of Presbyterian Hospital from 1955 to 1980. At the Hospital, which in 1998 became NewYork–Presbyterian, the head of the Department is known as the John K. Lattimer Professor of Urology. His patients included Katharine Hepburn, Charles Lindbergh, Dmitri Shostakovich, Itzhak Perlman and Greta Garbo. Investigator into Kennedy assassination The Kennedy family chose him in 1972 as the first non-governmental expert to examine evidence taken at Kennedy's autopsy. Lattimer performed ballistic tests and other research to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was likely the sniper who shot and killed President John F. Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. Lattimer frequently performed a demonstration of Oswald's shooting, firing three well-aimed shots within 8.3 seconds with a 6.5×52mm Italian Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle, the same as Oswald's actual weapon and under the same firing conditions. By doing so Lattimer intended to prove that Oswald could have performed such a feat. He continued to perform this demonstration well into his late eighties. Lattimer owned Oswald's Marine shooting record which he said showed that Oswald was an excellent shot. In 1980, Dr. Lattimer wrote a book: Kennedy and Lincoln: Medical & Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations in which he did an investigation of both the Lincoln and the Kennedy assassinations, and supported the findings of the Warren Commission. In his book, Lattimer theorized that President Kennedy's arms exhibited the "Thorburn Position" with elbows extended and arms folded inward, as a neurological reaction to the bullet wound to his spine. Collector of military artifacts Lattimer lived in Englewood, New Jersey. His 30-room Englewood home contained an extensive collection of military paraphernalia, including "medieval armor, Revolutionary and Civil War rifles and swords, a pile of cannonballs, World War II machine guns, German Lugers, and drawings by Adolf Hitler. Lattimer stole personal items from several of the Nuremberg defendants, such as Hermann Göring's underwear and his Luftwaffe ring. Lattimer was the owner of several grisly historical artifacts including one of the two cyanide capsules that Göring smuggled into his Nuremberg prison (Göring used the other capsule to commit suicide minutes before he was to be executed), a blood-stained collar that President Lincoln wore to Ford's Theater the night he was shot, and a medically preserved section of penile tissue which Lattimer said belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte. References External links History of the Department of Urology at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital Obituary New York Times, MAY 13, 2007