Probability Analysis of 15 Unnatural Witness Deaths Within One Year of the JFK Assassination
Richard Charnin (TruthIsAll)
May 18, 2012
There has been much discussion and controversy regarding the large number unnatural witness deaths that occurred in the year following the 1963 JFK assassination and during the 1976-77 House Select Committee investigation of the JFK and MLK assassinations. The deaths were a combination of homicides, suicides, accidents and undetermined origin. The HSCA determined that both murders were probably due to conspiracies.
This is a database of JFK-related deaths and probability calculations: JFK Probability Spreadsheet
THREE POSSIBILITIES
Suppose that on Nov. 22, 1963, 1400 individuals were
selected at random from the entire
There are three possibilities. The 15 deaths were...
1) Unrelated. It was just a 1 in 167 trillion coincidence.
2) Unrelated. The individuals were selected in a scam to fool the public into believing that the assassination was a conspiracy.
3) Related. There was a common factor, a connection between them.
We can confidently rule out 1) and 2).
Then if the 15 were related, what was the connection?
Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth – Arthur Conan Doyle
There were 15 unnatural deaths of JFK-related witnesses within one year of the assassination. In any given year, only one unnatural death would be expected in a random group of 1,400 (as there were in the Warren Report). The probability that at least 15 of 1,400 randomly-selected individuals would die unnaturally in any given year is 1 in 167 TRILLION (the mathematical proof is below). The 15 deaths could not have been a coincidence. There had to be a connection between them. The connection was the Warren Report index. One must therefore conclude that the assassination was a conspiracy.
This graph displays the probabilities of 1-16 unnatural deaths among 1,000-10,000 randomly selected individuals.
http://richardcharnin.com/poissonjfk_17844_image001.gif
WITNESSES
The book Who’s Who in the The-JFK Assassination presents vital information on each of more than 1,400 individuals (from suspects to witnesses to investigators) related in any way to the murders of President John F. Kennedy, Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit and alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22 and 24, 1963. It is based on years of research using a wealth of data sources and a detailed analysis of the Warren Commission's twenty-six volumes. This encyclopedic study includes entries on virtually all of the suspects, victims, witnesses, law enforcement officials and investigators involved in the assassination.
This is a summary of JFK-related deaths:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdeaths.htm
The author is mistaken in claiming that the majority of the deaths were natural.
This is a database of 106 JFK-related witnesses and their cause of death.
At least 71 were unnatural (53 were extremely suspicious)
The original data source is:
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v1n2/deaths.html
Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, must also be included in the list. Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby in front of millions of television viewers on Nov. 24, 1963 after claiming that he was "just a patsy". Transcripts of Oswald's interrogation were destroyed. He was conveniently disposed of before he could get a lawyer. This analysis indicates he was indeed a patsy. Ruby should also be included. He died in prison, claiming that he was injected with cancer cells because he wanted to tell the truth.
Let's be conservative and assume 2,000 related witnesses, not the 1,400 stated above.
Approximately 35 witnesses died unnaturally in the 5 years following the assassination. The probability that EXACTLY 35 out of 2,000 RANDOMLY SELECTED individuals would die in a 5 year interval is 2.1E-17 or 1 in 47,657 TRILLION.
Approximately 65 died unnaturally in the 15 year period from 1963 to the 1977 House investigations into the murders of JFK and MLK. The probability that 65 out of 2,000 RANDOMLY SELECTED individuals would die in a 15 year interval is 5.6E-20 or 1 in 17,993,819 TRILLION.
In 1977, six top FBI officials who were scheduled to testify died.
This graph displays a table of probabilities that from 5 to 65 people in a random group of 2,000 would die UNNATURALLY in 1-15 year intervals.
http://richardcharnin.com/JFKCalc_28023_image001.gif
THE
An actuary engaged by the London Times calculated the probability that at least EIGHTEEN witnesses would die within 3 years of the JFK assassination as 1 in 100,000 trillion. But in a response to a letter from the 1977 House Select Committee on Assassinations, London Sunday Times Legal Manager Anthony Whitaker wrote:
Our piece about the
odds against the deaths of the Kennedy witnesses was, I regret to say, based on
a careless journalistic mistake and should not have been published. This was
realized by The Sunday Times editorial staff after the first edition - the one
which goes to the United States - had gone out, and later editions were
amended. There was no question of our actuary having got his answer wrong: it
was simply that we asked him the wrong question. He was asked ” what were the
odds against 15 named people out of the population of the United States dying
within a short period of time” to which
he replied -correctly - that they were very high. However, if one asks what are
the odds against 15 of those included in the
That settled the matter for the HSCA which did not bother to
ask
Whitaker was only partially correct: True, the probability
of 15 named individuals from the
The first was misstating the problem definition. He assumed deaths of all types. He did not indicate that the probabilities are a function of the expected number of unnatural (not total) deaths within a given year. That was obfuscation based on a false premise.
