OPENING STATEMENT BY ABRAHAM BOLDEN TO JFK TASK FORCE ON DOCUMENTS RELATED TO THE ASSSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
[BOLDEN TO BE SWORN IN BEFORE THE SUB-COMMITTEE:]
BOLDEN: Madame Chairperson and distinguished members of this committee — I want to thank you for your invitation for me to appear before you here today and tell my story after all these years. I’m so sorry that I cannot be there with you, in person, but the conditions of my health make it impossible for me to travel. I hope that you will bear with me on this Zoom connection.
[A] On October 30, 1960, I became a member of the U.S. Secret Service in the Chicago office. Then on April 28, 1961, I had the honor of meeting President John F. Kennedy when he returned to the city to thank his supporters at the McCormick Place arena. They assigned me to a position at the washroom door instead of the area of the president’s speech one floor above the street entrance. I must admit that I was a little bit disappointed with the assignment as you can probably understand.
[B] At 8:30 PM, the motorcade stopped in front of McCormick Place. I was standing at my post when the President and his team of Mayor Daley and every major Democratic politician in Chicago entered walking behind the President. I remember that I could only see the patent leather shoes that he was wearing on the stairway above. However, as the cosmic laws of God would happen, the first thing that the President wanted to do was use the washroom. And there I stood. The President came down the steps and stopped right in front of me. He smiled and asked my name. Then he said, “Mr. Bolden, has there had ever been a Negro Secret Service Agent in the White House Detail?” I told him, “Not to my knowledge, Mr. President.” And I felt the electricity of brotherhood between the President and myself. The President asked me, “Would you like to be the first?” I said, “Yes, sir, Mr. President.” I knew the responsibility of the Secret Service. If I went to the White House Detail, it meant that I was willing to give my life for the safety and security of the president of the United States.
[C] So, on June 6, 1961, I walked into history. I was assigned to the White House Detail in Washington, DC. to assist in protecting the life of the President. And I never met a more human and fair-minded person than President Kennedy.
[D] One day, I could tell that President Kennedy saw me standing out in front of the Oval Office and he looked up and he said, “Mister Bolden, I see you made it.” All during my tenure in guard there, he was very kind to me. We had many conversations, often about the issues he was dealing with. We talked about the struggles of The Civil Rights Movement, and I could see the pain in the president’s face whenever he discussed what was going on with the racism in America. I was impressed at how respectfully he treated me and that he would be interested in my thoughts on how to solve this historic problem. As a matter of fact, when I first traveled with the President to Massachusetts, he called all the Kennedy children together at his home and said, “This is Mr. Bolden. He is a Secret Service Agent. He’s guarding me. And if you have to address him for any reason, address him as Mr. Bolden.” That almost brought tears to my eyes because here we were in the midst of an historic civil rights era — a war amongst the Black and White people of our beloved country.
[E] The President introduced me to all the members of his family, including Mr. Joseph Kennedy and Mrs. Rose Kennedy. Mr. Joe Kennedy was in a wheelchair. He had had a stroke. But they were all very kind. The President was a watchful person. He was so watchful that when we went on his yacht one afternoon on Nantucket Sound, the President looked out for me and he made sure that I was assigned on that day. While I was sitting near the galley, a Navy officer came out of the cabin door, walked over to me, and he was carrying a tray of food, and he said, “The President wants you to have lunch.” Me, specifically. I thought this was marvelous. What was this thing? What cosmic connection has placed me in this position? All my life, I wanted to be in a position to learn, to develop a moral core, to help my people progress as citizens of the United States of America.
[F] The President was most of the time in agony because of severe back problem that he had. However, as time went on there were some in the White House detail who didn’t accept that I was there. The President noticed that I was not being treated well by some members of the detail. I said nothing because I was no stranger to this kind of treatment, and I was very grateful to the President for appointing me to such a position.
