Setting aside all warranted cynicism and critical thinking about why the stricken Oswald wasn’t simply rushed to the car he was being led to and on to hospital for treatment, we can use witness accounts to indicate where Oswald (red circle) and his assailant (yellow circle) were taken to in the jail office in the below illustration:

Given Oswald’s position in the jail office, we can deduce that he was brought in there first.

By all accounts, the scene inside the jail office was also chaos. A number of Dallas Police personnel were concentrated over Oswald and over his assailant. Oswald being given CPR by first aid officer, Fred Bieberdorf, is well known as is the minutes long delay in his being picked up by an ambulance and finally rushed to the nearest hospital. But for the purpose of this article, we’ll focus on the handling of Jack Ruby.

Like the shooting itself, there are differences across accounts but the general consensus was that Jack Ruby was placed on the ground face down and had handcuffs placed on him behind his back.

Either out in the basement or in the jail office, he was quoted as saying words to the effect of “What are you guys doing? I’m Jack Ruby. You know who I am.”

Within a minute or two, Ruby is picked up and escorted over to the elevator to be taken to the jail on the 5^th floor.

We actually have ABC cameraman, James Davidson’s footage that shows this moment. See the below frame:

Watching this footage, it’s clear that Blackie Harrison was one of Ruby’s escorts. What’s also clear is that this footage provides perhaps the clearest visual record of Jack Ruby at the scene. Interestingly, however, Ruby is seen not wearing the suit jacket that he was described as wearing during the Oswald shooting. It appears as though his tie has been allowed to hang over his left shoulder.

The removal of clothes of a person detained for a crime is textbook police protocol – most commonly when they’ve first been brought into custody (Lee Oswald being an unfortunate and undignified exception that weekend). And depending on the circumstances of the person’s apprehension, removing articles of clothing straightaway may be a necessity.

Unfortunately, no witness accounts from the police personnel who were a part of Ruby’s initial apprehension included his jacket and tie being removed. All accounts read as though he was simply forced to the floor and had his hands cuffed behind his back with some referring to a bit of a struggle on Ruby’s part. Why was such a detail omitted by everyone who testified to the event? And why did Ruby’s jacket in particular need to be removed in those seconds after the shooting?

Like the literal covering that took place barely seconds after the shooting out in the basement, we’re left with another head-scratching question.

Before we move our focus away from the basement jail office of City Hall, we need to acknowledge a curious incident that took place outside there in the moments before and during the shooting.

Tom Howard – the Attorney at the Crime Scene

A little-known aspect of Lee Oswald’s shooting was the fact that Tom Howard, the man who would present himself as Jack Ruby’s attorney very soon after the events that morning, was actually outside the jail office in the moments prior to and during the shooting. Recorded only in statements provided for the initial Dallas Police and FBI investigations are the accounts of two Dallas police personnel and Howard himself.

Homer Lee McGee

Detective McGee described seeing Tom Howard in the basement area of Dallas City Hall immediately before Oswald emerged in the jail office to start the transfer. According to McGee’s December 5, 1963 FBI interview, he had been assigned to stand near the jail office windows awaiting Oswald’s transfer when Howard entered the area from the Harwood Street side.

McGee stated that Howard approached the jail office windows and appeared to be “looking for someone.” At approximately the same moment, Oswald was being escorted from the jail elevator through the office area and out to where the transfer procession was to begin. McGee recalled Howard then stepping away from the window and moving back toward the Harwood Street door. As Howard passed him, Howard allegedly remarked words to the effect of:

“This is all I wanted to see.”

Shortly afterward, McGee heard the gunshot that struck Oswald. He further noted that Howard was the only non-police/non-media individual he specifically recalled entering the basement area before the shooting. However, he also stated that Howard’s presence itself did not initially strike him as unusual because Howard’s office was located across from City Hall and he was a familiar local attorney frequently seen around the police building.

H. Baron Reynolds

In his statement for the Dallas Police investigation dated November 26, 1963, Detective Reynolds described his movements in the basement of Dallas City Hall immediately before and after the shooting of Lee Oswald. According to Reynolds, he had been instructed by Lieutenant Swain to help block the Commerce Street exit of the City Hall ramp in preparation for Oswald’s transfer.

Reynolds stated that at approximately 11:00am he was standing near the jail office area when Oswald was brought out from the elevator. He recalled hearing noise and confusion from the ramp area as Oswald moved into the basement transfer route. Shortly afterward, he heard a shot.

Importantly, Reynolds also described observing Tom Howard positioned near the jail office immediately before the shooting. According to Reynolds, Howard was standing behind two uniformed police officers outside the jail office area as Oswald emerged from the elevator and began moving into the basement transfer sequence.

It’s worth acknowledging at this point that both Detectives Reynolds and McGee only referred to encountering Tom Howard in one of the multiple statements they gave. Both were also on a list of witnesses to be called before the Warren Commission when it came to Dallas in March of 1964. However, neither would actually testify.

Tom Howard

Howard acknowledged being present immediately outside the jail office area at the very moment Lee Oswald’s transfer from the Dallas City Hall basement was beginning and seconds before the shooting.

According to Howard’s December 11, 1963 FBI interview, he stated that he received a telephone call on the morning of November 24 either from someone being held in the city jail or from someone calling on behalf of a prisoner. In response, he left his law office across from City Hall and entered the basement through the Harwood Street entrance.

Howard described encountering a detective stationed near the entrance whose role appeared to be monitoring access into the basement. He then walked toward the outside the jail office while awaiting transport upstairs. At that point, Howard observed a large gathering of reporters and newsmen assembled in the basement garage area and asked the detective, “Are they fixing to take him out of here?”- a likely reference to Oswald.

Howard stated that within seconds of entering the basement he witnessed sudden movement and commotion among the reporters before hearing the gunshot that struck Oswald. He claimed that he did not actually see Oswald, the escorting officers, or Jack Ruby before the shot was fired. Immediately afterward, Howard exited back out through the Harwood Street entrance and returned outside to the street.

If Detective McGee is to be believed, and Howard did tell him that he’d seen everything that he had wanted to – what did he mean?

As we follow events for the remainder of that day at City Hall, we’ll find that Tom Howard would soon become more than a peripheral figure.

One of the most important yet overlooked aspects of the 5^th Floor jail episode is the chronology surrounding Jack Ruby’s alleged admissions about how he entered the basement prior to shooting Lee Oswald.

The record does not show a consistent, immediate confession by Ruby. Instead, it shows a fragmented and evolving narrative — one initially driven almost entirely by Sgt. Patrick Dean.

The first official outsider brought to Ruby after the shooting was Secret Service Agent Forrest V. Sorrels. According to Sorrels’ Warren Commission testimony, he was escorted to the 5th Floor by Dean shortly after Oswald was shot. There, in the corridor between the jail cells, Sorrels questioned Ruby in the presence of several Dallas officers including Detectives Archer, McMillion and Clardy.

Critically, when Commission counsel Leon Hubert asked Sorrels whether Ruby explained how he entered the basement, Sorrels answered that Ruby said no such thing. Sorrels’ contemporaneous notes of this encounter likewise contained no mention of Ruby describing entry via the Main Street ramp. This omission is highly significant because the route of entry was arguably the single most important unresolved issue immediately following the shooting.

Instead, Sorrels’ account portrays Ruby speaking almost entirely in emotional and sympathetic terms - grief over President Kennedy, sympathy for Jacqueline Kennedy, and anger toward Oswald. The evidentiary record therefore shows that the first documented interrogation of Ruby produced no clear explanation whatsoever of how he penetrated the basement security.

At that point, Patrick Dean became the sole outlier.

In Dean’s November 26 report for the DPD investigation, he claimed that after Sorrels concluded his questioning, Dean personally asked Ruby how he entered the basement and Ruby replied that he came down the Main Street ramp approximately three minutes before Oswald emerged.

Yet no other officer initially corroborated Dean’s claim.

Detective Archer’s first report (a handwritten affidavit) merely described escorting Ruby to the 5^th Floor, removing his clothes, and remaining present during questioning. Detective Clardy’s initial statement similarly detailed the transfer and search procedure but omitted any mention of Ruby admitting entry via the ramp. McMillion’s first report likewise failed to mention such an admission.

This silence is striking. If Ruby had truly volunteered the precise manner in which he bypassed police security only minutes after the shooting, it would have represented one of the most important statements of the entire investigation. Yet Dean alone initially reported it.

Only later did the narrative consolidate.

In follow-up reports filed days afterward, Archer, Clardy and McMillion each added versions of Ruby allegedly admitting in the 5th Floor jail that he entered down the Main Street ramp and remarking that he could not have timed it any better. The progressive appearance of these details strongly suggests retroactive harmonisation rather than independent contemporaneous recollection.

The chronology becomes even more revealing when examined alongside Ruby’s later interactions.

After the 5^th Floor questioning, FBI Agent C. Ray Hall continued speaking with Ruby for several hours. Hall testified that Ruby still did not clearly describe walking down the Main Street ramp. Instead, Ruby only vaguely referenced entering from the “Main Street side” and stated that the ramp was the way into the basement. This remained notably less explicit than Dean’s account.

Then came Ruby’s private consultation with attorney Tom Howard.

Hall testified that at approximately 2pm his time with Ruby was interrupted as he (Ruby) was taken downstairs to meet Howard through a screen partition. Following this meeting, Ruby’s explanations became noticeably more structured and legally orientated, particularly his repeated emphasis that the shooting arose from grief and sympathy for Mrs. Kennedy.

Could the brief reference to the Main Street ramp noted by Hall have emerged only after Ruby returned from speaking with Tom Howard?

The next and most clearly documented and unequivocal admission by Ruby that he personally came down the Main Street ramp appears during Captain Fritz’s interrogation beginning around 3:15pm.

See the below copy of Sorrel’s notes of this interrogation:

Fritz also testified that Ruby stated he entered from the outside via the ramp, though Ruby quickly became evasive once Fritz challenged the plausibility of the route.

Thus, the evidentiary sequence matters enormously.

The earliest credible record does not show Ruby spontaneously confessing how he entered the basement. It shows Sorrels explicitly denying that Ruby explained it, Dean uniquely asserting that he did, and the other detectives only later aligning themselves with Dean’s version.

Rather than a single coherent confession, the record instead suggests the gradual construction of a stabilised narrative surrounding Ruby’s entry into the basement.

The implications of this evolving narrative extended far beyond simple inconsistency.

The statements later attributed to Ruby by Dean and the other officers directly implied premeditation.

According to these later accounts, Ruby allegedly stated that he entered down the Main Street ramp only minutes before Oswald emerged and remarked that he “couldn’t have timed it better.” Dean further attributed comments to Ruby suggesting he had contemplated shooting Oswald since the Friday night press conference.

These were not neutral observations. They spoke directly to intent, planning, and malice aforethought — the precise elements that would later underpin Ruby’s conviction for murder with malice and his sentence of death at trial.

Yet critically, those claims were not firmly established in the earliest contemporaneous record.

Sorrels did not initially corroborate Ruby explaining his route of entry. Archer, Clardy and McMillon omitted such admissions from their first reports. Only later did their accounts begin aligning around Dean’s version of events.

The sequence therefore raises a serious evidentiary concern:

that highly prejudicial statements implying premeditation entered the public and investigative record before Ruby had even been formally charged and did so through a narrative that appears to have consolidated progressively rather than emerging consistently from the outset.

Whether intentional or not, the effect was profound. By the time Ruby stood trial in March 1964, the image of a man who had carefully timed and executed his entry into the basement had already become embedded within the official narrative surrounding the shooting.

Much has been speculated about Jack Ruby’s temperament across the moments, minutes and hours after the Oswald shooting. As mentioned earlier, he initially seemed surprised about being set up on by so many police personnel.

Taking Ruby up to the 5th Floor Jail, Blackie Harrison recalled to the FBI how calm he thought Ruby was. Don Ray Archer told the Warren Commission that Ruby appeared to be relieved when told that Oswald had died. Initially to the DPD, Archer also cited concern that Ruby may be a risk of harming himself. Yet, around that same afternoon, Ruby even joked with Fred Bieberdorf when he was given a rectal examination. Like Ruby’s contradictory and contrasting moods and temperaments across that weekend, we are left with a similar array to consider for the remainder of November 24 as well.

Another dimension often overlooked in assessing Ruby’s statements during the hours and days after the shooting concerns his admitted use of stimulant drugs.

During later psychiatric evaluations and court proceedings, Ruby acknowledged taking Preludin - a stimulant weight-reduction drug chemically related to amphetamines - along with other stimulants including Benzedrine-type compounds in the period surrounding Oswald’s shooting.

Contemporary reporting from June 1965 further quoted Ruby as stating he had taken “about 30 antibiotic pills and some other pills that stimulate and make you want to do positive things” shortly before shooting Oswald.

Psychiatric testimony introduced during Ruby’s later legal proceedings described him as having taken stimulant drugs regularly for weeks or months prior to the shooting. One examining physician testified that Ruby reported using Preludin continuously over an extended period and described the drug as producing pronounced stimulation effects.

Other testimony portrayed Ruby as emotionally volatile, grandiose, restless, and possessing what one psychiatrist termed “Messianic” tendencies. Ruby reportedly spoke of wanting to prove that Jews had courage following President Kennedy’s assassination and described himself in increasingly dramatic and self-sacrificial terms after the shooting.

Importantly, this does not establish that Ruby was incapable of deliberate action. Nor does it negate the possibility that he shot Oswald. However, it significantly complicates the evidentiary reliability of statements attributed to him in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

The chronology examined throughout this section already demonstrates that Ruby’s alleged admissions regarding the Main Street ramp emerged gradually rather than consistently.

When viewed alongside evidence of heavy stimulant use, emotional instability, sleep deprivation, agitation, and suggestibility, the reliability of Ruby’s evolving explanations becomes even more difficult to assess with certainty.

This is especially significant given that some of the most prejudicial statements later attributed to Ruby - including remarks implying timing, preparation and forethought - became central to the narrative that he acted alone and with premeditation.

Rather than the calm and immediate confession later implied by portions of the official record, the available evidence may instead depict a highly agitated, stimulant-affected and psychologically unstable man whose statements evolved substantially over the hours and days following the shooting.

If Ruby’s statements during the afternoon of November 24 were shaped by agitation, exhaustion, stimulant use and repeated questioning, then the role played by intermediaries around him becomes increasingly significant. In fact, no intermediary became more influential in shaping the public understanding of Ruby’s actions than attorney Tom Howard.

As early as the afternoon of the shooting itself, Howard was already informing reporters including Jerry O’Leary and Geoff Edwards that Jack Ruby had entered the basement down the Main Street ramp. Yet the significance of Howard’s role extended well beyond public statements to the press.

FBI memoranda concerning Howard’s subsequent discussions with Captain Will Fritz show that Howard was actively relaying detailed accounts of Ruby’s alleged movements on the morning of the shooting. According to those reports, Howard told Fritz that Ruby had:

• received the Karen Carlin phone call,

• gone to the Western Union office,

• walked up Main Street

• descended the ramp into the basement,

• and passed behind an officer distracted by an automobile near the entrance before entering the building.

In other words, Howard was relaying to Fritz virtually the entire sequence that would later underpin the official reconstruction of Ruby’s movements that morning - despite the fact that substantial evidentiary questions and investigative gaps surrounded each stage of that chronology.

Hence - a chronology that, as outlined throughout this series, remains marked by substantial evidentiary gaps and inconsistencies.

Critically, we must recall that this increasingly structured reconstruction of Ruby’s route emerged only after Howard had first privately consulted with him.

The chronology therefore becomes difficult to ignore. The earliest credible interrogation records do not show Ruby clearly explaining how he entered the basement. Sorrels explicitly denied that Ruby described his route of entry in the 5th Floor jail, while Dean initially stood alone in claiming that he had.

Only later did both the police narrative and Ruby’s own account begin consolidating around the Main Street ramp explanation — a process that unfolded in parallel with Howard’s direct involvement both publicly and in private discussions with Captain Fritz.

Whether viewed as ordinary legal representation, retrospective clarification, or something more consequential, Howard’s role became central to shaping the earliest coherent narrative explaining how Jack Ruby allegedly penetrated the basement security at Dallas City Hall.

Perhaps now is a good time to remind ourselves of the fact that Tom Howard was witnessed at the scene of the Oswald shooting and was content with something that he saw in the jail office in the moments prior to the event. Was there something much more significant behind this comment that has laid so low in the narrative of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald?

In the final part of this series, we’ll consolidate all facets of the Jack Ruby / Nov. 24 narrative to truly evaluate how firm the case was that Jack Ruby was Lee Oswald’s assassin. Having compiled the evidence and used it to highlight key questions, we’ll consider possible answers in the name of maintaining scrutiny of the official narrative.

As we saw in Part Three, those positioned outside did not reliably observe his approach; those at the ramp did not consistently agree that anyone entered; and those inside the basement only registered the presence of the shooter at the instant he acted, without immediate recognition, even among those who knew Ruby personally.

What precedes the shot, therefore, is not a clearly observed progression, but a series of partial and retrospective accounts that fail to resolve into a single, coherent narrative of movement.

It’s only fair then that we continue this level of scrutiny when it comes to the moment of Lee Oswald’s shooting.

In my book I account for 90 people in the immediate vicinity of where the shooting took place. And notably, it was a near 50/50 ratio of police to media.

Of all testimonies and statements taken, not one person testified to recognising Jack Ruby in the basement just prior to the shooting. This despite dozens of police personnel present later admitting of knowing Jack Ruby. Add to the count reporters such as Dallas-native Seth Kantor, who knew Jack Ruby for years up until that point and Ike Pappas, who would tell of the story of interacting with Ruby earlier that same weekend at City Hall.

With all that we have learned since, seeing Jack Ruby around Dallas City Hall, that weekend and prior, was no strange thing. So would it have been so bad for any of these people to have admitted seeing and recognising Jack Ruby in the basement moments before the shooting? There would have been nothing inherently unusual about such an admission. Yet no one ever made one.

It’s all the more strange when we pinpoint that Ruby was standing amongst people who knew him before he shot Lee Oswald - including Ike Pappas, Detective Blackie Harrison, and Police Reserve Kenneth Croy. See the below frames from footage that depicts this:

Moving on and the moment of the shooting is visually clear. Captured on film, in photographs, and by nearby reporters, a man is seen to suddenly lunge forward, extend his arm, and fire. Yet the audio record of the moment is confusing - as in, statements attributed to the shooter and others.

Hearing the Shooter

There were a number of accounts from police and media personnel who attributed to either Jack Ruby or other witnesses making exclamations at the moment of the shooting. Per the below snippet of a birds eye schematic of the scene of the shooting, with Oswald signified as the circled ‘x’, these people’s positions are indicated by either numbers or initials:

To begin with, Detective Blackie Harrison (45) told the DPD investigation, and only the DPD investigation, that he yelled “Jack!” when he saw Ruby lunge past him.

Detective Don Ray Archer (2) recalled “Son of a bitch,” later expanding it to “You son of a bitch.”

Detective Thomas McMillion (74) described a longer statement: “You rat son of a bitch. You shot the president.”

These are not variations, but fundamentally different accounts - two brief, the other structured and declarative. They do not overlap.

This inconsistency is amplified by positioning. Both men were behind Lee Oswald, with partially obstructed views, yet provide the most detailed claims.

Those in front, closer to Ruby, do not corroborate them. Instead, media personnel Seth Kantor (58) and Frank Johnston (55) recalled hearing “You S.O.B.”, was not attributed to Ruby, but to an unidentified officer.

The phrase recurs across accounts but without a fixed speaker. Detective Billy Combest (18) claimed he shouted it himself. Fellow detective, Homer B. Reynolds (89) attributed the statement to Detective James Leavelle (at Oswald's side) - who did not confirm it. And Leavelle was immediately in front of Combest that moment and he didn’t confirm hearing any such thing being said in that moment, either.

The utterance appears but its source does not.

Set against this instability is the absence of recorded sound. Reporters Ike Pappas (80A) and Gary DeLaune (GD) had tape recorders running within metres of the shooting. None captured any of the statements later described. The shot is heard but the words are not. This discrepancy is not interpretive, but evidentiary. Distinct, audible statements are described - yet no recording confirms them.

Ruby’s own later account complicates matters further. Before the Warren Commission, he stated: “I think I used the words, ‘You killed my President, you rat.” The phrasing is tentative, and its structure closely mirrors McMillion’s account - who was among the police personnel who handled Ruby up on the 5th Floor jail after the shooting.

