What kind of rifle killed jfk

He grabbed his pistol and ran outside, at which point he noticed blood pooling on his shirtsleeve from glass and metal shrapnel from the broken window.

The Dallas police correctly categorized the shooting as an assassination attempt, but their investigation turned up no suspects. Oswald retrieved his stashed rifle and likely fumed over the missed opportunity. It was such an easy shot, especially for a former Marine like Oswald. Unlike JFK, Walker went on to live a long life. He died of lung cancer at his home in Dallas in —10 days before his 84th birthday. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!

Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Local News. Station Info. Share Tweet Email. By Dan Noyes. Share: Share Tweet Email. To this day, there is disagreement about what happened -- did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone, was there a conspiracy, what was the motive behind the murder?

About people were there in Dealy Plaza that day watching the president's motorcade, dozens of them taking pictures and we still don't really know what happened. However, Bolinas author Josiah Thompson says he has answered one very important question. Thompson's new book, "Last Second in Dallas", comes to a startling conclusion about Lee Harvey Oswald, who was arrested for shooting the president from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas.

He did not kill John Kennedy. What is most important to this story is how Life Magazine hired him in to examine JFK assassination evidence for a cover story. Thompson himself interviewed many of the key witnesses, and in , he wrote what's considered to be one of the seminal books on the assassination, "Six Seconds in Dallas". Thompson now says he got one important fact about the film wrong -- he thought between frames and , the president's head moved forward 2.

But how were we to accomplish this, since it would be impossible to move our huge research microscopes to the National Archives to scan the bullets? Prior to the artifacts ever coming to NIST, our team carried out dry-run preparations for many weeks so that we would be well prepared for scanning the actual specimens.

I had previously acquired similar ammunition and a 6. This was the kind of rifle the assassin used in the shooting. Because I had already closely examined the actual bullets and bullet fragments at NARA, I was able to fire the Carcano rifle at the ATF forensic science laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, to produce a similar collection of test-fired bullets and fragments. We used these items as training sets that mimicked the actual Kennedy bullets that we would be working with.

Employing these samples, we refined our methods and solved instrument challenges well before the actual artifacts arrived. These early efforts would prove invaluable for the work that would ensue. In addition, the NIST team designed a special apparatus made of a soft material to gently, but firmly, hold a bullet or fragment so no marks would be added to its surfaces during the 3D topography measurements.

Initially we estimated that it would take less than two weeks to scan the forensically relevant surface areas of the assassination bullets and test-fired bullets. We based this estimate on the existing photographs of the bullets and on visual examination of the bullets. However, when the items arrived and we viewed them using a 3D surface-topography microscope, we could see that the fragments and bullets had twice the surface area we had estimated.

Compounding the challenge, advances in 3D topography technology were made during this time, allowing for an even more realistic virtual capture of the artifacts. The field of forensic science has recently undergone tremendous technological advances. These measurements are subjected to powerful mathematical algorithms to numerically quantify the similarity between the marks on a crime-scene bullet imparted by the rifling of the gun barrel compared with the barrel-rifling marks on a bullet subsequently test-fired from the gun suspected to have been used in the crime.

It was probably because of that reputation that I was contacted by my former crime-laboratory supervisor to assist NARA in preserving the JFK assassination bullets.

I was constantly impressed by their expertise, ingenuity, care and perseverance in what was a historic undertaking. I am proud to have taken part in it with them. If you'd like to learn more about the work my colleagues and I did, and also get some historical context for this unique project, check out the article " Kennedy Assassination Bullets Preserved in Digital Form " and the video below. Robert M. Thank you for your detailed explanation of the examination, scanning and publishing of the JFK bullets and fragments.

I anticipate this method of preserving the images will be used in other disciplines, such as forensic odontology. Tonn, Thanks for your kind words. Actually, your idea regarding 3D capture of forensic odontology is already being researched and validated. Taking Measure Just a Standard Blog. Share Facebook. Credit: NIST.