND BULLET FRAGMENTS
On the sixth floor of the Depository Building, the Dallas police found three spent cartridges and a rifle. A nearly whole bullet was discovered on the stretcher used to carry Governor Connally at Parkland Hospital. As described in the preceding section, five bullet fragments were found in the President’s limousine. The cartridge cases, the nearly whole bullet and the bullet fragments were all subjected to firearms identification analysis by qualified experts. It was the unanimous opinion of the experts that the nearly whole bullet, the two largest bullet fragments and the three cartridge cases were definitely fired in the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building to the exclusion of all other weapons.
Discovery of Cartridge Cases and Rifle
Shortly after the assassination, police officers arrived at the Depository Building and began a search for the assassin and evidence.[C3-108] Around 1 p.m. Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney noticed a pile of cartons in front of the window in the southeast corner of the sixth floor.[C3-109] (See Commission Exhibit No. 723, [p. 80].) Searching that area he found at approximately 1:12 p.m. three empty cartridge cases on the floor near the window.[C3-110] When he was notified of Mooney’s discovery, Capt. J. W. Fritz, chief of the homicide bureau of the Dallas Police Department, issued instructions that nothing be moved or touched until technicians from the police crime laboratory could take photographs and check for fingerprints.[C3-111] Mooney stood guard to see that nothing was disturbed.[C3-112] A few minutes later, Lt. J. C. Day of the Dallas Police Department arrived and took photographs of the cartridge cases before anything had been moved.[C3-113]
At 1:22 p.m. Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone and Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman found a bolt-action rifle with a telescopic sight between two rows of boxes in the northwest corner near the staircase on the sixth floor.[C3-114] No one touched the weapon or otherwise disturbed the scene until Captain Fritz and Lieutenant Day arrived and the weapon was photographed as it lay on the floor.[C3-115] After Lieutenant Day determined that there were no fingerprints on the knob of the bolt and that the wooden stock was too rough to take fingerprints, he picked the rifle up by the stock and held it that way while Captain Fritz opened the bolt and ejected a live round.[C3-116] Lieutenant Day retained possession of the weapon and took it back to the police department for examination.[C3-117] Neither Boone nor Weitzman handled the rifle.[C3-118]
Discovery of Bullet at Parkland Hospital
A nearly whole bullet was found on Governor Connally’s stretcher at Parkland Hospital after the assassination. After his arrival at the hospital the Governor was brought into trauma room No. 2 on a stretcher, removed from the room on that stretcher a short time later, and taken on an elevator to the second-floor operating room.[C3-119] On the second floor he was transferred from the stretcher to an operating table which was then moved into the operating room, and a hospital attendant wheeled the empty stretcher into an elevator.[C3-120] Shortly afterward, Darrell C. Tomlinson, the hospital’s senior engineer, removed this stretcher from the elevator and placed it in the corridor on the ground floor, alongside another stretcher wholly unconnected with the care of Governor Connally.[C3-121] A few minutes later, he bumped one of the stretchers against the wall and a bullet rolled out.[C3-122]
Commission Exhibit No. 723
Shield of cartons around sixth floor southeast corner window.
Although Tomlinson was not certain whether the bullet came from the Connally stretcher or the adjacent one, the Commission has concluded that the bullet came from the Governor’s stretcher. That conclusion is buttressed by evidence which eliminated President Kennedy’s stretcher as a source of the bullet. President Kennedy remained on the stretcher on which he was carried into the hospital while the doctors tried to save his life.[C3-123] He was never removed from the stretcher from the time he was taken into the emergency room until his body was placed in a casket in that same room.[C3-124] After the President’s body was removed from that stretcher, the linen was taken off and placed in a hamper and the stretcher was pushed into trauma room No. 2, a completely different location from the site where the nearly whole bullet was found.[C3-125]
Description of Rifle
The bolt-action, clip-fed rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository, described more fully in appendix X, is inscribed with various markings, including “MADE ITALY,” “CAL. 6.5,” “1940” and the number C2766.[C3-126] (See Commission Exhibit Nos. 1303, 541(2) and 541(3), [pp. 82-83].) These markings have been explained as follows: “MADE ITALY” refers to its origin; “CAL. 6.5” refers to the rifle’s caliber; “1940” refers to the year of manufacture; and the number C2766 is the serial number. This rifle is the only one of its type bearing that serial number.[C3-127] After review of standard reference works and the markings on the rifle, it was identified by the FBI as a 6.5-millimeter model 91/38 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.[C3-128] Experts from the FBI made an independent determination of the caliber by inserting a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter cartridge into the weapon for fit, and by making a sulfur cast of the inside of the weapon’s barrel and measuring the cast with a micrometer.[C3-129] From outward appearance, the weapon would appear to be a 7.35-millimeter rifle, but its mechanism had been rebarreled with a 6.5-millimeter barrel.[C3-130] Constable Deputy Sheriff Weitzman, who only saw the rifle at a glance and did not handle it, thought the weapon looked like a 7.65 Mauser bolt-action rifle.[C3-131] (See chapter V, [p. 235].)