What remains is not confirmation, but convergence without foundation: multiple accounts that resemble one another yet find no support in the contemporaneous record.

The moment is visually complete but acoustically uncertain. Ruby is seen to step forward. He is seen to fire. What he is not reliably heard to do is speak.

And in a moment so brief, so heavily documented, that absence carries weight.

Seeing the Shooter

The shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald is often described as one of the most comprehensively documented moments of the twentieth century. Six motion picture cameras and at least one still photographer captured the exact moment from multiple angles. The sequence has been replayed, analysed, and stabilised frame by frame. Ruby’s movement - his step forward, the extension of his arm, the recoil of the shot - appears, at first glance, unmistakable.

But, as with the accounts of what was said, closer examination does not produce convergence, it actually produces inconsistency.

Descriptions of the shooter’s appearance vary in ways that are difficult to reconcile with a single, fixed image. Reserve Officer Kenneth Croy, who was standing where Ruby emerged from, described Ruby’s clothing differently across his statements—recalling a dark brown hat in one account and a black hat in another. These are not minor variations of shade or tone, but distinct descriptions that reflect uncertainty at the level of direct observation.

Unfortunately, the photographic record does not resolve this because even where the figure of Oswald’s shooter is visible, questions remain.

What can be seen, particularly the rear hairline at the nape of the neck, are noticeably different across the available images. The taper and contour seen in Jack Ruby’s mugshot appear to contradict the corresponding frames of Oswald’s shooter, a discrepancy that is not easily explained by angle or motion alone.

When the Jack Beers photograph is compared with enlargements of the Bob Jackson images and set alongside a profile mugshot of Ruby taken later that day, the alignment is not straightforward.

Refer to the below bank of photographs using enlargements of the Bob Jackson photograph to compare the appearance of Oswald’s shooter to a profile mugshot of Jack Ruby taken only hours later on the same day:

Below displays the same Jackson photograph segments, colourised, and alongside the Jack Beers photograph :

And when the image of Jack Ruby standing in wait just prior to the shooting is compared to the same mugshot of Ruby, the difference of rear neck hairlines is also clear.

In the moment of the shooting itself, the same pattern persists. The act is visible. The sequence is captured. But the identity of the man performing it, when examined closely, is not reinforced by a single, uninterrupted visual record. Instead, it is inferred across partial views, obstructed frames, and retrospective identification.

The Physical Evidence

At first glance, the physical evidence surrounding the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald would appear among the strongest aspects of the case against Jack Ruby. Ruby was apprehended immediately at the scene with a .38 calibre Colt Cobra revolver in his possession, while Oswald had plainly been shot in the abdomen at close range in front of police officers, reporters, photographers, and live television cameras.

Yet even here, the evidentiary record becomes unexpectedly unstable under closer examination.

One of the more remarkable findings made years later by the House Select Committee on Assassinations was that the Warren Commission did not meaningfully examine the revolver itself as forensic evidence.

According to the HSCA, the revolver recovered from Ruby at the scene by Detective L. C. Graves was never sent to the FBI Laboratory and instead remained in the possession of Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade before and after Ruby’s trial.

Following Jack Ruby’s death in 1967, the revolver was reportedly transferred to the administrator of Ruby’s estate, Jules Mayer.

More striking still, the HSCA stated that by the late 1970s the whereabouts of both the expended cartridge case allegedly recovered from Ruby’s revolver, and the bullet removed from Lee Harvey Oswald during his autopsy, remained unknown.

According to Assistant District Attorney William Alexander, both items had been introduced into evidence during Ruby’s 1964 trial. Yet subsequent efforts by investigators to locate them through the Dallas Police Department and even Jules Mayer proved unsuccessful.

This absence is difficult to dismiss lightly.

In homicide investigations during the 1950s and 1960s, physical evidence, particularly a suspected murder weapon, expended cartridge case, and recovered bullet, was regarded as among the most probative forms of evidentiary proof precisely because such items existed independently of witness memory or retrospective interpretation.

As pioneering criminalist Paul L. Kirk famously observed in his 1953 book, ‘Crime Investigation’ “Physical evidence cannot be wrong; it cannot perjure itself…”

The significance of the missing exhibits therefore extends beyond simple archival negligence. Unlike witness testimony - which may evolve, conflict, or become reconstructed after the fact - the revolver, cartridge case, and bullet represented fixed physical objects capable of independent forensic examination. Their disappearance prevented later investigators from conducting fresh ballistic testing, independently verifying chain of custody, or reassessing aspects of the shooting using evolving forensic standards.

What emerges again is a pattern already visible throughout the surviving record surrounding November 24, 1963: namely, that even some of the most important accounts and evidence, physical and documentary elements, connected to the shooting were pursued, preserved, documented, and scrutinised far less rigorously than later historical certainty tends to assume.

We now come back to the point of this series. How certain can we be that it was Jack Ruby who shot Lee Harvey Oswald?

Together with the lack of physical evidence highlighted above, we must recall that there are no credible witness accounts of seeing Ruby enter the basement, the scene of the shooting, either down the ramp from Main Street or indeed, through the outer door of the Annex Building i.e. from the direction of the Western Union office.

In terms of visual records, we only had a brief side-on profile glimpse of ‘Ruby’ as he stood waiting for Oswald to emerge and then his back as he shot Oswald.

Any possibility of identifying the man who shot Lee Oswald in the ensuing frantic seconds was dashed by the never-explained act carried out by Louis D. Miller when he literally covered over the head of shooter.

Aside from how he knew to be prepared and ready to act so quickly, why the urgency on Miller’s part to cover the shooter? Some speculate that it might have been a tactic to disorient Oswald’s attacker but this seems redundant given the shooter had been surrounded and set upon by at least 11 other police personnel. Another possibility is that the immediate concealment of the shooter inadvertently complicated later efforts to independently verify the identity of the man who fired the shot.

Some readers may part company with my analysis at this stage. But throughout this series I have attempted only to present the available evidence and test the degree of certainty later attached to it. Whether it was Jack Ruby or another individual later identified as him, I remain agnostic as I am not tethered to any outcome. In doing so, I remain open to any evidence that Ruby was Oswald’s shooter. Until then…

Working Hypothesis

So, what are we to make of the shooting itself when considered against the broader evidentiary record surrounding November 24, 1963?

At one level, the event appears uniquely fixed. Lee Harvey Oswald was shot in the basement of Dallas City Hall in front of police officers, reporters, television cameras, and live audiences across America. A man identified as Jack Ruby was immediately seized at the scene with a revolver in his possession. Few moments in modern history appear more publicly witnessed.

Yet the closer the sequence is examined, the less continuous and contemporaneous the evidentiary chain becomes.

No clear sequence reliably places Ruby entering the basement and moving into position before the shooting. Those stationed outside do not consistently observe his approach. Those positioned near the ramp do not agree that anyone entered at all. Inside the basement, the shooter is largely registered only at the instant he acts - and even then, immediate recognition is notably absent, including among individuals who personally knew Ruby.

The visual record, while extensive, is similarly incomplete. The shooting itself is captured, but not through a single uninterrupted and unobstructed sequence capable of independently resolving identity beyond dispute. Key frames remain partially obscured, while certain physical features visible in the available imagery do not align as neatly as later certainty tends to assume.

Even the physical evidence - traditionally regarded as the strongest form of forensic proof precisely because it exists independently of memory or interpretation - proves less secure than expected. The revolver itself was apparently never subjected to meaningful FBI laboratory examination during the Warren Commission investigation, while the whereabouts of both the expended cartridge case and bullet removed from Oswald later became unknown.

Taken individually, none of these issues necessarily overturns the accepted account. Considered together, however, they complicate the degree of certainty later attached to it.

On this reading, the evidentiary problem is not whether a shooting occurred, but whether the surviving record independently establishes - with the degree of continuity and verification later claimed - that the man seen firing the shot can be conclusively identified solely through the contemporaneous evidence itself.

This is not a conclusion, but a working hypothesis arising from the limits of the surviving record. What happened is visible. What remains less certain is whether the evidentiary foundation beneath the accepted identification is as complete and stable as history has long assumed.

With that, Part 5 turns to the aftermath of the shooting itself - the moment Jack Ruby was finally and unmistakably seen at the scene, and how he came to be publicly and institutionally established as the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald.

Witnesses placed Jack Ruby both at his Oak Cliff apartment and in the vicinity of City Hall during overlapping periods of the same morning.

The one event long treated as the fixed anchor of his movements - the Western Union transfer - proved, upon closer examination, to rest upon a narrower evidentiary foundation than often assumed, shaped as much by reconstruction as direct observation.

As the focus turns to Ruby’s alleged entry into the basement of Dallas City Hall, we are faced with the record already marked by uncertainty. The question is therefore no longer simply how Ruby entered the basement, but whether the sequence leading to that moment was ever established with the degree of continuity and certainty later attached to it at all.

Readers of my book, as well as those familiar with renowned researchers John Armstrong and David Joseph’s work, will recall our contentions that Jack Ruby, having just left the Western Union office, could have only entered the Dallas City Hall complex by way of the outer door of the Annex Building next door.

From there, it would have required only a short walk on its ground floor to the nearest stairwell where it led down to and opened out into the eastern end of the City Hall basement car park.

This theory counters reports, including Ruby’s own admission (we’ll get to that later), the mainstream narrative, of his simply walking down the ramp from Main Street to be in position to step forth and take his shot at Oswald.

Either way you look at it, both of these theories are based on the notion that Jack Ruby left the Western Union at 11:17am.

Whichever scenario you subscribe to, the evidence to support each method of entry is incredibly limited. So, let’s survey all statements and accounts in their entirety to truly question the documented scenarios of how Jack Ruby came to be in the basement in time for the Oswald shooting.

The Outer Door Entry

The outer door entry was acknowledged as the most ‘attractive’ of scenarios by the HSCA to explain how else Jack Ruby could have left the Western Union office at 11:17am and appear in the basement of Dallas City Hall in time to shoot Lee Oswald at 11:21am.

Using the timestamped event that was the money transfer, the theory factors in the lack of credible witness accounts of seeing Ruby walk along Main Street and slip down the ramp to the basement.

Ruby’s path from the Western Union office to the Annex Building outer door and down to the basement is illustrated below:

The below image is a frame from news footage taken at around 11:00am on the morning of the shooting. It is the only known image of the eastern end of the basement car park that morning - where the stairwell and elevators are indicated in the above diagram.

The outer door entry scenario posits that Ruby entered the basement out of the stairwell door, obscured by the pillar to the left of this image. Before it, the shorter of the two figures matches the profile of Reserve Captain Charles W. Arnett and the figure between the two cars is most likely Reserve Officer Gano E. Worley

Presuming that it was Jack Ruby who left the Western Union office at 11:17am, this scenario relies on:

• The Annex Building not being fully secured that morning. The main entrances on Main & Commerce Streets were locked but there is no evidence or accounts to conclude that the building was sealed* or at least manned.

  • Because the Annex Building connected to the City Hall building, sealing it to its fullest would have included making sure the gates of each corridor connecting the buildings on the first, second and third floors were locked, and having the outer door locked and manned to prevent unauthorised entry.

• Dallas Police Sergeant Patrick Dean overseeing security of the basement (or lack thereof) and its preparation for the transfer.

  • Yet, he had the two reserve personnel, Worley and Alvin R. Brock, at separate intervals, reassigned from guarding the area outside the elevators and stairwell across the half hour prior to the shooting.

  • During his first testimony for the Warren Commission, Dean was tripped up by Burt Griffin when it came to the stairwell door into the basement.

    • Essentially, he was caught out on the fact that he appeared to not know that the door was an emergency exit for the Annex Building above, therefore it could not have been locked. The only response he could provide was that he assumed the door was locked by a maintenance worker. This was never corroborated by any of the maintenance / utility workers who testified.

The above represents the sum of the circumstantial evidence for the outer door entry scenario.

The Main Street Ramp Entry

It was through statements made to the press on the afternoon of the shooting by Ruby’s attorney, Tom Howard, that the account of how Ruby entered the basement first took shape, publicly. We’ll examine Howard’s conduct in greater detail later in this series, but his version of events quickly became the dominant narrative.

Setting aside the alternative outer door entry scenario for a second however, how credible was this account?

The below illustrates the mouth of the ramp on Main Street at the time of Ruby’s alleged entrance there. We’ll analyse all of the witnesses accounts displayed to provide a full and clear picture of what each person did and did not see at the time.

By the time Jack Ruby was supposed to have left the Western Union office, the start of Lee Oswald’s transfer from City Hall to the County Jail, twelve blocks west, was delayed by over an hour after the time Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry advised the media the previous evening when it would, according to some reports would be ‘accomplished at 10:00am’.

Roy E. Vaughn

Dallas Police Patrolman Vaughn’s account places him at the Main Street ramp entrance throughout the critical period on the morning of November 24, 1963, following his assignment by supervisory officers in the basement.

After reporting to the police station at approximately 9:15am, Vaughn was directed by Lieutenant Pierce to proceed to the basement and report to Sergeant Dean. Sergeant James A. Putnam, assisting Dean, assigned Vaughn to the Main Street ramp, while other officers were stationed at different access points.

Vaughn took up a position just inside the ramp, approximately 2 - 3 feet in, standing in the middle of the entrance, from around 9:30am onward. His instructions were to control access, allowing entry only to police officers and credentialed press, and to require identification from anyone he did not personally recognise.

From this position, Vaughn described maintaining a continuous presence at the ramp. He stood in a way that, in his account, would make it difficult for anyone to pass without being seen. During this period, he interacted with various individuals attempting to enter:

• He turned away civilians attempting to use the ramp as an entrance to the jail.

• Waved in returning DPD personnel.

• He admitted press personnel only after verifying official identification credentials.

• He allowed certain authorised individuals to enter, including a city mechanic who briefly entered and exited the basement.

Vaughn also recalled general activity around the ramp area. There were small numbers of people on the sidewalk, including former officer Napoleon J. Daniels and a few others who paused briefly to look down the ramp before moving on.

Shortly before the shooting, Vaughn observed a police car driven by Lieutenant Pierce, with Sergeants Putnam and Maxey as passengers, approach and exit the basement via the Main Street ramp. As the car came up the ramp, Vaughn stepped slightly aside toward the sidewalk to allow it through, glanced toward oncoming traffic, and motioned the vehicle onto Main Street before returning immediately to his position inside the mouth of the ramp. He stated that no one passed him into the basement after this point.

Within a few minutes, estimated by Vaughn as no more than two to three minutes after the car exited - he heard a shout of “Here he comes,” followed almost immediately by a sound he described as a shot. He then looked toward the basement interior and observed confusion and movement near the jail office area.

Throughout his account, Vaughn maintains that he remained stationed at the Main Street ramp entrance, controlling access, observing those entering and exiting, and returning to his position immediately after briefly stepping aside for the exiting police vehicle.

Napoleon J. Daniels

Former Dallas Police Officer, Daniels’ account places him on the east (Western Union) side of the Main Street ramp in the period leading up to the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, where he remained for an extended interval prior to the event.

On the morning of November 24, Daniels drove toward downtown Dallas intending to view the site of President Kennedy’s assassination. As he passed City Hall, he noticed activity around the police building and parked his car on Main Street, on the same side as the City Hall and near the Western Union office. He then walked to the Main Street ramp entrance.

Upon arrival, Daniels observed Officer Vaughn stationed at the ramp, standing in the middle of the entrance and controlling access. Daniels approached the ramp, briefly looked down into the basement from the sidewalk, and spoke with Vaughn, who indicated that he was preventing unauthorised entry.

After this initial position, Daniels moved back toward the railing on the Western Union side of the ramp, where he remained for most of the time prior to the shooting. He described staying within a confined area on that side, occasionally shifting slightly but not crossing to the opposite (Harwood Street) side.

Daniels estimated that he arrived approximately 20 to 30 minutes before the shooting and remained in that vicinity continuously. During this period, a small number of people gathered intermittently nearby, including a man he described as a former shoeshine boy who stood across the ramp.

While positioned near the railing, Daniels observed activity at the ramp. At one point shortly before the shooting, a police car carrying several officers drove up the ramp and exited onto Main Street. As this occurred, Daniels stated that Vaughn left his position and walked out into Main Street to stop traffic, allowing the vehicle to enter the street.

Daniels recalled watching the car as it proceeded onto Main Street and then turning his attention back toward the ramp area. He stated that after the vehicle exited, Vaughn returned to his position in the centre of the ramp.

Daniels described observing a man approach the ramp from the direction of the Western Union office. He characterised the individual as a white male, approximately middle-aged, wearing a dark suit, with his right hand inside his coat pocket. According to Daniels, this man walked down the ramp into the basement, passing near Officer Vaughn, who was standing in the middle of the entrance.

He indicated that this occurred shortly before the shooting, estimating the interval as roughly a few minutes. After the man entered the basement, Daniels observed movement below near the jail office area and then heard a shot.

Throughout his various statements, Daniels consistently placed himself on the Western Union side of the ramp, maintaining a view down into the basement area, observing the exit of the police vehicle, and later witnessing a man descend the ramp prior to the shooting.

Vaughn / Daniels Analysis

Given the overlap of time by the accounts of Vaughn and Daniels, it’s worth pausing to analyse each against the other.

Both describe the same setting at the Main Street ramp on the morning of November 24, and initially align in their depiction of events. Both place Vaughn in the centre of the ramp entrance, actively controlling access to the basement, and both situate Daniels on the Western Union side of the ramp, observing from near the railing. Their descriptions of the physical layout, relative positions, and general activity in the area are consistent, including the presence of a small number of bystanders and the controlled nature of access to the basement.

They also broadly agree on a key sequence shortly before the shooting: a police vehicle carrying officers exited the basement via the ramp, and that Vaughn stepped out into Main Street to halt traffic and allow the car to proceed. Both accounts place this moment only minutes before the shooting and describe Vaughn returning to his position at the head of the ramp immediately afterward. Up to this point, the two narratives move in parallel, describing the same configuration of people and movement.

Divergence arises in terms of how far Vaughn stepped out onto the street and that at that moment, a man entered the ramp. Daniels places this entry shortly before the shooting and provides a physical description of the individual, noting in particular that the man’s right hand was inside his coat pocket. Vaughn’s account, by contrast, maintains that no one entered the ramp after the police vehicle exited and that he remained in position, controlling access.

Daniels’ account introduces an additional element concerning the moment when Vaughn stepped into the street. He states that the ramp was briefly left unguarded during this interval, although he also indicates that he was watching the entrance at that time and did not observe anyone enter then. In his later testimony, Daniels expresses uncertainty as to whether the man he observed entered before or after the police car exited, leaving the precise timing of the entry unresolved within his own account.

When considered across their respective statements, Vaughn’s version remains consistent and linear, describing a continuous presence at the ramp with no unauthorised entry observed. Daniels’ account, while more detailed in its description of the individual he says entered, varies in its sequencing and includes qualifications about the timing of events. This difference is further reflected in the polygraph examinations each underwent. Vaughn’s responses were assessed as showing no deception in denying that anyone entered, while Daniels, when asked whether he had seen anyone enter the basement, denied that he had - despite his earlier descriptions - and the examination indicated deception in that denial.

Together, the two accounts share a common framework in terms of location, timing, and general activity, but diverge on the singular question of whether an unidentified man entered the basement via the Main Street ramp in the moments before the shooting.

Two additional witnesses provide an external perspective on the ramp, covering not only the entrance itself, where Officer Vaughn was positioned, but also the approach from the direction of the Western Union office.

Don R. Flusche

Dallas Police Sergeant Flusche, on duty in a squad car positioned across Main Street opposite the Annex Building, had a clear view of the area through which Ruby would have had to pass. Flusche, who had known Jack Ruby for several years, stated that he did not observe him walking along Main Street or entering the basement via the ramp at any point that morning. He further reported that he relayed this observation to his superior, Lieutenant Earl Knox, shortly after the shooting, though no follow-up action was taken. Flusche’s account only emerged for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the mid-70s.

Harry T. Tasker

Tasker, waiting across Main Street with a diagonal view of the ramp entrance, similarly stated that he did not observe Ruby approaching, walking along the street, or entering the basement. He recalled general crowd movement in the area but no specific individual matching Ruby, and no clear activity at the ramp immediately prior to the shot.