[G] He would make sure that I was on Air Force One and Marine One, the helicopter, on the way back to Washington, DC. and the White House. The President introduced me to his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Press Secretary Pierre Salinger. “Mr. Bolden here is the Jackie Robinson of the White House Secret Service Detail,” he joked.
One day into my service there, the President asked me, “Mr. Bolden, do you plan to make the Secret Service a career?” I said, “No, sir, Mr. President,” I told him, “… one day I would like to be a diplomat to one of the African countries.”
Then the President said, “Well, if you learn to speak in African language, which you should have some time to learn, I’ll make you a promise that once you are qualified, I will make you a diplomat to one of the countries in Africa.” That was a promise that he made, and I know he was a man of his word.
Then, on July the third,1961 when we were with the President and his family in Massachusetts, my superior agent, the Special Agent in Charge of the shift, called my name. We were sitting there watching the news and I heard my supervisor yell, “Bolden!” and motioned to me over to the couch where he was sitting.
“I want to tell you one thing,” he said, “…and don’t you ever forget this. You are a nigger now, you will always be a nigger and you’ll never be anything else but a nigger.” I got up and left.
[H] I remember one incident in particular that I wanted to tell you about. On or about June 29, 1963 – I had hurried to my post outside the Oval Office when I learned that the other agents had gone on a break. I saw vice president Johnson coming in for an unscheduled meeting with President Kennedy. I could tell by his demeanor that he was upset. Johnson went into to talk to the President. The door to the Oval Office was open and I could hear vice president Johnson’s loud voice. The first thing that he said to President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy who was in the office at the time shocked me. The Vice President said, “You, sons of a bitches are not going to “eff” me this time. They are trying to send me to prison about some goddamn crap.” I could hear the Vice President clearly as he continued shouting. President Kennedy said very little. Attorney Gen. Robert Kennedy spoke up immediately and told the Vice President to stop talking to his brother, the President, and to him in such a loud and rude tone. Johnson continued to yell and swear at the President. The Attorney General told the Vice President that he was under investigation and it enraged him even more. I remember hearing the names Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker. Mr. Johnson said, “You’re just trying to make up an excuse to drop me from the ticket in the ‘64 election. Mr. Johnson said that he was the reason President Kennedy was elected in the first place. President Kennedy said, “Lyndon, that’s not true, Lyndon, and you know it.” It went on for a few more minutes. Then, vice president Johnson turned and started to walk out of the room. He was redder than a sack of beets. As he was leaving the Oval Office he pointed his finger angrily at the President and said in a threatening tone, “You son of a bitch, you better stop effing with me. Then, as he kept walking out of the room he saw me there. I heard Mr. Johnson say to his aide, “Who is that boy standing in front of the office door?” His chauffeur told him, “Well, he has to be from the Secret Service, or he couldn’t be standing there.”
[J] And then all if my fears came true. The President was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 pm on the afternoon, November 22, 1963. I was not in Dallas but what I witnessed, that is I saw for myself after that day and thereafter, was that various aspects of the investigation were being covered up by the Secret Service. Not only did they not do their duty but some of them carried out negative activities that I had warned the chief of the Secret Service about. Well – now — I was the person that was marked for exile from the Secret Service. However, I knew it then. And I thought that somebody had to stand up and let the American people know what happened to our President. From what I had seen there, in Chicago was the fact that my own government was concealing facts about his assassination. I discussed it with my wife, Barbara. I said, “I can’t live with this. I have to speak out. I owe that to the American people. I owe that to the Kennedy family. I owe it to myself. I owe it to God.” She looked up at me and said, “Well, you know they’re going to come after you.” I said, “I know. I just can’t help it. Just can’t help it.” So now they began to watch me because I had complained about the protection of President Kennedy when he came to Chicago on a couple of occasions. As a matter of fact, the first assassination attempt was supposed to take place here in Chicago, Illinois. Information that I had revealed was that some Cuban exiles we were trying to assassinate the President when he came to Chicago on November the 2nd to view an Army-Air Force football game. I was the person who raised so many complaints about his protection and brought out the fact in a meeting with the Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office that it was our duty and obligation as government employees, responsible for the safety of the President — to notify Washington DC of a plan to assassinate President when he came into Chicago. As I knew then and as we know now, that plot was real. The White House found out about it – and the White House cancelled the President’s trip to Chicago before that November 2nd football game.
