In just under a month well see the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John Kennedy. When you want to consider heroic people in American history, you have to take a moment and look at Earl Rose of Dallas Texas. Rose died in 2012 but he was a forensic pathologist and more importantly the medical examiner for Dallas County Texas on November 22nd, 1963. In fact Earl Rose performed autopsies on J.D. Tippet, the police officer allegedly shot by Lee Harvey Oswald as well as on Lee Harvey Oswald himself. Later in a truly weird full-circle event Rose also performed the autopsy on Jack Ruby who may have killed Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of the Dallas county jail. Got your attention there, didnt I? But first, why should we consider Earl Rose something of an American hero? In his book The Death of a President, William Manchester painted Rose out as something of a minor villain on the day of the Kennedy assassination. Manchester paints an historic picture of Rose that shows him discourteously adding to the first ladys anguish and pain by refusing to allow the Presidents cabinet and secret servicemen take the body from the hospital and ferry it back to Washington for a proper autopsy and burial. In fairness, the Presidents entourage were thoroughly unimpressed with the complete lack of competency that had thus far been displayed by their Texas hosts. Jackie Kennedy was refusing to leave without her husbands corpse and Lyndon Johnson would not leave without Jackie Kennedy. History has shown that Johnson desperately felt that her presence was necessary at his swearing in for a smooth and legitimate (quotes included by me,) transfer of power. In short Kennedys men were grief stricken about the murder and furious with all things Texas, Johnsons men were panicked about getting Jackie back to Air Force 1 or 2 in order to make the transfer of office happen and the Secret Service men were simply desperate to hide under any rock they could find. All of this came to a head when the Presidential party began to make an effort to roll Kennedys corpse out of the hospital in a luxurious bronze colored coffin. They ran smack into Earl Rose. As the Dallas County medical examiner, Earl Rose was responsible for a number of things in the hospital. One of the most important responsibilities he had was maintaining chain of evidence in matters of murder in his jurisdiction. In this case a murder had been committed in Texas and the victim had been pronounced dead in his hospital. There was absolutely no question whatsoever that state law required that Rose (a completely qualified forensic pathologist,) must perform an autopsy on the body on site as soon as reasonably possible. What happened next was described by Manchester as a confrontation between grief-stricken men mourning the loss of their friend and President and a snide bureaucratic pencil-pusher who was merely looking to further irritate and twist the knife of heart-break that was consuming the first lady. However you look at it, Earl Rose and a lone, highly uncertain police officer attempted to block the casket and the entourage from leaving the hospital and a loud and unseemly row began that lasted for some minutes. Curses and threats were made by the Secret Service men, Roy Kellerman in particular and tensions began to escalate dangerously. Through it all, Rose was adamant that Texas law demanded that the body be autopsied because a murder had been committed in Texas and no Federal law existed for the illegal removal of a murder victim from a crime scene regardless of who the victim was. Ultimately, the entourage got behind the casket and burst through. Rose was shoved aside by Kellerman and the group made their getaway. Jackie Kennedy would not be saved a long wait as Johnson in his arrogance and desperation to be sworn in on Texan soil forced the plane to wait until a Texas judge could be found to come and swear him in. The entourage waited for hours. In fact, they waited in fear, knowing that they could very well be arrested if Rose chose to have the police come and pick them up for illegally interfering with a police investigation and removing a murder victim from the hospital before it could be autopsied. Of course many people know what happened after that. President Kennedys corpse was ultimately taken to a Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. There, naval doctors who were really more administrative educators and who had very little forensic pathology experience performed a botched and manipulated autopsy. Later one of the autopsists burned his own notes. Evidence from the already inadmissible autopsy was then misplaced and lost. Most significantly, the Presidents corpse arrived at the hospital in a different coffin and was inside a rubber-body bag. At Parkland hospital the Presidents corpse had been placed inside a satin-lined bronze colored top of the line coffin which was filmed and photographed being taken off the plane when it landed later. However witnesses at the tremendously amateurish autopsy stated that the body arrived in a cheap transport coffin inside the aforementioned rubber suit. Furthermore, the very reason that one autopsist burned his notes was because hed spoken with one of the Doctors at Parkland to clarify a wound in the Presidents neck whose character had changed dramatically from the time the corpse had left Dallas to when it had arrived at the naval hospital for autopsy. So, in the end, had Rose been allowed to do his job - under proper scrutiny and with the correct professionalism that he possessed we very likely would have had a much clearer and cleaner understanding of the true nature of the Presidents wounds. Ironically, Rose himself was never a proponent of conspiracy theory and always believed that a lone gunman had killed the President. However, he never did see the Presidents corpse or the nature of his wounds. At no point was Earl Rose an actual witness to any of the Presidents wounds. Another interesting footnote to Roses contribution to the Kennedy mystery involves his autopsy of Lee Harvey Oswald. In an interview he was asked about the autopsy and he was specifically asked about Oswalds brain and if hed discovered any tumors or abnormalities that may indicate a cause for Oswalds behavior. Rose said he had not found anything unusual about Oswalds brain and that it was in fact, perfectly normal. This indicates that Rose dissected Oswalds skull to remove the brain and examine it, which of course is a standard procedure during an autopsy. One would have expected Rose to perform such a procedure during Oswalds autopsy. Furthermore, the morgue technician who prepared Oswalds body pointed out that Oswalds head had been dissected and that hed had to cover that up as they do in the business. Years later, Oswalds wife demanded an exhumation of Oswalds body. She wanted to be certain that the body in the casket was her husband. The coffin was concrete and steel reinforced with an asphalt bottom. When exhumed it was discovered that the bottom had somehow broken out. Upon exhumation, extensive dental record studies proved out conclusively that Lee Harvey Oswalds head was indeed in the casket. The head was detached from the body. (Actually thats not all that unusual. Its in fact to be expected.) What is interesting however is that the head had not been dissected. Take that as you will... (Pictured left is Earl Rose. On the right, over John Kennedys right shoulder is Roy Kellerman.)
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 14:34:00 +0000
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