Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was, according to five government investigations, the sniper who assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

A former U.S. Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union between October 1959 and June 1962, Oswald was initially arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit, on a Dallas street approximately 40 minutes after Kennedy was shot. Suspected in the assassination of Kennedy as well, Oswald denied involvement in either of the killings. Two days later, while being transferred from police headquarters to the county jail, Oswald was shot and mortally wounded by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in full view of television cameras broadcasting live.

In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, firing three shots, a conclusion also reached by prior investigations carried out by the FBI and Dallas Police Department, yet rejected by much of the U.S. public over the years. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Oswald fired the shots which killed Kennedy, but differed from previous investigations in concluding he "probably" did not act alone.

Death
On Sunday, November 24, Oswald was being led through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters in advance of his transfer to the county jail when, at 11:21 a.m., Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby stepped from the crowd and shot Oswald in his left lower chest. The round struck several organs, tore his vena cava and aorta and lodged in the skin of his right side. Oswald was rushed unconscious to Parkland Memorial Hospital—the same hospital where President Kennedy had died two days earlier. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m. An autopsy was performed by the Dallas County Medical Examiner at 2:45 p.m. the same day. The stated cause of death in the autopsy report was "hemorrhage secondary to gunshot wound of the chest." A network television camera, there to cover the transfer, was broadcasting live, and millions witnessed the shooting on televsion as it happened. The event was also captured in a well-known photograph (see right). Ruby later said he had been distraught over Kennedy's death and that his motive for killing Oswald was "...saving Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial." Others have hypothesized that Ruby was part of a conspiracy.

After autopsy, Oswald was buried in Fort Worth's Rose Hill Memorial Burial Park. A marker inscribed simply Oswald replaces the stolen original tombstone, which gave Oswald's full name, and birth and death dates.

In 2010 Oswald's original coffin was auctioned off for over $87,000.