Three Days that Shook the World

Retired Dallas Detective Jim Leavelle remembers vividly the last words he said to Lee Harvey Oswald

The presidential motorcade moments before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News

Retired Dallas Detective Jim Leavelle remembers vividly the last words he said to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man suspected of killing Officer J.D. Tippit and the President of the United States John F. Kennedy. On the morning of Nov. 24, 1963, Leavelle was preparing to escort Oswald through the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters in advance of his transfer to the county jail.

“I was handcuffed to Oswald and I said to him ‘Lee if anyone shoots at you, I hope they are as good a shot as you are’” said Leavelle. “He laughed and said ‘Oh, nobody’s going to shoot at me.’ It was the only time I had heard him laugh. I guess it was because I complimented him on his shooting.”

Leavelle was unaware how prophetic his off-hand remark would be. At 11:21 a.m. Leavelle began walking Oswald through the basement of the Dallas Police Station toward a police van. Numerous reporters pushed forward snapping pictures of Oswald when, suddenly, a local nightclub owner named Jack Ruby stepped from the crowd and fired a single bullet from a Colt Cobra that ripped into Oswald’s abdomen. Oswald cried out in agony as the bullet entered near his navel, tore through his stomach, ricocheted off a rib and tore a canal in his liver before finally lodging beneath the skin near his navel.

“I could feel the bullet between my finger and thumb just under the surface of his skin,” said Leavelle. “He was put on a gurney and transported to the hospital. I told the doctor ‘I need that bullet once you get it out.’ I heard Oswald make a noise while he was on the gurney and he went limp. I think that was when he expired. If that bullet had not ricocheted off that rib I would have been hit.”

The murder of Oswald came just two days after the assassination of President John Kennedy on Nov 22. On the day Kennedy was slain Leavelle was assigned to working in the office but left long enough to arrest an armed robbery suspect.

He had kept up with the president’s visit on the radio. The last dispatch he heard stated the president’s motorcade had turned onto Houston Street near Dealey Plaza. Leavelle returned to the police station at approximately 12:40 p.m. where he was told Kennedy had been shot and was ordered to head to Dealey plaza where the shots had been fired.

At Dealey Plaza pandemonium was breaking loose as police combed the crime scene looking for the shooter and thousands of horrified spectators wept and tried to come to terms with the tragedy they had witnessed. Leavelle walked to the door of the book depository from where the shots were allegedly fired. Leavelle began taking witnesses across the street to the sheriff’s office where investigators began taking statements. Meanwhile, President Kennedy was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly after 1 p.m.

While Leavelle was taking witness statements a call came in that a police officer had been shot. Leavelle responded and found Officer J.D. Tippit dead in South Oak Cliff, several blocks from Dealey Plaza. He was shot just 15 minutes after Kennedy was mortally wounded. Tippit had observed Oswald fleeing Dealey Plaza and attempted to stop him when he was gunned down.

“There were two sisters living in a house on that street and they saw Oswald run across the front lawn of their home moments after he shot Tippit,” said Leavelle. “We found three spent shells on the front lawn.”

Oswald was arrested within an hour at a nearby movie theater by a horde of police officers. He was charged with the murder of Tippit. At that moment he was not suspected in the killing of Kennedy.

“At the police station I was questioning Oswald and I remember he said ‘I didn’t shoot anybody’”,Leavelle recounted. “Most people would say ‘I didn’t shoot that cop’ but he said ‘anybody.’ It was as if he was getting his denial in early for both murders. I didn’t realize at the time he was suspected in the Kennedy assassination until another detective came in and informed Oswald they wanted to talk to him about the shooting of Kennedy.”

In the course of the next two days Oswald was interrogated at length and suspected with both murders. He was in the process of being transported to the county jail when Ruby gunned him down.

“I interrogated Ruby after he shot Oswald and he told me ‘I just wanted to be a hero. I guess I messed up good.’ I said ‘You can say that again with capital letters. Ruby died in prison in 1967. He was sentenced to life.”

Because Oswald never went to trial many Americans began to suspect there was a conspiracy involved. These theories have been dismissed by the 93-year-old Leavelle who is now retired.

“I investigated this case from every angle and I am convinced Oswald acted alone. Members of Oswald’s family believe the same thing,” said Leavelle. “I am a good friend of his brother, Robert Oswald, who believes his brother acted alone. Oswald’s wife, Marina, always believed Lee Harvey acted alone until the conspiracy theorists got to her. She soon discovered she could make as much as $15,000 for each interview.”

Leavelle still sees Robert Oswald about twice a year. Earlier this year he visited Robert, who is in failing health and recently underwent quadruple bypass surgery. In the years after the assassination of the president, Leavelle befriended several of the Oswald family members.

“I was worried about Lee’s two daughters June and Rachel,” said Leavelle. “Marina remarried and her new husband adopted the two girls and had their names changed to Porter. June was attending college at the University of Texas and one of her history professors was giving a lecture. He told the class ‘let’s talk about that S.O.B. communist that killed President Kennedy.’ June stood up and said ‘Do you realize that’s my father you are talking about?’ He never mouthed off about her father again after that. She once said to me ‘I wish someone could say something good about my father.’ The two girls have done alright. They got through it all.”

Leavelle also disputes the conspiracy theorists that allege Oswald and Ruby knew each other and were co-conspirators.

“I had three preachers and two attorneys tell me they had seen the two together,” said Leavelle. “When I ask them to take a polygraph they would decline and change their stories. I first met jack Ruby 13 years before he killed Oswald. I remember he told me one night that he wished he could come onto a scene where two cops were in a death struggle and he could come in and save them. He wanted to be a hero. When he killed Oswald he claimed he did it so Jackie Kennedy wouldn’t have to go through a trial. He later said he wanted to be a hero. He honestly thought that a grand jury would sympathize with him and allow him go free and he could stand at the door of his club, shake hands with people and say he was the man that killed Lee Harvey Oswald. He just wanted to be a hero.”