Study of JFK assassination bullets honored

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Three Texas A&M University faculty members were honored for a study challenging the lone-gunman theory in the assassination of U.S. President John Kennedy.

Statistics Professors Cliff Spiegelman and Simon Seather along with research chemist William James analyzed the makeup of bullets that came from the same production batch as the ones recovered after the 1963 shooting in Dallas.

The trio received the 2008 Statistics in Chemistry Award from the American Statistical Association for their work showing that the metallic compounds of the fatal bullets weren't as unique as originally thought.

"Using new compositional analysis techniques not available in the 1960s, the team determined that the bullet fragments involved in the assassination are not nearly as rare as previously reported, leading to the recommendation that the bullet fragments be reanalyzed," the university said in a written statement.

The Kennedy assassination has been the subject of intensive debate over whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or had accomplices who also fired on the presidential motorcade.