14 DAY TRIAL // John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the US, was gunned down on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. He was shot while traveling through the district of Dealey Plaza with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally and the latter's wife, Nellie, in a presidential motorcade.
Shortly after the assassination, former US Marine Lee Harvey Oswald, who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, was taken into custody and accused of the murder.
He was killed before going to trial, on November 24, by a nightclub owner who fired at him while he was being transferred from police headquarters to a local county jail, and so authorities never got around to questioning him to get the full account of John F. Kennedy's assassination.
This fueled conspiracy theories
With Lee Harvey Oswald dead before trial, rumors started circulating about how the evidence against him was not quite as sound as authorities and officials would have it seem, and how the former US Marine sniper might have been merely a pawn in a conspiracy to assassinate the President.
As for this conspiracy, it was said that it must have involved government, international or maybe criminal groups. Whoever these other players, one thing seemed clear as day to quite a lot of people: Lee Harvey Oswald could not have acted alone.
For one thing, conspiracy theorists kept saying - mind you, some are still saying this - that a photo showing Lee Harvey Oswald in his backyard, holding a rifle in his hands, could not be authentic, not when riddled by one too many lighting, shadows, geometry and proportions inconsistencies.
Except scientists say it is authentic
In a new study in the Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law, researchers at Dartmouth College explain how, having used novel digital image forensics techniques and a 3-D model of Lee Harvey Oswald's silhouette to study the photo, they found it to be authentic.
“Our detailed analysis of Oswald's pose, the lighting and shadows and the rifle in his hands refutes the argument of photo tampering,” study senior author Hany Farid explained in an interview.
Having previously shown that the lighting and the shadows in this photo of John F. Kennedy's killer are, in fact, authentic, the Dartmouth College researchers now focused on the shooter's stance.
Conspiracy theorists claim Lee Harvey Oswald appears to be standing off balance in this photo, and so chances are the image is not genuine. Researcher Hany Farid and colleagues, however, say the 3-D model they put together and analyzed testifies to the photo's authenticity.
“The 3-D human model that we created can be used to forensically analyze the pose, stability and shadows in any image of people. Our analysis refutes purported evidence of manipulation in the Oswald photo,” explained specialist Hany Farid in a statement, as cited by Science Daily.
The photo is especially damning
This controversial photo of Lee Harvey Oswald, available below, is especially damning. Not only is the former US Marine shown holding a gun, but the rifle appears to be of the same type as the one used in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Thus, the length of the rifle in this photo is consistent with that of the gun the President was shot with. Then, the sniper appears to be holding Marxist newspapers in his other hand, the Dartmouth College research team further explain.
When taken into custody following the assassination of John F. Kennedy and shown this photo, Lee Harvey Oswald denied that it was genuine. Having thoroughly studied the image, however, Hany Farid and his team are quite convinced he was lying.
“The Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigated claims of photo tampering and concluded that they were unwarranted.”
“Previous suggestions that this photo was manipulated or is a composite are not supported by this 3-D photo forensic analysis,” the team write in the report detailing their work.
