As police transferred Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, nightclub owner Jack Ruby stepped from a crowd of reporters and shot him once in the abdomen. Cameras were rolling live, and millions of Americans watched the shooting happen in real time. Oswald died two hours later at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where Kennedy had been pronounced dead two days earlier.
Dallas police had promised journalists they would have access when Oswald was moved to a more secure county jail, and dozens of reporters and photographers crowded the basement garage on Sunday morning. Ruby, who ran the Carousel Club and had a history of minor police contacts, slipped past security—accounts differ on exactly how—and fired a single shot from a .38 revolver at point-blank range as officers wrestled him down.
The moment was captured by NBC's live broadcast and became one of the most replayed images of the twentieth century, an assassination witnessed by more people, in real time, than perhaps any before it. Ruby claimed he acted to spare Jacqueline Kennedy the ordeal of a trial, though conspiracy theories about his motives multiplied for decades. Oswald's death meant the central suspect in Kennedy's assassination would never stand trial, leaving unanswered questions that fueled decades of speculation about who else, if anyone, was involved.