7. The Driver Did It
Now we move into the completely bonkers. The infamous film shot by Abraham Zapruder of the incredible gore and carnage in Dealey Plaza as it happened has likely been seen by a majority of Americans who learned about JFK at some point throughout their education. It's been interpreted in many, many different ways and serves as the foundation of evidence for most conspiracy theorists. To discern that JFK's limo driver had fired the fatal shot though, seems to be just that, bonkers. For the sake of my younger, and possibly more squeamish readers I won't post the video here directly, but these theorists allege that around the time the President's head is opened, the driver is seen turning around and possibly facing Jackie immediately after the shooting, and right at the time of the bullet's entry (or exit as these theorists allege) a glint is seen from the driver's seat that resembles a flash from the barrel of a gun. I could compile a list of reasons why this is easily in the top 10 list of the maddest theories out there. Firstly, those who allege that the rupture of the President's head is an exit wound indicate the backwards motion of his head following the impact forget that Kennedy was in a back brace at the time due to a debilitating neurological condition known as Addison's Disease. In fact doctors who operated on Kennedy have noted that it was likely the lack of range of motion exacerbated by the back brace that was more dangerous than the bullets themselves, and single bullet advocates argue that it was this limited range of motion that allowed the "magic bullet" to travel the way it had. Kennedy literally could not lean forward, the constraints of the back brace causing him to lurch back. If you don't believe the forensic reason, think about this cognitively. We see no weapon in the driver's possession in the film, he likely turned around upon hearing the shots and Jackie's cry of terror and, while we're still on the topic of Jackie, considering she was facing forward with her husband, she would have been one of the only direct eyewitnesses to the driver's "crime." Would she really have refrained from giving up the driver until her death over 30 years later?