The second was error by omission: avoidance of the mathematics. Whitaker did not include mortality statistics and show the probability calculations. Why not?
Because it would prove that the actuary's calculations were justified?
CALCULATING THE PROBABILITY
In fact, the answers to both questions show that in each case, the probabilities are at the vanishing point - assuming the deaths were independent events. The common factor in calculating the probability for both cases is the probability of death by unnatural causes in any given year. It is 0.000542.
1) The probability that 15 named individuals in the
2) Yes, the probability that least 15 out of 1400 persons in the Warren Commission index would die unnaturally in the year following the assassination is much higher: 1 in 167 trillion (6.0e-15).
The probability P of at least m unnatural deaths in a group of n persons during a time period t is
P(m) = f (n,t,p), where p is the probability of an unnatural death in a given year. As t increases, the probability that at least m would die of unnatural causes also increases.
Probability of an unnatural death in a given year:
suicide. 0.000107
homicide 0.000062
accidental 0.000359
undetermined 0.000014
Total 0.000542
http://www.nsc.org/news_resources/injury_and_death_statistics/Pages/InjuryDeathStatistics.aspx
The odds of dying (lifetime):
Accidental Injury 1 in 36
Motor Vehicle Accident 1 in 100
Intentional (suicide) 1 in 121
Falling Down 1 in 246
Assault by Firearm 1 in 325
http://www.livescience.com/3780-odds-dying.html
THE POISSON DISTRIBUTION
The Poisson distribution function is the perfect tool for
calculating the probability of a rare event. It is derived from the
There are two parameters in the Poisson probability function: the expected number (a) of unlikely events and the actual number (m). The probability is:
P (m) = a^m * exp (-a) / m!
We have determined that P =.000542 is the probability of an unnatural death in a group of 1400 in a given year. The expected number (a) of unnatural deaths is:
a = 0.7588 = P*N = 000542*1400.
In other words, in a given year we would normally expect slightly lower than ONE (0.7588) unnatural death in a random group of 1400 people.
But there were 15 unnatural witness deaths within one year of the assassination.
In Excel, the probability P of an unlikely event is calculated by the function P = POISSON (x, a, type)
where x is the number of events; a is the expected numeric value; type is a logical value that determines the form of the probability distribution (discrete or cumulative)
Use the Poisson formula to compute the probability of exactly 15 unnatural deaths for N = 1400 witnesses:
P (15) = Poisson (15, 0.7588, false) = 5.70e-15.
The actual calculation is:
a = 0.7588 = P*N = 000542*1400
P (m) = a^m * exp (-a) / m!
P (15) = 0.7588^15 * exp (-.7588) / 15!
P (15) = 1 in 175,441,539,952,741
P = 1 in 175 TRILLION!
But we need the probability of at least 15 unnatural deaths, not exactly 15. It’s virtually the same.
P= 1 in 167 TRILLION!
The probability is P = 1 – the sum of the probabilities for 0, 1 ... 14 deaths:
P = 1 – (prob (0) + prob (1) + prob (2) … + prob (14))
P (m > 14) = 1 - ∑ P (i), i=0, 14
P (m > 14) = 5.98e-15
P (m > 14) = 1 in 167,145,910,421,722
This table displays the probability that at least m out of 1400 witnesses would die unnaturally in one year. The probability declines exponentially as the number of deaths increase.
m 1 in
0 1
1 2
2 6
3 24
4 132
5 892
6 7,195
7 67,346
8 718,040
9 8,593,044
10 114,073,493
11 1,663,713,384
12 26,445,366,889
13 455,051,758,699
14 8,427,523,639,942
15 167,145,910,421,722
16 3,534,913,873,810,260
17 79,526,916,217,848,800
18 1,966,037,843,894,810,000
