Tune into Discovery tonight for an episode of the all-new CSI: Dallas.

OK, it isn’t really another CSI spinoff.

But the new documentary JFK: Inside the Target Car does apply modern CSI-style technology to the assassination of 46-year-old U.S. President John F. Kennedy, which took place 46 years ago to the day.

The revelations are stunning.

JFK was murdered as his motorcade drove through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. We all know the basics of the story — the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, his subsequent murder, countless conspiracy theories — so there’s no need to detail them here.

But Inside the Target Car utilizes 21st-century forensic techniques in an attempt to answer this question: From what direction did the actual shot that killed JFK come?

The process begins by shutting down Dealey Plaza, and having a sharp-shooter line up the various locations where conspiracy theories have placed extra shooters. A couple of spots are eliminated right away due to impossible angles.

Besides the sixth floor of the book depository — where Oswald supposedly was — the sharp-shooter identifies the so-called “grassy knoll” as a place from which JFK theoretically could have been gunned down.

The next step is the building of a replica human skull with simulated brain matter inside. This is set up at a shooting range, where everything from the speed of JFK’s car to wind reports from that day are considered.

After a careful analysis of Abraham Zapruder’s infamous film that captured the assassination, the sharp-shooter fires at the exact spots on the replica head where JFK was struck, from vantage points similar to the book depository and the grassy knoll. The “splatter” — where’s Dexter when we need him? — is analyzed by experts.

A bizarre side-story involves the existence of a mysterious bucket outside Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where JFK was taken. As archival footage from ’63 shows, a secret-service agent was given a bucket of water and he performed a rudimentary clean-up of the car.

This, of course, is a monstrous contamination of a crime scene. It would be unthinkable today.

There exist two eyewitnesses, however, who peered inside the vehicle before it was cleaned. They are shown pictures of the splatter in the shooting-range car and asked if it lines up with their memories.

The end result of all this science?

If you want to watch Inside the Target Car as if it were an episode of CSI, stop reading here.

But if you’re curious right now ...

The conclusion is that, if there was a gunman on the grassy knoll, he missed. At such close range, a shot not only would have obliterated JFK’s head, but there would have been an exit wound and JFK’s wife Jackie would have been struck, too, and probably killed.

The splatter analysis confirms the shot that killed JFK did come from behind him and from above — i.e., from the general direction of the book depository.

Now, that’s not to say Oswald necessarily took that shot, or that there weren’t other shooters trying.

Man, this never ends.

bill.harris@sunmedia.ca