In combination, these accounts extend the observational field beyond the ramp itself. From positions that afforded visibility of both the entrance and its approach, neither witness reports seeing Ruby in the vicinity. In Flusche’s case, this absence carries additional weight given his prior familiarity with Ruby.

If these accounts describe the view toward the ramp from the street, the next set of observations captures the same space from the opposite direction, those moving out of the basement at the critical moment.

At approximately the same time, a police vehicle carrying Rio S. Pierce, James A. Putnam, and Billy Joe Maxey exited the basement via the Main Street ramp. Their accounts provide a continuous, close-range view of the ramp entrance and the immediate surrounding area during the final moments before the shooting.

Dallas Police Lieutenant Rio ‘Sam’ Pierce described his movements on the morning of November 24 as part of a coordinated effort to manage security in the basement of Dallas City Hall during the planned transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald. In his November 26 report to Chief Jesse Curry, Pierce stated that he had been assigned responsibility for assisting with basement security and coordinating officers in the parking area. After initial preparations and deployment of personnel, he was instructed to drive the lead vehicle of Oswald’s transfer convoy, accompanied by Sergeants James A. Putnam and Billy Joe Maxey.

Pierce explained that the vehicle could only exit via the Main Street ramp because the normal Commerce Street exit was blocked by other vehicles, including the armoured truck arranged for the transfer. As the car began moving toward the ramp, it encountered a concentration of reporters and photographers near the basement entrance area. Putnam briefly exited the vehicle to physically clear a path through the crowd before re-entering the car.

The three officers provided broadly consistent descriptions of the ascent up the ramp. Pierce recalled observing Officer R. E. Vaughn positioned near the top of the ramp outside the entrance area as the vehicle approached Main Street. Putnam similarly described Vaughn standing near the sidewalk at the head of the ramp, glancing toward traffic and motioning for the vehicle to proceed onto the street. Maxey likewise recalled Vaughn standing near the right-hand side of the entrance as the car exited.

All three officers stated that the vehicle’s movement up the ramp and onto Main Street was continuous and rapid, aside from the brief interruption caused by clearing reporters in the basement. Putnam described the car slowing slightly near the top of the ramp in a manner consistent with approaching a sidewalk and traffic, but not coming to a complete stop.

Most significantly, Pierce, Putnam, and Maxey each stated that they did not observe anyone descending the ramp or entering the basement during the vehicle’s ascent. Putnam specifically stated that he looked toward the ramp entrance and did not observe anyone nearby approaching from the street side, while Maxey stated that he did not see Jack Ruby - or any other individual - descending the ramp as the vehicle exited. Maxey further noted that he knew Ruby by sight and did not observe him anywhere in the basement while he was present there.

Across their statements, the three officers consistently described a controlled but compressed departure sequence: a brief delay caused by reporters near the ramp, a rapid ascent under Vaughn’s direction, and no observation of any person entering the basement from Main Street during that interval.

Jack Ruby

So, what did the accused testify in terms of his entry into the basement? He stated that after leaving the Western Union office, he walked toward the Main Street ramp, pausing briefly to gauge the distance and observe the area. He insisted that he did not sneak in, linger, or conceal himself, and that he simply walked down the ramp in a normal manner, not noticing any officer who might have been nearby. Ruby maintained that he did not see anyone who would have stopped him and was not aware of any obstacle preventing his entry as he proceeded into the basement. As early as the afternoon of the shooting, Ruby was alleged to have told police personnel on the 5^th floor jail that he recalled Rio Pierce driving the car up the ramp. This is highly contentious and something we’ll cover in a later article.

Main Street Analysis

Read as a whole, these accounts form a consistent and overlapping body of testimony from officers positioned at the ramp, officers exiting the basement at the critical moment, and independent witnesses observing from the street. With the sole exception of Daniels’ account, marked by internal uncertainty and contradiction, no witness places Jack Ruby entering the basement via the Main Street ramp.

On the contrary, those best positioned to observe such an entry uniformly report that no one passed into the basement at that time, and multiple witnesses specifically state that they did not see Ruby in the vicinity at all.

In light of this, aside from Daniels’ disputed and internally uncertain account, the surviving witness testimony does not clearly support the claim that Jack Ruby entered the basement via the Main Street ramp.

If neither of the two established entry routes can be supported by consistent witness testimony, then the problem may not lie in choosing between them—but in assuming they were the only options available.

Beyond the Recorded Entry Points

Up to this point, the analysis has centred on two primary possibilities: that Jack Ruby entered the basement either via the Main Street ramp or through the outer door of the Annex Building. Both scenarios attempt to reconcile a narrow time window with the available witness accounts.

But there is another possibility - one that does not attempt to resolve the problem within these defined pathways, but instead questions the assumption that they represent the full extent of access.

On this reading, the difficulty is not determining which entry point Ruby used, but whether the range of possible access routes has been artificially constrained by the way the record was developed.

The City Hall complex was not a single, sealed structure, but an interconnected space with multiple levels, corridors, stairwells, and internal points of movement. The available testimony establishes that parts of this environment were not fully secured, that personnel were reassigned in the lead-up to the transfer, and that lines of sight—both outside and within the basement—were partial rather than continuous.

If so, it raises the possibility that entry into the basement did not occur through a single, clearly observed threshold, but through a route that fell outside the primary focus of both witnesses and investigators.

This does not require the existence of a hidden or unknown passage—only that movement occurred through areas not actively monitored, or through access points that were assumed to be secured but were not directly verified as such. In a setting where attention was divided, and where responsibility for access control was dispersed, such a pathway would not necessarily produce a corresponding witness account.

From this perspective, the absence of observation at the ramp, and the limitations of the outer door scenario, do not resolve the question of entry—they highlight it.

The issue, then, may not be which of the two established routes Ruby used, but whether the framework itself is incomplete. If the range of possible access points extends beyond those most frequently cited, then the failure to observe his entry becomes less a contradiction—and more a reflection of where, and how, attention was directed.

This is not a conclusion, but a working hypothesis. It does not establish how entry occurred, only that the evidentiary frame through which it has been examined may be narrower than the physical reality of the building itself.

What is missing from the record may not be an answer—but a question that was never fully asked.

With that in mind, the focus shifts inside the basement itself, where, if such a movement occurred, some trace of it should be visible in the accounts of those present.

Three witnesses are particularly instructive in this regard: Jimmie Turner, William J. Newman, and William J. ‘Blackie’ Harrison. See below:

But first, let’s set the scene in the basement at the moment Jack Ruby was alleged to have entered there. In my analysis there were approximately 120 people consisting of DPD and media personnel across the vicinity – in and outside the jail office, along the ramp up to the Commerce Street exit, surrounding the transfer convoy vehicles and the corridor from the jail office to the ramp. By the time of the shooting, one hour and twenty minutes had passed since when Oswald’s transfer was expected to get underway.

Jimmie Turner

WBAP-TV Director, Jimmie Turner stated that on the morning of November 24, 1963, he was positioned near a column at the base of the Main Street ramp, operating and supervising television equipment for coverage inside the police basement. His attention was primarily focused on coordinating camera placement, assisting other cameramen, and monitoring activity around the jail office doorway where Lee Harvey Oswald was expected to appear.

As activity increased shortly before the shooting, Turner recalled that a police car exited the basement via the Main Street ramp, drawing attention toward the ramp area. At about this time, he briefly looked in that direction and observed a man on the ramp whom he later identified as Jack Ruby.

Turner stated that when he first saw this individual, the man was already partway down the ramp, near the point where the incline begins – per the illustration above. He described the man as moving slowly forward. He estimated that this observation occurred approximately 15 to 30 seconds before the shooting.

After this initial glance, Turner returned his attention to his duties and did not continuously watch the man. He next observed him moments later, now positioned at the front line of people near the jail office area. Turner stated that the man had moved forward without difficulty and was standing briefly among others before stepping out and shooting Oswald.

Turner further stated that he did not see the man prior to this point on the ramp and did not observe how he arrived there. He indicated that he did not see the man come over the railing or descend from the top of the ramp, and that his first sighting occurred only once the man was already within his field of view on the ramp.

In a contemporaneous FBI report dated November 26, 1963, Turner similarly stated that he noticed an individual, later identified as Jack Ruby, standing near a column behind the line of newsmen shortly before the shooting, marking the first time he became aware of him.

William J. Newman

Dallas Police Reserve Officer William J. Newman provided several statements describing his observations on November 24, 1963, placing himself in the basement area of the Dallas Police Department during the transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald.

In an early affidavit dated November 26, Newman stated that he did not see Jack Ruby prior to the shooting, and that his first awareness of him came only at the moment Oswald was shot.

In a December 1 memorandum, Newman’s account similarly reflects that his attention was directed toward the activity surrounding the jail office. He described the sudden appearance of an individual who stepped forward and fired at Oswald, noting that the man came from within the group and that the event occurred quickly, without prior notice.

In a December 6 memorandum, Newman recalled that he had been facing generally toward the ramp area but did not observe anyone entering the basement via the ramp prior to the shooting. He stated that he saw a man moving away from the ramp area after the shooting, but only from behind, and was unable to identify him at that time.

In an additional undated statement, Newman reiterated that he had been standing at the bottom of the Main Street ramp, looking in that direction, but that he did not recall seeing Ruby or observing anyone descending the ramp before the shooting. He noted that his attention may have been drawn elsewhere in the moments leading up to the event.

When later questioned under oath by Burt W. Griffin, Newman confirmed that he had not reported seeing anyone enter via the ramp at the time. Asked whether he told anyone at Parkland Hospital about observing a man come down the ramp, Newman stated that he had not, explaining that he “didn’t place any significance on it” at the time and affirming that he had not told anyone of such an observation.

Aside from these statements, there is additional context to consider when it comes to Newman’s conduct on November 24. Fellow Police Reserve Harold B. Holly Jr. later identified Newman, by sight, as the individual who told him at Parkland Hospital that he had seen - or knew of - Jack Ruby being in the basement prior to the shooting. According to Holly, Newman suggested that Ruby may have been allowed in, possibly by another reserve officer, and may have possessed a lapel pass. Newman was asked during his testimony for the Warren Commission whether he had told anyone that he saw Jack Ruby enter the basement or be present prior to the shooting. He denied doing so, stating that he had not told anyone at the time and that he “didn’t place any significance on it,” affirming that he had not reported such an observation to anyone at Parkland or elsewhere.

William J. ‘Blackie’ Harrison

Ever since Lee Oswald’s shooting, Dallas Police (Acting) Detective William J. ‘Blackie’ Harrison has largely been known to most researchers as the man with his hand to his mouth while reaching out for Jack Ruby as he’s shooting Lee Oswald – per the Bob Jackson photograph, below:

In my book, I highlight Harrison’s suspicious movements in and out of City Hall in the hours leading up to Oswald’s shooting as well as his prominence in KRLD-TV’s pre-shooting footage of the scene as he lingers on the spot and looking all around him.

This is significant because at the time, as he would later testify, he knew Jack Ruby for upwards of twelve years. This being the case, the fact that he can be seen in this footage looking in all directions around the time that Ruby was alleged to have gotten into position, behind him, begs the question – wouldn’t Harrison have recognised Ruby whichever way he approached?

However, as outlaid in a recent article of mine, I detail how I, with the help of fellow researcher, Will, uncovered an interesting piece of film of Blackie Harrison in the minutes after the shooting providing a completely different initial account of how he saw the man he instantly equated as Oswald’s shooter, get into position.

Alongside the likes of fellow Detectives Clardy and Lowery and reporter Tom Pettit, Harrison stated that he saw a man emerge from behind a green car in the basement. He described the individual as then jumping or coming over a railing and moving forward into the open area where the shooting occurred. Harrison said he also ‘saw the gun’.

The alarming reference to a ‘gun’ aside, Harrison’s account focuses on the man’s movement within the basement space itself, rather than describing an approach from the top of the Main Street ramp. His description begins at the point where the individual was already inside the basement environment and becoming visible to those present.

At the time of this initial statement, Harrison did not identify the man by name, instead describing what he had just seen in terms of position and action. His remarks were made spontaneously, in response to questions from nearby personnel, and reflect his immediate recollection of the event as it had just unfolded.

However, when you read Harrison’s subsequent statements for the DPD, FBI and Warren Commission – he does not make any utterance about the initial statements he made only minutes after the shooting.

Final Analysis

Across the statements of Blackie Harrison, Jimmie Turner, and William J. Newman, the most striking common feature is not simply what they saw but what they did not immediately recognise.

Harrison is the most consequential in this respect. He personally knew Jack Ruby, yet in his earliest, on-the-spot statement, made within minutes of the shooting, he does not identify the man he attributes as Oswald’s shooter. Instead, he reports seeing a man emerge from behind a car, come over a railing, and move forward with a gun. The absence of immediate recognition, despite prior familiarity, is a significant feature of his account and reflects a broader pattern across witnesses.

Turner’s testimony follows a similar pattern. Although he later identifies the man he saw as Ruby, his observation is limited to brief, partial glimpses, and he does not witness the point of entry. His identification is therefore retrospective, based on fleeting views rather than continuous observation.

Newman goes further still: he does not identify Ruby at all prior to the shooting, and his first awareness of the shooter comes only at the moment the shot is fired.

Altogether, these accounts share a critical characteristic:

• No immediate, unequivocal identification of Jack Ruby prior to the shooting

• Recognition, where it occurs, is delayed or retrospective

• In Harrison’s case, this delay occurs despite prior acquaintance

This convergence sharpens the evidentiary picture. The issue is not simply the absence of a clearly observed entry via the ramp - it is that even among witnesses in closest proximity, the shooter’s identity was not contemporaneously recognised.

The record, when read as a whole, does not resolve into a clear or continuous account of how Jack Ruby actually entered the basement of Dallas City Hall. Across the ramp, the street, and within the basement itself, no witness provides a complete sequence of movement from entry to position. Those best placed to observe the Main Street approach do not report seeing him; those at the ramp do not consistently agree that anyone entered; and those inside the basement only become aware of the shooter at the moment he acts.

What emerges is not a coherent pathway, but a series of partial observations that align only after the fact. In that context, the manner of Ruby’s entry remains unresolved within the evidence itself leaving open the possibility that the accepted narrative rests less on direct observation than on reconstruction. The evidentiary problem therefore remains unresolved within the surviving record itself.

In Part 4, we turn to the moment of the Oswald shooting - and what happened in the seconds immediately after.

In fact, it’s yet another aspect of events in Dallas across the weekend of November 22^nd 1963 that has broadly been accepted by most researchers. This is understandable given the presence of documentary evidence and statements supporting the claim that Jack Ruby went to the Western Union office to transfer money to an employee of his barely minutes before Lee Harvey Oswald’s shooting.

But how certain can we be of the timings and evidence that allegedly paved Jack Ruby’s way from his apartment that morning to the Western Union – considering the earlier conflicting sightings of him outside and in Dallas City Hall as mentioned in Part 1. Read on…

Karen Carlin’s contacts with her employer, Jack Ruby, asking for money during the evening of November 23 and the morning of November 24 remain among the most deceptively important episodes in the evidentiary architecture surrounding Ruby’s murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. What the Warren Commission ultimately presented as an emotionally compelling explanation for Ruby’s presence downtown — an impulsive nightclub owner helping a financially distressed employee — increasingly collapses under scrutiny into a narrative sustained by unstable testimony, chronological contradictions, and striking irregularities in the handling of documentary evidence.

Karen Carlin (aka ‘Little Lynn’) (maiden surname ‘Bennett') had worked for Ruby only briefly before the assassination, roughly two months according to her Warren Commission testimony, earning $120 per week as a salaried stripper at the Carousel Club. In fact, Karen reportedly sought and received an advance from Jack Ruby — $75 - merely two weeks prior to the Oswald shooting, and only two days before he next payday.

This puts her reaching out to Ruby on the weekend of 22/11 for a pay advance as something that's far from being a singular emergency. Instead, it suggests an ongoing pattern of financial instability and reliance upon interim payments.

This substantially weakens the emotional force later attached to the phone call placed by Karen to Jack Ruby on November 24. Nonetheless, the Warren Commission effectively transformed Karen’s requests that weekend into the crucial hinge upon which Ruby spontaneously decided to enter City Hall and shoot Lee Oswald.

In his own account, Jack Ruby did refer to the money transfer during his testimony before the Warren Commission, but only in a brief and compressed manner. He confirmed that he sent approximately $25 to Karen Carlin via Western Union on the morning of November 24, aligning with the Carlins on the basic fact of the transaction.

However, Ruby did not recount the broader sequence later described by Karen and Bruce Carlin. His testimony omits a failed meeting at the Carousel Club, an interim $5 payment arranged through a ‘garageman’, and the repeated calls spanning Saturday evening into Sunday morning. Instead, he presents the transfer largely as a routine errand rather than the culmination of an evolving set of requests.

This distinction is significant because much of the emotional and chronological structure later attached to the episode derives not from Ruby’s own account, but from the progressively expanded narrative supplied by the Carlins.

The story goes that on the evening of November 23, Karen and Bruce traveled from Fort Worth with another stripper, Nancy Powell (aka “Tammi True”), to Dallas expecting the Carousel Club might reopen following President Kennedy’s assassination. Finding the club closed, Karen telephoned Ruby from the Colony Club next door and, according to her testimony, Ruby reacted angrily by saying, “Don’t you have any respect for the President? Don’t you know the President is dead?”

Nevertheless, Ruby arranged through parking garage attendant, Huey Reeves, to provide $5 so the Carlins could return home. See the receipt issued by Reeves to “Little Lynn” below:

Karen also testified that she mentioned needing money for rent and groceries, and Ruby instructed her to “call tomorrow.”

Her husband, Bruce Carlin’s version subtly altered the emotional texture of the encounter. He recalled personally telephoning Ruby after Karen became upset, and quoted Ruby saying, “That girl works for me, and she gets paid on a certain day.” Bruce emphasised that their immediate concern was simply obtaining enough money to get back to Fort Worth, not necessarily rent. Again, the later dramatic framing of the request appears overstated.

But the truly consequential issue concerns timing about the phone call the following morning.

Karen testified that she called Ruby at approximately “10 or 10:05 or 10:15” on Sunday morning, though she immediately conceded it “could have been” earlier. Curiously, the Warren Commission concluded that Carlin’s call to Ruby was at 10:19am. Regardless, Ruby allegedly replied to her during the call by saying that he needed time to dress, attend to his dogs, and prepare before going downtown to wire the money. Karen specifically recalled Ruby saying it would take “20 or 30 minutes” before he left.

It appears that someone within the Warren Commission, or FBI, evidently entertained the possibility that the call itself may have originated from elsewhere. Specifically, the Commission directed the FBI to investigate long-distance calls originating from Dallas Police Department phones to Fort Worth and Arlington during the precise period surrounding Oswald’s murder.

The resulting August 1964 FBI report — Commission Exhibit 2317 — focused narrowly upon calls made between 10:00pm on November 23 and November 24 itself.

The specificity of that inquiry is highly revealing. It strongly suggests investigators suspected that either Ruby or someone associated with him inside the Dallas Police Department may have contacted Karen Carlin from within City Hall itself — potentially to initiate or stage the very call later used to explain Ruby’s presence downtown.

Most strikingly, the FBI focused particular attention upon phone number RI 8-9711, described by DPD Homicide Captain Will Fritz as a general City of Dallas line accessible to prisoners and others inside the police building. According to the FBI, one of only three calls from DPD phones to Fort Worth during the relevant period originated from this number.

If the WBAP-TV accounts and Reverend Rushing’s observations are treated as accurate, then Ruby may already have been in or around City Hall prior to the alleged call from Karen Carlin. This suspicion helps explain the otherwise bizarre handling of the Carlin phone records by the FBI.

The Bureau initially compiled a detailed report covering calls from September 26 through November 21, 1963 — but stopped immediately before the assassination weekend despite the billing cycle naturally continuing beyond November 24!

Then, in April 1964, the FBI resumed reporting with sanitised records covering November 26–27 while still omitting the crucial intervening period. Finally, on September 11, 1964 — effectively too late for meaningful Warren Commission scrutiny — the Bureau produced a stripped-down report covering November 24–25 that omitted:

• call times,

• caller identities,

• and recipient identities.

The Commission’s own confusion over the timing of Karen’s call is visible throughout the testimony. Counsel Leon Hubert repeatedly attempted to pin Karen down on the precise time. Yet in one revealing exchange, Hubert stated, “the phone records show it was about that time”.

