The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - Dr. Paul K. Maurer, MD ｜ 09-25-25

00:00:00.480 The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.

00:00:07.920 Welcome back into the Stone Zone.

00:00:11.600 Joining me now is Dr. Paul K. Maurer.

00:00:14.980 Paul Maurer is a graduate of the University of Rochester.

00:00:18.540 He got his medical degree at the University of Rochester.

00:00:22.280 He did his neurosurgeon residency at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

00:00:27.840 He was an attending neurosurgeon for the United States Army at the San Francisco, California Letterman Medical Center.

00:00:37.420 He was an attending neurosurgeon at Walter Reed Army Medical Center from 1988 to 1992.

00:00:43.720 The chief of neurosurgery at the 86th Evacuation Hospital during the Saudi, in the Gulf War in Saudi Arabia.

00:00:52.680 He's also assistant professor of neurology at the University of Rochester from 1992 to 1998, professor of neurology at the University of Rochester from 1998 to the present time.

00:01:03.880 He's also the attending neurosurgeon at the UHS Medical Wilson Medical Center and has been a board certified member of the American Board of Neurosurgery since 1988.

00:01:15.900 I go through all of those academic and military credentials to say that he is one of the countries, if not the country's leading expert on gunshot wounds.

00:01:26.460 And he, like many, many Americans, still is studying and looking at the horrific and brutal political assassination of my good friend, Charlie Kirk.

00:01:39.000 Dr. Maurer, welcome back into the Stone Zone.

00:01:42.940 It's an honor to be here, sir.

00:01:44.340 As you know, I have written a New York Times bestselling book on the Kennedy assassination.

00:01:51.960 I've just finished a book on the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.

00:01:57.800 It'll be out by Christmas.

00:01:59.940 Both of them serious questions about the ballistics and the circumstances surrounding those shootings.

00:02:07.600 In the case of JFK, the government conducted investigation by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who took an entire seven days to declare that there was a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, a disgruntled communist who fired three shots, hitting John F.

00:02:29.980 Kennedy from the Kennedy from the rear, nothing else to see here, handing it off to the Warring Commission.

00:02:35.500 Actually, it was 50 years yesterday, essentially asking them and getting them to rubber stamp that conclusion.

00:02:44.840 We now know, of course, that that's not true due to a number of studies, but also a stunning new documentary on Paramount, what the Parkland doctors saw, had a number of the attending physicians say that they saw in JFK wounds consistent with his being shot from the front and the back.

00:03:07.420 And the doctors at Parkland also noted a massive grapefruit size blowout wound in the back of JFK's head, which would indicate that he'd been shot from the front.

00:03:19.740 They also noted that the wound in his throat, where a tracheotomy had been later performed, was most likely an entry wound rather than, as the Warring Commission tries to tell us, an exit wound.

00:03:33.100 So if we, by the FBI's assessment so far, that Charlie Kirk was shot from the front with a 30-06 charge, should there not have been an exit wound and a blood splatter in such a wound?

00:03:50.500 A couple of things.

00:03:53.160 We, I like to try to take all these surgical dilemmas, trauma dilemmas, bullet wounds and everything else.

00:04:00.320 You know, as I mentioned, you know, balls are balls, strikes are strikes.

00:04:03.660 And so I try to call them as they are and assess them as scientifically as I can based on, you know, over almost over 14,000 brain and spinal cord operations.

00:04:13.620 It's been through a lot of blood over the years.

00:04:16.320 So let's, if it's okay with you, I would start it right with what we have to deal with, recognizing, you know, we don't have all the cards on the table, which is always the problem.

00:04:28.440 Because voids of knowledge will always be filled with speculation, which frankly is imposed upon us, not to sound too harsh on that statement.

00:04:38.840 But when you have a void, people will fill the void.

00:04:41.880 So from a standpoint of terminal ballistics, which, as you mentioned, I lecture a lot about to military and law enforcement, literally all over the world, in which I don't know the word expert applies, but certainly I spend a lot of time dealing with that, as well as my surgical experience.

00:04:59.600 There are some very interesting aspects of this case.

