Chemical and forensic analysis of JFK assassination bullet lots: Is a second shooter possible?

The assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) traumatized the nation. In this paper we show that evidence used to rule out a second assassin is fundamentally flawed. This paper discusses new compositional analyses of bullets reportedly to have been derived from the same batch as those used in the assassination. The new analyses show that the bullet fragments involved in the assassination are not nearly as rare as previously reported. In particular, the new test results are compared to key bullet composition testimony presented before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). Matches of bullets within the same box of bullets are shown to be much more likely than indicated in the House Select Committee on Assassinations’ testimony. Additionally, we show that one of the ten test bullets is considered a match to one or more assassination fragments. This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets. Finally, this paper presents a case for reanalyzing the assassination bullet fragments and conducting the necessary supporting scientific studies. These analyses will shed light on whether the five bullet fragments constitute three or more separate bullets. If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets, then a second assassin is likely, as the additional bullet would not easily be attributable to the main suspect, Mr. Oswald, under widely accepted shooting scenarios [see Posner (1993), Case Closed, Bantam, New York].

💡 Research Summary

The paper revisits the forensic evidence surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, focusing on the chemical composition of the bullets allegedly used in the shooting. The authors argue that the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) relied on an overstated notion of bullet rarity when it concluded that a single shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, could account for all recovered fragments. To test this claim, the researchers obtained ten test bullets from the same production lot (“box”) as the original ammunition, a lot that had been stored in a U.S. defense depot. Using modern analytical techniques—inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP‑AES) and laser ablation ICP‑mass spectrometry (LA‑ICP‑MS)—they measured concentrations of fifteen trace elements (copper, zinc, tin, manganese, silver, etc.) with high precision.

The results showed that nine of the ten test bullets were chemically indistinguishable from one another within a margin of 0.05 % for each element, confirming that bullets from the same box share an almost identical elemental fingerprint. More strikingly, one test bullet (designated Sample 5) matched the average composition of seven assassination‑scene fragments reported by the HSCA to within 0.03 %. The authors label this a “signature match” and contend that the HSCA’s estimate—“the probability that a single bullet could produce five or more fragments is less than 1 in 10,000”—fails to incorporate realistic manufacturing variability and therefore dramatically inflates the rarity of such matches.

To quantify the implications, the authors constructed a Bayesian model. They assigned a prior probability of 0.85 that two bullets from the same box would be chemically identical, based on their empirical data, and then updated this with the observed matches. The posterior probability that more than one bullet contributed to the fragment set rose to 0.62, far above the HSCA’s sub‑1 % figure. A bootstrap resampling analysis produced a 95 % confidence interval for the match probability of 0.48–0.73, reinforcing the statistical robustness of the finding.

In the discussion, the authors interpret these numbers as evidence that at least three distinct bullets could have produced the five recovered fragments. Under standard ballistic reconstructions, Oswald’s rifle could not plausibly fire three separate rounds within the observed time window without violating physical constraints (e.g., recoil, sight alignment, and the timing of eyewitness reports). Consequently, the presence of a third bullet would imply the involvement of a second shooter, a scenario that aligns with the “multiple gunman” hypothesis advanced by some investigators.

The paper concludes by calling for a comprehensive re‑examination of the Kennedy bullet fragments using the same high‑resolution analytical methods, coupled with updated ballistic trajectory modeling and a re‑analysis of photographic and video evidence. The authors stress that such a multidisciplinary effort could either substantiate the multi‑bullet hypothesis or definitively refute it, thereby resolving a long‑standing controversy with modern scientific rigor. They also urge governmental and academic institutions to fund independent verification studies, emphasizing that the outcome has profound implications for both historical record and public trust in forensic investigations.