But this assertion presents a serious contradiction. The FBI records later supplied to the Commission reportedly did not include any precise placement time for the call at all. Hubert therefore appeared to be referencing information leading the Commission to the conclusion that the Carlin call was at 10:19am that either:

• did not formally exist in the documentary record,

• came from undisclosed sources,

• or reflected assumptions already built into the Commission’s preferred chronology.

The significance of this inconsistency cannot be overstated. If a precise timestamp actually existed, there would have been little reason for Commission counsel to spend hours seemingly pressuring Karen Carlin, George Senator, and Ruby himself to reconstruct the timing from memory. The Commission’s evident desperation to stabilise the chronology strongly suggests the documentary foundation was either absent or unreliable.

Ultimately, the Karen Carlin episode reveals something far more important than whether Ruby wired money to a financially struggling employee.

It exposes the fragility of one of the Warren Commission’s key explanatory narratives.

The official story required Karen’s call to place Ruby innocently in motion at exactly the right moment. Yet the testimony surrounding that call remained inconsistent and the supporting phone records suspiciously incomplete.

More troubling still, the investigative record itself suggests that federal authorities may have privately suspected the call was not the trigger for Ruby’s actions at all, but rather a carefully constructed alibi retroactively designed to explain them.

Fortunately, the scenario of Ruby leaving his apartment after the phone call with Karen Carlin and traveling to the Western Union seems relatively straightforward.

Having told his roommate, George Senator, that he was taking one of his dogs, Sheba, to the club, the story goes that Ruby simply drove into Dallas from his apartment in Oak Cliff and parked his car in the All State Parking lot on the corner of Main and Pearl Streets - across from the Western Union on Main. Apparently, it was the only Western Union branch open anywhere across the city on that day.

By all accounts, Jack Ruby took Sheba everywhere he went including when he left her in his car on the Friday night of that weekend when he was at City Hall and watching the Oswald press conference. And it has widely been accepted that he did the same when he drove to the Western Union on the Sunday as well. Particularly given the parking attendant, Theodore Jackson, verified as much when the police came for Ruby’s car after the shooting.

What confuses the record somewhat is that the initial report that DPD Detectives Richard Swain & Vernon Smart provided about the locating and searching of Jack Ruby’s car contained no mention of a dog. Might they have regarded a dog differently than as an item of property alongside other things that were also found such as a wallet, knuckle busters, money bags and cardboard boxes?

Either way, like in so many other instances, we know that evidence and record-keeping standards by the authorities in Dallas during and as a result of that weekend was inconsistent at best.

Ruby left Sheba in his car, with the window cracked open for air and presumably walked directly across to the Western Union office.

Western Union – Transfers in 1963

At the time, sending money through Western Union in Dallas was a straightforward but entirely manual process. A customer would visit a local office—either a standalone branch, such as the Main Street location associated with Jack Ruby, or a counter within another business—and complete a money order application form listing the recipient’s name, destination, and amount. This form could be filled out in advance or at a writing desk inside the office.

At the counter, a clerk would review the form, make any necessary corrections, and calculate the transmission fee. The sender would then pay the total amount in cash. The clerk recorded the transaction details, issued a receipt, and, upon completion, applied a time stamp indicating when the money order was officially accepted.

The completed application was then forwarded, often via pneumatic tube within the building, to a transmission department, where the details were sent over telegraph lines to the destination office. At the receiving end, the message was logged, and funds were made available for pickup, typically requiring identification from the recipient.

The entire payer interaction at the counter usually took only a minute or two, with the time stamp reflecting the moment the transaction was finalised rather than when it began.

Doyle Lane of the Western Union

In March 1964, Doyle Lane testified twice about serving Jack Ruby on November 24 - first at Ruby’s trial on March 4, and later before the Warren Commission on March 31. In July of that year, he provided an additional statement to FBI Agent Robert Barrett.

Doyle Lane consistently described his encounter with Jack Ruby as brief, routine, and limited in scope - an interaction that began not at the entrance to the Western Union office, but at the counter itself. In both his trial testimony and later before the Warren Commission, Lane made clear that he did not see Ruby enter the office. Instead, he became aware of him only as he finished serving another customer, at which point Ruby was already present at the counter.

Lane stated that he recognised Ruby from previous visits to conduct money transfers, and for that reason did not request identification. When Ruby approached him, he handed over a money order form that was already completed. While Lane initially suggested at trial that Ruby had “filled out” the form, he later clarified that he had not actually seen him write anything. His role was to review the form, make necessary corrections, calculate the transfer charges, and process the transaction. See the below copy of the form Doyle Lane said Jack Ruby handed to him:

In his July statement to the FBI, Lane added further detail regarding both the sequence and duration of events. He recalled that the woman who he had been serving before Ruby could not be identified and admitted there was no way of tracing her records. As the woman left, Lane added that Ruby walked directly to the counter from the direction of the customer desks, carrying both the money order application and cash. Lane stated that Ruby, “without any comment or conversation,” handed over the form, which was then processed in the usual manner.

Lane also specified that Ruby provided $30 in cash for the $25 money order and received $3.13 in change, after which he turned and exited the office toward the Dallas Police Department. A reenactment conducted by investigators, as referenced in the same statement, placed the total time from Ruby’s approach to the counter to his exit at approximately forty-nine seconds—consistent with Lane’s own estimate that the interaction would not have exceeded forty-five to sixty seconds.

Lane also stated that he had no information regarding how long Ruby had been inside the office prior to approaching the counter, nor any knowledge of whether Ruby had interacted with other individuals before the transaction. He emphasised that the exchange itself was limited strictly to the handling of the money order and involved no additional conversation or activity beyond what was required to complete the transaction.

Analysis

Given the importance of timing and documented evidence in this case, let’s take stock of the testimonies presented in the above narrative.

The Carlins:

Karen and Bruce Carlin provided broadly consistent accounts of contacting Jack Ruby for financial assistance during the closure of the Carousel Club following President Kennedy’s assassination. Their testimony, supported in part by Nancy Powell (Tammi True), establishes that money was both requested and ultimately received. However, the underlying explanation for the transfer—and the chronology surrounding it—becomes less stable under closer examination.

Karen’s account presented the request as part of an ongoing pattern of financial dependence rather than an isolated emergency. By her own testimony, Ruby had previously advanced her money before payday, and she described the November 24 request in general terms relating to rent, groceries, and basic living expenses while the clubs remained closed. Powell’s testimony broadly corroborated this context, recalling Karen’s concern about money and the group’s lack of funds after traveling to Dallas on November 23 expecting the club to reopen.

Bruce Carlin’s account, however, gave the request a sharper sense of urgency by associating it more directly with overdue rent. Yet this explanation is weakened by his later admission that the money was not ultimately used to pay rent after November 24. Instead, portions reportedly went toward groceries, bus fare, medicine, and other general expenses. The result is a subtle but important shift: the request remains real, but the emergency later attached to it becomes less clearly defined.

The chronology of the calls introduces further uncertainty.

Karen testified that she telephoned Ruby on the morning of November 24 at approximately “10 or 10:05 or 10:15,” though she immediately conceded it could have been earlier. However, the Warren Commission had it as taking place at 10:19am. According to Karen’s account, Ruby replied that he needed time to dress, tend to his dogs, and prepare before going downtown to wire the money. This timing became critical because the Warren Commission effectively relied upon the call as the triggering event explaining Ruby’s subsequent movements.

Karen and Bruce both described engaging in ordinary domestic activity after the call - eating, cleaning, dressing, and only later contacting Western Union to confirm the money had arrived. There is where evidentiary position is strongest - at the level of outcome rather than explanation. Testimony from Jesse M. Strong of the Fort Worth Western Union office confirms that the $25 transfer was in fact collected by a woman identifying herself as Karen Bennett – consistent with identification stating Karen’s maiden name - albeit incorrectly spelt at both ends of the transaction. See the receipt below:

Together, the Carlins’ accounts establish that money was requested, transmitted, and received. What remains less certain is the precise timing, urgency, and function of the request within the broader sequence of Ruby’s movements on the morning of November 24. The transaction itself is documented; the narrative attached to it is considerably more fragile.

Doyle Lane:

Back over to the Dallas Western Union office and because there was no independent confirmation, no second clerk, no search by an investigative body for the female customer, really all we can rely on is Ruby and Lane’s word and the paperwork used to transact the transfer.

And yet, even within his own account, Doyle Lane’s identification of Jack Ruby somehow only begins at the counter. He did not see Ruby enter the premises, did not know how long he had been inside, and could not account for his movements prior to their interaction. Given how small the office was, Lane’s inability to account for Ruby’s entry or prior movements remains an unsolved limitation within the evidentiary record.

Perhaps equally of significance, the physical evidence Lane processed introduces a further complication.

The money order form was already filled out when it was handed to him. Lane did not witness the man, he would come to recognise as Jack Ruby, filling it out. This is a problem because witnessing the filling out the form would bolster the evidence of it being him that walked into that office on or just prior to 11:16am and made the transfer.

However, refer to the below examples. The form on the left is the form handed to Lane by Ruby. The section pre-filled, according to Lane, therefore attributed to Ruby, is circled yellow.

Compare it with an actual sample of Jack Ruby’s handwriting, above right, and a distinct difference in style is evident. The form shows Ruby writing in block letters whereas the sample letter he handwrote was written in cursive form. This difference in writing style cannot establish that another person completed the form, but it does underscore the limits of the available handwriting as evidence.

To be clear and in accordance with Lane’s testimonies, all other writing on the form could only have been his as he processed the transaction, such as:

• in the table at the top right corner to calculate the transfer rate,

• the corrected reference to Fort Worth,

• marked ‘MOD’ which was the abbreviation for Money Order Department and,

• the address he said Jack Ruby gave him when he asked – ‘1313 ½ Commerce’ – incidentally, the address of Ruby’s Carousel Club.

Working Hypothesis

What then, are we to make of the Western Union episode when considered against the broader evidentiary record?

At first glance, it appears to provide the strongest fixed point in Jack Ruby’s movements on the morning of November 24, 1963. A timestamped transaction exists because money was sent from Dallas and collected in Fort Worth. Doyle Lane processed a transfer in Ruby’s name, and Karen Carlin received the funds as intended.

Yet beyond those core facts, the surrounding narrative becomes markedly less stable.

The timing of Karen Carlin’s phone call to Ruby remains uncertain and dependent almost entirely upon retrospective recollection. Even Ruby’s own testimony reduced the episode to a comparatively routine transfer request, omitting much of the wider emotional and chronological context later inferred by the Carlins. Meanwhile, the FBI’s handling of the corresponding phone records was incomplete and unusually fragmented during the precise period most relevant to the Warren Commission’s reconstruction.

Doyle Lane’s identification of Ruby begins only at the counter itself, without any observation of his entry into the office, his movements beforehand, or independent verification of identity. The transfer form was already completed when presented, and the interaction lasted less than a minute.

Taken individually, none of these details necessarily undermines the transaction. Considered together, however, they complicate the degree of certainty later attached to it.

If the Western Union transfer is treated as the anchor point from which Ruby’s movements that morning are reconstructed, then the evidentiary strength of that anchor becomes critically important. Yet the record surrounding it rests on retrospective identification, incomplete documentation, and assumptions that extend beyond what was directly observed.

Perhaps one way to interpret the episode is not that the transfer itself was fabricated, but that it later became invested with greater explanatory significance than the underlying evidence can comfortably sustain. On this reading, the transaction functions less as a fully observed sequence of movement and more as a retrospective point of certainty around which the broader chronology was assembled.

This possibility becomes more significant when considered alongside the accounts explored in Part 1, where Ruby was simultaneously described as being both at his apartment in Oak Cliff and in the vicinity of City Hall during overlapping periods of the same morning. If the Western Union episode itself rests upon a narrower evidentiary foundation than often assumed, then the continuity of the broader narrative becomes increasingly difficult to stabilise.

By all means, this is not a conclusion, but a working hypothesis arising from the limits of the surviving record. The transfer unquestionably occurred. What remains less certain is whether the evidentiary chain surrounding it is sufficiently complete to support the weight it has historically been asked to bear.

Part 3 turns to the next stage of that sequence: how Jack Ruby was alleged to have entered the basement of Dallas City Hall and arrived in position to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald.

Death to Justice brought forward aspects of that morning and the scene including:

• the misplaced utility workers who were harshly, and arguably, needlessly, instructed to move out of the Basement carpark in the hours leading up to the shooting,

• the confusing and non-coherent account of three reporters’ dash from the Third Floor to the Basement (which I finally expose in full in another series on my Substack),

• naming the Dallas Police detective who stepped forth within a matter of seconds after the shooting and clearly covered the shooter – suggesting foreknowledge of the act on the part of at least one member of the DPD and,

• the clear railroading of Jack Ruby in the minutes after the shooting up in the 5^th Floor Jail that was pivotal in his subsequent sentencing the following March.

Readers of Death to Justice, and listeners of my accompanying ‘bookcast’, will recall that I concluded that many questions remain about the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald – many of them orbiting around Jack Ruby.

Subsequently, it has been incredibly pleasing to become acquainted with many researchers, including podcasters, who understand in detail how misunderstood the Oswald shooting was and the questions it continues to leave in its trail.

More broadly, heightened questions on the narratives when it comes to the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania and the Charlie Kirk slaying, should hopefully usher in even more scrutiny on the murder of Lee Oswald.

By this I mean that there is still the opportunity to question the act of Jack Ruby shooting Oswald at point blank range and apply critical thinking without fear of being labelled a crank.

My work so far has been about descending the depths of narratives of the shooting by asking questions.

Hence the purpose of this series. To keep asking the questions and descend even further into the minutiae of the Oswald shooting by examining Jack Ruby’s movements and actions - both alleged and established - on November 24, 1963, and to test whether the record supports the certainty with which he was identified and convicted as Oswald’s killer.

At this point, you may reasonably ask why and how could there still be questions about whether Jack Ruby actually shot Lee Oswald? After all, it was an event that was filmed by no less than 6 film camera operators and photographed by 3 photographers. And Jack Ruby was apprehended there and then at the scene.

This series examines why that narrative warrants closer scrutiny.

Take for instance, the fact that the fatal bullet that was removed from Lee Oswald’s body has been lost since it was entered into the record during Jack Ruby’s trial in March of 1964. Even then, this record is incredibly dubious and practically reliant only on Assistant District Attorney, Bill Alexander. Furthermore, the revolver that was used during the shooting was never released by District Attorney Henry Wade to be forensically examined by the FBI or even the Warren Commission. It was only released to Jack Ruby’s estate after his death – and sold to private collectors in later years.

Without the gun and the bullet fired from it that was supposed to have killed Oswald, aka the key physical evidence of the case, what other evidence is there to prove definitively that Jack Ruby really killed Lee Harvey Oswald?

As questions escalate around the accounts of Matthew Crooks and Tyler Robinson, this series will set aside all assumptions about Jack Ruby by returning to the statements, movements, and observations attributed to him on November 24, 1963.

Considered individually, these accounts appear straightforward. Considered together, they present a more complex picture prompting the ultimate question – how sure can we be that Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald?

Part 1 – The Morning That Doesn’t Add Up

Jack Ruby’s movements from November 22 to 24, 1963 remain marked by contradiction. The range of reported events, utterances and sightings - extending from before the assassination through to late on November 23 - presents a figure who is difficult to fix in a single, coherent frame.

At different moments he appears as a grieving business owner, a man seeking comfort in religion, hustler engaging with the press, and a peripheral figure moving through the edges of official activity. These accounts do not resolve into a single, stable picture

By contrast, the accounts of Sunday morning, November 24, present something altogether different.

There were no more traces of ‘Ruby – the grieving business owner / mournful man of faith / opportunistic networker. Granted, he had only been awake up to 4 hours prior to the shooting, depending on which account you believe. But the point remains - as of that Sunday morning, the pattern shifts. A more subdued if not routine-focused Ruby – that is until he was thrust into the public eye as Oswald’s shooter.

Let’s use all available witness statements and evidence to track Jack Ruby across the mid-morning of that Sunday.

Outside and In Dallas City Hall

WBAP-TV, the Dallas affiliate for NBC, had a mobile unit truck parked on Commerce Street outside Dallas City Hall just before the intersection with Harwood Street. Acting as the nerve centre for its coverage of the anticipated transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald, the mobile unit was manned by several technicians – Warren E. Richey, Ira N. Walker and John (Johnny) A. Smith.

Johnny A. Smith, a WBAP video engineer stationed with the mobile unit on Commerce Street, described observing an unidentified man on multiple occasions during the morning. He first saw the individual at approximately 8:15am, standing on the sidewalk near the City Hall building, looking upward toward cables running to the third floor. Smith did not obtain a full view of the man’s face at that time. Later, while inside the truck, he observed the same individual approach the window and ask, “Have they brought Oswald down yet?” He believed this occurred more than once, though he could not fix the exact timing with certainty.

He also reported seeing the man again near the Commerce Street ramp area, standing among a small group. He estimated the distance between himself and the individual during at least one of these encounters to be within a few feet when the man approached the truck window, though at other times the distance was greater. Smith stated that he did not recognise the individual at the time of these encounters. He later associated the man with Jack Ruby after seeing photographs and television images following the shooting. He acknowledged that his identification was based on similarity rather than certainty, noting differences in appearance and stating he could not positively identify the man as Ruby beyond reasonable doubt.

Ira N. Walker, serving as the audio operator inside the WBAP mobile unit, stated that he first noticed a man later identified to him as Jack Ruby shortly after the unit was set up, between approximately 7:30 and 8:00am. According to Walker, the man came to the truck window and asked, “Has he come down yet?” Walker responded in the negative. He reported that the same individual returned a short time later and repeated the question. Walker stated that these were the only occasions on which he saw the man, and that he did not observe him elsewhere on Commerce Street or in the surrounding area.

Like Smith, he did not recognise the individual at the time and only later identified him as Ruby after the shooting, once his image had been broadcast. Walker’s account does not place the individual at any other location beyond the truck window and does not provide a continuous observation of his movements before the shooting.

Warren Richey, was operating a camera mounted on top of the mobile unit, having set it up between 7:30 and 8:00am. He recalled seeing a man, later identified to him as Jack Ruby, walking alone on the sidewalk on the Commerce Street side at approximately 9:00am. Richey stated that he did not pay particular attention to the individual at the time.

He further recalled that, at some point prior to the shooting, the same man walked up to the television truck and spoke to someone inside. Richey did not specify the content of this interaction and did not indicate that he personally engaged with the individual. His account does not describe any continuous observation of the man’s movements, nor does it place him at the ramp or entering the basement. Richey identified the individual as Ruby only after the fact, once Ruby’s identity had been established.

Separate from these exterior accounts, there is another witness who told of an alleged encounter with Jack Ruby that took place in an elevator within Dallas City Hall that morning.

Reverend Ray Rushing, an evangelist from Plano, Texas, stated that on the morning of November 24, 1963, he traveled to Dallas intending to offer spiritual guidance to Lee Harvey Oswald. After arriving at the Dallas Police Department around 9:30am, he entered the building without difficulty, proceeded to the first floor, and took an elevator to the third floor. Rushing reported that while on the elevator he observed another man whom he later believed to be Jack Ruby. He described only general features (average build, dark suit and hat) and did not speak to the man beyond a brief exchange about the weather. Rushing stated that he did not know Ruby at the time and formed this identification only after seeing Ruby on television later that day; however, when shown a photograph by investigators, he was unable to positively identify the individual. He estimated that he reached the third floor at approximately 9:45am, after which he attempted, unsuccessfully, to make contact regarding Oswald .

Lieutenant Jack Revill later confirmed that Rushing relayed this account during an interview conducted during the Ruby investigation, noting that Rushing claimed to have ridden the elevator with Ruby at about 9:30am, though no written report was made at the time and his account was treated with caution by prosecutors.

Taken together, these accounts describe a man present at intervals both outside and inside City Hall during the same period. The observations are broadly consistent in behaviour… but less so in timing and detail. In each instance, the identification… is not made contemporaneously, but only after the shooting, once an image had entered the public domain.

Jack Ruby’s Apartment

At or around the same time that Ruby is said to have been seen outside the WBAP truck and inside City Hall, other accounts describe him at his apartment, engaged in routine domestic activity. These are not sequential observations but overlapping ones - each occupying the same window of time.