[K] As far as my constant complaints about what I had observed, they didn’t like it. My superior called me in and specifically told me that I was “talking above my pay grade.” Well, I didn’t like it.
I had made the decision to tell the truth so I could do my job. If not, I couldn’t live with myself. But in January of 1964, the Secret Service made a move that was wrong, in that there had been reports of people in the group of the assassins in Dallas who had Secret Service identification. The Secret Service Chief recalled all of the Secret Service agents’ identification, and they made new identification books. I had heard that that there was some truth to the fact that some people had obtained credentials and were part of the assassination team. So, I decided to take time off and pay my way to Washington, D.C., where the Warren Commission was meeting and tell them the truth.
[L] When I went to Washington, DC on May the 17th, I tried to telephone the investigation’s lead attorney, J. Lee Rankin. I actually called the White House switchboard and asked to be put through to Mr. Rankin. I was concerned because reports out of Washington, DC, were that we weren’t getting any mention of the information and suspects that I knew had been investigated. As a matter of fact, one of the secret service agents who was one of the main investigators of the activities to assassinate the President in Chicago, told me that personally because he used to confide in me.
[M] Before I got a chance to testify before the Warren Commission, another man called me at my hotel. He was the Department of Employee Employment Policy Service, and he said, “Abraham, they need you in Chicago. We have just cracked a counterfeiting plant, and we need a person to go under cover.” So, two SAIC’s went to my hotel room, packed my clothes, and whisked me to American Airlines. When they got me back to Chicago, they accused me of all things. They locked me up and didn’t let me eat for 24 hours. I couldn’t even make a telephone call. They held me incommunicado all day long.
[N] A deputy attorney general and a special agent in charge of the Secret Service, walked into the office where I was waiting and he said, “We’re going to charge you with soliciting a bribe.” And I said, “That’s what you take of me?” Then they named two people that I had investigated for counterfeiting money. One guy was Frank Jones. I had arrested Frank Jones twice. We found a counterfeiting plant in his house. I was the person who investigated Jones for soliciting money on a false pretense.
[O] On July 12, 1964, Judge J. Sam Perry, who was hearing the case, instructed the jury in the following words, “In my opinion, the defendant, Abraham Bolden, is guilty of counts one, two, and three in the indictment but the government’s case is so weak that [he declared a mistrial].” If we hadn’t had that black woman on the jury, they would have got a conviction. So, we asked for another judge for a second trial. The judge set a second trial for August the 3rd of the same year, that was just three weeks, for me to prepare for my life and whether or not I was going to spend the rest of it in prison.
[P] In the meantime, of course, I had just bought a house, and now my funds were almost all depleted. Here again, my wife and I were trying to figure out how best to confront the government and prove my innocence. We had to discuss the fact that – in case I was convicted — as an alternative to me, some of the avenues that she could take in order for the family, my wife and three children, to survive. Now, I had only until August the 3rd to prepare for going to trial again or go to jail. We had $500 in the bank and lots of bills. So, we’re talking now about 1964. I’m preparing to go to the Penitentiary because we didn’t have the funds to fight anymore. The doorbell rang. I went there to answer it and brought in a big package. We opened the box.
[Q] In the box there was a big typewriter. I still have that Olympic typewriter. And with the typewriter was a ream of paper. It was from Richard Wagner from Turner Falls, Massachusetts. I opened the box, and an envelope fell on the floor. My wife brought it to me and in it was a check for $2,500 which permitted me to file for a motion of appeal and to continue my fight for justice.
