Lee Harvey Oswald - Death

Death

See also: Jack Ruby

On Sunday, November 24, Oswald was being led through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters preparatory to 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 the abdomen. 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.

A network television camera, there to cover the transfer, was broadcasting live at the time, and millions thereby witnessed the shooting 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.

Read more about this topic:  Lee Harvey Oswald

Famous quotes containing the word death:

    There is something antique, even, in his style of treating his subject, reminding us that Heroes and Demi-gods, Fates and Furies, still exist; the common man is nothing to him, but after death the hero is apotheosized and has a place in heaven, as in the religion of the Greeks.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Life contracts and death is expected,
    As in a season of autumn.
    The soldier falls.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    Why does man freeze to death trying to reach the North Pole? Why does man drive himself to suffer the steam and heat of the Amazon? Why does he stagger his mind with the mathematics of the sky? Once the question mark has arisen in the human brain the answer must be found, if it takes a hundred years. A thousand years.
    Walter Reisch (1903–1963)