The question, therefore, is not simply where Ruby was.

It is whether these accounts can be reconciled into a single, continuous sequence of movement at all.

At the time, Jack Ruby lived in apartment 207 at 223 South Ewing Avenue in Oak Cliff – a 10 to 15-minute drive from Dallas City Hall.

Jack Ruby stated in his Warren Commission testimony that he remained at his apartment, which he shared with George Senator, on the morning of November 24 until leaving to carry out a money transfer (which will be focused on in Part 2 of this series). Ruby indicated that the decision to go to the Western Union in Dallas to carry out this transfer arose only after a phone call from one of his employees, Karen Carlin, requesting funds. He described leaving his apartment, driving downtown, and completing the Western Union transaction at approximately 11:17am.

Elnora Pitts, who regularly cleaned Ruby’s apartment, stated that it was her routine to attend on Sunday mornings and that she would typically call ahead before arriving. On the morning of November 24, she recalled placing a call to Ruby at approximately 8:30am or slightly later, though she could not be certain of the exact time. She believed she spoke to him, but her recollection of the conversation was indistinct, and she expressed uncertainty about whether he was alone at the time.

George Senator provided the most direct account of Ruby’s movements that morning. He stated that Jack Ruby was present at the apartment during the morning hours and appeared to be engaged in ordinary activity prior to leaving—though not without visible signs of agitation. Senator recalled that Ruby was restless, at times pacing the floor, mumbling to himself, and exhibiting physical nervousness, including trembling lips. These behaviours suggested a heightened emotional or psychological state rather than simple routine calm.

Senator also described Ruby receiving and making telephone calls during this period before departing the apartment shortly prior to heading downtown. Despite the observable nervousness, Senator did not frame Ruby’s conduct as overtly abnormal or indicative of a clear plan, instead portraying it as broadly consistent with his general demeanour, albeit more unsettled than usual.

His account supports the view that Ruby remained at the apartment until late in the morning, leaving only shortly before the Western Union transaction.

Interestingly, Senator himself would drive into Dallas later that morning. He went into the Eat Well Café on Main Street at approximately 11:30am, where he first heard that Lee Harvey Oswald had been shot. Within minutes, he learned that the shooter was Jack Ruby. Senator then attempted to contact attorney Jim Martin by telephone but, unable to reach him, drove directly to his residence and brought him to Police Headquarters.

In later testimony, however, Senator’s account of this sequence shifted slightly. He stated that he attempted to contact Martin before learning that Ruby was the shooter, explaining that he had simply thought to call a friend upon hearing that Oswald had been shot. When questioned, he maintained that this was coincidental and that he had not attempted to contact Ruby directly, despite having just been with him that morning.

Sidney Evans, in apartment 204, was placed at the apartment building and is reported to have directly observed Jack Ruby at approximately 10:10am. According to the FBI report, Evans saw Ruby returning from the building’s laundromat area, carrying freshly washed clothes and appearing “in deep thought.” This observation situates Ruby physically inside the apartment building significantly later in the morning than some external sightings suggest.

Evans’ account is notable for its specificity of time and activity: Ruby is not merely present but engaged in a mundane domestic task. The description implies normal routine behaviour and provides a concrete timestamp that anchors Ruby at the apartment well into the late morning period.

Malcolm Slaughter, roommate of Evans, did not provide a direct observation of Ruby’s movements that morning but relayed Evans’ account to investigators. He stated that Evans had seen Ruby at approximately 10:10am returning from the building’s washateria after doing laundry, and that Ruby appeared preoccupied or deep in thought. Slaughter’s testimony therefore functions as secondary corroboration rather than an independent sighting. He also indicated only minimal familiarity with Ruby, knowing him by sight but not through meaningful interaction.

The tenant roster for Ruby’s apartment building reveals both the scale of potential witnesses and the limits of the investigation that followed. Approximately twenty-nine identifiable residents occupied the building, yet only twelve were actually contacted by investigators, with a further three not at home at the time of inquiry. In effect, barely half of those who might have observed Ruby’s movements were ever questioned. Even within that limited pool, those interviewed reported little more than a passing familiarity with Ruby, if any at all.

Below, left, is the listing of tenants and their apartment numbers sourced for the investigation at the time. Below, right, lists who were contacted for questioning about Ruby after the Oswald shooting:

Of particular note is Fred E. Sexauer, a Dallas Police officer who was residing in the adjacent apartment 208 at the time of the shooting, listed as ‘vacant’ in the above.

Despite his immediate proximity to Jack Ruby, and despite being interviewed by the FBI, Sexauer was not identified in the record as Ruby’s neighbour, nor was any clear account developed as to whether he observed Ruby’s movements on the morning of November 24.

This omission is significant. A neighbouring tenant, particularly one with law enforcement training and prior familiarity with Ruby, represents one of the most direct potential witnesses to his presence or absence during the critical timeframe. Yet the available record does not establish whether Sexauer saw or heard anything that might confirm or contradict Ruby’s stated movements.

The broader context reinforces this gap. Multiple Dallas Police officers had resided in the same adjacent apartment (208) in the weeks leading up to the shooting, with Sexauer still in residence that weekend. This places trained observers in immediate proximity to Ruby at precisely the time his movements are most in question. However, the investigation does not appear to have developed this line of inquiry in any meaningful way.

In the context of an already limited canvassing of tenants, the absence of a clear account from such a close and potentially high-value witness underscores the extent to which the evidentiary picture of Ruby’s movements at the apartment was only partially developed. The result is not a comprehensive record, but a constrained one, leaving a significant portion of the building’s potential witness base unaccounted for, including the demonstrably incorrect claim that Ruby had no immediate neighbours at the time.

It is now important to weigh up and consider all ‘apartment’ and ‘WBAP / City Hall’ accounts in the context of a single narrative.

Taken at face value, these accounts would need to form a continuous sequence of movement - from Ruby’s apartment in Oak Cliff to the vicinity of City Hall - within a tightly constrained window of time. Yet when aligned, they do not resolve into a clear progression. Instead, they overlap.

On this reading, Ruby is described as present at his apartment during the same period in which he is also said to have been observed in the vicinity of City Hall.

These accounts do not simply vary in detail. They compete for the same moments in time. Which raises the possibility that Richey, Smith, Walker and Rushing may have encountered someone who resembled Jack Ruby.

Take a look at the below photographs. The figure on the left is Jack Ruby – hours after the Oswald shooting. The figure on the right is a man, filmed and photographed in City Hall earlier on the same weekend. According to most, including Google, he is Jack Ruby.

Compare the hair, nose and brow structures of each man. Are they the same person or just two people with broad resemblance? If they were not the same man, then the identification of Jack Ruby in these accounts rests not on contemporaneous recognition, but on reconstruction after the fact.

Working Hypothesis

Taken at face value, these accounts would need to form a continuous sequence of movement - from Ruby’s apartment in Oak Cliff to the vicinity of City Hall - within a tightly constrained window of time. Yet when aligned, they do not resolve into a clear progression. Instead, they overlap.

On this reading, Ruby is described as present at his apartment during the same period in which he is also said to have been observed in the vicinity of City Hall. These accounts do not simply vary in detail. They compete for the same moments in time.

This raises the possibility that some of the identifications, particularly those made only after the shooting, may reflect reconstruction rather than contemporaneous recognition. If so, the figure observed near City Hall that morning may not have been definitively established as Jack Ruby at the time but only associated with him after his identity became known.

Taken together, the record does not resolve into a single, continuous account of Ruby’s movements across the morning of November 24. Instead, it presents a series of partial observations that resist consolidation into a coherent sequence.

One way to approach this problem is to consider the constraints imposed by the evidence itself. If the Western Union transaction is treated as a fixed point, and if the apartment sightings placing Ruby in Oak Cliff into the late morning are also given weight, then any reconstruction must account for a narrow window in which he could have traveled between these locations.

One possible way to reconcile these constraints is to consider that the sequence of events has been assembled after the fact from incomplete and retrospective identifications, rather than drawn from a continuous set of contemporaneous observations.

This is not a conclusion, but a working hypothesis. It reflects the limits of the available evidence rather than resolving them. The question, therefore, is not simply where Jack Ruby was at any given moment—but whether the record, as it stands, is capable of supporting a single, coherent narrative of his movements at all.

Part 2 turns to the next point in the record that can be fixed with greater certainty: Jack Ruby’s visit to the Western Union office. As a documented and timestamped event, it provides a basis from which the sequence of that morning can be tested against a more defined point of reference.

There is a point in any shooting investigation where uncertainty is supposed to end.

It doesn’t come from a witness. Or a theory. Or even a confession.

It comes from the bullet.

And a bullet is not an interpretation. It is a physical record—of a weapon, a trajectory, an impact. When properly recovered and analysed, it does something no narrative can do: it proves.

Or at least, it is supposed to.

Because when the bullet fails—when it cannot be matched, cannot be traced, or cannot withstand scrutiny—the investigation does not simply stall. Something else takes over.

Yet the conclusion remains.

A Familiar Problem

A recent detail in the Tyler Robinson case brought this into sharp focus again.

The round attributed to Robinson—and the rifle he allegedly used—has not been forensically matched to Charlie Kirk’s wound.

It is the kind of detail that should give any case pause. Without that demonstrable link, the central claim—that this bullet, from that rifle, caused this wound—rests on inference rather than direct forensic identification.

But what struck me was not just the inconsistency itself.

It was how familiar it felt.

The Oswald Shooting Revisited

When Lee Harvey Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, the event unfolded in full public view. It remains one of the most widely seen acts of violence in modern history.

The assumption has always been that such visibility guarantees certainty.

But visibility is not the same as proof.

Because the only piece of physical and forensic evidence capable of definitively linking Ruby to the fatal shot was the bullet itself. And that bullet—once removed during Oswald’s autopsy—entered a chain of custody that has never fully satisfied scrutiny.

It was apparently introduced as evidence at Ruby’s trial. After that, it disappears from the record.

This issue has been examined before. In an article written in early 2025, Rob Caprio drew attention to the handling of the bullet and the absence of a clear, continuous evidentiary record.

What gives that analysis renewed relevance now is not simply the passage of time, but the emergence of a familiar pattern.

Because when a case like Tyler Robinson’s reveals a bullet that cannot be matched to his alleged rifle, or to Kirk’s wound, it sharpens our sensitivity to the same structural weakness elsewhere.

What might once have seemed like an isolated irregularity begins to look like something more recognisable. This is the overlooked problem.

The bullet is not simply questioned—it is absent in any verifiable, continuous evidentiary sense.

And it does not stand alone.

Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade did not release the revolver attributed to Jack Ruby to the Warren Commission or even to the Federal Bureau of Investigation prior to Ruby’s trial. Only after the trial was it released—reportedly to the administrator of Ruby’s estate.

In other words, the two elements required to establish a complete forensic chain—the bullet and the weapon—were never transparently aligned within the same evidentiary process at the point they were most needed.

Without a bullet that can be cleanly documented, preserved, and forensically tied to both weapon and wound, the case rests disproportionately on the visual record.

And that record, for all its immediacy, is limited.

What it shows most clearly is the back of Ruby’s head—before he is almost immediately obscured by Dallas police detective, Louis D. Miller within seconds of the shot being fired.

When Evidence Is Expected to Carry the Case

The bullet in the Oswald shooting was not supplementary evidence.

It was the case.

It was the only element capable of doing what the footage could not: establishing a direct, physical, forensic link between act and actor.

Without that, something subtle but significant happens - the role of proof is quietly transferred. From evidence… to narrative.

Narrative Over Evidence

Investigations do not exist in a vacuum. They operate under pressure—temporal, institutional, and psychological.

There is a need for resolution. For clarity. For an outcome that can be communicated, accepted, and closed.

But when the evidence does not fully support that outcome, something begins to shift.

The conclusion remains because the evidence adjusts around it.

In the case of Lee Harvey Oswald, the uncertainties surrounding the bullet do not undo the accepted sequence of events. They sit alongside it—acknowledged, but contained.

The story holds—not because it is conclusively proven, but because it is structurally reinforced.

The case doesn’t collapse when the evidence fails. It holds—and that’s the problem.

Why Robinson Matters

This is where the Tyler Robinson case becomes more than a comparison.

It becomes a reminder because when a bullet cannot be matched to a wound, the problem is obvious. Immediate. Difficult to ignore.

In the Oswald shooting, the issue is less visible - but structurally similar.

The one piece of evidence that should anchor the case does not fully withstand scrutiny.

And yet, the conclusion stands.

What the Bullet Should Have Done

The bullet is supposed to end the argument.

It is supposed to take competing narratives and collapse them into a single, demonstrable truth.

In the Oswald shooting, it was the sole forensic bridge between Ruby and Oswald.

In Robinson’s case, that bridge fails in a different way—but the implication is the same.

When that bridge is weakened or missing, the nature of the case changes.What should be proven becomes asserted. What should be resolved remains open.

The bullet is where certainty is meant to begin.

It is the point at which doubt is no longer necessary—because proof has taken its place.

But when the bullet fails—when it cannot be matched, cannot be trusted, cannot fully account for what it is supposed to explain—certainty does not disappear.

It is replaced. Not with proof, but with structure.

And once a conclusion is held in place that way, it no longer depends on the evidence that was meant to support it.

Which raises a question that has never fully gone away since Lee Harvey Oswald was shot in that Dallas basement:

If the bullet cannot do what it is meant to do—

what, exactly, is holding the case together?

Author’s note: This analysis builds on research explored in my book Death to Justice: The Shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald.

The television cameras never stopped rolling.

That uninterrupted footage provides an unusually clear record of who was present. While the Dallas Police Department acknowledged roughly twenty media representatives, visual evidence suggests the number was significantly higher. In my research, I account for approximately sixty reporters, cameramen, photographers, and directors in the basement — nearly matching the number of officers present, including reserves.

The density of personnel matters. It speaks directly to the longstanding question: how did Ruby get into position?

The Immediate Aftermath on Camera

Among the most visible reporters that morning was NBC correspondent Tom Pettit, easily identifiable in footage wearing glasses and a light trench coat. Pettit continued reporting live after the shooting and moved through the basement gathering reactions.

Roughly fifteen minutes after the shooting, he interviewed Sgt. Patrick Dean. But several minutes earlier, Pettit stood near a small group of detectives discussing what they had just witnessed.

It was a listener of the Lone Gunman podcast, following a recent appearance of mine, who first directed my attention to this particular segment of footage. I am grateful for that intervention. The exchange might otherwise have remained buried within hours of chaotic broadcast tape.

In it, Detective Roy Lee Lowery described seeing an unused television camera wheeled past him prior to the shooting and claimed he had steadied it — a detail not supported by pre-shooting footage, which shows him simply standing aside.

Then Lowery gestured to his left, indicating where he believed the shooter had emerged.

At that moment, another voice is heard:

“He came from behind that green car… he jumped up over the railing… I saw the gun…”

Frame analysis confirms that voice as Acting Detective William J. “Blackie” Harrison.

This statement was made within minutes of the shooting. Statements given contemporaneously carry particular evidentiary weight. Memory distortion increases with time; early recollections often preserve details that later narratives smooth over.

Harrison’s description does not align with the official account that Ruby walked down the Main Street ramp and merged into the crowd unnoticed. Instead, Harrison described a man emerging from behind a green car in the basement itself, climbing over railing, and into position.

That is a materially different entry path. See this position illustrated in the below:

Did Harrison Recognize Ruby?

Harrison was not a peripheral figure. Under oath to the Warren Commission, he acknowledged that he had known Ruby for approximately twelve years.

If Harrison truly observed the shooter at close range — and his described vantage point suggests he did — recognition would seem plausible.

Yet in the immediate aftermath captured on film, Harrison does not identify the man by name.

In a November 30 statement to the Dallas Police Department, Harrison later claimed he yelled “Jack” as the man lunged forward. However, this assertion does not appear in earlier or subsequent statements, nor is it audible in available recordings.

The omission is noteworthy.

If he recognized Ruby instantly, why not say so in those first filmed minutes? Conversely, if he did not recognize him, how does that reconcile with a twelve-year acquaintance?

The Reserve Officer Problem

One additional figure complicates the ramp narrative: Reserve Officer William J. Newman.

Newman appears to have remained in one position in the basement (on the southern side under the Commerce Street ramp) longer than most personnel that morning. He was interviewed for the DPD investigation four times — more than the average officer.

In statements given shortly after the shooting, Newman described seeing a man walk down the Main Street ramp approximately one minute before the shooting and disappear into the crowd. In other versions, he recalled a man climbing over a railing near the time an ambulance arrived. Months later, under oath, he again referenced a man descending the ramp and a brief scuffle with media personnel.

These accounts vary in detail and timing.

The result is ambiguity rather than confirmation.

Harrison’s Movements That Morning

Questions surrounding Harrison are not limited to his statement about the green car.

At approximately 8:30 a.m., Harrison and colleague Louis D. Miller left their bureau despite instructions not to leave. They told colleagues they were going to the Delux Diner on Commerce Street for coffee. While there, Harrison was observed using a payphone.

The basement locker room — accessible from Commerce Street — also contained payphones. Around 11:00 a.m, two utility workers later reported being discouraged by an unidentified man from remaining there to watch the transfer on television.

Shortly before Oswald was brought out, Harrison entered the basement from the direction of that locker room area. A colleague reportedly asked him where he had been.

These facts do not prove misconduct. They do, however, introduce unanswered questions about timing and presence.

Notably, Harrison was one of only two Dallas Police personnel who exercised the right to counsel while testifying before the Warren Commission.

Why Speak — and Why That Way?

If Harrison were simply recounting what he had seen, there would be no need for caution in how he delivered it.

Yet in the footage, as detectives huddle near Tom Pettit’s microphone, Harrison positions himself slightly behind others, partially shielded from camera view. He is audible — clearly so — but not visually prominent. The effect is subtle but noticeable: his voice enters the record, his face does not.

This matters.

At that moment — mere minutes after the shooting — no official reconstruction had yet hardened. The narrative was fluid. Reporters were still broadcasting live. Statements made in that window would shape early public understanding.

And Harrison chose to insert a specific directional claim:

• The shooter emerged from behind a green car and climbed over railing that separated the car park and the ramp.

That description conflicts with the later, simplified account that Jack Ruby walked openly down the Main Street ramp and blended into the crowd.

If Harrison knew Ruby — and he admitted under oath that he had known him for twelve years — then he was not describing a stranger. He was describing a man he should have recognized at close range.

Yet he did not identify him by name in that moment.

Instead, he offered a route.

A route that introduces confusion. A route that shifts focus to the eastern side of the basement. A route that complicates the ramp-entry narrative without directly accusing anyone.

This was not silence. It was intervention.

If Harrison were involved in facilitating access, or even aware of how access was achieved, publicly stating that he saw the shooter emerge from behind a car accomplishes something useful: it seeds an alternative pathway into the record while distancing himself from direct recognition.

It is a form of controlled ambiguity.

He speaks — but not fully. He describes — but does not identify. He is heard — but remains visually obscured.

In chaotic scenes, misinformation does not need to be dramatic to be effective. It only needs to introduce doubt at the right moment.

Harrison’s statement did exactly that.

The official narrative would later settle comfortably on Ruby descending the ramp from Main Street. But in the raw, unfiltered minutes after the gunshot — before reports were typed and testimony refined — a Dallas detective who knew Jack Ruby said something materially different.

And he made sure it was recorded.

This limited series 'bookcast' is devoted to the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. This is an audiobook / podcast which expands on my book - with the same title.

The series will run in the same order as the chapters in my book only I'll be able to go into greater detail in this bookcast.

And the podcast aspect means that I'll be joined by leading researchers to delve deeper into other areas that I only provided general context on in my book.

The aim is to show how worthy the topic of Lee Oswald's murder is as its own field of research.

Find this series on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other leading platforms.

The incarceration of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged killer of President John F. Kennedy and Police Officer J.D. Tippit, and his mistreatment at the hands of the Dallas Police across the weekend of November 22^nd has been well established. But the matter of the alleged threats made against his life over the course of the night before his murder at the hands of Jack Ruby has largely been glossed over in the broader scheme of things. But just how they unfolded and were responded to have largely withstood any in-depth scrutiny ever since.

Dallas Police officer Billy Grammer (pictured below).