00:05:03.600 And so to walk through them, just a moment, it's very important as I waded through over these last two weeks or whatever it is now, of speculation, some of which is very sound, some of which would strike me as maybe, in my opinion, a little less sound.

00:05:22.200 Let's see what we have.

00:05:24.700 If there's four camera angles to visualize this, and obviously our video data is our best, it's the best data we have at this point, recognizing as effective as it is in high quality, some of the shots are, it still leaves some room.

00:05:39.920 But first, let's start with the very first couple frames of that.

00:05:44.640 And I walked through this frame by frame by frame as much as possible multiple times.

00:05:50.940 And as he has the microphone in his hand, he answers that final question, leans back, and you hear the snap, the signature of, it's almost certainly a rifle sound.

00:06:02.320 You always have to be careful about saying that, but it's certainly an unsuppressed, non-silenced weapon, because it's a different sound characteristic.

00:06:09.740 It sounds like a rifle crack of an unsuppressed weapon.

00:06:14.720 And almost immediately, now I would keep in mind, and this is going to be important when we walk through the neck wound for the ballistics, we're just going to walk through this neck wound a bit at a time.

00:06:24.840 And the round that I practice most with for precision rifle closes 700 yards in 1.03 seconds.

00:06:34.760 So the sound from the snap of that rifle to impact is a distance of, variably reported, between 146 and 200 yards.

00:06:43.000 Now, yes, we can't assume that's where he was shot from.

00:06:47.280 So I'm not saying, that's not etched in stone.

00:06:49.780 I'm just saying, the theory right now, he was shot from a slightly upper depth down angle, from a decline angle, maybe 15, 20 degrees or so, someplace 200 or less.

00:07:03.480 That bullet's going to close that distance in a fraction of a second.

00:07:08.400 The fact that it's potentially a 30-06, again, we don't want, because if we're really going to do an analysis of this in a clean fashion, we can't even etch that in stone.

00:07:17.800 But let's, for the sake of discussion, say it was a Mauser Model 98, somewhat shortened barrel, apparently, maybe 20, 22 inches or so from what they're divulging so far.

00:07:27.640 Bolt-action weapon with a scope, of course.

00:07:30.680 That's, you know, that's a doable shot, as I think most people agree.

00:07:34.600 It's, you know, you couldn't just pick that up having no experience, but some moderated experience, that's a doable shot.

00:07:40.520 I would start by saying, because I lecture so much to the military and to law enforcement people, I've spent a lot of time over the last two weeks, me calling people, them calling me.

00:07:50.560 The first thing I'd say is, I'm sure, obviously, you know better than anybody, he wasn't aiming for his carotid artery in the neck.

00:07:57.160 That was either a head shot that went low or a chest shot that went high. 0.98

00:08:00.740 I have never heard in training or ever that anyone aimed for the neck.

00:08:05.280 That doesn't make it a bad shot.

00:08:07.180 It was highly effective.

00:08:08.980 I'm just saying that, you know, that was either a low head shot or a high chest shot.

00:08:13.340 But it ended up in about the worst place you could possibly get hit in your neck.

00:08:18.560 You see him lean back after he brings the mic away from his comment.

00:08:23.340 And you hear the signature of the rifle sound.

00:08:25.640 You see an immediate little splash of blood, maybe centimeter and a half, two centimeters maximum, less than an inch.

00:08:33.120 You see a little absolutely circular splash of blood followed.

00:08:38.300 Now, I haven't seen anybody mention this, which is interesting to me.

00:08:41.480 But if you go back and look at the video frame by frame, the most common video, pretty macabre, I agree, but the one mostly from in front, you see something very interesting, which has not been mentioned by anybody that I've seen.

00:08:54.420 Walking through what happens when a bullet hits you, and this is essential to analyzing exit, entry, should it have left his neck, should it have stayed in his neck?

00:09:04.220 These are all answerable questions.

00:09:06.900 When you get hit with a bullet, so you pull that trigger on the .30-06, that bullet impacts the front of the neck in what's called the sternocleidomastoid, not trying to confuse anybody with a lot of words.

00:09:19.000 It's the muscle that runs down the front of your neck.

00:09:21.960 When you look in the mirror, you'll see a muscle that goes from the top of your breastbone and heads behind the ear.

