What we know about JFK’s assassination

OVER six decades have passed since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Here we examine what happened, as well who was accused of killing the much-loved American president.

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Who killed JFK?

No one knows for sure who killed John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but for years many people have suspected that the culprit was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Before JFK’s assassination, Oswald was accused of trying to shoot ex-general Edwin A. Walker — but he missed.

According to records, Oswald acquired a .38 handgun and rifle through the mail using an alias prior to JFK’s murder.

Peter Ling, a professor in American history and author of the biography John F. Kennedy, told The Sun why he believes the case has never been solved.

He does not believe that Oswald acted alone in killing the president, but it couldn’t be proved due to witnesses vanishing in mysterious circumstances.

How did JFK die?

JFK was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963 as he traveled in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza.

Three shots were fired, hitting him in the neck and head.

Half an hour after the shots were fired, the 35th president of the United States was pronounced dead.

Shortly afterwards Oswald, a 24-year-old self-proclaimed Marxist, was arrested in a nearby cinema after police hunted the killer of one of their fellow officers.

He denied shooting anybody, claiming to reporters that he was a “patsy”.

Later he was accused of shooting the president dead with his $21 mail-order rifle from a window of the sixth floor of a nearby school textbook warehouse.

Two days after the assassination and his arrest, Oswald was being escorted from Dallas Police Headquarters to county prison.

As he was taken out in front of the world’s media, a man called Jack Ruby stepped forward and shot him dead.

Ruby was later found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

He appealed his conviction, but died of an illness in jail before his new trial could take place.

The Warren Commission in 1964 reported that Oswald had been the lone gunman, and another congressional probe in 1979 found no evidence to support the theory that the CIA had been involved.

But some say this was a cover-up.

Conspiracy theories include a CIA plot, a mafia-hit job, and a covert operation by Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

In October 2017, former president Donald Trump ordered the release of over 2,800 records about JFK’s assassination.

However, 300 of the assassination files were held back from the public and remain a secret.

Who was Lee Harvey Oswald?

Lee Harvey Oswald was a US Marine soldier born on October 18, 1939, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Oswald joined the Marines in 1956, however, he ended his military service in 1959 to move to the Soviet Union.

There he met his wife Marina Prusakova, and the two tied the knot in April 1961.

After years in the Soviet Union, Oswald moved back to the United States with Marina and their newborn daughter in 1962.

The following year, shortly before JFK was assassinated, the two welcomed their second child.