Jack Ruby was an American nightclub owner who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald was accused of assassinating President John F. Kennedy.
Ruby shot and mortally wounded Oswald on live television in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters.
He was immediately arrested and found guilty of murder with malice, receiving the death penalty.
His conviction was later overturned on appeal, but he died of a pulmonary embolism shortly after being diagnosed with cancer before a new trial could be held.
The Warren Commission concluded that Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald and that he did so on impulse and in retaliation for the Kennedy assassination.
However, some critics have hypothesized that Ruby was part of a larger conspiracy surrounding Kennedy’s assassination, pointing to his alleged ties to organized crime.
Siblings
Jack’s siblings played a significant role in his life and background.
His older brother Hyman Rubenstein, also known as Hymie, worked as a produce peddler and had a criminal record including arrests for bootlegging and gambling.
Jack’s younger brother Earl Rubenstein, also known as Earl or Eal, similarly worked as a produce peddler and had a criminal record including arrests for gambling and narcotics.
The youngest of the Ruby siblings was Jack’s sister Ann Rubenstein Volpert, also known as Annie.
She worked as a bookkeeper and was considered the most stable of the three. Ann testified on behalf of her brother during his murder trial for killing Lee Harvey Oswald.
The Ruby siblings came from a poor Jewish family in Chicago and were known to have been involved in various criminal activities and associations over the years.
This family background was seen as potentially relevant to understanding Jack’s motivations and actions in killing Oswald just two days after the assassination of Kennedy.
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Entrepreneurial career
Ruby owned and operated several nightclubs in Dallas, including the Carousel Club and the Vegas Club.
He was known to have close ties with local police officers and was involved in various shady financial schemes.
In the early 1940s, Ruby organized a company called Spartan Novelty Co. that sold punchboard gambling devices and other items like plaques commemorating the attack on Pearl Harbor.
He also briefly sold busts of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Later in the 1940s and 1950s, Ruby participated in other commercial ventures that were often unsuccessful, including selling costume jewelry, sewing machine attachments and pizza crusts to Dallas restaurants.
He also briefly managed a young African American performer known as Little Daddy Nelson.
Despite his entrepreneurial activities, Ruby frequently had run-ins with the law and the IRS.
He was arrested multiple times for minor offenses like carrying a concealed weapon, though he was never convicted of a crime.
The IRS also pursued him for unpaid taxes, filing liens against him in the 1960s.
Death
Ruby died on January 3, 1967 at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas.
The official cause of death was a pulmonary embolism caused by lung cancer.
However, one of Ruby’s close friends, Mary Gray McCoy, disputed this, stating “He didn’t have cancer. They poisoned him. Somebody did.”
Ruby’s death came shortly after his conviction for the murder of Oswald was overturned on appeal. A new trial was ordered, but Ruby died before it could be held.
According to his death certificate, Ruby died at 11:53 PM on January 3, 1967 at Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where both President Kennedy and Oswald had died just a few years earlier.
The circumstances surrounding Ruby’s death have fueled speculation that he may have been part of a larger conspiracy related to Kennedy’s assassination, though the Warren Commission concluded he acted alone in killing Oswald.