00:09:28.380 That's the sternocleidomastoid muscle.

00:09:30.920 We spend a lot of time there in neurosurgery because when we fix broken necks or we fuse your neck, we literally make an incision exactly where he got shot.

00:09:40.580 And you put your finger in after you dissect the platysma muscle, and in five minutes, your finger's on the front of the spine, which is in the center of your neck.

00:09:47.640 So that's well-traveled territory surgically.

00:09:50.600 That bullet, like a surgical incision, hit right at the left sternocleidomastoid, inferior one-third.

00:09:57.360 The carotid artery is five centimeters, two inches, depends on the size of your neck.

00:10:02.040 He's got a pretty big, beefy neck.

00:10:03.940 But that bullet went straight through, and as soon as you see that splash, just a circular drop of blood where the wound is,

00:10:12.000 the next couple frames, you see blood gushing out.

00:10:15.560 And to anybody who's a neurosurgeon or a vascular surgeon, soon as my wife told me he got shot,

00:10:20.960 and I looked at that, well, there's his left carotid artery.

00:10:23.420 I mean, that was the entire left carotid artery pumping out that wound.

00:10:27.260 Now, what happens when a bullet hits you?

00:10:29.580 If I take, this is an important concept for people to understand for where we're going to go with this,

00:10:34.580 because there's a lot of myth out there, even by, you know, people that hunt a lot and all that.

00:10:39.700 I get that.

00:10:40.240 But it is a scientific discipline after all.

00:10:43.440 If I take a screwdriver with a half-inch flathead, and the screwdriver shaft is 12 inches long, 0.92

00:10:49.400 and I plunge that in your neck exactly where he got shot,

00:10:53.940 you're going to get a hole as deep as I plunge the screwdriver half an inch wide. 0.99

00:10:59.420 That's called a permanent wound tract.

00:11:02.640 In other words, what's in that plunge of the screwdriver is half-inch wide.

00:11:08.160 Layer of tissue is 12 inches.

00:11:10.440 If I bury the handle in your neck, that tissue is gone.

00:11:13.740 It's history. 0.99

00:11:14.660 It's toast.

00:11:15.580 Forget it.

00:11:16.680 How much damage occurs depends on what it hits.

00:11:20.220 As fate would have it, when Kennedy got shot in the neck, I do think, from in front,

00:11:24.600 about the fourth tracheal ring, a miracle of anatomy for him.

00:11:29.260 It didn't really, it didn't hit his vertebral.

00:11:31.460 It didn't hit his carotid.

00:11:32.960 You know, it's a little unusual to get shot in the neck and not catch some really big stuff.

00:11:37.520 But he didn't.

00:11:38.660 Unfortunately for Charlie Kirk, the opposite is the case.

00:11:41.800 This thing within two inches was through his carotid artery,

00:11:45.200 or if he got shot from another angle, within 10 inches, 11 inches maximally for a neck,

00:11:50.900 even a big neck, that carotid was gone.

00:11:53.880 Now, there's a difference between a screwdriver, though, or an arrow, or a knife, and a bullet.

00:11:59.080 Because for those of you out in the audience that are not shooting, you know, aren't down

00:12:04.000 the rabbit hole of shooting, kinetic energy depends on the mass of the bullet.

00:12:09.800 In this case, probably 150 grain, up to 180 grains, most likely.

00:12:14.660 The kinetic energy, the amount of energy in that bullet, when that bullet smacks the front

00:12:19.260 of your neck, not only does it make a hole all the way through your neck, the size of

00:12:24.500 the bullet, in this case, about a third of an inch, you're going to get tissue a third

00:12:29.020 of an inch diameter, gone.

00:12:31.600 Bullet destroyed it like a freight train going through.

00:12:33.960 But there's more.

00:12:35.040 And you can see this very clearly on the video.

00:12:37.820 When the bullet hits tissue, it dumps its energy.

00:12:41.680 And that energy dumps and stretches the tissue, because human tissue is almost like gelatin,

00:12:48.900 which is why we use gelatin mold to study it.

00:12:52.180 Bones, bone, got it.