I knew how the government worked though. Once you’re convicted, they send you to prison, they put you in a place where they question your sanity. So, because I had been reading everything about the assassination of President Kennedy, I knew what I had to do and that was contact Mark Lane, the attorney. Once they sent me to the penitentiary, Mark Lane came all the way to Springfield, Missouri, after I asked to see him. I had contacted many others who would come to Springfield but they were stopped by government officials because in the record at the penitentiary, they were trying to declare me insane.
[R] The government came on July the fifth, 1967, 3:00 in the morning. I was in the camp. Two guards with five-cell flashlights tapped me on the bottom of my feet and said, “Let’s go.” So, as we began to walk, I knew what they were up to. They took me to the Psychiatry Division. I protested. But it did no good. I knew what they were going to try to do first. They tried to fill me with drugs. They gave me a 175 grams of what they call LV. Now, what happens is this. They start you out on a weak mental drug, and then they ease you into something else — one of the great, strong mental drugs. As a matter of fact, they had a reputation that there weren’t too many who ever came out again in their right mind. So that scheme to declare me insane was added by the person who had to sign the commitment papers on August 3rd to change my status of count to “Psychiatric.”
[S] Praise be to God. So now they had nothing to do. That put me on parole for the rest of my time. So, at that point, I wrote the book. Books are powerful things. I want you to remember that I said that. As a matter of fact, I’ve read several books about the assassination of President Kennedy. Many of these books mentioned me at various times of my life, and they tend to solve the problems – even problems like mine because the truth is that my case is about racism. But you know that all racism is, is ignorance. It’s only one race. It’s the human race. So, today as I testify before you, I want you to remember what I’m saying. I’m telling you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Many people have helped fight for justice in my case. I’m so grateful to them. I know that people have fought for justice for me because I’m finally free. Very often, as you people know, justice takes a long time and I want to publicly give thanks, a special thanks to President Joe Biden, who gave me a full pardon on April 26, 2022. He gave me the renewed liberty of innocence. I’m grateful to President Biden and I’m so sorry for what he’s going through now. And I’m grateful for all of you, for finally looking at the files on the case of the assassination of President John Kennedy.
[T] So, carry on, my brothers and sisters. Carry on this investigation, carry on this research, carry on this search for justice for all of us. I truly thank you for giving me a chance to tell my story today — Because not too many years from now, the only thing in my pockets will be dirt. But the truth cannot die. Praise God.
Thank you all.
DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD
Filmmaker Joshua Coates Lands Life Story Film Rights To First Black Secret Service Agent, Abraham Bolden, Appointed To White House Detail Personally By President John F. Kennedy
By Justin Kroll
March 20, 2025 10:04am

EXCLUSIVE: Filmmaker Joshua Coates has secured rights to the life story of Abraham Bolden, the subject of the 2008 autobiography The Echo of Dealey Plaza. Bolden made history as the first Black U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to the White House detail, where he guarded President John F. Kennedy who had personally appointed him in 1961.
Coates has written the screenplay for the movie The Unseen Shield and will also direct the film, which is currently in pre-production with his producing partner Fetteroff Colen.
Bolden, a U.S. Secret Service agent stationed in the Chicago office, first met Kennedy while on assignment in that city. Bolden had played a key role in thwarting an assassination plot in Chicago months before JFK was tragically assassinated in Dallas. Thanks to Bolden’s investigation, Kennedy canceled a planned trip to Chicago, where he was set to address supporters of his 1960 election campaign.
“For many years,” Coates says, “dark forces have tried to erase the true story of former Secret Service Agent Bolden. After Dallas, Bolden used his personal time off to travel to Washington D.C. and offer his testimony to the Warren Commission investigating the President’s assassination. Bolden was surprised to be whisked back to Chicago and arrested on fabricated charges of soliciting a bribe. He was acquitted but re-tried and convicted ending up sentenced to six years in prison.”
