Kennedy. Still, for Dr. Werner Spitz, nothing has changed about that day
or the autopsy evidence he reviewed years later for the Rockefeller
Commission and House Select Committee on Assassinations.
On the day JFK was slain, Spitz was a passenger on a ship headed from
Germany to New York City along with his young wife and child. Also in
tow, carrying all of their worldly possessions, were 13 wooden crates.
As with many of the passengers on the ship, the prospect of living in
America had Spitz feeling excited and hopeful. That was until the
afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963.
Rumor had it President Kennedy was shot and people were congregating in
groups to discuss and deliberate. “I was part of one of these groups on
the top deck where somebody had a shortwave radio. I was able to capture
what was going on in the broadcast out of the states. Of course, at the
beginning he was shot, and little by little it became obvious that he
was not only shot but that he was dead.”
Where did it happen?
Who killed him?
passengers mulled over into the night and around the New York harbor the
following day. Little did Spitz know – as an aspiring young forensic
pathologist – that years later he would be called upon to answer some of
these very questions.
In 1975, President Gerald Ford created the United States President’s
Commission on CIA Activities to investigate the activities of the
Central Intelligence Agency and other American intelligence agencies.
This followed a report by the New York Times that the CIA had conducted
illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens
during the 1960s.
referred to as the Rockefeller Commission. In addition, the commission
studied issues relating to the John F. Kennedy assassination. Shortly
after that, the House Select Committee on Assassinations undertook
reinvestigations of the murders of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther
King Jr.
Spitz, who later served for decades as the Macomb County medical
examiner, was asked to work with both the Rockefeller Commission and the
House Select Committee on Assassinations. He viewed the autopsy
materials as an adviser to the Rockefeller Commission and was part of
the HSCA’s panel of experts that re-examined much of the evidence
compiled two decades earlier by the Warren Commission, which concluded
gunman Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone on that day in Dallas. Under
particular scrutiny were the president’s body movements as the three
shots were fired in Dealey Plaza, specifically the JFK head snap seen in
the Zapruder film first shown on television in 1975. The Zapruder film
is the home movie taken by businessman Abraham Zapruder capturing the
assassination as it happened.
included one other forensic pathologist, a neuropathologist (one who
studies the pathology of the brain and nervous system), a radiologist,
and a ballistics expert.
Born in Stargard, Germany (now part of Poland), the son of Siegfried and
Anna, Spitz seemed destined for forensic pathology. While other kids
his age were spending their summer hiking the grounds of castles in
Bavaria, Spitz was working in the pathology department at the hospital
where his parents were employed. In 1953, he graduated from Hebrew
University Medical School in Jerusalem. While working at the coroner’s
office in Jerusalem, Spitz saw only one homicide. Then he moved to
Baltimore and saw 400 within his first year as deputy medical examiner.
“I said to myself, ‘Well, this is why I’m here,’” Spitz said.
In 1972, he moved to Detroit where he worked as chief medical examiner
for Wayne County and years later for Macomb County. Considered by many
to be a pioneer in forensic pathology, Spitz also taught at Wayne State
University and the University of Windsor and stills runs a private
consulting practice in St. Clair Shores. By the time he got the call
from Washington, the number of autopsies he had performed was in the
thousands – investigating everything from assisted suicides and domestic
violence cases to drowning and homicides, many of them having to do
with bullet wounds of the head and the body.
It’s this experience Spitz took to Washington.
At the National Archives, where all of the evidence secured in the case
was held, Spitz found himself reliving history, one piece of evidence at
a time.
President’s back brace, his clothes, including his shirt and necktie
(which helped him determine the bullet wound to the neck was an exit
wound) and the Navy’s original autopsy reports. These were filed by Dr.
James J. Humes, who was on staff at Bethesda Naval Hospital at the time
of the shooting. Soon after doctors at Parkland Hospital in Dallas
pronounced the president dead, the Secret Service and other personnel
proceeded to transport the body from Texas to Washington. While in
flight, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy requested the autopsy be done at
Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Md., since the President had served
in the Navy.
While working on the case, Spitz received access to Zapruder’s 26-second
color film and photos of JFK’s wounds. The family had requested the
photos not be shown for 50 years.
“They were so explicit they made my hair stand on end,” he said, in a previous report. “You could see every pore in his skin.”
After close review of all the evidence, Spitz and members of his panel
filed a report, confirming what Humes concluded at the time of the
assassination: One projectile entered the back of the president and
exited in the front of the neck; one projectile entered in the rear of
the skull and exited the front. One dissenter later argued against that
JFK was not shot solely by Oswald from a window of the Texas School Book
Depository.
committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that
President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a
conspiracy.”
Spitz reported his findings to the commission. A large box holding all
of his notes and data was secured as property of the National Archives.
Then the doctor tracked down Humes.
“He was working right here in Detroit,” Spitz said.
director of laboratories at St. John Hospital in Detroit. “So I asked
him, ‘Why didn’t you shave the skin around the bullet wound in the head?
What happened to the President’s brain? Where are your notes from the
autopsy?”
One of the gravest errors made during the president’s autopsy, in
Spitz’s opinion, was that the back of the head was never shaved. It left
speculation and innuendo regarding the exact location of the wound.
“Jackie was upstairs in the hospital and sent down an order not to cut
any hair,” Spitz was told. Those orders were passed on to Humes who, as a
military man, followed them.
“I wouldn’t have asked,” Spitz said. “I would’ve just done it.”
European accent. However, given the opportunity to share his thoughts,
one encounters a Yoda-like character with a sense of warmth and
compassion.
“You have to understand — though an excellent pathologist he (Humes)
was not a forensic pathologist. And there’s a huge difference,” he
explained. “However, in those days, that was not recognized.”
Spitz said Humes broke down during their discussion, clearly upset by what took place. As Spitz said, it was a different time.
covered with Kennedy’s blood. As for the brain, he had no idea what
happened to it. Rumor has it a member of the Kennedy family may know its
whereabouts, but again that’s just a theory.
Spitz said it could be something as simple as it was lost in the
craziness of the moment or misplaced among the other brains in the
morgue. Also simple to explain, Spitz added, was JFK’s “rearward jerk”
after the fatal shot. That brief movement had convinced skeptics that
the fatal shot had not come from Oswald’s perch behind the limousine.
Spitz said it took a moment for the driver to comprehend the tragedy
that was unfolding and when he did, he accelerated, sending what was at
that point a lifeless body backwards.
During his 60 years as a forensic pathologist Spitz, now 87, has offered
expert testimony in many famous cases: the assassination of Martin
Luther King Jr., the Preppy Murder Trial in New York, the California
Night Stalker case, and the wrongful death lawsuit against O.J. Simpson.
In all cases, famous or not, Spitz said the bottom line comes from what
you have to work with at the start.
It became complicated because of people and political circumstances.
“I don’t really know who pulled the trigger,” Spitz said. “All I can
tell you is what I see – whether this person pulled the trigger or that
person pulled the trigger. No forensic pathologist will ever determine
that because … we don’t determine who’s guilty. There are other people
who determine that. We determine what we see.”
Maybe.
after official inquiries ended, thousands of pages of investigative
documents remain withheld from public view. The contents of these files
are partially known and conspiracy buffs are not the only ones seeking
to open them for a closer look.
“If there was a conspiracy, it was not one where he was in a crossfire,” Spitz said.