00:12:53.540 But most of the rest of the tissue is, to some degree, gelatin-like in consistency.

00:12:59.260 And as the bullet plows through the tissue, dependent on the amount of energy in the bullet,

00:13:05.540 the tissue stretches.

00:13:07.020 So that one-third-inch cavity the bullet went through, the diameter of the bullet, now you

00:13:15.340 get three to four times the amount of tissue a third of an inch.

00:13:19.940 Now you're one or two inches of tissue that gets ripped apart as the energy splashes into

00:13:25.520 the tissue around it.

00:13:26.880 If you look at the frames immediately after you see the red splash on the front of his neck,

00:13:33.040 go through it frame by frame.

00:13:34.740 Look at the frames right before he shot.

00:13:37.020 His neck, his whole neck expands 20%.

00:13:41.360 The whole bottom of his face expands all the way up to his jaw.

00:13:46.480 You can see on both sides, the tissue just puffs like a blowfish almost, not to be macabre.

00:13:53.720 But at first you think, well, that's kind of a photographic aberration.

00:13:57.200 It isn't.

00:13:58.380 That's the kinetic energy of that bullet dumping into the soft tissue of his neck as it goes

00:14:04.240 through.

00:14:04.580 Because a .30-06 round, people get hung up on the caliber a lot.

00:14:09.660 It's a fascination that has some true value.

00:14:13.500 But I would only say identifying entry and exit wounds is much more challenging than the usual

00:14:20.560 thought that's applied to it.

00:14:22.760 There's a lot more.

00:14:23.540 Dr. Maurer, we're going to take a quick commercial break and we'll be back with your expert analysis.

00:14:28.600 This is fascinating.

00:14:29.820 Folks, don't go away.

00:14:30.640 Don't touch that dial.

00:14:31.960 We'll be right back with Dr. Paul Maurer, one of the world's foremost experts on gunshot wounds

00:14:37.300 and one of the most respected neurosurgeons in the nation.

00:14:41.260 Don't go away.

00:14:41.980 We'll be right back.

00:15:11.980 The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.

00:15:19.740 I am so grateful to those kind words from Vice President J.D. Vance.

00:15:28.000 To continue our conversation, we're talking to Dr. Paul Maurer, one of the most respected

00:15:33.940 neurosurgeons in the country and an expert on bullet wounds and gunshot wounds.

00:15:41.440 And he is giving us his expert analysis of what he has seen in the various videotapes of the brutal assassination

00:15:49.260 of my good friend, Charlie Kirk.

00:15:51.800 Dr. Maurer, the floor is yours.

00:15:54.000 Thank you, sir.

00:15:54.820 As I was saying, the power behind the .30-06 is, you know, more than a .76-308.

00:16:04.040 It's below some of the long, long-range military sniper rifles.

00:16:07.620 But it's used as a hunting rifle for medium to large game specifically because it has a very long shell casing

00:16:15.100 with a lot of propellant and it puts the bullet out there at 2,900, 2,800, 3,000 feet per second.

00:16:22.120 You can use pretty heavy bullets.

00:16:23.820 But the performance of the bullet in tissue, where it stretches and destroys that tissue,

00:16:29.720 and how far does it go before it stalls?

00:16:33.160 In other words, does it get out your neck?

00:16:35.960 Does it get to the other side of your chest?

00:16:38.500 Hunting rounds are specifically designed to go deep.

00:16:42.660 Hunters want deep penetration because they're shooting quadrupeds. 0.52

00:16:46.740 Another topic never brought up.

00:16:48.900 Hunters shoot quadrupeds.

00:16:50.400 Those are four-legged animals.

00:16:51.960 Eighty percent of gunshot wounds to animals, deer, elk, are in the side of the chest or the side of the abdomen,

00:16:58.080 side of the head because you're shooting at the biggest surface area.

00:17:01.320 Humans, only 12 percent of shots are in the side, just statistically because it's not as available and it's harder to hit.

00:17:07.760 So the .30-06 bullet, there are very few tactical bullets.

00:17:12.740 The military actually doesn't want that much penetration.

00:17:15.820 They want 18 inches, 16 inches, but in 16 inches, you're out the back of the body,

00:17:21.080 in which case that stretch cavity is gone because all the energy and the bullets flying out the back.