Coates has retained Stephen Jaffe — a former Special Assistant to the New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (played by Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone’s JFK), who famously re-investigated the Kennedy assassination in 1967-1968 — to serve as a technical consultant on the film and an executive producer. Jaffe was a producer of the first feature film on the Kennedy assassination, 1973’s Executive Action, starring Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan. It was written by Oscar winner Dalton Trumbo and produced by Edward Lewis.
“Bolden’s story was known to us back then but not directly relevant to what happened in Dallas,” Jaffe says. “However, the efforts to silence him were clear proof that there had been several plots to assassinate President Kennedy before Dallas.”
After Bolden’s 1964 conviction and sentencing, a movement to clear his name was started by people who learned of his compelling story and read the book. Finally, President Joe Biden granted Bolden a “full and unconditional pardon” in April 2022.
Coates, who just wrapped the psychological thriller Madonna Non-Grata starring Tamara Taylor, Eric Roberts and Isaac Keys, says he hopes to begin pre-production later this year as soon as he and his producing partner, Colen, have cast the lead role.
This article was printed from https://deadline.com/2025/03/joshua-coates-black-secret-service-agent-john-f-kennedy-1236345525/
Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2025 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
DR. CYRIL H. WECHT
Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D. (1931-2024): Acclaimed Pathologist, Professor, Author, Civic Leader and Devoted Family Man
“There was, and will only be, one Dr. Cyril H. Wecht.”
President Ken Gormley, J.D., Duquesne University.
No one who came before him or who will come after him can be compared with Dr. Wecht. He stands alone in his accomplishments, whether they be connected to his skill as a forensic pathologist or as a truth-teller about the John F. Kennedy assassination.
That’s the view of virtually all those who knew the man, including the Board of CAPA, an organization he founded and chaired. He advanced to the post of Chairman Emeritus earlier this year and continued to provide active participation at all our board meetings this year until the most recent one.
We’ll describe below our experiences at CAPA working with this brave, honorable and civic-minded leader exploring such sensitive matters as current research on the 1960s deaths of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
First, however, it’s both necessary and appropriate to describe how the world, his nation and his other varied communities benefited from his rare expertise and dedication.
Helping illustrate his scope and impact is, for example, the obituary published by the Los Angeles Times on May 13 under the headline: “Dr. Cyril Wecht, celebrity pathologist who argued more than 1 shooter killed JFK, dies at 93.” (https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-05-13/dr-cyr…)
He became world famous as an expert broadcast commentator, author, and courtroom expert analyzing the true cause of deaths for such celebrities as JFK, RFK, MLK, Michael Jackson, JonBenet Ramsey, Brian Jones and many, many others.
But the essence of the man is reflected also in his service for 20 years as the elected part-time coroner of Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, the locale of Pittsburgh. His was a position of trust whereby he served as the indispensable independent expert providing judgment and sometimes accountability regarding the deaths of non-celebrities — including on occasion those who may have met their demise in ways not apparent to police or prosecutors — or even perhaps at the hands of rogue law enforcers and then covered up.
His renown emanated also from his close collaborations and enduring friendships with other leading coroners and medical examiners, including such iconic figures as Dr. Henry Lee of New Haven, Dr. Michael Baden of New York City and Dr. Thomas Noguchi of Los Angeles, plus his prodigious output as an author and teacher. He authored or co-authored 45 professional books for doctors and lawyers, the five-volume set “Forensic Sciences,” plus other books for general readers, plus some 600 expert articles in his field — or we should say “fields” because his wide-ranging expertise covered several.
Of particular pride was his long association with Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where he taught forensic pathology to medical students for many years and founded The Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law, which provides a wide range of continuing learning opportunities on cutting-edge issues vital to medical, law enforcement and other legal professionals. The programs, organized in significant part by Program Director Benjamin Wecht, his son, have long provided both in person and by remote video expert analysis of cause-of-death mysteries, sometimes using for teaching case history medical evidence unlikely to be available for other purposes.
