Bugliosi's Calculation
Famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi tried to refute the actuary in his book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He cited Robert M. Musen, vice president and senior actuary at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Musen calculated the odds of 15 people out of 2,479 in the Warren Commission Index index dying within a three-year period, assuming a median age of 40, to be 98.16 percent or one out of 1.2.
But there are two major problems with Musen's calculation.
1- There are only approximately 600 names listed in the index, including George Washington and several other presidents. Only 552 were witnesses who testified.
2- Musen did not consider that the deaths were unnatural. Even assuming 2479 names, approximately 4 unnatural and 70 natural deaths from the list would be expected over a three year period. Musen must have applied an approximate .01 overall mortality rate, not the .000542 unnatural rate. The odds that at least 15 of 2479 would die unnaturally within 3 years is 1 in 46,000. The odds of 18 dying unnaturally is 1 in 3.6 million.
The Correct Method: Expected and Actual Unnatural Deaths
There were 1400 JFK-related witnesses listed in the Who's Who in the JFK Assassination. At least 15 died from unnatural causes in the first year, defying the odds. There had to be a plausible explanation; the 15 unnatural deaths could not have been just a 1 in 167 TRILLION coincidence. Only one unnatural death would normally be expected. There must have been a rationale and motivation for the deaths. What could it have been?
The expected number N of unnatural deaths in time period T is approximated by a simple formula: N = R * W * T, where R is the unnatural mortality rate, W the number of witnesses and T the number of years in the study. For one year, N = 0.76 deaths = .000542*1400*1
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