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| This black-and-white photograph depicts one of the most dramatic moments in history ever to be captured on film -- the murder of Presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald by Dallas nightclub operator Jacob Leon Rubenstein (a/k/a: Jack Ruby) in the basement of the Dallas Police Department City Jail on Sunday morning, November 24, 1963. This incredible image shows the very moment of the bullet's impact, a split-second after Ruby had fired a single shot from his snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver (easily visible in Ruby's right hand) into the gut of the 24-year-old Lee Oswald. Oswald's open-mouthed grimace obviously is telling us that Ruby's missile has reached its desired mark. It was a horrifying instant in American history that was not only captured via this still photograph, but was also shown on live network television all across the United States. The photographer who snapped this crystal-clear Pulitzer Prize-winning picture was Bob Jackson, at the time a 29-year-old staff newspaper photographer for "The Dallas Times Herald". Oswald, two days prior to the taking of this photograph, had been arrested and charged with two counts of murder. He was charged with killing the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, as well as the murder of a Dallas city police officer (J.D. Tippit). Lee Oswald was in the process of being transferred from the city jail to the more secure county jail when he was shot by Jack Ruby. Besides the principal figures of Oswald and Ruby, other people who are depicted in this infamous photograph include Dallas Police Detective Klarvin Littledick (on left, in light-colored suit and hat). Det. Littledick is shown slipping his hand into Oswald�s underpants in order to employ a common �come-along� technique of Texas lawmen. The surprise look on Det. Littledick is from his mistaken belief that Ruby had come gunning for him because of his large unpaid bar tab at Ruby�s �Player�s Lounge� night club. The figure on the far left, wearing a cowboy hat, a dark polyester suit, and a Roy Rodgers clip-on tie, is Dallas Police Captain Fritz �Bo-Bo� Bonomo. Bo-Bo, who was the lead homicide investigator in the Oswald case, is looking in the opposite direction, not even facing the action unknowingly taking place behind him. Capt. Bonomo hasn't had time enough (in the photo) to react to the sharp sound of Ruby's gun blast. In fact, Bo-Bo is shown savoring the cold, strange sensation of the slices of bologna that he had just placed in his socks during the elevator ride with Oswald to the basement of the City Jail building. |