About the Symposium
Forty years after the assassinations of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, and 45 years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, questions still abound about both the circumstances and impact of their murders.
Were these shootings really just the acts of lone gunmen, as the history books have so long advocated? Or are there clues in these crimes that might yet prove what so many seem to believe -- that James Earl Ray, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan and Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone?
On the cusp of another historic presidential election, voters and historians alike ponder why these men died, what they might have become, and what their political legacies are today.
Following up on its historic 2003 conference on the JFK assassination, The Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law this fall is convening many of the top experts on the JFK, RFK and MLK cases for three days of presentations and panel discussions.
From matters of ballistics and trajectories to questions of conspiracy and cover-up, these three cases present fascinating and important topics for students of all ages and disciplines.
The Wecht Institute
It is the mission of The Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law to create and support multidisciplinary courses of degree and non-degree study designed to educate students about the vast applications and reach of the forensic sciences in today’s society.
The Wecht Institute seeks to inform the local and national communities about the revolutionary impact of the forensic sciences through scholarship, conferences, seminars, workshops and publications. It also seeks to engender in all of its participants a multidisciplinary approach to applying science to the law in our collective search for the truth.
Pittsburgh 250
Pittsburgh 250 is much more than a birthday party. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to encourage people inside and outside our region to imagine a bright future here. We are celebrating an important milestone in American history – the 1758 Forbes Campaign that led to the naming of Pittsburgh, and the founding of Bedford, Ligonier and other communities west of Carlisle – and the 250 years of innovation and accomplishment that have followed. Learn more