Jack Ruby Biography

Jack Leon Ruby (born Jacob Leon Rubenstein; March 25, 1911 – January 3, 1967) was the Dallas, Texas, nightclub owner who fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24, 1963, while Oswald was in police custody after being charged with assassinating U.S. President John F. Kennedy and the murder of Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit two days earlier. A Dallas jury found him guilty of murdering Oswald, and he was sentenced to death. Ruby's conviction was later appealed, and he was granted a new trial. However, on January 3, 1967, as the date for his new trial was being set, Ruby became ill in his prison cell and died of a pulmonary embolism from lung cancer.