What Happened to Jack Ruby? What to Know About the Nightclub Owner's Life After He Murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on Live TV By Skyler Trepel

President John F. Kennedy’s assassination remains one of the most shocking moments in American history, but what happened next is almost just as hard to believe.

On Nov. 24, 1963 — two days after Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Kennedy — Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby murdered Oswald in the Dallas Police headquarters’ basement during his transfer to county jail. The event was captured on live TV while NBC correspondent Tom Pettit was reporting.

Prior to murdering Oswald, Ruby was a nightclub owner in Dallas who had multiple criminal charges, including assault, per Dallas Police Captain Glen King. Over the years, there have been many theories as to why Ruby did this, but he claimed he acted alone and out of grief for the president.

“Jack did what he did. He wanted to be somebody. Everybody loved the president so everybody hated the man who had killed the president,” former police officer Rusty Robbins said in the 2023 docuseries JFK: One Day in America. “Somehow [Jack thought] this was going to make Jack a hero.”

Here’s everything to know about Jack Ruby’s life after murdering Lee Harvey Oswald.

Who is Jack Ruby?

Ruby was born on March 21, 1921. The fifth of 10 siblings, he had a troubled childhood with parents who were frequently violent towards each other, per Tablet. After his mother was committed to a psychiatric institution, Ruby spent considerable time in and out of foster homes, ultimately skipping school often and being arrested for truancy.

He eventually was drafted into the Army Air Force and served as an aircraft mechanic in World War II before being discharged three years later, per History. Upon returning from the war, he moved to Dallas, where he began managing nightclubs and strip joints, per History.

Between 1949 and Nov. 24, 1963, Ruby was arrested eight times, according to the National Archives. Those arrests were for disturbing the peace, carrying a concealed weapon, a violation of state liquor laws, permitting dancing after hours, assault and ignoring traffic summonses. Often, charges were not filed or were dismissed; he was ultimately found not guilty of assault. Ruby allegedly had a relationship with some Dallas police officers, sometimes trading favors for leeway monitoring his nightclubs, according to History.

Who is Lee Harvey Oswald?

Oswald was a former U.S. Marine who had a troubled childhood, having once been placed in juvenile detention. He had previously attempted suicide and once tried to murder kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker in his home, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

While Kennedy was traveling via motorcade in Dallas Plaza on Nov. 22, 1964, Oswald assassinated him from the sixth story of a Texas School Book Depository. After this, he killed a Dallas police officer before being arrested in a movie theater.

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Upon his arrest, Oswald said he was being set up to look like Kennedy’s killer, but the Warren Commission — which was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate Kennedy’s assassination — determined he acted alone.

Two days later, Oswald was murdered by Ruby while he was being transferred to a county jail. Ruby fatally wounded him by firing a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver, per History.

Why did Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald?

Ruby’s motives may never be determined, as he changed his reasonings a number of times over the years, per EBSCO.

Immediately after his arrest, Ruby said he killed Oswald to prove that Jewish people were brave, to do police a favor, to build back the reputation of Dallas and to spare former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy from having to testify at Oswald’s trial. However, he later claimed that he killed Oswald impulsively.

There was also a lot of speculation that Ruby was involved with organized crime, as he was known to be friends with mobsters, mafia members and other members of the criminal underworld. However, based on its evaluation of evidence, the Warren Commission concluded that “the evidence does not establish a significant link between Ruby and organized crime.”

What happened to Jack Ruby after he killed Lee Harvey Oswald?

Ruby was taken into custody immediately after murdering Oswald. That same week, Dallas County State’s Attorney Henry Wade took the case to a grand jury.

“I am going to seek the death penalty because I think his case is an aggravated one,” Wade said at the time, per the Chicago Tribune. “This was a second assassination. The murder of a man under arrest and manacled and I feel that it is an extreme case.”

Ruby pleaded not guilty, saying that his grief over Kennedy’s murder had caused him to suffer “psychomotor epilepsy” and unconsciously shoot Oswald. On March 14, 1964, Ruby was convicted of murder with malice and sentenced to death, per History.

However, on Oct. 5, 1966, the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the decision, noting that Ruby could not have received a fair trial in Dallas at the time and there was improper admission of testimony. Before his second trial was scheduled to take place, Ruby died from lung cancer on Jan. 3, 1967, according to History.

The 1964 Warren Commission report determined that Oswald and Ruby were not part of a larger conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. However, in 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations noted that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.”

What was the reaction to Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder?

When Ruby killed Oswald on live TV, it became the first murder ever broadcast on television. According to the Most Notorious! A True Crime Podcast, some people cheered outside the station when they’d heard that Oswald had been shot, not knowing the full details of who had done it or whether it was fatal.

However, many were angry with Ruby because they felt robbed of the opportunity for Oswald to face more questioning in Kennedy’s assassination.

“The man who was guilty of murdering the President of the United States deserved to die, but under our system he also was entitled to a trial,” President Richard Nixon said while being interviewed in November 1963. “Two wrongs don’t make a right … under the circumstances I think all Americans, as much as we wanted to see the President’s murderer brought to justice, deplore the law being taken into the hands of a man.”