Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963 - NY Daily News
Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963
Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Lee Harvey Oswald, suspected assassin of President John F. Kennedy, grimaces as he is shot to death at point-blank range by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
(BOB JACKSON/AP)
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, November 23, 2015, 12:00 PM
(Originally published by the Daily News on Nov. 25, 1963. This story was written by Henry Machirella and Paul Healy.)
DALLAS, Nov. 24 - A vengeful self-appointed executioner shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald today, less than 48-hours after the pro-Castro Marxist assassinated President John F. Kennedy Friday. Television viewers across the country saw strip joint owner Jack Ruby, 52, break through a police guard and shoot Oswald during a jail transfer.
Oswald, 24, died in a hospital less than two hours later, just as the first mourners began to file past the slain President’s body in the great Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington.
Oswald’s life ran out in the same hospital where the President had died two days before. Surgeons said he was unconscious and had no chance to make a death-bed confession.
Homicide chief Capt. Will Fritz announced that the case of the President’s assassination was now closed. Ruby, a bachelor who was reported to have been brooding since the assassination, was charged with murder.
Tonight, Ruby told his sister, Mrs. Eva L. Grant: “I couldn’t help it…” Then, as she sobbed helplessly, he added, “Don’t worry about me.”
Their 10-minute visit took place in Ruby’s fourth-floor cell.
Palm Print on Gun
District Attorney Henry Wade said the mass of evidence against Oswald, who once defected to Russia, was clinched when the assassin’s palm print was found on the death rifle.
Another of Oswald’s palm prints was found on a book box by the window from which the shots were fired that killed President Kennedy.
Millions of network TV viewers across the nation had been watching as Oswald was about to be transferred from Dallas County jail.
Strict security precautions had been clamped around the building. But somehow Ruby managed to enter the police basement garage.
He dashed forward, leveling the nickel-plated pistol he always carried, and pumped a bullet into Oswald before detectives could seize him.
An investigation, participated in by the FBI, was under way tonight to find out how he had gained entry to the building. In his car parked outside, detectives found his wallet containing identification papers and $800, abandoned as if he knew he would not return.
One officer said that Ruby, who came here from Chicago 15 years ago, was well known around police headquarters and possibly had been passed through the security lines because of it.
At his arraignment, Ruby was reported “calm with no complaint.” Three Dallas lawyers agreed to defend him. He was held without bail.
New York Daily News Jack Ruby article
(New York Daily News)
Ruby, who was in shirt sleeves at the arraignment, made no reply. If convicted, he could go to the electric chair.
Police headquarters had received a number of threats against Oswald during the night. One told police to be careful for their own safety. Ruby was known to have a cordial feeling for the police.
Chief Expected No Trouble
By 11 A.M. about 200 persons had gathered outside the Municipal Building, which houses police headquarters, to see Oswald transferred to the maximum security of the Dallas County Jail.
Police Chief Jesse E. Curry was asked if he expected any trouble. He replied with confidence, “We don’t anticipate any trouble.”
On the surface, precautions appeared to be adequate. The route for Oswald’s, walk to an armored car had been searched more than once.
Only authorized persons who showed identification were allowed in the area.
Bullet-Proof Truck
At 11:07 A.M. a whitish bullet-proof truck, similar to those used by Brink’s, backed to the top of the steeply sloping driveway that leads up from the police headquarters basement to the street.
On one side of the driveway and facing the basement office door through which Oswald would come were two TV cameras. Around the cameras and lining one side of the driveway were more than 75 newsmen and scores of detectives and uniformed officers.
Oswald was Handcuffed
At 11:20 A.M. the door into the basement office opened and Capt. Fritz appeared at the head of a group of plainclothes detectives.
In their midst was Oswald, his wrists handcuffed together and attached to a detective at his side. He was wearing a charcoal-gray wool sweater.
At the doorway Fritz looked back to see whether his men were following him. Then the group walked steadily toward the driveway and the TV cameras. Oswald wore a slight smile.
Suddenly there was a commotion among the waiting newsmen and a squat man charged from among them to confront Oswald. In his hand was a gun.
New York Daily News Jack Ruby article
(New York Daily News)
New York Daily News Jack Ruby article
Went Unnoticed
Even when Ruby had broken clear of the crowd, neither Oswald nor the surrounding detectives spotted him. Then Ruby fired.
As the crash of the shot echoed through the basement, Oswald’s face showed sudden shock and he clutched his stomach with his cuffed hands.
The bullet struck Oswald below his left rib cage and he crumpled, holding his stomach. The handcuffs linking him to the detective prevented him from falling to the ground.
Detectives leaped at the assailant and after a brief, violent struggle dragged him toward the door of the basement office.
Oswald Lies on Floor
Oswald was pulled, pale and silent but with his eyes open, to the office, where he lay on the floor. Ruby stood about five feet away.
The scene was utter confusion. Detectives drew their guns and spectators milled around shouting.
At 11:25 an ambulance backed up to the door of the basement office and Oswald, his eyes still open, was carried into it.
The armored car blocking the driveway was moved and the ambulance raced with siren screaming to Parkland Hospital. Shouts went up among the crowd outside the Municipal Building: “They got Oswald. They shot him!”
The ambulance reached Parkland Hospital at 11:30 A.M. It backed up to the emergency receiving dock and attendants wheeled Oswald out.
He was lying on his left side with his right leg drawn up over his midsection. His face was ashen and he appeared to be unconscious.
Same Emergency Room
Oswald was wheeled swiftly down the corridor past the nurses’ reception room and into the same emergency suite where President Kennedy and Gov. John Connally were taken after Friday’s shooting.
Ten minutes later, at 11:40 A.M., he was moved into an operating room.
Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is placed on a stretcher after being shot in the stomach in Dallas.
(David F. Smith/AP)
The assistant administrator, Steven Landragan, said blood was being given to Oswald and a tube had been inserted in his throat to aid breathing.
The emergency facilities at the hospital were on the alert before today’s shooting. “We anticipated the slight possibility that this might happen and had alerted the emergency room,” Landragan said.
“We had received word that there was a considerable crowd downtown. I don’t mean we had anticipated the shooting, but we alerted emergency because we felt there might be some type of disorder.”
At 1 P.M. the surgeons working on Oswald reported that he had suffered a massive injury to his abdomen. Bleeding had been controlled but he had suffered a “cardiac arrest.”
Surgeons Massage His Heart
Surgeons were massaging his heart, keeping him alive by manual action.
Oswald was then placed on a pacemaker - an electronic instrument which sends impulses to the heart in the normal rhythm of the beat.
This appeared to offer hope for Oswald’s recovery.
But he died at 1:07 P.M. - two days and seven minutes after President Kennedy died in the same hospital.
Dr. Tom Shires, one of the surgeons who attended President Kennedy on Friday, walked into the press room still wearing his operating gown and said:
“Oswald died at 1:07 in the operating room of the gunshot wound which he had received. We could feel the bullet underneath the skin on his right side.
“The course of the bullet through the abdomen had injured all the major vessels, including the spleen, pancreas, right kidney and right lobe of the liver.
“After the death we removed the bullet, which looked like a .38 caliber.”
Strict Security at Hospital
Oswald’s brother, Robert, was in the hospital when Oswald died.
Oswald’s Russian wife, Marina, with their month old baby and daughter, nearly 4, went to the hospital. Oswald’s 56-year-old mother also arrived. Neither cried.
Questioned about his decision to transfer Oswald in such a manner, Police Chief Jesse Curry told newsmen: “If I hadn’t promised you people I would not take Oswald until this morning, we would have taken him during the night. I told you I wouldn’t back down on my pledge.”
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