Michael Hastings, The Car Crash & The Autopsy Report

Two months after the fatal car crash that apparently took the life of journalist Michael Hastings, the autopsy report has finally been released. In the report, the toxicology screen revealed that Hastings had trace amounts of marijuana and an amphetamine in his system which were both ingested several hours before the crash and were not contributing factors to the so-called accident. Predictably, the Mainstream Media (MSM) pounced on these trace amounts in their headlines essentially to make Hastings a meth head in the eyes of the public and tamp down the many inconsistencies in the official story. Indeed, the release of the autopsy report, coupled with previously released witnesses accounts and videos, makes these many inconsistencies even more glaring and the obvious "blame the victim" meme even more disturbing. The autopsy report mentions the discovery of two empty alcoholic bottles "near" the crash site not once, but twice, even though the report states there was no alcohol in his blood.

The coroner is making his conclusions based on the theory that the decedent was involved in a high speed crash with a "fixed object" (the palm tree). The coroner states that all burns to the body were postmortem, all on the left side, with extensive charring of the head and upper left chest and back and that all fractures on the left side were thermal fractures, also postmortem. This means he was dead before the fire consumed the passenger compartment; with the coroner establishing near instantaneous death due to "massive blunt force trauma" consistent with the sudden deceleration caused by a car hitting a fixed object at high speed.

I stated that the coroner's conclusions were based on a theory because of a restaurant surveillance video that was finally released more than four weeks after the crash. It shows the car was traveling at a speed of about 35 mph and that there are two distinct explosions before the car comes to a stop, when a third and largest explosion takes place. The distance between the restaurant camera and the point of the car stopping is about 200 feet. The time between the car next to the camera and the point of the car stopping is 4 seconds. This results in a speed of about 35 mph. The posted speed on Highland is 35 mph.



According to an article from Yahoo News by Dylan Stableford, a witness to the car running the red light at Highland Avenue and Santa Monica Blvd., Michael Carter, posted what he saw to his Facebook page. He described a "pearl white Mercedes" that went by his car so fast that, "it shook my car like a freight truck going by." He then goes on to describe that, "No telling how fast the driver was going. A taxi driver was in the far right lane and we looked at each other, both saying, "What the hell was that?"... By the time the light changed, I could only see the tail lights of the white Mercedes—it was probably past Willoughby by then which was the next red light that I got stopped at. The Mercedes was flying down Highland. The same cab driver pulled up to the light at Willoughby and I looked over at him again in disbelief. Right as I did, the cab driver said something to the effect of, "He didn't make it." The [car] was all the way south of Melrose at this point. I looked down Highland and saw a giant fireball at the base of one of the palms that line the medians on Highland. It was surreal."

This witness account seems to be corroborated by a video showing a car running the red light at Highland and Santa Monica. The car is going very fast and here is where we get into some serious timeline problems with the official story. We are suppose to believe that the red light running car is Michael Hastings', but it is not. Both the Autopsy Report and LAPD have stated that Hastings was driving a silver Mercedes; not a pearl white car. The video of the car running the red light comes from LoudLab News which happened to get a camera first to the accident scene, even before the LAFD. On the unedited version of the dash cam video, it is clear that over three minutes have elapsed between the car running the red light and the first scanner report of a car crash and fire. A car going in excess of 90 mph would take less than 20 seconds to travel from Santa Monica to the crash site just south of Melrose, a distance over 2,200 feet. Again, the car that ran the red light and the car at the crash scene cannot be the same car.

(source: photo capture of LoudLabs News video)

The witness above mentioned he and the cab driver stopped at the red light at Willoughby (over 1,000 feet from Santa Monica) and it would appear he loses sight of his white Mercedes. By this time, more than 20 seconds would have a passed and he should have already seen the fireball. Let's go back to that restaurant video; it clearly shows a silver car and it is clearly not going over 90 mph, but about 35 mph. One can plainly see two small explosions before the car comes to a stop. 9-11 callers used words like "explosion" and that their "house shook" and the "windows rattled". Another witness described her bedroom lit up "like daylight" even though the drapes were closed. The photo above shows that the car was not excessively speeding and evidence that something blew off the front of the entire left side of the car. The passenger compartment is hardly damaged due to the collision (something we'd expect to see in a collision of over 90 mph) and the engine and transmission were found about 250 feet farther down the street! What forces could propel the engine and transmission that far? The most obvious answer comes from what is seen on the video and what is described by various witnesses - an explosion.

(source: KTLA screen capture)

Reading the autopsy findings in this new light would give the antemortem injuries a different interpretation. Hastings suffered several injuries that in and of themselves would be fatal. He received a "massive displaced modified basal skull fracture", a common injury among race car drivers that hit a wall at 200+ mph. It's the type of injury that killed race car driver Dale Earnhardt, among others, but not something one would expect to see in a low speed collision even with a fixed object. So, how did that injury occur? Hastings suffered an "avulsion of the base of the heart with complete transverse avulsion of the atria and superior and inferior vena cava." Again, another injury compatible with sudden deceleration due to a high speed collision with a fixed object, but completely at odds with a low speed collision. Hastings also suffered "(H)emorrhagic traumatic transection of the descending thoracic aorta at T-6." Yet again, an injury consistent with sudden deceleration from a high speed, but incompatible with a low speed collision. Hastings also suffered numerous non-fatal injuries, the most curious being his multiple fractures of the right arm and leg that were described as antemortem as opposed to the fractures on his left arm and leg which were the result of postmortem thermal fractures.

Hastings also suffered a fatal wound that some might believe to be caused by an explosion, that of, "a displaced fracture of the skull extending from the right brow down to the left inferior occipital area." However, the coroner makes no mention of any foreign (i.e., shrapnel) material or explosive residue in any of the open wounds. Yet, there is also described, "obvious open fractures were also observed to the right arm and both lower extremities." These wounds can be transferable to both explosives or auto accident, although that would be a gross simplification in this particular case.

Hastings obviously suffered wounds compatible with a high speed crash, but the video of the explosions and crash show the car to be going about 35 mph. The explosions in the video do not seem to be the cause of any of his antemortem injuries, although the fire that engulfed the car after the final large explosion are entirely compatible with his postmortem injuries. Therefore, his fatal and serious antemortem injuries must have occurred before he was put into the car. That is why I feel attributing his injuries to a high speed car crash is a gross simplification. This narrow conclusion, that Hastings was fatally injured before he was place into the car, is the only one that can reconcile all of the contradictory accounts of this so-called fatal car crash. The general conclusion among so-called conspiracy theorists that Hastings' car was hacked to deliberately crash it into the palm tree while explosions went off is ignoring the sickening fact that he was dead already when the "accident" happened. The hacking in this case would merely be a remote control operation of getting his car, with his body inside, to a point where the explosives could go off and the official story could be described to yet another meth head youngster driving too fast too late at night.