health-care facility. The information given by Mr. Houtcheson on his earlier visits turned out to be false.
The unsettling affair with “Joseph Houtcheson” was in the back of my mind when Channel 5 news ran their story on the investigation in which you and your task force had been involved, and I telephoned Chief Mulcahey to provide the information that I thought might be important to a resolution of the case.
Because of the nature of the deceased's fatal gunshot wound, I was told that a positive identification of X rays cannot be made, however in my opinion this group of X rays (SEE ENC.) are those of Mr. Joseph Hackabee. As I stated to you in our phone conversation of 26 February, in twenty-three years of practice I have never seen X rays such as the enclosed.
The brain tumor is unique in this instance: being a rare tumor of the pineal gland and with the configuration as shown. This gland, which is essentially believed to be a nonfunctional gland in humans, is often calcified in persons by the time they reach their thirties. The calcification is an easily discerned feature in a skull X ray and if there is some identifiable mass such as a tumor or hematoma in the brain one can sometimes see the calcification displaced from its normal position.
The only tumor that occurs primarily in the gland is a pinealoma, normally, but because of the configuration in the X rays and the displacement factor, I cannot be sure of the nature of Mr. Houtcheson's brain tumor. Nonetheless, one might theorize that this tumor would be a significant factor in any future analysis of the case.
During our initial phone conversation you asked me to clarify an offhand comment I made about “a third eye,” which I made figuratively, with respect to the tumor's configuration and the fact that it involved the pineal. The gland was once mythologized to be a vestige inherited from ancient ancestors, a remnant of the legendary “third eye in the middle of the forehead.”
The pineal “third eye” is what could be called a biological anthropomorphism based on the evolution of the lizard, in which a stalk is attached anatomically to the gland which once may have been its prehistoric forbearer's third-eye nerve tract.
In humans the pineal appendage may have something to do with our being able to distinguish a sense of the difference between day and night, but such a function is largely speculative.
Boyd, the famous Canadian pathologist, says, “Now that the pineal gland is no longer regarded as the seat of [man's] soul, it has been difficult to ascribe a function to it.”
If I can provide any further information with respect to this matter, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Kingman Fredericks, D.O. Chief Radiologist Bellaire Clinic of Radiology Bellaire, Texas
P.S. Pinealectomy performed on a lab animal stimulates gonadal hypertrophy and sexual development, and there is speculation that the pineal gland may influence human sexual characteristics and behavior as well.
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