For more than sixty years, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has lived in the uneasy space between history and doubt. Official conclusions were issued, reports were bound, and archives were sealed. Yet for millions of Americans, the feeling that something never fully added up has persisted. That unease was laid bare once again in congressional testimony delivered by a man who stood not at the crime scene, but at the center of the government’s most sensitive attempt to clarify the record.

Douglas Horne served on the staff of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board during the final years of its existence, from 1995 to 1998. His role was not peripheral. As a senior analyst on the military records team, later promoted to chief analyst, he was deeply involved in reviewing classified material related to Cuba, Vietnam, and—most controversially—the medical evidence surrounding Kennedy’s death. Though the Review Board lacked the authority to reinvestigate the assassination or issue formal conclusions, its mandate to declassify and release records opened doors that had been closed for decades.

During its work, the Board took sworn depositions from ten individuals who either participated in or were present at President Kennedy’s autopsy, as well as a joint deposition of five Dallas physicians who treated the President at Parkland Hospital. Horne was present for every one of those depositions, assisting in preparation and research. The testimonies, along with written interviews from additional medical witnesses, were deposited into the National Archives without commentary or endorsement. The Board let the record speak for itself.

What that record revealed, according to Horne, was deeply troubling.

He testified that at least eight sets of autopsy photographs known with confidence to have been taken during Kennedy’s autopsy are missing and have never been part of the official collection. Even more alarming, some photographs currently held by the National Archives sharply contradict the detailed descriptions of head and neck wounds recorded by Parkland doctors on the day of the assassination and reiterated in their 1964 testimony.

The physical evidence fares no better. At least two, and possibly three, skull X-rays taken at Bethesda Naval Hospital are missing entirely. Of the X-rays that do survive, optical densitometry—a scientific method used to assess image authenticity—indicates they are not original films, but altered copies. Two highly respected medical doctors, granted repeated access to the autopsy materials by the Kennedy family, independently concluded that the skull X-rays show clear evidence of shots fired from the front of the President. This directly contradicts the findings of both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

According to this interpretation, Kennedy was struck by three shots to the head—one from behind and two from the front. Such a conclusion, if accurate, would upend the lone-gunman narrative that has dominated official history for generations.

Other critical pieces of evidence have simply vanished. The so-called Harper fragment, a large piece of skull bone recovered in Dallas, photographed and X-rayed by the FBI, has been missing since late 1963. Bullet fragments removed from the President’s body during the autopsy were never placed into the official record and are also missing. Most striking of all, the President’s brain—examined and placed in a stainless steel container in 1963—is gone.

That container, along with an original signed autopsy report, was transferred from the Secret Service to Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1965. When RFK later donated assassination materials to the National Archives in 1966, those items were not included. The Kennedy family attorney later confirmed that Robert Kennedy had made them permanently inaccessible, though no explanation was provided.

Compounding these concerns, the brain photographs currently held in the Archives have been publicly discredited. The official photographer present at the examination and an FBI agent who attended the autopsy both stated that the images do not depict President Kennedy’s brain at all. Meanwhile, the chain of custody for the President’s body prior to the autopsy appears to have been broken, casting further doubt on the reliability of the official report.

Perhaps most unsettling is the revelation that Navy pathologists arrived at four different sets of conclusions about Kennedy’s wounds and cause of death within just two weeks of the assassination. The autopsy report preserved today represents only the final version. For Horne, this alone is unacceptable in a nation that prides itself on transparency and democratic accountability.

The restrictions placed on autopsy materials through a 1966 deed of gift remain another major obstacle. These limits tightly control who may view the photographs and X-rays and how they may be used. Horne argued that such constraints amount to de facto suppression. Only unrestricted access, he contended, would allow qualified experts to finally resolve questions about authenticity.

He concluded with remarks that reignited one of the most explosive controversies of all: the Zapruder film. High-resolution digital scans studied by Hollywood professionals, Horne claimed, show signs of crude visual alteration in key frames. The massive rear head wound described by Parkland doctors appears to be blacked out, while wounds not observed by those physicians appear instead. Even the custody of the film itself raises alarms, having spent critical time with the CIA and Kodak’s research facility rather than where it was originally claimed.

Despite these unresolved questions, a National Archives official once stated that they had no intention of removing the film from storage again. Horne urged Congress to overturn that decision and allow independent film experts and academics to examine the footage once more.

The testimony did not offer closure. Instead, it delivered something far more unsettling: the suggestion that the official story rests on missing evidence, altered records, and unanswered contradictions. For many Americans, that alone explains why the assassination of John F. Kennedy refuses to fade into the past.