JFK+50: Volume 6, No. 1888
LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S KILLER GETS ELECTRIC CHAIR
Dallas, Texas (JFK+50) Fifty-two years ago today, March 14, 1964, Jack Ruby*, the man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to death by electrocution. It took the jury 2 hours and 20 minutes to render the verdict.
Just as his shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of Dallas City Jail on November 24, 1963 was televised live, so was the announcement of the guilty verdict. Ruby, a nightclub owner in Dallas and friend of many Dallas police officers, claimed he shot Oswald to prevent Mrs. John F. Kennedy from having to return to Dallas for a trial.
Key questions in the case of Jack Ruby and the possibility he was a part of a conspiracy include "Was he involved in any mob activities in Cuba?" & "Did he know Oswald before the assassination?"
*Jack Rubenstein (1911-1967) was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 25, 1911. He was raised by an alcoholic father & mentally unstable mother. In the 1920s, Rubenstein was involved with organized crime & was a known "runner" for Al Capone. He was drafted into the US Army in 1943 & served stateside during WWII as an aircraft mechanic. After the war, he moved to Dallas, Texas changing his name to Ruby.
"Jack Ruby: Guilty," by Alexander Burns, AmericanHeritage.com, March 14, 2007.
"Who Killed Kennedy?," by Thomas G. Buchanan, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1964.
LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S KILLER GETS ELECTRIC CHAIR
Dallas, Texas (JFK+50) Fifty-two years ago today, March 14, 1964, Jack Ruby*, the man who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to death by electrocution. It took the jury 2 hours and 20 minutes to render the verdict.
Just as his shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement of Dallas City Jail on November 24, 1963 was televised live, so was the announcement of the guilty verdict. Ruby, a nightclub owner in Dallas and friend of many Dallas police officers, claimed he shot Oswald to prevent Mrs. John F. Kennedy from having to return to Dallas for a trial.
Key questions in the case of Jack Ruby and the possibility he was a part of a conspiracy include "Was he involved in any mob activities in Cuba?" & "Did he know Oswald before the assassination?"
According to American Heritage Magazine, Jack Ruby made three trips to Havana in 1959. These visits were to see Lewis McWillie, an associate of mafia boss Santos Trafficante.
Also, a blog entry by Carole Tomlinson says that comedian Wally Weston had seen Oswald in the Carousel Club at least twice before the assassination.
Another source says that 22 year old ventriloquist, Bill Crowe, said that he saw Ruby and Oswald talking together eight to nine days before the assassination.
It is a fact that Ruby and Oswald lived in the same section of Dallas, Oak Cliff, and they both moved into the area about the same time. They also rented post office boxes at the same post office.
Thomas G. Buchanan, in his 1964 book Who Killed Kennedy?, writes that there were ten witnesses available to either the prosecution or the defense at the Ruby trial who could say that Ruby and Oswald knew each other before the assassination, but they were never called to testify.
Buchanan quotes Dorothy Kilgallen, the columnist who was found dead in her bed after having had a private interview with Jack Ruby...
"(It is my impression) that Ruby's lawyers & the (prosecutions) actions suggest that Washington knows or suspects something about Lee Harvey Oswald that it doesn't want....the world to know or suspect."
One of the jury members at the Ruby trial later said...
"There was never any doubt that (Ruby) was sane. There was no doubt that (his shooting of Oswald was premeditated), that he planned to do this, but there was some doubt as to intent on what he was doing."
In Dallas, Ruby operated 2 strip joints, managing one of them "The Carousel Club". In the course of his activities, he developed a special bond with Dallas police officers who often were seen at his clubs. In October 1966, Ruby's death sentence was reversed and while awaiting a new trial, he died at Parkland Hospital in Dallas on January 3, 1967, of lung cancer.
SOURCES
"Jack Ruby: Guilty," by Alexander Burns, AmericanHeritage.com, March 14, 2007.
"Who Killed Kennedy?," by Thomas G. Buchanan, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1964.
Jack Ruby Mug Shots
November 24, 1963
JFK/Dallas Police Dept Records
Dallas Municipal Archives
