Oswald, Lee Harvey (1939-1963), was accused of assassinating President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas. Two days later, while millions of television viewers looked on, Oswald was killed. He was shot to death by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, while being transferred from the city jail to the county jail in Dallas. Ruby pushed through a ring of police officers to shoot Oswald down.
The high-powered Italian rifle said to have killed the president was traced to Oswald through a Chicago mail-order firm. Oswald worked in the Texas School Book Depository, the building from which the fatal shots were fired. A worker recalled seeing Oswald carry a long narrow package into the building the morning of the assassination. Police captured Oswald, who was armed with a revolver, in a Dallas motion-picture theater about 90 minutes after the assassination.
Oswald was also charged with killing police officer J. D. Tippit. Tippit was shot to death in Dallas shortly after the president was killed. But Oswald denied killing either Tippit or the president. A presidential commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren investigated the case. After a 10-month investigation, the commission reported in September 1964, that Oswald, acting alone, had killed Kennedy and Tippit. However, a congressional committee later reexamined the evidence and concluded that Kennedy “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.”
A Dallas jury convicted Ruby of Oswald’s murder in 1964. The conviction was reversed in 1966 on the grounds that the trial judge had allowed illegal testimony. A new trial was ordered, but Ruby died in 1967 before the new trial started.
Loading the player...Lee Harvey Oswald gets shot
Oswald was born on Oct. 18, 1939, in New Orleans. Investigators said his school and military records showed emotional difficulty. Oswald dropped out of high school at 17 and joined the U.S. Marine Corps. He was discharged in September 1959 and went to the Soviet Union a month later. He tried to become a Soviet citizen but was turned down. He returned to the United States in 1962 with his Soviet-born wife, Marina. In the summer of 1963, Oswald worked as secretary of the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, an organization that supported Cuban President Fidel Castro. He died on Nov. 24, 1963.
A few people believed that Oswald never returned to the United States. They maintained that a Soviet agent assumed Oswald’s identity and killed Kennedy. But in 1981 Oswald’s grave was opened, and medical experts identified the body as Oswald’s.
