Jeff Wrote:There is no reliable government supplied evidence for this murder.

Mark Lane Wrote:In preparation for his appearance before the Commission on April 23, 1964, Shaneyfelt photographed an FBI employee standing on the roof of the Justice Department building in Washington and holding the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. This picture was published as Commission Exhibit 748, but it cannot be said to have resolved the issue, for the FBI had removed the employee's head from the photograph before submitting it to the Commission. When the picture was offered in evidence to Commission counsel, this colloquy ensued: 

Q. I see the head of the individual in the photograph is blacked out. Can you explain the reason for that? 

Shaneyfelt: I blanked out the head because it was one of the employees of the FBI, and I felt it was desirable to blank out the head since it was not pertinent. 

One can sympathize with the desire of police agents for anonymity and still wish that some non-secret individual might have been chosen to pose with the rifle, since nothing was more pertinent than a comparison of the nose and body shadows. 

Shaneyfelt testified that he had prepared Commission Exhibit 748 in an attempt to depict 'the rifle held in approximately the same position' as in the controversial photograph. It would seem that he had an additional, if unmentioned, objective as well. The position of the feet of the FBI employee, his posture and the length and orientation of the shadow from his body suggest that Shaneyfelt sought to simulate all the conditions that existed when the disputed photograph was made. The fact that he left the FBI laboratory to prepare the photograph on the roof of the building appears to confirm the suspicion that he was aware of the non-conformity of the shadows and was trying to simulate them. The fact that the photograph was altered before it was submitted to the Commission would tend to indicate that the effort failed. 

And thus the evidence came full cycle: a photograph doctored by the FBI was admitted in evidence ostensibly to demonstrate that another photograph, discovered by the Dallas police, was genuine.