The Complete Investigation
Aftermath in the Plaza
- While the police took statements from a majority of people involved, the most interesting testimony came from a man named Howard Brennan who had been watching the procession and had seen where he believed the shots had come from.
- He had been sitting across the street from the Texas School Book Depository and recalled hearing a shot from above and had seen a man take another shot from the corner window of the sixth floor, reporting that the man had appeared to be using a rifle.
- This testimony was backed by two employees of the Texas School Book Depository who had reported hearing gunshots from directly above them from their position of the southeast corner of the building.
- Though it was concluded that there were three total shots fired, where they came from was highly debated as more than half of those who came forward to report where they had believed the shots to come from stated areas that were not the Texas School Book Depository, naming the grassy knoll and an overpass as areas in which they believe the shots to have come from.
- Roy Truly, a supervisor at the Texas School Book Depository reported one of his employees, Lee Harvey Oswald as missing and he was arrested within the hour.
- A witness had seen him walking in a residential neighborhood when he had been stopped by police for questioning when he shot and killed the police officer, JD Tippit.
- Oswald then proceeded to make his way into a movie theater where he was later found and arrested.
- Later that night Oswald would be officially charged with the murders of John F Kennedy and JD Tippit.
- Oswald was interrogated for approximately 12 hours after the time at which he was arrested. During this time Oswald provided little information and when presented with unexplainable events would simply claim that the statements were false.
- Only two days after the assasination of the president, Oswald was being transferred from the local jail to the county jail when he was fatally shot by a nightclub owner, Jack Ruby.
- Ruby stated that he had been distressed by the murder of the president and wished to spare Jackie Kennedy the pain of having to show up for Oswald's trial.
- The rifle used during the assassination, an Italian Carcano M91/38 Bolt Action, was found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository and was later matched to a gun Oswald had purchased under an alias. There were also partial prints found on the gun that tied it to Oswald.
- The FBI launched a full investigation and reported to the Warren Commission, a commission built by President Johnson to investigate the assassination fully. Though its creation was controversial, the records and accounts from this group would serve as the basis for further investigation in the whole decades. The final records for the case were closed and submitted to the National Archives in 1964 and were not meant to be viewed for 75 years following. This however was done away with in the following decades though it was meant to protect anyone who may have been negatively impacted by their contributions to the investigation.