Neuromuscular response, the limousine’s movement, the structure of the seat, the position of Kennedy’s body, and the complex behavior of tissue under ballistic force could all affect what appeared on film.
Fiester’s explanation focused on angled momentum transfer.
She returned to the two billiard balls on the table.
The critic glanced at them with open irritation.
“A skull is not a billiard ball,” he said.
“No,” Fiester answered.
“And that is precisely why a simple forward-or-backward assumption is inadequate.”
She placed one ball at an angle and sent the other into it.
The impact did not push the second ball straight ahead.
It redirected it.
The demonstration was not offered as a complete model of a bullet striking a human head.
It illustrated a narrower point: force applied at an angle could create motion that differed from the direction observers expected.
Visible movement could be evidence, but it could not be treated as a compass needle automatically pointing toward a shooter.
The critic picked up one of the enlarged frames.
“Then your argument depends on the wound.”
“It depends on all of it,” Fiester said.
That was where the room’s discomfort deepened.
The head wound had never been an emotionally neutral piece of evidence.
It was the most horrifying physical consequence of the assassination, witnessed at close range by Jacqueline Kennedy, Secret Service agents, medical personnel, and others whose descriptions would later be compared, disputed, and interpreted.
Secret Service agent Clint Hill described the damage in language that conveyed its severity, saying it appeared as though Kennedy had been “scalped.” His description referenced the catastrophic trauma visible on the right side of the president’s head.
Fiester believed the wound pattern could be consistent with a bullet entering near the right temple at the hairline and exiting through the rear-right portion of the skull.
That interpretation remained controversial.
It conflicted with mainstream conclusions and with reconstructions placing the fatal shot behind the limousine.
But she did not present controversy as proof.
She treated it as a reason to test geometry against anatomy.
On the table lay a diagram showing Kennedy’s head from the side.
The entry point proposed by Fiester was marked near the right temple.
Another line extended toward the rear-right portion of the skull.
She aligned that diagram with the posture visible in the film.
Then she placed the reconstructed position inside a map of Dealey Plaza.
The line moved away from the Book Depository and toward the South Knoll region.
The critic stared at it.
“You are choosing the angle that gives you the location you want.”
Fiester shook her head.
“The angle follows the proposed wound path and the position in the film.
Reject the reconstruction if the evidence rejects it.
Do not reject it because you dislike where the line ends.”
Another observer moved closer to the screen.
Until then, the witnesses in the room had remained quiet, allowing the debate to become a contest between Fiester’s restraint and the critic’s certainty.
Now their silence changed meaning.
They were no longer waiting for the theory to collapse immediately.
They were watching to see what came next.
Fiester opened the folder again.
Inside were additional diagrams examining possible gunfire from more than one direction.
One trajectory originated from the Texas School Book Depository.
Another approached from the area near the Grassy Knoll.
The lines converged on the limousine’s path.
The critic’s face tightened.
“So that is the real claim,” he said.
“Two shooters.”
“The reconstruction permits the possibility of multiple firing positions,” Fiester replied.
“Triangulation.”
“Possible triangulation.”
He seized on the word possible.
It sounded weak when spoken sharply.
It sounded like retreat.