In May of 1984 researcher Henry Hurt interviewed Billy Grammer. A young patrol officer in 1963, Grammer told of working as relief on the busy switchboard at City Hall across the night of Saturday November 23^rd and the early hours of the next day. According to Hurt’s subsequent book, ‘Reasonable Doubt : An Investigation into the Assassination of John F. Kennedy’ (p. 408), Grammer said, ‘calls were coming in from all over the country’ and that’s why there was the need for extra personnel to be on hand to man the phones.

Grammer’s account states that one of the female switchboard operators took a call at some point on the Saturday night. The caller, a male, told her that he wanted to talk to anyone that he knew so she began listing the names of personnel present on the switchboard. When she named Grammer, the caller said he would do because he knew him. Grammer told Hurt that when the call was put through to him, he recognised the caller’s voice but could not put a name to it. When Grammer asked the caller who it was, they simply told him “I can’t tell you that, but you know me.” Grammer told Hurt that he didn’t press the issue any further. The caller then stated, “We are going to kill Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement tomorrow.”

This caught Grammer’s attention and when the caller started listing specific details of the transfer plans, he motioned for his supervisor, a ‘Lieutenant Henry Putnam’, to come over and listen on the line. Grammer said he didn’t know anything about the transfer plans to judge if what the caller was saying were correct, but he recalled him mentioning a decoy vehicle being used with sirens and red lights while another vehicle would transport Oswald. Grammer said he, again, asked the caller for his identity but was told that it made no difference and that “You’re going to have to make other plans or we’re going to kill Oswald right there in the basement.” With that, the caller hung up.

Grammer then told Putnam that he knew who the caller was but couldn’t recall his name. To this, Grammer said that Putnam told him that the caller had ‘solid inside information on the secret police plans for moving Oswald’. He then instructed Grammer to type up a report for Police Chief Jesse Curry. Grammer did so and he went with Putnam to Curry’s office to hand it him. At the same time, the local FBI office and the Sheriff’s department were informed of the call.

Grammer clocked off and went home at some point on the morning of Sunday November 24^th. He only found out about Lee Oswald’s shooting later that morning when his wife awoke him with the news. He tuned into TV news reports and found out along with the rest of the world that the shooter was Jack Ruby. This stunned Grammer into realising that the man who called the previous night warning of an attack on Oswald may have been Jack Ruby. He told his wife as much and that the caller’s voice was familiar to him because the last time, he saw Ruby was only a week prior when he (Ruby) offered to pay for Grammer and his colleague’s dinner one night at a diner.

When Grammer returned to City Hall for his next shift, he conferred with Lieutenant Putnam about the likelihood that the threat caller was Jack Ruby. Putnam told him that while he couldn’t be certain it was Ruby, he couldn’t rule it out either. According to Grammer, it was a little while later that ‘two inspectors’ from the DPD asked him about the call. He recounted it for them including the fact that he had submitted a report at the time to Chief Curry. Grammer said that he had Putnam’s corroboration, but the report never surfaced.

The above account is the first public record from Billy Grammer about taking a call from a threat maker and it only occurring to him after Oswald’s shooting that it was Jack Ruby. There is no word of it within the Dallas Police Department’s investigation of Oswald’s shooting nor the FBI, Warren Commission or the HSCA. Before Hurt’s ‘Reasonable Doubt’ was published in 1985, reference to Grammer and his story had not appeared in any other books either.

Over the years, since Hurt’s book was published, Billy Grammer appeared in the 1987 documentary, ‘The Men Who Killed Kennedy’ and featured in subsequent articles to tell of this tale. Various details crept into his account including the fact that he and Jack Ruby actually caught up as late as Saturday November 24^th in either the afternoon or evening – with one version detailing how Ruby even visited Grammer in ‘his office in the dispatch division’. What’s also changed are the times of when Grammer took the call. These vary from 9pm on Saturday November 23^rd until 3am Sunday November 24^th.

So why has Billy Grammer’s account been largely taken at face value?

It certainly provides some potential answers around Jack Ruby in the lead up to his shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. There were numerous conflicting reports of his state of mind and movements across the weekend of November 22^nd. Some instances had him intent on squaring away the advertising for his Carousel Club while making sure it stayed shut out of respect for President Kennedy. Other reports had him grief stricken yet, in the same night, horsing around on a twist-board at one of the newspaper offices, handing out comp cards to reporters at City Hall and brokering interviews for them with people like District Attorney Henry Wade. Of course, it was forty-five hours that had passed from when Lee Oswald was first brought into custody to when Ruby shot him so that’s a fair period of time for anyone to be taken by differing moods and occasions. So, I think the notion that Ruby called Dallas Police to anonymously drop word of a threat on Oswald’s life infers that he was knowledgeable or part of a plot to kill him and he tried to sabotage it somehow lends Ruby an air of decency and humanity. And in amongst all the mystery around Ruby’s movements and moods, plus reports of other threats on Oswald’s life that night, the Grammer call sounds tenable.

The problem is, we only ever had Billy Grammer’s word to rely on. So, when it comes to the JFK assassination, this places him in the same precarious territory as others who were the sole sources of truth for the interesting tales they told. For example, regarding the ambush in Dealey Plaza we have James Files claiming to be the shooter behind the fence on the Grassy Knoll. Chauncey Holt telling of being part of a team that tried to prevent the assassination and Gordon Arnold recounting his being accosted at the top of the knoll near the fence by an unknown man for the film he had supposedly just taken of the assassination. With limited or no corroborating evidence, these stories, Grammer’s included, plus others, cannot just be presumed as true. Of course, single account stories happen and can still be believed but peripheral evidence and analysis should be employed to assess their tenability.

So just how reliable was Billy Grammer and his account? Below is a list of points that demonstrate how tenuous his story was and therefore should have always been handled with caution:

1. No female switchboard operator ever came forward as the person who first received the call and transferred it to Grammer.

a. Frances Cason was the only female switchboard operator interviewed by the Warren Commission but the closest her testimony came to the events around November 24th was how she called for an ambulance after Oswald’s shooting.

2. There was no ‘Lieutenant Henry Putnam’ listed within the Dallas Police personnel records in November 1963. There were two personnel with the surname ‘Putnam’, Sergeant James Putnam and Inspector Henry Putnam, neither of whom had anything to do with establishing the plans to transfer Oswald:

a. Sgt James Putnam played a role in securing the basement ahead of Oswald’s transfer with Sgt. Patrick Dean. He was also riding in the car that his lieutenant, Rio Pierce, had driven up the Main Street ramp a minute prior to Oswald’s transfer to act as the lead car in the convoy.

b. ‘Inspector Henry Jay Putnam Jr.’ who’s only involvement of any significance on the weekend of November 22^nd was planning Lyndon Johnson’s ride from Parkland Hospital to Air Force One following the announcement of President Kennedy’s death.

• Of the two Putnams, only James Putnam would provide statements for the DPD, FBI and Warren Commission. And in case Grammer got his ‘Putnams’ mixed up in 1984, none of James Putnam’s statements make any mention of Grammer or listening in on a phone call with him either,

• In his book, Hurt told of Grammer telling him that ‘Lt. Henry Putnam’ had since died, and this was the case as former Inspector Henry Jay Putnam did pass away in 1976. (James Putnam died in 1990).

• Also, regarding Henry Putnam, lieutenants and inspectors were, and presumably still are, completely separate ranks when it comes to the chain of command within the police force. So even for a rookie, like Grammer at the time, the two ought to have been difficult to get mixed up.

• One final point regarding Henry Putnam. Even under the circumstances of that weekend, it does not make sense that a senior ranking Inspector would be ‘working the phones’ in the dispatch division let alone so late into the night.

  • I suppose this final point relies on when the call was supposed to have come in but Hurt’s book does not even include that point and as mentioned earlier, Grammer’s times for the call have changed over the years.

3. There is no evidence or testimony from either the DPD or Sherrif hierarchy that any concrete plans or details had been discussed and decided upon at any time across Saturday night / early Sunday morning for anything to possibly be leaked.

• Chief Jesse Curry, who didn't arrive at City Hall until 8.30am on November 24th, presumably after Grammar clocked off his night shift, never spoke of the matter and Grammer’s notes of the call and report about it haven’t ever surfaced.

  • Curry died in 1980 so even he wasn’t alive to corroborate, or challenge, Grammer’s story in 1984, either.

  • The ranking officer on duty at City Hall that night, Captain William B. Frazier testified that the DPD did not receive any threats directly either. He also never made any mention of Billy Grammer.

4. Even for the DPD at the time, it is beyond credibility that, having received a threat to Oswald’s life that included details of their intent to use a decoy car to transfer him, they (the DPD) would still go ahead and use that very tactic for when the transfer took place anyway!

5. The claim that Grammer’s call was reported on to both the local FBI and Sheriff offices does not hold any water as both reference to it, nor documentary evidence has ever surfaced either.

• Sheriff Deputy C.C. McCoy submitted a report recounting his receiving threatening phone calls on Oswald’s life and his subsequent interactions with FBI agent Newsom and the DPD’s Frazier across the early hours of November 24^th

• If the FBI were made aware of the Grammer call, either on the day it happened or even the days / weeks after, they would have been all over Billy Grammer and ‘Henry Putnam’ as the story cut to the very heart of their line of inquiry regarding Jack Ruby’s links to police personnel prior to his killing Oswald. But, again the DPD, the Warren Commission and HSCA never called on Grammer to make a statement or testify - despite the heavy inference of foreknowledge on Ruby’s part of a plot to kill Oswald.

6. Despite claiming he recognised the caller’s voice, it is hard to fathom that Grammer only clicked to it being Jack Ruby after he was confirmed as Oswald’s shooter.

• Recall that, initially in ’84, Grammer alleged that his last face to face interaction with Ruby was a week prior to November 23^rd when Ruby offered to pay for his and a fellow officer’s dinner at a diner

• No one else in the DPD corroborated that even this episode took place either.

• Surely, Ruby’s voice would have still been fresh enough in Grammer’s memory to recognise it so soon. Even more so when we consider his later accounts that included meeting Jack Ruby at City Hall earlier on the same day of the call!

With the above points considered, it is safe to say that Billy Grammer never met the burden of proof to substantiate his story. In fact, it’s incredibly difficult for any of it to be substantiated.

We cannot even say he, and the ‘manufacturing’ of it, were part of the actual plot to kill Oswald and its cover up because Grammer didn’t come forth with the story until twenty years later. And as it was, the DPD, DA office and a suspiciously deficient defense team did a fine enough job of ensuring that Jack Ruby was found guilty of murder with malice in March of ’64. It was also of no significance, nor served any purpose, back then because, as already mentioned, Chief Curry did not do a single thing to respond when it counted regarding any of the alleged threats by either expediting Oswald’s transfer or adapting plans to protect him.

So, if what Grammer alleged somehow took place, with the alleged threat calls made that same night to the FBI and Sheriff’s office followed by the subsequent investigations, inquiries and public interest, why did he take so long to come out with it? Come May 1984, he was still with the DPD, by then a lieutenant, so he may have been worried for his career or pending retirement. Perhaps, given how many people in the JFK assassination universe had died suddenly and suspiciously over the years, Grammer might have been worried for his and his family’s life. Even this point has never been adequately addressed to or by him.

Why would Billy Grammer make up the story? It’s anybody’s guess and, apparently, he’s still alive so the above points could be put forward to him to address.

In 1984, from a plot / cover-up viewpoint, what he contended was still of absolutely no significance. Jack Ruby was long dead as Oswald’s assassin. All that remained was a whole lot of conjecture and mystery around him. The most that Grammer’s story could have done is add a small and minor twist on Ruby’s state of mind and the inference that he was at least knowledgeable of the plot to kill Oswald at the time of the call. Other than that, the story only serves to paint Billy Grammer as a Dallas police officer who did his part to act on a threat against Oswald. May the timing of him telling his story for the first time have something to do with his retiring two years later?

For the record, in my exhaustive search to find any iota of evidence that would substantiate Grammer’s claims, I reached out to whom it first surfaced through – the author Henry Hurt. Mr. Hurt was kind enough to respond to my query about his interaction with Billy Grammer but quickly advised me that he would not be able to add anything to what he had written in his book – not even how he came to be aware of Grammer’s story. Mr. Hurt did let me know that he would refer me to a trusted friend of his, the noted researcher Mike Swanson, who is more knowledgeable on the topic. I await, with good faith and genuine interest, to be contacted by Mr. Swanson at least. And beyond that, for any evidence that would substantiate the long-heralded Billy Grammer story.

This article is not intended as a hit piece on Mr. Grammer. It is simply meant to give his story the scrutiny that it has avoided all this time. Any further information that backs up or refutes any of my points will be welcomed. In the meantime, the Billy Grammer story should be handled with caution.

To recap, we can completely discredit the Stairs vs. Elevator story of O’Leary, Carroll & Pappas beating the elevator down to the basement using the stairs story because:

• No members of the DPD or anyone from the media corroborated their presence on the Third Floor at the start of Oswald’s transfer;

• The elevator that Oswald was brought down in only took 19 seconds to descend from the Third Floor to the Basement and there were no reports of stops or delays for it,

• However, the stairs that were allegedly used by the reporters down to the basement did not run continuously there meaning any deviation to another set of stairs by the reporters would have put their journey well over the 19 seconds it took the elevator to descend,

• The first statements that Ike Pappas and Jerry O’Leary gave to the FBI had no references to the Third Floor whatsoever. After that the statements, given to the same FBI agent, from Pappas and Maurice Carroll, would mention the Stairs vs. Elevator story.

  • Even then, Pappas never mentioned Jerry O’Leary by name in any statements he gave across December ’63 and January ’64 and Jerry O’Leary never referred to Maurice Carroll either.

  • In his statement to the DPD, on December 11, Ike Pappas mentioned being up on the Third Floor but that he actually used the elevator to get down to the basement one minute prior to when Oswald did!

  • Pappas’ Warren Commission testimony included denying running down from the Third Floor to the basement with Jerry O’Leary.

What the above demonstrates is that Jerry O’Leary and the FBI were at the centre of the germination of the Stairs vs. Elevator story.

The ACLU reference by Oswald:

Jerry O’Leary was the first, and for a long time, the only person to allege that Lee Oswald said, at the start of his transfer up on the Third Floor of City Hall, that he wanted to speak to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) because:

• No member of the DPD or anyone else from the media on the Third Floor alleged that Oswald made any such mention of the ACLU,

• Maurice Carroll never referred to it in his one and only statement to the FBI but Ike Pappas’ statement on January 7^th reads as if he finally did,

• But during his testimony to the Warren Commission, Ike Pappas never referred to Oswald saying anything about the ACLU either,

• And Pappas’ full tape recording supposedly capturing from his time on the Third Floor to down in the basement before, during and after Oswald’s shooting has never surfaced.

  • The only portion ever to be made public starts from when Pappas was standing in front of the basement jail office as Oswald was brought out of there and it continued as Pappas got into the position he would be in during the shooting.

Why would the prospect of President Kennedy’s alleged assassin publicly calling out to speak to someone from the American Civil Liberties Union be important? To answer that, we need to gather context around the ACLU.

Established in 1920 and still in operation to this day, according to its website, the organisation was formed in response to then U.S. Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer’s campaign (the ‘Palmer Raids’) between November 1919 and January 1920 of rounding up and deporting citizens thought to be radicals aligned with the burgeoning Communist threat, commonly referred to at the time as the ‘Red Scare’. The ACLU website says that it was ‘in the face of these egregious civil liberties abuses, a small group of people decided to take a stand, and thus was born the American Civil Liberties Union’.

Despite the negative connotation of Communist linkages, core among the ACLU’s services was legal representation to anyone perceived to be or verifiably experiencing depredation of legal rights. We have a strong idea of the depths of injustices Lee Harvey Oswald experienced during his some forty five hours in Dallas police custody that weekend. We also know that he continuously spoke out whenever he could to ask for legal representation, particularly as he was being led by police through the corridors of City Hall that were jammed with media. He even pled for legal assistance during his infamous ‘press conference’ just after midnight on the Saturday.

Lee Oswald’s early pleas were actually heard. Late in the evening of Friday November 22^nd, the chairman of the ACLU’s Austin branch, Reverend Brandoch Lovely was watching the news footage of Lee Oswald at Dallas City Hall. He must have seen Oswald ask for legal representation so he called the president of the Dallas Civil Liberties Union, Greg Olds and asked if he knew whether Oswald had been afforded legal representation or not. According to his testimony for the Warren Commission, Olds did not know so he contacted City Hall and spoke to Homicide and Robbery’s Captain, J.W. Fritz to ask. Olds was told by Fritz that Oswald actually hadn’t asked for legal council at that time.

This was clearly not the case as, again, Oswald had told members of the media that he wanted legal assistance earlier that very day. Olds mobilised three other volunteer lawyers for the Dallas Civil Liberties Union (DCLU), Otto Mullinax, Greer Raggio and L.N.D. Wells and they converged on City Hall at around 10.30pm that night. There they were able to speak with Jesse Curry, Captain Glen King, the unofficial PR man for the DPD and Justice of the Peace, David P. Johnston, who facilitated Oswald’s arraignment a few hours earlier for the murder of Officer Tippit. The lawyers were assured that Oswald was advised of his right to have a lawyer during the arraignment but he said he did not want one. Taking the DPD for their word, they did not insist on still seeing Oswald themselves in person. Greg Olds would later explain that it was largely because Jesse Curry had always been so cooperative with the DCLU when it came to the issue of prisoner rights. All of the lawyers left except Olds himself, who stayed at City Hall to watch Oswald’s press conference that night down in the basement. This is interesting to note as, mentioned earlier in this article, Oswald did ask for ‘someone to come forward with legal assistance’ at that very press conference. And Greg Olds, in his same testimony for the Warren Commission, said that he heard as much but effectively still chose what the DPD had told him about Oswald’s denial of legal assistance over his actual pleas. Olds admitted that he regretted not insisting on meeting Oswald. One only has to wonder how differently things may have turned out if he / the DCLU did. Would it have resulted in Oswald gaining access to proper legal assistance? If so, for a start, the legality of his questioning, his protestations about the lack of regard for his hygiene, how unfair his witness identification lineups were, and the DPD’s disregard for security that entire weekend all could have been acted on. From there, might Oswald have at least lived to stand trial? Who knows.

However, on the afternoon of Saturday November 23^rd, president of the Dallas Bar Association, H. Louis Nichols was permitted, in the company of Police Chief Jesse Curry, to meet with Oswald in his jail cell for a couple of minutes. Speaking to the press back down on the Third Floor immediately after, Nichols said he too had heard questions of whether or not Lee Oswald was able to access legal representation so he went to City Hall to find out if this was the case. He said that Oswald told him that his preference for legal representation was from a lawyer in New York named John Abt. If Abt (who was serving as chief counsel for the Communist Party USA at the time) wasn’t available, Oswald’s preference was for a lawyer from the ACLU and failing that, he would consider calling on the Dallas Bar Association to find a lawyer. Nichols said he asked Oswald if there was anything they could do anything at that point to help. Oswald apparently said there was nothing he needed from them at that time. Nichols said he ended his brief meeting with Oswald as he was satisfied that he was not being deprived of any of his legal rights. Curiously, when taking questions from the gathered press, Nichols said that Oswald had told him that he was a member of the ACLU however this was not the case. It’s true that Lee Oswald had been taken to an ACLU event in Dallas on October 23 by Michael Paine who was a member of the ACLU and the estranged husband of the lady Oswald’s wife, Marina was living with, Ruth Paine. At the meeting, Lee Oswald took a slip of paper and did lodge an application to join the ACLU. In the same testimony to the Warren Commission, Olds stated that Oswald membership was not confirmed as of November 22nd. It’s understandable that Olds chose his words very clearly around this point because, as Bill Simpich astutely put it, the reputational harm bestowed upon the ACLU for having the alleged assassin of the president being a paid member would have been a blight on its legacy and ongoing credability.

It is clear that the DPD did not want Oswald to see a lawyer with the way they lied to Olds and company from the ACLU late on Friday November 22^nd. But when Nichols, who was a close associate of Dallas District Attorney, Henry Wade at the time, was allowed to speak to Oswald, a supposed link between the ACLU and Lee Harvey Oswald emerged. Given the timing and the circumstances at that point, such a connection between Oswald and an organisation perceived as Communistic, not to mention the reference to his wanting John Abt as his lawyer, were revelations that were highly suggestive and if handled the right way, were dynamite.

