Had a decision to perform a frontal laparotomy been deferred, and had in its stead a removal of the damaged right kidney made possible the tying off of the blood vessels supplying this organ to halt the hemorrhage that was draining off the victim’s life blood, Huey Long might none the less have died of peritonitis, from “soilage” into the abdominal cavity by the two small punctures of the large bowel.
But once the decision to operate from the front was carried into effect, the only door to possible—by no means “certain,” but possible—recovery was irrevocably closed. Even Dr. Vidrine realized that a second operation to halt the kidney hemorrhage was something his patient could not survive.
By way of conclusion it is logical to say that on the basis of available testimony and with due regard for the imminence of human error, the following facts appear to be established by the overwhelming preponderance of evidence:
Dr. Weiss was armed when he went into the capitol building on the night of September 8, 1935, carrying with him the small-caliber Belgian automatic he had brought back from France and which he customarily took with him in his car on night calls.
According to the integrated testimony of four eyewitnesses who had no opportunity for collusion prior to giving their accounts of what they saw, he held the gun in one hand, concealing it with the straw hat he held in the other, so that it was virtually impossible for him to have struck a blow with his fist.
Every trustworthy piece of testimony appears to make it clear that only four shots were fired while Huey Long was on the scene: two by Weiss, one each by Roden and Coleman; that by the time the general bodyguard fusillade began, the Senator was already on his way down a flight of stairs opposite the Western Union office, which is around a corner from the site of the shooting; and that the fusillade was still in progress while Long was being led out of the building by Judge O’Connor.
Medical testimony is unanimous on the point that only one bullet, and that one of small caliber, traversed Long’s abdomen, leaving small blue punctures at the points of entry and exit; that the primarily fatal injury was caused when, just prior to its exit, the bullet damaged the victim’s right kidney at a point where only removal of the maimed organ could have halted the ensuing and ultimately fatal hemorrhage.
Granted then, if only for the sake of argument, that there no longer is either mystery or even reasonable doubt concerning who killed Huey Long, one big, crucial question remains unanswered. It is this:
“Why?”