The JFK Assassination — President Kennedy Shot in Dallas

The Case

The assassination of John F. Kennedy is among the most heavily documented and most disputed crimes of the twentieth century. On November 22, 1963, the 35th President of the United States was shot dead while riding in an open presidential limousine through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. The official investigation, carried out by the Warren Commission, concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, firing three shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Because Oswald was himself murdered two days later by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, he was never tried, and the case remains a permanent subject of public debate, congressional review and conspiracy theory.

The Crime

The shooting occurred at approximately 12:30 p.m. CST as Kennedy's motorcade made its way through Dealey Plaza on a planned political visit to Texas. According to the Warren Commission's findings, three shots were fired from a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository overlooking the plaza. One bullet struck Kennedy in the upper back and exited through his throat, also wounding Texas Governor John B. Connally Jr., who was seated in front of him. A second shot struck the president in the head, causing a fatal wound. Kennedy was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly afterward.

Investigators recovered three spent cartridge cases on the sixth floor along with a mail-order Mannlicher-Carcano rifle linked to Oswald. Within roughly 90 minutes of the shooting, Oswald also shot and killed Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit before being arrested in a movie theatre in the Oak Cliff neighborhood.

The Victims

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was 46 years old and had served as president since January 1961. He was the youngest elected U.S. president and the first Roman Catholic to hold the office. His presidency was defined by the Cuban Missile Crisis, the early stages of the Vietnam War, the space race and the civil-rights movement. Governor Connally, seriously wounded in the chest, wrist and thigh, survived. A Dallas police officer, J.D. Tippit, was also killed by Oswald during his attempt to flee.

Investigation

The immediate investigation was conducted by the Dallas Police, the FBI and the Secret Service. Oswald, a 24-year-old former U.S. Marine who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959 and returned to the United States in 1962, became a suspect within hours. According to Biography.com, key evidence against him included the rifle, the cartridge cases, a now-famous photograph of him posing with weapons, and his documented visits to the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City in the weeks before the assassination.

On November 29, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren. After ten months of work, the Warren Commission concluded in September 1964 that Oswald had acted alone and that there was no credible evidence of a conspiracy. A later congressional inquiry, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, revisited the case in the late 1970s and, while still attributing the shots to Oswald, controversially concluded that Kennedy was 'probably' killed as the result of a conspiracy — a finding the committee's report attempted to support with acoustic evidence later disputed by other experts.

Trial and Verdict

Oswald never stood trial. On November 24, 1963, as he was being transferred from Dallas Police headquarters to the county jail, he was shot in the abdomen by Jack Ruby, live on national television. Oswald died shortly afterward at Parkland Hospital, the same hospital where Kennedy had been pronounced dead two days earlier.

Ruby, born Jacob Rubenstein around March 25, 1911, was a Dallas nightclub owner with peripheral ties to organized crime figures. He was tried in Dallas and on March 14, 1964, convicted of 'murder with malice' and sentenced to death. That conviction was reversed on appeal in October 1966 on grounds related to evidentiary rulings and venue, and a new trial was ordered. Ruby died of a pulmonary embolism in January 1967 before the retrial could take place.

Today

More than sixty years later, the JFK assassination remains officially solved but publicly contested. Generations of researchers have proposed alternative theories implicating the CIA, the Mafia — including figures such as Santo Trafficante Jr. — Cuban exiles, or Soviet intelligence, though none have produced evidence accepted by official investigations. The U.S. National Archives has continued to release previously classified records under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, with further document releases as recently as the 2020s. Dealey Plaza is preserved as a National Historic Landmark, and the Sixth Floor Museum at the former Texas School Book Depository documents the assassination and its enduring legacy.