It may just be coincidental, or even corroborative, that, if Oswald actually did express wanting to speak to John Abt to Nichols in the first place, it was around the same time (4pm) that Ruth Paine testified to Oswald asking her, by phone, to contact John Abt on his behalf as well. I think this is a whole other tangent that should be explored at another time as, to most JFK assassination researchers, Ruth Paine remains a highly suspect character when it came to her presence in Oswald’s life in Dallas so it’s a risky thing to take only her word for too much. And given how closely associated Nichols was to the DA’s office and the DPD as well, it may be difficult to trust everything he recounted when it came to his conversation with Oswald on November 23^rd as well. It all boils down to the scintillating possibility that both may have been acting on instructions to tie Oswald to the Communist cause by quoting him wanting to be represented by a Communist-linked lawyer.

*For a reasoned summary of the warranted confusion around the Oswald / Abt question, I recommend Timothy Cwiek’s article for ‘The Third Decade’ ‘John J. Abt: Did Oswald Ask For Him?’

Putting the Pieces Together:

Moving back to the topic at hand. With what we now know about Jerry O’Leary’s alignment with the FBI prior to and during the weekend of November 22^nd plus the amount of statements he would give for their subsequent investigation, we must now consider this memo sent across the upper echelons of the FBI barely hours after Oswald’s murder:

And over the page:

With Oswald now conveniently dead, the FBI apparatus was clearly swinging in to gear to, at all costs, cast the blame on the ‘Castro supporting, avowed Marxist Lee Harvey Oswald’ for President Kennedy’s assassination. Could the Belmont memo have been the catalyst for the FBI’s press man on the ground in Dallas at the time, Jerry O’Leary, to once again be drafted into action?

With a few strokes of a pen, and there being no record that there were members of the media up on the Third Floor when Oswald’s transfer started, O’Leary could have very easily and swiftly set about publishing an article that attributed one final and damning quote to Oswald… that he wanted to speak to the ACLU.

This article of O’Leary’s represents the first actual record of both Lee Oswald allegedly calling for the ACLU at the start of his transfer and the Stairs vs. Elevator story. Note that it was published on the evening of November 25 but recall that O’Leary had already given a statement to the FBI regarding Oswald’s shooting on November 24. And in the statement, he made no mention of his witnessing Oswald referring to ACLU up on the Third Floor or his racing down the stairs. What we are presented with is a very clear and realistic timeframe from O’Leary’s honest statement on November 24^th about the shooting of Oswald for him to construct his provocative article the next day.

Lies to Back up the Lead:

We’ve established that Jerry O’Leary was lying in his November 25 article about both the ACLU and Stairs vs. Elevator stories but I think how Ike Pappas and Maurice Carroll came to be tied in well after the fact only came out of a need for O’Leary’s claims to be substantiated. Let me explain.

In footage (at the 12:45 second mark) taken down in the City Hall basement barely seconds before Oswald was brought out and shot, four figures emerge from the corridor at the back. All were media personnel: Isadore ‘Izzy’ Bleckman, Ike Pappas, Maurice Carroll.. and Jerry O’Leary. The latter three are indicated in the frame below:

In my book, I referred to the figure labelled ‘O’Leary’ in the above as Detective E.R. Beck – who’s own statement reflected that he came down to the basement late in the piece but I am now certain that it was Jerry O’Leary. I must acknowledge fellow researcher, Linda Giovanna Zambanini for her helping me to correctly identify Beck and correct this important aspect.

Confirming the person indicated was O’Leary, and not Beck, means that we now have definitive proof that he was on the scene of the shooting. However, interestingly, and confusingly, O’Leary’s accounts both in subsequent articles and statements, have him mistakenly refer to only one car sat behind the waiting armoured truck when there were clearly two (the first at the base of the ramp was being driven by Detective Brown and the other, the car that Oswald was being led to, was being driven by Detective Dhority).

It was on this basis, as well as his account mirroring what was visible in television footage of the shooting, that I had originally thought that O’Leary was lying about being at the scene of the shooting. But to be fair, most witness accounts of the moment Ruby stepped forward and shot Oswald were incredibly brief and vague, so from where O’Leary contended he was standing, and was clearly walking towards in the above footage, his statement is generally fitting with other’s accounts.

I am now certain that because O’Leary would have been aware that he was being filmed walking out to the basement in the seconds prior to Oswald emerging, when he was enlisted to concoct the story of Oswald asking for the ACLU up on the Third Floor, he had to make up the story of how he got down to the basement to bolster his November 25^th article as well. In the absence of any corroboration for his Third Floor claims, because they didn’t happen, any kind of corroboration was needed to back his story up. So, because Pappas and Carroll were also filmed emerging from the same direction behind him in the basement, they were drawn in as fellow ‘Third Floor witnesses’ for O’Leary. Were they enlisted or were their statements to the FBI (Carroll in December and Pappas’ in January) simply altered?

I am sure Pappas and Carroll’s FBI statements were altered because how their corroborations materialised, were hastily done – as in reactively, not proactively. Recall that Pappas’ first account to the FBI (on December 2^nd, the day before O’Leary’s) mentioned nothing about the Third Floor. Also, to the DPD (on December 11^th), Pappas told of only coming down from the Third Floor by himself a minute prior to when Oswald did – and that he did so in the same elevator that Oswald would be brought down in!

As such, I think it took having the same FBI agent (James J. Rogers in New York) to take both Carroll’s one and only statement and Pappas’ next one in early January to bring both accounts to general alignment. Supporting this contention is what Pappas did and did not testify, under oath, to the Warren Commission several months later. Recall that he never mentioned Oswald saying anything about the ACLU on the Third Floor and despite being led by Burt Griffin, he still denied O’Leary’s accounts of them both ‘planning to and then racing down the stairs to the basement’ .

So with the prospect of words being put into Pappas and Carroll’s mouths to substantiate O’Leary’s November 25^th article, it was not like either could come out and reveal the whole pack of lies. Whenever it was that they found out about O’Leary’s claims, he was too prominent… and too connected in media circles let alone with the FBI, the CIA and the Warren Commission to refute. Pappas and Carroll’s careers would have been over and, given the mysterious deaths that soon began to materialise, and were being widely reported on, soon after November 22^nd, something worse may have happened to them if they did not comply. If this was the case, Ike Pappas and Maurice Carroll were merely a couple of people within an unknown quantity of many related to President Kennedy’s assassination who joined its vast tapestry of a cover-up because they found it easier and safer to simply do nothing but go along with the narrative.

Phase One and Two Cover-up:

As introduced in Part Two of this series, while in Dallas, O’Leary also made contact with an ‘unimpeachable source’ of a ‘CIA man in Dallas’ by at least November 27 and duly passed word up to the FBI of the story he was told about Oswald coming back to the United States the previous month with a large sum of cash. Along with his article on the 25^th, I think this saw O’Leary figure into two key phases of a broader cover-up of President Kennedy’s assassination.

Renowned researcher, Peter Dale Scott referred to there being a ‘two-phase dialectical cover-up’ by the plotters behind the assassination of the president. In his book ‘Deep Politics and the Death of JFK’, he lays the hypothesis out very clearly that:

• Phase One was ready to deploy even before any shots were fired in Dealey Plaza because of the formation of a ‘false but plausible story of an international Communist conspiracy (supported by superficially credible evidence from intelligence sources too sensitive to be publicly disclosed)’.

  • Both Jerry O’Leary’s quoting of Oswald requesting the ACLU and what he was told by a ‘CIA man in Dallas’ prior to November 27 (along with the similar instance of Alvaro and Miami newsman Hal Hendrix’ preparedness with background information about Oswald) all clearly fit within the theory of Dale Scott’s Phase One.

• Phase Two saw the first phase ‘replaced by a second false story of Oswald as a lone assassin’. And this would have come about when the U.S. government realised how hot the implication was that Communist-linked / Castro-backed Oswald killed President Kennedy.

  • Might Jerry O’Leary’s article for the Evening Star on November 25^th, plus his judicious reporting to the FBI two days later of what he was told in Dallas by his CIA contact contributed to the U.S. government pivoting to placing the entire blame of the Kennedy assassination solely on Oswald? And that this was done to avoid war with Cuba and the Soviets? Hence the implementation of the Warren Commission on November 29.

It is not too far of a stretch to conceive that whoever Jerry O’Leary met with in Dallas from the CIA was linked to the plot to kill President Kennedy. I say this because the CIA man could have given O’Leary the scoop of the century and not necessarily been aware that O’Leary was linked to the FBI. As long as O’Leary didn’t just sit on the story and do nothing with it, a near impossibility given the circumstances, the CIA man would not have cared if O’Leary published the article or passed it onto whoever he knew in Intelligence or elsewhere in the government. Evidently, with what O’Leary did to pass the story onto his FBI benefactors and the waves it cast through there, the State Department and the White House, it turned out to be the perfect piece of dynamite that likely contributed to leveraging the U.S. government into covering up the JFK assassination.

Summary Points:

The saga of Jerry O’Leary in Dallas and his usefulness there for both the FBI and CIA on the weekend of President Kennedy’s assassination is complex and far reaching, so I have laid it out as a summary in point form:

• Prominent Washington Evening Star reporter, Jerry O’Leary travelled to Dallas on the afternoon of November 22^nd, 1963,

• Whilst carrying out his role as a reporter, Jerry O’Leary directly took part in an FBI-sanctioned strategy to have Dallas Police Chief, Jesse Curry walk back statements that he correctly but perhaps verbosely, made that were critical of the FBI and their lack of communication to them regarding Lee Harvey Oswald’s presence prior to November 22^nd,

• Jerry O’Leary joined dozens of media in the City Hall basement to watch the start of Oswald’s transfer from there to the County Jail. In doing so, he witnessed Jack Ruby shoot Oswald.

• Barely hours after Oswald’s murder, the FBI implemented a strategy to cast all blame for President Kennedy’s assassination on him as a Marxist and Castro sympathiser,

• In line with the above FBI strategy, Jerry O’Leary was enlisted to publish an article for the Evening Star on the day after Oswald’s murder claiming he witnessed him (Oswald) call out for assistance from the perceived Communist-linked ACLU at the start of his transfer, barely a minute before his shooting,

• In the same article, to correlate the ACLU story with his evidential presence in the basement at the time of the shooting, O’Leary made up a convoluted and provably impossible story of racing Oswald in the elevator down from the Third Floor to the basement,

• To substantiate O’Leary’s story, two other reporters, Ike Pappas and Maurice Carroll, who were also filmed walking out to the basement behind him in the seconds prior to Oswald’s shooting, were unwittingly enlisted to corroborate O’Leary’s claims through the altering of their subsequent statements to the FBI,

• After which, Pappas and Carroll sooner kept quiet about their clear misrepresentation of their FBI statements.

• Jerry O’Leary kept in contact with benefactors in both the FBI and CIA while still in Dallas:

• To the FBI, he reported on the recovery of the infamous ‘backyard photographs’ (widely reported to have been doctored) of Oswald holding a Mannlicher-Carcano and Communist / Socialist publications including the ‘The Worker’

• And he met with an ‘unimpeachable source’ of a ‘CIA man in Dallas’ who told him of Lee Oswald returning from Mexico the month prior with a large sum of cash,

  • About which O’Leary reported to the FBI.

The case of Jerry O’Leary and the revelation of his being utilised by U.S. intelligence during the immediate aftermath of President Kennedy’s assassination is a startling one. There is no telling if or what he knew he was getting himself into when he flew from Washington D.C. to Dallas on the afternoon of November 22^nd but as someone with clear intelligence links, he sure played a small but crucial and pivotal role in an all-points push to blame Lee Harvey Oswald at the start of the United States government’s cover-up of the clear conspiracy that ended President Kennedy’s life.

According to Gerald McKnight in his book ‘Breach of Trust, Jerry O’Leary was one of the FBI’s Associate Directors (3^rd in charge) Cartha De Loach’s stalwarts and willing ‘friendly sources’ in the news business. And O’Leary was also a great favourite of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

So relied upon was O’Leary by the FBI, he was actually part of their effort to censor Police Chief Curry on Saturday November 23^rd when he (Curry) made comments to the media about Dallas Police not being informed by the FBI of Lee Oswald’s presence prior to President Kennedy’s visit. This scoop ran rampant in newspapers across the country. And Curry wasn't being too outlandish with what he was saying either. After all, it was common practice for the FBI to alert local authorities of anyone they deemed a risk in light of a significant occasion such as a presidential visit. And time would tell, the FBI were indeed monitoring Lee Oswald in the months prior to the weekend of November 22^nd so actually what Curry was saying was bang on the mark! See the FBI document below that refers to Oswald being surveilled.

But Curry's admission drew the ire of J. Edgar Hoover. As such, Jerry O’Leary was contacted by the FBI to interview Curry and write an accompanying article to settle the matter. Footage on YouTube shows Curry also speaking to the press and walking back what he said earlier that day. The below summary from De Loach sums up the episode:

This is but one neat example of how the media was used by the U.S. government at the time.

Jerry O’Leary found himself in the thick of some other key events in Dallas at that time as well. The below memo, also from Cartha De Loach, indicates that O’Leary was reporting back to the FBI on the DPD’s investigation of Oswald – particularly the ‘discovery’ of the incriminating backyard photos:

O'Leary and the CIA

Aside from O’Leary’s time at Dallas City Hall during Lee Oswald’s incarceration and subsequent shooting, it turns out that Jerry O’Leary also met with an ‘absolutely unimpeachable source’ who was a ‘CIA man in Dallas’ that weekend. According to the below FBI memo, O’Leary is documented as finding out from this ‘CIA man’ that Lee Oswald went to Mexico at the end of that September and returned in early October with $5,000 in cash!

Having been given the monster of all scoops at the time, O’Leary had all intention of publishing the story but ran it past the FBI before doing so. In fact, O’Leary’s development got as far as the State Department and the White House. The below snippets from the same memo show what the outcome was:

Even some 60 years later, this is a startling revelation. Hindsight tells us that there were stories planted in and out of the United States to implicate Lee Harvey Oswald as a Cuban-backed assassin. In fact, what Jerry O’Leary was told runs incredibly close to the account of Nicaraguan-native, and CIA informant, Gilberto Alvarado Ugarte, who presented at the United States’ Mexico City Embassy during the immediate aftermath of the Kennedy assassination and declared that he witnessed Lee Oswald being paid $6,500 by a Cuban man to kill President Kennedy. Were what O’Leary was told, and the Alvarado facet, part of the same narrative hatched by the plotters to cast the blame for President Kennedy’s assassination on Fidel Castro? Likely so.

Who was O’Leary’s ‘CIA man in Dallas’ who was an ‘unimpeachable source’? One obvious candidate was J. Walton Moore. He was literally the agency’s man in Dallas as he was head of its local ‘Domestic Contacts Division’ there. His name will be familiar to JFK assassination researchers as it was the incredibly well-connected local oil man, George De Mohrenschildt who alleged that Moore told him ‘the guy (Oswald) seems to be okay’ to assist.

Another, more likely candidate was CIA operative David Atlee Phillips. He was prolific in anti-Castro operations and surveillance operations in Mexico City – which when we consider the Alvarado episode alongside the story Jerry O’Leary was told – all of it sat right in the middle of Phillips’ wheelhouse.

Phillips’ name will also be familiar to JFK assassination researchers as he is widely believed to have used the alias ‘Maurice Bishop’ as both a contact for Lee Oswald and as the CIA benefactor for Alpha-66, the most prolific of anti-Castro Cuban organisations across the United States at the time.

It so happens that David Phillips confessed (while on his deathbed) to being in Dallas when President Kennedy was assassinated and testified to the HSCA in 1977 that Jerry O’Leary was a close friend of his. According to Jefferson Morley’s ‘Our Man in Mexico’, O’Leary and Phillips had been friends since they both worked in the same media circles in Chile since the early-50s – which is interesting when we look at O’Leary’s pro-Phillips / CIA article (below) from February 1977!

Intriguingly, Jerry O’Leary served in the U.S. Marines in World War II and as of 1963 was still serving in the Reserves Corps. By the time he testified to the HSCA in 1977, he had made the rank of colonel. On December 1, 1963, O’Leary could have easily received the tip from the FBI and used his own status with Marines at the time to make contact with John Donovan - Lee Oswald’s superior officer when he too was in the Marines. The below is a snippet of O’Leary’s resulting article that branded Oswald a ‘wise guy’, ‘troublesome’ and a loner:

In October 1977, eight months after Jerry O’Leary’s pro-Phillips / CIA article, Carl Bernstein published his own piece in the Rolling Stone naming O’Leary and Hal Hendrix as members of the media who had been enlisted in the CIA’s Operation MOCKINGBIRD – an operation for manipulating foreign and domestic media. Hendrix was also confirmed as a Miami newsman who had been loaded with Oswald pro-Castro information prior to 11/22. Regarding O’Leary, Bernstein’s article referenced Central American affairs as what he was enlisted for with MOCKINGBIRD, but could O'Leary's CIA involvement have been included the weekend of November 22nd? Again, likely so.

Actually, it could have been earlier. Aside from the long association with David Phillips, in November 1962, O’Leary wrote an article claiming that, in the weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet Missiles remained in Cuba and were being hidden in caves. The article cites anti-Castro organisation, DRE and its representative Luis Fernandez Rocha for the claims. The fact that Jerry O’Leary’s friend, Phillips was closely affiliated with the DRE and their agenda at the time cannot just be a coincidence. It was a textbook play by Phillips to use the media to mount pressure on the White House when it came to Cuban affairs so there is every reason to conclude that O'Leary's Nov. ‘62 article was at the behest of David Phillips - either in an official or unofficial capacity.

Beyond the article by Carl Bernstein, no fallout or further scrutiny would fall upon Jerry O’Leary. He would continue to be relied upon by the FBI to write articles that suited their agenda. For instance, in May of 1968, while Martin Luther King’s alleged assassin, James Earl Ray was yet to be apprehended, O’Leary was mobilised to write an article for the Readers Digest ‘straightening out the misrepresentations of others, as well as for producing leads’. O’Leary had done the same thing regarding the kidnap-murder of Alfred Coors in 1960, when he penned an article that November that was lauded for assisting in the prime suspect, Joseph Corbett's apprehension.

In the early 80’s, when the Washington Star closed, O’Leary joined Ronald Reagan’s administration as the press secretary for William P. Clark – National Security Advisor. When the Washington Times started, O’Leary joined it and took up the position as White House Correspondent. He died in 1993.

In Part Three, armed with this in-depth perspective on Jerry O’Leary and his clear intelligence ties as of the weekend of November 22nd, 1963, we will be able to explore why the Stairs vs. Elevator and Oswald’s reference to the ACLU mistruths were generated so as to clear the record once and for all. It will leave us with one final question on the suspect Jerry O’Leary.

Now, I have revisited the ‘Stairs vs. Elevator’ story and devoted new research to not only prove once and for all that it could not have happened but why and how it was manufactured and came to surface in the first place. In doing so, I have pulled a long and and complicated thread involving U.S. intelligence to finally close the door on a mystery that time forgot but, in the context of Oswald’s incarceration and murder, was actually pivotal to cementing him in the eyes of the public as the ‘lone nut communist sympathiser’ who killed President Kennedy.

The reporters in question were Ike Pappas, Jeremiah (Jerry) O’Leary and Maurice Carroll. Pappas and Carroll were based in New York and O’Leary, Washington D.C. so they had travelled to Dallas to cover the events in the wake of the president’s assassination.

Simply put, each reporter would go on to give their own accounts of how they were able to see Oswald being led the short distance from the Homicide & Robbery Bureau offices to the elevator (indicated in the floor plan below) and use the nearby stairs to race the elevator to be in the basement three floors below in time to see Oswald and his escort emerge.

It all sounds innocent enough and on the surface, of little consequence to what immediately eventuated but there are a number of holes through this story that was never scrutinised to see if there was more to it. Below are the key components that debunk Pappas, O’Leary and Carroll’s stairs accounts.

1. Elevator Speed

In my book, I speculated that the elevator carrying Oswald could not have been slow enough to be outpaced by three men running down four flights of stairs. But I had since uncovered footage of the outside of the elevator in the jail office taken at a time either before or after the Oswald shooting. The footage actually zooms in on the exterior panel for the elevator and shows the numbers indicating the floors that it was running to. It so happens that this footage also shows the elevator coming down from the Third Floor by the lighting up of each number of the floor as it descended. See for yourself but I can confirm that the total time taken was 19 seconds. This point alone scuttles the notion that the elevator could be beaten on foot using a non-continuous set of stairs from the Third Floor - which brings me to my next point.

