Probability Analysis of 15 Witness Deaths Within One Year of the JFK Assassination
Richard Charnin (TruthIsAll)
Updated: May 12, 2012
There has been much discussion and controversy regarding the large number unnatural JFK-related 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. In 1977, six top FBI officials who were scheduled to testify died.
THREE POSSIBILITIES
Suppose that on Nov. 22, 1963, 1400 individuals were selected at random from the entire U.S. population. Further suppose that within one year, at least 15 would die unnaturally under mysterious circumstances. Based on unnatural death mortality rates, only 1 in a random group of 1400 would be expected to die unnaturally.
There are three possibilities. The 15 unnatural deaths were…
1) unrelated. It was just a 1 in 167 trillion coincidence.
2) unrelated. It was 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 unnatural deaths were related, what was the connection?
Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth. – Arthur Conan Doyle
This is a database of 106 JFK-related witnesses and their cause of death.
This is the source listing of JFK-related witnesses and cause of death.
The author of this excellent article is mistaken in claiming that the majority of the deaths were natural. As shown above, at least 71 of 106 were unnatural (53 were extremely suspicious).
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdeaths.htm
COINCIDENCE OR CONNECTION?
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. The probability that at least 15 of 1,400 randomly-selected individuals would die unnaturally in any given year is 1 in 167 trillion (see the mathematical proof below).
The 15 deaths could not have been a coincidence. There had to be a connection between them. It could have been a) they were interviewed by the Warren Commission, b) scheduled to be interviewed, c) were in the commission witness index or d) related in some other way. If they were related, the deaths were not random. One must therefore conclude that the assassination was a conspiracy.
The odds of 15 or more natural deaths in one year in a random group of 1400 is 1 in 2 (43%).
WITNESSES
The book Who’s Who in 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.
Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, is not on the list. But he should be. Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby in front of millions of television viewers on Nov. 24, 1963. He was conveniently disposed of before he could get a lawyer after claiming that he was “just a patsy”. The transcript of Oswald’s interrogation was destroyed. This analysis indicates that he was indeed a patsy.
In the 3 years following the assassination, there were 33 unnatural deaths out of the 1400 witnesses (2 would normally be expected).
The probability is 7.3E-27 or
1 in 137,439,196,231,656,380,000,000,000 (1 in 137 trillion trillion)!
In the 14 years following the assassination, there were 75 unnatural deaths (11 would normally be expected).
The probability is 6E-37 or
1 in 1,549,712,430,558,542,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (1 in 1.5 trillion trillion trillion)!
The probabilities are lower than the probability of finding a hidden grain of sand or star. There are approximately 7E17 (700,000 trillion) grains of sand on the earth’s beaches on earth and 3E23 (300 billion trillion) stars in the universe.
This graph displays a range of probabilities that there would be 1-16 unnatural deaths among 1,000-10,000 randomly selected individuals.
This graph displays a table of probabilities that 5 to 65 people in a random group of 2,000 would die UNNATURALLY in 1-15 year intervals.
THE LONDON TIMES AND THE HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS
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.
In fact, the actuary’s calculation of the odds of 18 unnatural deaths (1 in 100,000 trillion) within 3 years of the assassination is correct assuming there were 461 JFK-related witnesses. But this analysis is based on 1400 JFK-related individuals. At least 33 died unnaturally in the three years following the assassination.
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 Warren Commission Index dying within a given period, the answer is, of course, that they are much lower. Our mistake was to treat the reply to the former question as if it dealt with the latter – hence the fundamental error in our first edition report, for which we apologize”.
That settled the matter for the HSCA which did not bother to ask U.S. mathematicians to analyze the probabilities. One must ask: Why not?
Whitaker obfuscated a very simple mathematical problem: to determine the probabilities of unnatural JFK-related deaths over relevant time intervals: 1, 3, 5, 15 years. He did so by leaving out the word unnatural.
Whitaker stated that the probability that a) 15 named individuals from the U.S. population dying in a given time period was much lower than b) 15 witnesses listed in the Warren Commission report. That is true. In fact, the probabilities of both a) and b) are virtually ZERO assuming the deaths were independent, random events.
The London Times legal manager made two fundamental errors. The first was an incomplete and misleading statement of the problem. He implicitly assumed deaths of all types, natural and unnatural. He did not distinguish between the two categories. The probability calculations must be based on the expected number of unnatural (not total) deaths.
The second error was the omission of relevant numerical data: He did not provide unnatural death mortality statistics. He failed to show the probability calculations. Why not? Was it because it would prove that the actuary’s calculation was essentially correct?
If the London Times was interested in the truth, it would have confirmed these results:
1) Probability of death of 15 named individuals in the nation
The probability is p=0.000542^15 (1.0e-49) that 15 named individuals in the U.S. population would die unnaturally in any given year, based on the mortality statistics given below. That’s 49 decimal zeros. The odds that 15 named individuals would die of any cause in one year is of course much higher: .01^15 (1.0e-30). But neither one addresses the problem.
2. Probability of 15 deaths in a random group of 1400
The probability that at least 15 out of 1400 randomly-selected individuals would die unnaturally in one year is 1 in 167 trillion (6.0e-15) or ZERO for all practical purposes. Of course, the odds that at least 15 would die of any cause is much higher: 1 in 2 (43%).
CALCULATING THE PROBABILITY
The probability calculations are based on an estimated 0.000542 annual mortality rate. The probability of death from any cause in a given year is approximately .01.
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 from…
suicide….. 0.000107
homicide…. 0.000062
accidental.. 0.000359
undetermined 0.000014
Total……. 0.000542
The odds of dying (lifetime):
Accidental Injury: 1 in 36
Motor Vehicle Accident: 1 in 100
Intentional Self-harm (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 is the perfect tool for calculating the probability of a rare event. It is derived from the Normal (Gaussian) probability distribution- the most important tool in statistical analysis. The Poisson function is used when the probability of an event (P) is very small but the number of trials (N) is so large that the expected number of events (P*N) is a moderate-sized quantity.
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.
The probability P of an unlikely event is calculated in Excel as 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). Therefore, the probability of EXACTLY a = 15 unnatural deaths for N = 1400 witnesses is calculated as:
P (15) = Poisson (15, 0.7588, false) = 5.70E-15.
The actual calculation can be done manually using the formula:
P (m) = a^m * exp (-a) / m!
a = 0.7588 = P*N = 000542*1400
P (15) = 0.7588^15 * exp (-.7588) / 15! or
P (15) = 1 in 175,441,539,952,741 = 1 in 175 TRILLION!
But we need the probability of AT LEAST 15 unnatural deaths, not EXACTLY 15.
The probability is 1 – the sum of the probabilities for 0,1,… 14 deaths:
P = 1 – [prob (0) + prob (1) + prob (2) … + prob (14)]
P (X > 14) = 1 – ∑P(i) where i=0, 14
P (X > 14) = 5.98E-15
P (X > 14) = 1 in 167,145,910,421,722 = 1 in 167 TRILLION!
This table illustrates the probability that at LEAST M out of 1400 witnesses would die unnaturally in one year. The probability declines EXPONENTIALLY as M increases.
For M>=14 deaths, the probability is 1 in 8 TRILLION;
for M>=15, the probability declines by a factor of 20 to 1 in 167 TRILLION;
for M>=16, the probability declines by a factor of 20 to 1 in 3,534 TRILLION.
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