Some of these highlights are available in two recent books that reflect his prodigious energies even late in life, when he performed 500 autopsies a year (double the average number for coroners) until just three years ago. One book is “The JFK Assassination Dissected: An Analysis by Forensic Pathologist Cyril Wecht,” co-authored by Dawna Kaufmann and with a forward by Oliver Stone (Exposit/McFarland, 2022). The other book is his memoir, “The Life and Deaths of Cyril Wecht: America’s Most Controversial Forensic Pathologist,” coauthored with Jeff M. Sewald, (Exposit/McFarland, 2020).
He was well-known for his ability to fight effectively on some of the nation’s hottest and most-longstanding controversies. This includes the medical evidence regarding the JFK assassination, while also maintaining cordial relationships – up to a point – even with some of his major forensic adversaries. One was the late U.S. Senator Arlen Spector, who as a Warren Commission staff member in 1964 successfully advocated to the Commission that it endorse the so-called “single-bullet theory” that pointed, erroneously in Dr. Wecht’s analysis, to the concept that one bullet supposedly fired by Lee Harvey Oswald caused JFK’s death plus multiple other wounds in him and Texas Governor John Connally, a fellow presidential limo passenger, during the fateful motorcade through Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
Dr. Wecht, onetime Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat then occupied by Spector, served as a pallbearer at Spector’s funeral at the request of the deceased.
Those of us at CAPA came to know him from his pioneering work through the decades to expose, based on scientific evidence, the shortcomings of the Warren Report and conventional wisdom in most of mainstream media that parroted the Warren Report’s misleading narrative, much the same as reporting on other cases, including the deaths of RFK and MLK.
Wecht has been a Pioneer in the practice of forensic pathology. His career is best described by Alan Dershowitz, noted criminal trial lawyer, who made this observation, “When Cyril Wecht started practicing, his profession was not highly regarded. …Forensic science is “in” today; however, in those days, when he was first practicing, Cyril was the lone ranger and he created the profession, professionalized it, and made it what it is today, which is central to the administration of justice.” Peter Vaira is a former U.S. attorney and acts as special hearing master for Pennsylvania courts and clients. He has written an article about Dr. Wecht which states that “Dr. Wecht has shaped the law such that the use of forensic pathology is now de rigueur in death cases.”
Dr. Wecht closely supervised the annual CAPA research conferences held in Dallas each year on the anniversary of the JFK death each November. Also, he generously assisted many authors, filmmakers, academics and other researchers, often with endorsements of books that he admired.
For such reasons, everyone in relevant research communities, especially those of us in CAPA or affiliated with Duquesne, were thrilled that he was able to experience the output of research, love and honor bestowed on his field and personal legacy via the conference last November, “The JFK Assassination At 60: New Frontiers in Scientific, Medical, Legal and Historical Research.”
Duquesne University hosted the conference, which attracted one of the largest and most expert audiences ever in JFK assassination research. Among highlights were the dedication by the university’s president and other eminences of the Cyril H. Wecht Collection in the University’s library, plus speakers who included the bold JFK researcher, author and acting star Alec Baldwin, former Secret Service Special Agent Paul Landis (making his first public remarks following revelations in his memoir, “The Final Witness”) and many other experts.
CAPA organized for Dr. Wecht a special lifetime achievement award and banquet, capturing highlights of his illustrious career in a way meaningful to him and his beloved family, including his family members. The accomplishments and civic service of his wife, Sigrid, and children deserve mention as part of a key part of the life and legacy of this exceptional man:
⦁ Sigrid Wecht, a family law attorney and longtime office manager of Cyril H. Wecht and Pathology Associates
Children, in birth order:
⦁ David N. Wecht, Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice
⦁ Daniel A. Wecht, clinical professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
⦁ Benjamin E. Wecht, program director of Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law at Duquesne University
⦁ Ingrid A. Wecht, obstetrician-gynecologist and a senior staff member at West Penn Hospital.
