Trail of Destruction, Pt. 2: The JFK Autopsy Notes

At home alone, the lead pathologist burns vital evidence in his fireplace

[Editor’s Note: This is the second installment in the JFK Facts series, “Trail of Destruction.” New installments will appear every Wednesday.]

Dr. James J. Humes testifying to the House Select Committee on Assassinations on Sept. 7, 1978 (Credit: Vince Palamara/YouTube).

On Sunday, Nov. 24, 1963, Dr. James J. Humes destroyed important documentary evidence relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in the fireplace of his home in suburban Washington.

Humes not only torched the notes he had taken during the autopsy he had performed on the president less than 36 hours earlier. By his own admission, he reduced to ashes the first draft of the autopsy report itself as well.

In later years, Humes would tell official investigators and reporters that he had thrown his papers in the fire because they were stained with the president’s blood, and he had wanted to prevent prurient or morbidly curious people from getting their hands on them and using them for the wrong reasons.

But over the decades until his death in 1999, Humes modified his tale in subtle but important ways.

Up In Smoke

When Humes told the Warren Commission, without explanation, that he had burned the first draft of the report, Warren Commission legal counsel Arlen Specter never pressed the doctor as to why. He simply changed the subject. 

In 1978, Humes testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), that he had “word for word copied what I had on fresh paper,” and then destroyed the papers “that were stained with the President’s blood.” He had destroyed the records, he said, to keep them out of reach of “people with some peculiar ideas.”

But in 1996, in a deposition for the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), Humes became flustered.

“And there’s been a lot of flack about this, that they’re all part of a big conspiracy that I did this because I was involved in … I don’t know what I was involved. Ludicrous. That is what I did.”