The rifle is 40.2 inches long and weighs 8 pounds.[C3-132] The minimum length broken down is 34.8 inches, the length of the wooden stock.[C3-133] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1304, [p. 132].) Attached to the weapon is an inexpensive four-power telescopic sight, stamped “Optics Ordnance Inc./Hollywood California,” and “Made in Japan.”[C3-134] The weapon also bears a sling consisting of two leather straps. The sling is not a standard rifle sling but appears to be a musical instrument strap or a sling from a carrying case or camera bag.[C3-135]
Commission Exhibit No. 1303
Commission Exhibits Nos. 541(2) and 541(3)
Photograph of markings on C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.
Expert Testimony
Four experts in the field of firearms identification analyzed the nearly whole bullet, the two largest fragments and the three cartridge cases to determine whether they had been fired from the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository. Two of these experts testified before the Commission. One was Robert A. Frazier, a special agent of the FBI assigned to the FBI Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Frazier has worked generally in the field of firearms identification for 23 years, examining firearms of various types for the purpose of identifying the caliber and other characteristics of the weapons and making comparisons of bullets and cartridge cases for the purpose of determining whether or not they were fired in a particular weapon.[C3-136] He estimated that he has made “in the neighborhood of 50,000 to 60,000” firearms comparisons and has testified in court on about 400 occasions.[C3-137] The second witness who testified on this subject was Joseph D. Nicol, superintendent of the bureau of criminal identification and investigation for the State of Illinois. Nicol also has had long and substantial experience since 1941 in firearms identification, and estimated that he has made thousands of bullet and cartridge case examinations.[C3-138]
In examining the bullet fragments and cartridge cases, these experts applied the general principles accepted in the field of firearms identification, which are discussed in more detail in appendix X at pages [547-553]. In brief, a determination that a particular bullet or cartridge case has been fired in a particular weapon is based upon a comparison of the bullet or case under examination with one or more bullets or cases known to have been fired in that weapon. When a bullet is fired in any given weapon, it is engraved with the characteristics of the weapon. In addition to the rifling characteristics of the barrel which are common to all weapons of a given make and model, every weapon bears distinctive microscopic markings on its barrel, firing pin and bolt face.[C3-139] These markings arise initially during manufacture, since the action of the manufacturing tools differs microscopically from weapon to weapon and since, in addition, the tools change microscopically while being used. As a weapon is used further distinctive markings are introduced. Under microscopic examination a qualified expert may be able to determine whether the markings on a bullet known to have been fired in a particular weapon and the markings on a suspect bullet are the same and, therefore, whether both bullets were fired in the same weapon to the exclusion of all other weapons. Similarly, firearms identification experts are able to compare the markings left upon the base of cartridge cases and thereby determine whether both cartridges were fired by the same weapon to the exclusion of all other weapons. According to Frazier, such an identification “is made on the presence of sufficient individual microscopic characteristics so that a very definite pattern is formed and visualized on the two surfaces.”[C3-140] Under some circumstances, as where the bullet or cartridge case is seriously mutilated, there are not sufficient individual characteristics to enable the expert to make a firm identification.[C3-141]
After making independent examinations, both Frazier and Nicol positively identified the nearly whole bullet from the stretcher and the two larger bullet fragments found in the Presidential limousine as having been fired in the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found in the Depository to the exclusion of all other weapons.[C3-142] Each of the two bullet fragments had sufficient unmutilated area to provide the basis for an identification.[C3-143] However, it was not possible to determine whether the two bullet fragments were from the same bullet or from two different bullets.[C3-144] With regard to the other bullet fragments discovered in the limousine and in the course of treating President Kennedy and Governor Connally, however, expert examination could demonstrate only that the fragments were “similar in metallic composition” to each other, to the two larger fragments and to the nearly whole bullet.[C3-145] After examination of the three cartridge cases found on the sixth floor of the Depository, Frazier and Nicol concluded that they had been fired in the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons.[C3-146] Two other experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who made independent examinations of the nearly whole bullet, bullet fragments and cartridge cases, reached the identical conclusions.[C3-147]