It is worthwhile to consider what Paul Groody’s role was on the day of the exhumation. Jack White’s description of his duties at the gravesite seems to be the one most repeated. White stated, “According to state regulations, the original mortician is in charge of exhumation if possible. Groody was in charge of opening the grave. Groody was in charge of removing the casket from the ground. Groody traveled to the hospital with the casket. Groody was in charge of opening the casket/removing corpse.”

Although it is clear White’s last sentence is an overstatement (since no one removed the corpse at the examination), Gary Mack’s excellent series of articles on the exhumation provides the following confirmation, “Both (Groody and Baumgardner) were present for the exhumation and part of the later examination because exhumations must be legally handled by an officer of the state.”

Once the body arrived at Baylor, it seems clear that Groody’s role became twofold:

1. To identify the remains as those that he worked with in 1963.
2. To return to the examination room at the conclusion of the exam and place the body in a new casket for transport and reburial at Rose Hill where he again would oversee the process.

Groody was not a part of the examination team or the examination process in any way other than to simply identify the body. The record is clear that he left the examination room shortly after identifying the body. Now, let’s see how Groody’s TMWKK statements compare with the record.

Paul Groody: “At the time of the '63 burial time, I put Lee Harvey Oswald in a steel reinforced concrete vault. That vault was hermetically sealed. The vault is guaranteed not to break, crack, or go to pieces-it's heavy concrete with steel in it with an asphalt lining. And when I opened the grave in '81 and found that that vault had been broken and the bottom of the vault was the part that was broken-the top was still intact-I noticed at that time that the casket had been disturbed-I questioned in my own mind what had been going on.”

 Greg Burnham

Similarly, researcher Greg Burnham claimed in a recent TV documentary:

“There’s no earthquakes of course, in Texas that would have caused a crack in this 2700 pound steel-reinforced concrete vault yet it had been compromised.”

Gary Mack disagrees with Burnham and provides another explanation for the damage:

"According to the numerous records and studies, Texas certainly does have earthquakes, but not very many. But the soil in many spots in north Texas contains a lot of clay, which expands and contracts depending on soil moisture. Homeowners here know to water the ground around their home to prevent damaging foundation cracks. Roads over heavy clay soil often buckle during expansion or contraction and the same problem affects cemeteries. The vault damage could very easily have been caused by natural geology."

Indeed, the idea of a burial vault being any sort of safe haven for the deceased seems to be coming under fire. Darryl J. Roberts is a 30-year veteran of the “death care industry” who has written a whistle-blowing book that features allegations of serious price gouging by funeral homes. Roberts’ book, Profits of Death, exposes many myths about death and dying. On page 50-51 Roberts writes:

“No vault is impervious to eventual disintegration, and there is very little chance of placing anything underground and having it remain waterproof. I have personally witnessed as many as forty disinterments from vaults (even those made by the leading manufacturers) that were guaranteed waterproof from which water had to be drained before they could be moved. Often, they were full of water.”

Roberts continues:

“It’s frequently necessary, when disinterring one of these vaults, to knock drainage holes in the bottom before it can be moved. Only then can the vault-still with the hole in the bottom-and casket be reinterred in another location.”

So it would seem that another long standing myth-that Oswald’s broken vault suggests tampering-is laid to rest (so to speak).

Paul Groody: "I noticed at that time that the casket had been disturbed-I questioned in my own mind what had been going on."

By saying that the “casket had been disturbed”, Groody implies that he saw something sinister. The only thing unusual about the coffin (other than the rotting that had taken place because of water damage) was a missing piece near the head area about 18 inches long and 3 or four inches wide. Part 2 of the Coverups! Series offers an explanation:

"Perhaps it had been somehow damaged when the coffin and vault were lowered into the grave and someone kept it as a souvenir.”

Of course, another explanation is that the piece became dislodged from the weakened casket and simply dropped unnoticed into the vault sometime during the exhumation process.

Paul Groody: “And then we did go to Baylor-there was an examination by a medical person who was this forensic pathologist. And she determined that yes, these were the teeth of Lee Harvey Oswald but it took two years for her to make that determination before the report was actually done.”

The mysterious “delay” between the exhumation and the release of the determination that the teeth matched Oswald is one of the more enduring criticisms leveled by theorists. The matching of the teeth of the corpse and Oswald in fact occurred that very day. At a press conference held at about 3:00 p.m. CT on October 4, 1981, Linda Norton stated:

"The findings of the team are as follows: We independently and as a team have concluded beyond any doubt, and I mean beyond any doubt, that the individual buried under the name of Lee Harvey Oswald in Rose Hill Cemetery is in fact Lee Harvey Oswald."

So the determination that this was the body of Oswald was made immediately the day of the exhumation. What did take 27 months to complete was the full report on the examination. That was published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences in January 1984. Still, some critics say that is an abnormally long time and seem suspicious about the “delay”. Dr Vincent Di Maio, who was one of the four members of the Norton team, told this writer:

“The critics are unfamiliar with medical publications. It usually takes a year or two from submission to publication. It often takes months to write the article such that everyone is in agreement with the manuscript.”

However, consider the possibility that viewers of TMWKK thought that it really had taken two years for Norton to make any comment whatsoever. Where would they get an idea like that? Maybe from the program itself. Right after Groody says: "it took two years for her to make that determination before the report was actually done", the program makes a quick cut to Norton’s statement. To the uninitiated, this could make it appear that Norton was giving her press conference at the time the report was released in 1984 rather than on the day of the exam in 1981. Perhaps TMWKK is as much to blame for the “mysterious delay” issue as anyone.

Next: The Allegations Refuted Part 2

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