Dr. Wecht once stated that, if given the opportunity to live his life again by the Supreme Being, he would not change anything and would do exactly what he has done despite the hardships and consequences involved.
“It was a very full life,” he concluded in an extended interview (https://www.wpxi.com/video/it-was-very-full-life-cyril-wecht…) with WPXI-TV, the NBC affiliate in Pittsburgh on Channel 11.
So let us pick up the torch and keep running to honor him, what he fought for, what he endured, and what he stood for.
As he said at the CAPA dinner honoring him last November, “Never give up, keep going, and one day we shall prevail!”

Dr. Wecht, at center wearing a hat, surrounded by family and friends at the CAPA banquet in his honor where he received CAPA’s lifetime achievement award during the “The JFK Assassination at 60” conference organized by the Duquesne University School of Science and Engineering in Pittsburgh from Nov. 15-17, 2023.
Among the well-wishers for Dr. Wecht after the banquet were filmmaker Irving Nestor of Auriela LLC and his wife Stephanie. The filmmaker had presented the results of his Matterport 3D scan of the JFK assassination locale of Dealey Plaza in Dallas, a CAPA-funded project for historical purposes.

Author’s Bio: CAPA Chair Glenda de Vaney, left, based in California, was longtime CAPA Program Chair and a Board director when Dr. Wecht recommended her in 2022 to be his eventual successor as CAPA Chair. She was elected to the post in early 2024 by unanimous vote and leads CAPA’s programming for its next annual conference, to be held in Dallas this coming November.
Cyril Wecht: Pioneer Forensic Pathologist Who Has Shaped the Law
Written by Peter Vaira
In the opinion of many attorneys, Cyril Wecht is one of the major reasons that forensic pathology is now so important in the fact-finding process of the law.
This column is about Cyril Wecht, a giant in the legal and medical professions: doctor, lawyer, forensic pathologist, former coroner of Allegheny County, expert witness in mysterious death cases and concert violinist. He is 90 years old and is still actively practicing in Pittsburgh as a forensic pathologist. His son, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht, said, “My Dad is still working at his profession. … he continues to do many autopsies every week, often multiple autopsies in a single day.” continued here…
CAPA is pleased to share with our base the news of the pardon of former Secret Service Agent Abraham Bolden under President John F. Kennedy. See story below.
Biden pardons Chicagoan Abraham Bolden, first Black Secret Service agent on White House detail
Bolden “has steadfastly maintained his innocence, arguing that he was targeted for prosecution in retaliation for exposing unprofessional and racist behavior within the U.S. Secret Service,” the White House said.
By Lynn Sweet
Apr 26, 2022, 6:30am PDT
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday pardoned Abraham Bolden, the Chicago man who was the first Black Secret Service agent to serve on a White House detail, who maintained charges against him that led to prison time were trumped up.
Bolden “has steadfastly maintained his innocence, arguing that he was targeted for prosecution in retaliation for exposing unprofessional and racist behavior within the U.S. Secret Service,” the White House said in announcing Biden’s clemency actions. [read more here…]
Dr. Cyril Wecht
By Heather Robinson, the New York Post February 5th, 2022
Dr. Cyril Wecht distrusts the US government. And he’s proud of it.
Dr. Cyril Wecht was the first non-governmental forensic pathologist to gain access to the National Archives to examine the assassination materials on JFK in 1972. He discovered that Kennedy’s brain was missing as well as many shocking lapses in the official probe into his death.
The forensic pathologist – who declared in 1978 that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy – is now 90 and still sticking to his story.
Wecht’s latest book, “The JFK Assassination Dissected” (Exposit Books) summarizes his six decades of research into the subject, and pokes holes in the conclusion made by the 7-man Warren Commission that Oswald, without any help, shot and killed Kennedy when his motorcade drove past the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.