John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States. The mishap of the Kennedy assassination happened on November 22 of the year 1963 at 12:30 pm. Kennedy was murdered during a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.
Lee Harvey Oswald was the killer who was also a former marine and had defected for a certain time to the Soviet Union. The killing of the young president was thought of by many Americans and hence was an act of conspiracy rather than the act of an individual. The incident was the subject of widespread speculation.
This article provides the details in brief on the former President John F Kennedy’s assassination. Also have a look at DC Beltway Sniper’s Case Study.
About John F Kennedy
John F Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917. He lived in Brookline for ten years in his childhood. He has been a part of United States Naval Reserve during World War II from 1941-1945. For which he was awarded Navy and Marine Corps medal, Purple Heart medal, and American Defense Service Medal.
He also worked as a Journalist in 1945 as a special correspondent for Hearst Newspaper. John’s brother Joe was the face of the family for the political standard. However, his death in 1944 during the World War changed everything and the responsibility fell to John F Kennedy for candidacy in the elections.
He married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953. The couple had three children. Kennedy became the 35th President of the US. He held the position in the office from 20th January 1961 until the 22nd of November when he was assassinated.
The Kennedy Assasination
President Kennedy accompanied by his wife Jacqueline Kennedy and the Vice President of the United States on November 21, 1963, undertook a two-day, five cities trip for fundraising to Texas. President Kennedy was welcomed with warm greetings at his first two stops i.e., San Antonio and Houston.
The president along with his wife and the Vice President spent their night of November 21 at Fort Worth. President Kennedy and his party made a short flight to Dallas’s love field airport the next morning. President along with his wife Jacqueline boarded the backseat of a customized motorcade with the democratic Texas Governor John Connally and his wife.
When the motorcade began traveling through the Dealey plaza on the edge of downtown Dallas, they passed the multistorey Texas school book depository building. At around 12:30 pm shots rang out. A bullet that was fired pierced the base of the President’s neck and exited through his throat which later on passed through Governor Connally’s shoulder and wrist, and then ultimately hitting his thigh.
Another bullet fired struck President Kennedy in the back of the head. Lee Harvey Oswald had fired these bullets from the multistorey building. One among the three shots fired missed while the other two shots struck Kennedy.
The president was taken to the nearby Parkland memorial hospital. However, the doctor’s efforts went in vain and President Kennedy was declared dead at 1:00 pm. Fortunately, Governor Connolly survived his injuries.
Identity of the Offender
Lee Harvey Oswald was the shooter in the Kennedy assassination. He was a 24-year-old gunman with a wife and a child. Oswald never stood for the trial of Kennedy’s assassination as he was shot two days before the trial by Jack Ruby who was Dallas’s nightclub owner.
Jack Ruby was officially known as Jacob Rubenstein. He operated strip joints and had some connections in organized crime. He came into the limelight when he killed Lee Oswald emerging from the crowd with a .38 revolver.
Jack was immediately detained for his actions and was sentenced to death by the court. However, in 1966 Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision by explaining that he didn’t receive a fair trial in Dallas. He died in 1967 due to Lung cancer while awaiting his new trial.
While many believed Ruby to be a hero/superstar, he did murder Oswald and was charged with murder. He claimed rage for the assassination of Kennedy was the reason for his actions. However, many believed that he killed Oswald to hide a much larger conspiracy that Oswald might have revealed during the investigation.
Official Investigation in the Case
Upon investigation, bullet casings were recovered near the window on the sixth floor of the Texas school book depository building. The rifle was recovered on the sixth floor of the building. On enquiring about the building’s employees, it was learned two people were missing.
One was a man who had gone out to watch the motorcade and was banned from entering the building and the other was Oswald, who had been working there for a month. Oswald was found on the sixth floor of the building half an hour before the shooting and also had been encountered by the policemen just after the shooting.
Oswald shot and killed J.D Tippit a Dallas policeman who confronted Oswald at the boarding house. He was later apprehended by the police at 1:15 pm at the entrance of the Texas theatre.
After Oswald was arrested by the Dallas police, they collected the physical evidence found at the crime scene and held Oswald at their headquarters questioning him about the Kennedy assassination and killing of Tippit for around 12 hours between 2:30 pm on November 22 and 11:00 am on November 24. Oswald provided very little information during the questioning.
FBI and Warren’s Commission Reports on Kennedy Assassination
The warren commission received the FBI report of its investigation on December 9, 1963. The reports concluded that the three bullets were fired- the first hitting Kennedy, the second bullet hitting Governor Connally, and the third hitting Kennedy in the head.
It was concluded by the warren commission that one of the three bullets fired missed, one passed through Kennedy, and then hit Connally and the third bullet struck Kennedy in the head. Oswald was shot to death by Jack Ruby the owner of Dallas’s nightclub.
Jack Ruby was supposed to be tried and accounted guilty of murder on March 14, 1964, and sentenced to death. Ruby died before the new trial could be held in October 1966.
After investigating for 10 months long it was concluded that Oswald acted alone in the Kennedy assassination.
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