Mr. Eisenberg. That is Lee Harvey Oswald?
Mr. Stombaugh. That is, Lee Harvey Oswald, and I found that of the limb and pubic hairs I removed from the blanket, several matched Oswald's in all observable microscopic characteristics and could have originated from Oswald.
Mr. Eisenberg. You said these hairs were from a person of Caucasian race. Can you explain how you can tell the difference between hairs of the various types of races?
Mr. Stombaugh. Yes, sir. Going back to my charts, I have a chart here which contains a diagram of a hair. This isn't any particular hair, this is a type of hair that could be animal or human. I am just using this to give one an idea of what a hair looks like.
First, we have the root, which is the portion of the hair embedded in the scalp or in the skin, whichever type hair it might be.
(At this point, Mr. Dulles entered the hearing room.)
Mr. Stombaugh. And from the root, extending out and growing, is the shaft of the hair, and the very distal end of that is the tip.
If we were to take this hair and place it under a microscope, this is what we would see. We find that the hair basically consists, in the shaft area, of scales composing the outside portion of the hair. Directly under the scales is the cortex. Now the scales vary in size and shape among animal and human hairs. The cortex also varies. Running through the center of the hair shaft, much as the lead in the center of a lead pencil, is what is known as the medulla.
The medulla is nothing more than air cells running through the center of the hairshaft.
In the cortex of the hair are small granules which appear under a microscope like tiny grains of sand. These are known as the hair pigment. This is the part of the hair that gives the hair its color, whether it is blond, dark brown, black, or what-have-you.