Ruby Shoots Oswald: Kennedy Mystery Deepens

Two days after President Kennedy's assassination, millions of Americans watched live on television as nightclub owner Jack Ruby stepped from a crowd of reporters in the basement of Dallas police headquarters and shot Lee Harvey Oswald point-blank in the abdomen. Oswald, handcuffed between two detectives, crumpled with a groan. He died at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where Kennedy had been pronounced dead 48 hours earlier. The killing occurred at 11:21 a.m. on November 24, 1963, during a routine prisoner transfer that had been announced to the press in advance. Dallas police had planned to move Oswald from the city jail to the county jail by armored car. Ruby, who operated two strip clubs in Dallas and had connections to both police officers and organized crime figures, entered the basement through a ramp that should have been secured. NBC was broadcasting the transfer live, making Oswald's murder the first killing ever witnessed in real time by a national television audience. Ruby claimed he acted out of grief and a desire to spare Jacqueline Kennedy the ordeal of an Oswald trial. He told reporters: "I'm Jack Ruby. You all know me." His explanation never satisfied the public. Ruby had visited the police station repeatedly during the weekend, mingling with officers and reporters. His organized crime ties, documented in the Warren Commission report and subsequent investigations, fueled speculation that he killed Oswald to silence him. Ruby was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The conviction was overturned on appeal, but Ruby died of lung cancer on January 3, 1967, before his retrial. Oswald's death eliminated the possibility of a public trial that might have resolved questions about the assassination. Instead, those questions multiplied, and the image of Ruby lunging forward with his revolver became a permanent symbol of the chaos and doubt that engulfed Dallas that weekend.