00:17:26.560 So the tactical bullets are designed differently because they want that stretch cavity early on.

00:17:32.460 .30-06 is usually designed so you get it a little bit later

00:17:36.240 because they want, those hunters want those .30-06 rounds going 30 inches, 24 inches deep.

00:17:42.120 Well, a neck's only about, what, 10 to 11 inches, even in a pretty big neck?

00:17:46.380 Not even that, most necks.

00:17:49.020 So statistically, statistically, you would expect this bullet to go out the other side in a neck.

00:17:56.940 It would be unusual, not rare, but, you know, you can't put a number because you don't have,

00:18:03.140 there are no statistics to prove it.

00:18:04.940 But I would say if you look at gelatin shots of .30-06, 90 percent of the time,

00:18:09.960 that bullet would be sailing right out the back of his neck.

00:18:12.880 Now, the bullet was aimed slightly down, so we have to remember that.

00:18:17.040 Whether it was from behind, I mean, almost any of the relevant shooting positions would be flat to somewhat down.

00:18:25.860 So since it hit the lower third of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, low third of the neck,

00:18:30.820 did that bullet then dive into the upper chest?

00:18:34.520 It still would normally exit.

00:18:36.600 That's a bullet that has a penetration of, you know, 14, 16 inches minimally and usually,

00:18:43.400 but that round, I'm giving a benefit of the doubt here,

00:18:45.620 most of those .30-06 rounds have very deep penetration.

00:18:49.580 The heavier ones, 30 inches.

00:18:51.800 So is it possible to not exit?

00:18:54.940 Yes, because all things are possible.

00:18:57.260 Could that bullet, one thing you can see,

00:18:59.540 now we don't know, if you are sitting where Charlie Kirk was,

00:19:02.260 and this shot came from, say, the 10 o'clock position on his view,

00:19:06.200 about 30 degrees-ish off his left side, away from his nose to the left,

00:19:11.960 could that bullet have cleared the carotid, tore that in half,

00:19:15.620 struck his upper thoracic spine, which is what it would have hit,

00:19:19.400 and then ricocheted down the chest wall?

00:19:22.400 That's possible.

00:19:23.660 You do see that.

00:19:24.620 You do see that.

00:19:25.620 It's possible.

00:19:26.780 I would only say that bullet was fired from a pretty short distance.

00:19:30.220 That thing was still cooking probably at least 2,500 feet per second when it hit him

00:19:36.040 because it's pretty near shot as those bullets go.

00:19:39.300 So is it impossible that it didn't exit?

00:19:41.600 It's not impossible.

00:19:43.460 But if it hit the, it would have had to hit either a proximal big rib, 0.87

00:19:48.020 second or third rib to ricochet down, or the vertebrae.

00:19:52.100 If it hits an object like bone, they can fragment,

00:19:54.720 and then the fragments don't have the oomph,

00:19:56.800 the momentum to go all the way out the skin.

00:19:59.500 So you do sometimes, Jack Ruby, in fact,

00:20:01.400 the bullet that killed him was guttered under the skin

00:20:03.960 because it's hard to get through skin.

00:20:05.920 Skin's like a big tent wrapping your body.

00:20:09.280 Unfortunately, Dr. Moore, I have to stop you there

00:20:11.320 because we've run out of time.

00:20:12.600 I want to get you back for the full hour

00:20:14.340 because this is fascinating,

00:20:16.280 and we need to get to your conclusions.

00:20:18.460 But we're very honored to have you today in the Stone Zone,

00:20:21.400 and thanks for our listeners.

00:20:23.740 Until tomorrow, God bless you, and Godspeed.

00:20:26.900 Thanks for listening to The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.

00:20:31.220 You can hear The Stone Zone with Roger Stone

00:20:33.780 weeknights at 8 on 77 WABC.

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00:20:55.100 See you next time for a new episode

00:20:57.100 so you never have to wonder.

00:20:59.100 What the heck is going on here?

The StoneZONE with Roger Stone - September 26, 2025

Dr. Paul K. Maurer, MD ｜ 09-25-25

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