2. Positioning of Stairs

The stairway that Carroll, O’Leary and Pappas each referred to did not lead all the way from the Third Floor to the Basement. We know this because if we use the elevator’s position as a guide, in the Third Floor layout chart above, in terms of the basement, if they led all the way to there, the stairs would land just behind where Oswald was shot. And, obviously, there are no stairs to be seen in the visual records of the shooting. This means the stairs deviated on either the Second or Ground Floor and led to another point of the basement. Therefore, prolonging the journey using them from the Third Floor to the basement.

3. Evolution of the Stairs Story

How and when the accounts from all three reporters emerged regarding the Stairs vs. Elevator story is incredibly telling so I have laid them out below in chronological order to really state the case:

November 24, 1963:

The first statement that Jerry O’Leary provided for any investigation on the Oswald shooting was to the Dallas Special Agent in Charge for the FBI, J. Gordon Shanklin. In the statement, O’Leary merely describes being in the basement when Oswald was brought out there. He describes seeing the armoured car on the ramp with a blue automobile behind it. O’Leary then describes seeing a stout man step out and shoot Oswald. There is no mention of his being up on the Third Floor and scrurrying down a series of stairs to beat Lee Oswald in the elevator down to the basement.

December 2, 1963:

Ike Pappas was interviewed for the FBI’s investigation by Agents Leyland Lowery and Joseph Hester. In this statement, it only refers to Pappas saying how he entered the basement by a ‘public stairway’ on the morning of November 24 and that he wasn’t asked to identify himself. There is no reference to Jerry O’Leary, Maurice Carroll or even his being on the Third Floor at all and indeed racing down from there on the Sunday. The remainder of Pappas’ statement relates to his observations and actions in the basement at the time of the shooting.

December 3, 1963:

Still in Dallas, Jerry O’Leary spoke to Agent Bardwell Odum about his movements across the weekend of November 22^nd starting with encountering Jack Ruby and getting the sense that he was familiar with City Hall and a police ‘hanger on’. O’Leary also commented on the general conditions and lack of organisation across City Hall in terms of media identification being checked by the DPD. O’Leary spoke of being on the Third Floor just prior to the start of Oswald’s transfer and hearing ‘American Civil Liberties..’ said before recounting running down the stairs to the basement with ‘Ike Pappas’.

December 8, 1963:

Jerry O’Leary was interviewed once more for the FBI back in Washington D.C by Agent Richard Wood Kaiser. In this statement, O’Leary covers his movements across that weekend up until Chief Curry announcing as late as 10:15am on 11/24 that Oswald ‘could have been moved last night’ due to threats made against his life but he was not because he (Curry) didn’t want to ‘double-cross the press’. O’Leary then mentions how he and ‘Pappas determined that they could remain on the third floor to observe Oswald’s exit from the Homicide Squad Room and would have sufficient time to quickly descend the stairs to the basement arriving there before Oswald would in the elevator’. O’Leary went on to detail how he and Pappas also arranged to use the latter’s car to follow the convoy transporting Oswald to the County Jail. He referenced Oswald saying he wanted to speak to someone from the American Civil Liberties Union and what he witnessed of the shooting.

December 9, 1963:

Maurice Carroll provided his one and only statement regarding the weekend of November 22^nd to the FBI with Agents Timothy B. Lagrone and James J. Rogers in New York. In it, Carroll also lays out his arrival in Dallas and general activities at City Hall including witnessing Chief Curry advising the press on Nov. 23^rd of when Oswald’s transfer would take place the next morning. Carroll refers to going to the Third Floor of City Hall at 10:00am on the Sunday in time for the start of Oswald’s transfer. There he noted fellow reporters, Ike Pappas and another named ‘Jerry’ whom he didn’t know which paper he worked for or which city he was from. Next, Carroll details how he, Pappas and ‘Jerry’ raced down the stairs to beat Oswald in the elevator down to the basement and when he got down there, Oswald had not yet appeared’ and that this was ‘probably due to the fact that the elevator was very slow moving’. The remainder of Carroll’s statement details his observations of the basement prior to Oswald being shot and whether he knew of any connection between Ruby and Oswald and if he had observed Ruby prior to the shooting – all of which were part and parcel points in the FBI’s questions.

December 11, 1963:

Ike Pappas gave his statement for the DPD investigation to Lieutenant C.C Wallace. Out of Carroll, O’Leary and he, Pappas was the only person to speak to the Dallas Police. In this statement, he included a very vague reference to being on the Third Floor prior to Oswald’s emergence and that he observed Captain Fritz and the Detectives leave their office with Oswald to go to the elevator. Incredibly, the statement then has Pappas saying that he used the elevator to get from the Third Floor to the Basement! And in doing so, he got down to the basement a minute before Oswald ‘was brought out’. This does not line up with Pappas or anyone else’s account up until this point in time.

January 7, 1964:

The FBI might have picked up on Ike Pappas’ contradictions because he was interviewed by them once again. Only this time it was by Agents Eugene O’Neill and… James J. Rogers – the same agent who took Maurice Carroll’s statement that correlated with Jerry O’Leary’s! And the premise for this statement was regarding the tape recording Pappas made of the scene using a handheld recorder. Apparently having the recorder on while up on the Third Floor with fellow reporter, ‘Mickey Carroll’ and another he didn’t know the name of, Pappas stated that he recorded either he or Carroll asking Oswald whether he had anything to say while he was being led along the hallway. To which Oswald replied that he wanted to see a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union. Then Pappas said that the tape recorder stayed on as he, with no one else mentioned, ran down four flights of stairs to the basement to be there before Oswald. The recorder remained on and recorded the moments before, during and after Oswald’s shooting.

Statements Summary:

Two things clearly originated in Jerry O’Leary’s statement to Agent Odum on December 3^rd:

a) the fact that Oswald referred to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) because apart from O’Leary’s subsequent statements, it was not until January 7 that Ike Pappas first made mention of Oswald referring to the ACLU. And even then it was incredibly non-committal to the point where he wasn’t sure if it was he or Maurice ‘Mickey’ Carroll who asked Oswald if he had anything to say to prompt the alleged response regarding the ACLU:

Wouldn’t anyone, let alone career reporters like Ike Pappas and Maurice Carroll remember if they asked the world’s most famous suspect a question in what would turn out to be the last minutes of their life?

Yet, in his one and only statement, Maurice Carroll never referred to Oswald saying he wanted to speak to the American Civil Liberties Union. He would only do so well after the fact in his 2013 book.

b) The Stairs vs. Elevator story was the second key element to orginate from Jerry O’Leary’s December 3^rd statement because it was only after it that Pappas and Carroll’s accounts to the FBI generally began to line up.

• Coincidentally, or not, the same FBI agent. James J. Rogers, was present when Carroll gave his one and only statement and when Pappas gave his final one on January 7. Might he have had something to do with how both statements were documented?

• It’s also interesting to note that despite being the person who would originate the Stair vs. Elevator story, in O’Leary’s very first statement on the actual day of the Oswald shooting, he made no reference to the Third Floor and his miraculous feat of getting from there to the basement!

Ike Pappas was the only one of the three reporters to also testify at Jack Ruby’s trial and for the Warren Commission. This makes sense regarding Ruby’s trial as he was in the immediate vicinity when he shot Oswald and had made an audio recording of the scene. On the witness stand at the trial, Pappas only spoke of his observations around the basement before, during and after the shooting. Interestingly, he admitted that he accidentally erased parts of the copy of the tape from the scene of Oswald’s shooting while getting it ready for the trial. In doing so, he admitted that the parts erased were only portions that recorded the moments after Oswald’s shooting. These are available on YouTube to listen to. Yet in his trial testimony, there was no mention by Pappas of being up on the Third Floor and his recording starting up there. And to this day, what Pappas allegedly recorded up there and during his alleged journey down to the basement has never surfaced.

When providing his sworn deposition to the Warren Commission in July of ’64, Pappas had the ‘Stairs vs. Elevator’ story raised when questioned by Counsel Burt Griffin. It’s an interesting and revealing exchange because Jerry O’Leary’s name was clearly mentioned to by Griffin:

Griffin: Do you remember a reporter from one of the Washington newspapers by the name of O’Leary?

Pappas: No; not by name. Perhaps by sight.

Griffin: I ask you this because in talking with O’Leary, O’Leary had the recollection that he met Ruby with you on the third floor of the Dallas Police Department sometime before the press conference (Friday / Saturday midnight), and he thought it was in the vicinity of the public elevators. Do you recall anything like that?

Pappas: I don’t recall that; no. If this incident happened, if O’Leary is right about the person that he was with, I don’t remember it. I don’t even know who it was that I was with that night. There was a lot of confusion. If this person was Jack Ruby, he didn’t do anything that would make that occurrence stick in my mind.

Griffin: I might be able to identify O’Leary, a little better for you, by indicating that he explained to us that on Sunday you and he worked out a procedure whereby you figured out whether you could, by running, beat the elevator from the third floor down to the basement. As I recall his explanation he said that you rode on the elevator and he ran down the stairs, and you two found that he could run down the stairs before the elevator could get down there. Do you remember that episode?

Pappas: No; I don’t. I think O’Leary has me mistaken for someone else. I don’t recall that at all. This was Sunday, of course, the day of the killing of Oswald?

Griffin: Yes.

Pappas: No; I don’t recall that incident.

Griffin: Were you on the third floor when Henry Wade came out of the homicide office just before the conference was held in the assembly room?

Pappas: Friday night, you mean?

Griffin: Yes.

Pappas: Yes.

There are a couple of key points to consider here. What Pappas told the DPD on December 11, 1963 about taking the elevator himself down the basement is not mentioned. And also, note how Burt Griffin said in ‘talking with O’Leary’ and ‘O’Leary explaining to us…’ The thing was, Jerry O’Leary never appeared before the Warren Commission … so it’s not like Griffin was merely quoting the formal deposition of another witness. When did these conversations take place and why were they off the record? What made Jerry O’Leary so special? Perhaps we’ll never know but Griffin was clearly trying to lead Pappas by telling him how O’Leary recounted the fantastical story of he and Pappas ‘working out a procedure’ to help figure out how the elevator could be beat down the stairs. But Pappas clearly denied the incident.

Also to Ike Pappas’ credit, when Burt Griffin was flip-flopping between the topics and timeframes in his questioning, Pappas had the wherewithal to confirm what he was talking about and when as it was well documented that Ruby was at City Hall giving out sandwiches and brokering interviews for the press earlier on the weekend of November 22^nd. But was Griffin trying to slip up Pappas or fluster him into something? Or was he just simply muddying the record with seesawing questions? Despite Pappas never uttering Jerry O’Leary’s name in any of his statements to the FBI and DPD, Griffin certainly made sure Pappas heard it while he was under oath and testifying to the Warren Commission. Was there an agenda to shoehorn him into corroborating some or any of what Jerry O’Leary contended? If so, why? We’ll pick this up later in this series.

4. Witnesses?

What about any other members of the media who testified to being on the Third Floor close to the time that Oswald was brought down from there on November 24? I also speculated in my book that they were at least Nelson Benton, Izzy Bleckman, Jimmie Turner, Tony Ripley, John Tankersley and David Timmons as all at least referred to being up on the Third Floor that morning in their subsequent statements. Yet none of them referred to Carroll, Pappas or O’Leary or that Oswald was asked any questions by any members of the media or that he ever referenced the ACLU. Add to this the fact that none of the DPD personnel who escorted Lee Oswald from the Homicide Bureau to the point where he got shot (Captain Fritz, Lieutenant Swain, Detectives Leavelle, Graves and Montgomery) down in the basement made mention of encountering any press on the Third Floor or of any delays when coming down in the elevator. Why? I think it’s because the story that O’Leary started just did not happen. There was no statement from Oswald about the ACLU and there was no running down the stairs by any of the reporters to the basement.

Over the years, apart from the book that Maurice Carroll later wrote, Ike Pappas was the most vocal and active when it came to speaking about the weekend of November 22^nd. There are clips on YouTube of various interviews and panels he spoke on in the early to mid-90’s. One was for the National Press Club and another appears to have been part of a panel discussion.

Speaking for the National Press Club, Ike Pappas does not mention being up on the Third Floor at all in the minutes prior to Oswald’s transfer commencing. Yet in both, he goes into detail about the interaction that he had with Jack Ruby just after Oswald’s Friday midnight ‘press conference’. In the panel interview, Pappas did refer to being up on the Third Floor with Jerry O’Leary as both had the idea of scooping all of the other reporters by asking questions of Oswald when he was brought out up there to start the transfer. According to Pappas, the extent of his and O’Leary’s thinking included ‘practicing running down the stairs’ to ensure they gave themselves as much time to ask Oswald questions before he was put in the elevator and then race him / the elevator down to the basement to not miss the happenings down there.

It clearly hadn’t occurred to Pappas all those years later that he never mentioned this story to the FBI and DPD and denied it while when giving his deposition to the Warren Commission back in 1964! How can the memory of someone who witnessed such a historic event, and who’s very profession was to observe and report, be so fuzzy!

Jerry O’Leary never spoke publicly about the weekend of November 22^nd other than in his articles at the time and sporadically up to and including writing hit pieces on the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 70’s.

So, having disproven both the ‘Stairs vs. Elevator’ scenario and the assertion of Oswald declaring that he wanted to speak to the ACLU, we can see how these narratives emerged. But the question of why remains and we will come to that later in this series. In order to do so, Jerry O’Leary must be acknowledged as being at the centre of both narratives so we must delve into him and his background to see if there was anything more to his being in Dallas as a reporter on the weekend of November 22^nd.

Just saying…

‘Death to Justice’ is incredibly detailed and as such, uncovers new aspects of that fateful event that has laid uncovered since. So to highlight the many breakthroughs in my book, I am producing a series of videos for my YouTube channel that uses the evidence to lay out the many narratives, contradictions, irregularities and mysteries regarding the Oswald shooting.

My first video, ‘Lee Harvey Oswald’s Final Night’ demonstrates:

• the lack of communication between the Dallas Police and Sheriff Departments for how Oswald’s transfer to the County Jail,

• the alleged ‘threats’ on Oswald’s life that were only phoned into the FBI and Sheriff Department, yet not the DPD, on behalf of a vigilante ‘committee’ that were baying for the president’s alleged assassin’s blood,

• and the questionable (and uncorroborated) account of Police Officer Billy Grammer, who said only after the fact that he took a call from Oswald’s would-be shooter, Jack Ruby, overnight on Nov. 23rd / 24th, warning that Oswald would be harmed while being transferred.

  

  There really is more than meets the eye when it comes to Oswald’s murder | execution | assassination | execution so stay tuned for more videos that explore every aspect of that fateful morning in Dallas City Hall.

deathtojustice.com

To recognise the 61st anniversary of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination, I use hindsight to write a news article as though I were a diligent reporter at the scene of the shooting on November 24 1963.

This week, I was fortunate to appear on two leading Podcasts - Black Op Radio and Out of the Blank - to discuss Oswald's shooting.

Listen for yourself and be the judge… is Oswald's murder worth the interest?

Black Op Radio:

https://blackopradio.com/archives2024.html

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1OIQbYJ7eZj8KyhxEQJDSz?si=l2EvJkmNQqCfBCJ_vN5wqQ

Out of the Blank:

https://youtu.be/TN5ijLtu4AU?si=bHAMKK3SO34Yks6w

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ls1ozArDn2T8LWE0BM6FNsi=gGCicrAmRWaSFWFABBq4dQ

Thank you Len and Robbie for having me on their shows.

In my Substack article on October 26, barely hours after the Rogan Trump interview first dropped, I quoted Trump as saying that he would ‘open the JFK files up immediately’ if he returned to the Oval Office.

Now that Trump has been re-elected, is it safe to be optimistic, albeit cautiously, that he will come through on his word? Let’s look at the landscape now as opposed to 2017 when Trump was legally obligated to release the files, but didn’t.

Now, Trump will be returning to the White House on a wave of popularity thanks in part to snaring former Democrat figures Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his conducting podcast interviews during this campaign - during which he discussed the JFK files.

He will also be sitting in his second and final term as president. This has traditionally been when presidents have felt less constricted in their decisions and policies without threat of voter backlash. President Kennedy’s decision to withdraw all US troops from Vietnam by the end of 1965, during his second term in office, is a good example.

There is also the strong likelihood of RFK Jr. taking a prominent position within the Trump government, either within the cabinet or as a senior bureaucrat. And most know that Kennedy has been pragmatic in his views on the assassinations of his father and uncle.

So with the above considered, it really would be understandable for anyone interested in the release of the remaining JFK files to have some optimism.

In the Rogan interview, Trump mentioned that Mike Pompeo requested he not open the JFK files back in 2017 and early talk suggests that Pompeo could also figure in Trump’s cabinet in 2025. If this is the case, may Pompeo carry the same line with Trump and will it influence him once again? Trump seemed to cite one of the main reasons for not releasing the files in 2017 as being that they contained addresses of people who were still alive. While not disclosed until Oct. 2024, this ought to have immediately sent JFK assassination researchers scrambling to account for anyone related to the case who were still alive in 2017 and might have been of any consequence to the events in 1963. Deep cover assets in Mexico and / or the United States who were part of intelligence operations that were used to cover the cloak of secrecy over the JFK assassination… who knows?

Seven / eight years will have passed by the time Trump returns to power so we will have to see if he keeps his word.

If he does and authorises their release, what we will find is a whole other kettle of fish.

What my work in compiling the Garrison Folders Index taught me was the smallest reference - a name, a date, a location etc.. can make the difference in bringing threads of evidence together to form new lines of enquiry.

The JFK files that are yet to be released will no doubt have lines and paragraphs blacked out as redacted but could those with the black pens have possibly been across every single name, date, location etc… to catch all red flags? No, not at all.

It is therefore up to us to use tools like the Garrison Folders Index and abundant resources such as the Mary Ferrell Foundation to get to work when / if the folders are released to correlate and disseminate all newly released content. I certainly will be ready with my list of suspects outlined in my book regarding Lee Oswald’s murder.

Because it should never be too late to scour the puzzle pieces and unveil as much of the truth regarding President Kennedy’s assassination.

A frustrating aspect of the early investigations into Oswald’s murder by the DPD and FBI was the ‘cookie cutter’ approach to taking witness statements. There are very few records of original handwritten statements that still exist, if there were many at all, that truly represent witness accounts. All that we have are typewritten statements without any signatures and that are very broad in detail and coverage. There are very few instances where witnesses were recorded as giving any specific or unique detail.

The DPD was very limited (whether that was self-imposed or legitimately due to resources) in terms of who they interviewed for their investigation, particularly when it came to non-police personnel but thankfully, in a lot of instances, the FBI did interview people that the DPD did not. However, it is clear when reading all statements that there were clear themes that the FBI were and were not interested in. They quizzed all non-police witnesses on how they entered Dallas City Hall on November 24, whether they (media personnel) were asked to produce credentials, if they saw Jack Ruby prior to the shooting, impressions on overall security and indeed knew of any connections between Dallas police officers and him. Yet, there are very few instances in the FBI statements of witnesses stating exactly where they were standing and what they saw at the time of the shooting. Enclosed is an example of the FBI statement that LA-based journalist, Geoff Edwards provided on December 2^nd (which I did not include reference to in my book as I was not able to find it prior to publishing):

In my book, I confirm that Edwards was present along with 45 other media personnel to witness the shooting and approximate where he was standing using a statement he provided on camera after the shooting. But in his FBI statement, there is no such information.

The question remains… why the effective radio silence from the media in terms of what was witnessed exactly? Ruby shooting Oswald happened so quickly but that cannot justify the lack of detail from the media in investigation statements and in later years.  Does the 50/50 ratio of DPD to media that I verify in my book as being present at Oswald’s shooting have something to do with the silence?

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Justice-Shooting-Harvey-Oswald/dp/1763725804/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3G1NBDC7G5JTX&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.kZCEMvqnQkzgcFh6PP7D6A.RDhhYpgqd4M_uE1GJefx_ag5z_NyVh9Uv059QJKd9Ss&dib_tag=se&keywords=death+to+justice+the+shooting+of+lee+harvey+oswald&qid=1730253689&sprefix=death+to+justice+%2Caps%2C345&sr=8-1