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Five-Degree Angle on the Cervical Spine

Medical illustration on black showing a left profile skull cervical spine clavicles and upper ribs with a red diagonal arrow and a five degree angle marker

What This Image Shows

A clean anatomical diagram on black, showing the skull, cervical spine, clavicles, and upper ribs in left profile, with the vertebrae labelled Atlas (C1), Axis (C2), and C3 through C7. A solid red diagonal arrow with a circular base crosses the neck, and a marker reads 5 degrees.

Five degrees is the number that matters. It is the approximate downward angle a shot from the Losee Center rooftop would arrive at over the distance to the stage, and this diagram exists to show what that angle does when applied to the neck: a path that shallow, entering where the wound is described, does not descend from the upper cervical spine into the thoracic cavity in the way the official account is understood to require.

That is the argument. The counter-position is that the head was pitched forward at the moment of impact, which changes the geometry substantially, and that the range and roof height figures being used are approximations. Both readings are set out at Wound Trajectory Angle and Trajectory and Wound Mismatch, with the underlying medical record still unreleased as covered at Autopsy Report Not Public.

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