In Dealey Plaza there was a "Magic Bullet". Out in Oak Cliff there was something that can be called the "Button Bullet". Like a trick from "Ricochet Rabbit", one shot fired at Tippit, at approx. 600 ft per sec., was stopped by a button. That button absorbed the energy of the bullet from only about 12 feet, and caused only a superficial non-penetrating wound.
The Mystery of the Fourth Bullet
The heart of the controversy lies in the " Button Bullet ." While the autopsy officially noted only three penetrating wounds, Dr. Rose later informed the Secret Service that a fourth shot was stopped by a coat button, leaving only a bruise. However, this contradicts the account of Dr. Moellenhoff, the receiving physician at Methodist Hospital, who claimed he manually extracted a bullet from under a rib-- evidence he allegedly handed to police before the autopsy even began.
The Missing Record: The Delayed Tippit Autopsy
The official autopsy of Officer J.D. Tippit, performed by Dr. Earl Rose on November 22, 1963, remained unfinished for nearly three weeks . Despite the immediate transfer of the body from Methodist to Parkland Hospital, the final report was not available until December 10. Curiously, this vital document was excluded from the Warren Commission's 26 volumes, leading researchers to suggest that authorities intentionally bypassed the report to avoid addressing its glaring inconsistencies.
Contradictions in the Chain of Custody
In December 1963, Dallas authorities informed the Secret Service that all recovered bullets had been turned over to the FBI. The record proves this was false; three of the four bullets were actually withheld by the Dallas Police Department for 114 days. This "intentional withholding" of ballistics has led researchers to question the legitimacy of the evidence eventually produced, especially since the shells found at the scene did not consistently match the bullets recovered from the body.
The account of ambulance driver Eddie Kensley adds a final layer of suspicion. Kensley claimed he saw a bullet-- still lodged in a button-- fall onto the hospital parking lot, where he inadvertently kicked it away. If the " button bullet " was lost in a parking lot, the origin of the fourth bullet later placed into evidence becomes a haunting question. As researcher Gary Mack famously noted, the investigation appeared to be a case of "the fox guarding the hen house."
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