Jim Leavelle

James R. Leavelle (born 1920) is a former Dallas, Texas homicide detective best known as the person in a Stetson hat and cream-colored suit photographed next to Lee Harvey Oswald when Oswald was murdered by Jacob Rubenstein, who had changed his name to Jack Ruby. Leavelle had earlier joked with Oswald stating that if anyone tried to shoot him (Oswald) he hoped they were as good a shot as Oswald was.

Mr. Leavelle, who now resides in Garland, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, remains friends, or at least acquaintances, with other notable survivors of that infamous day. Nearby in the suburb of Mesquite, Bill and Gayle Newman reside, who, along with their two boys lying prostrate on the ground in the aftermath of the shooting, are seen in the famous newsreel footage. They were the closest individuals to the limousine when the fatal shot was fired. Leavelle also sees Aubrey "Al" Rike, the funeral home attendant, an ambulance driver who brought the casket to Parkland Hospital and placed JFK's body into the coffin, and who now lives in Plano, a Dallas suburb. Many of the survivors of the assassination and its aftermath meet occasionally at various seminars and symposia that are produced for educational purposes. Leavelle, back in 2006, met "Robert Oswald, the brother of Lee Harvey. Robert Oswald resides in nearby Ft. Worth, Texas, where he has lived since before the assassination. Leavelle describes Mr. Oswald as a pleasant, friendly, common-sense individual, who, like Leavelle, is convinced his brother Lee Harvey, was the one and only assassin. When Robert was asked why he believed that, he responded, "because I knew my brother."

Leavelle is also convinced Jack Ruby entered the Dallas basement through the walk-down ramp because a fellow policeman who had been stationed to guard the ramp, upon the transfer of Oswald to the county jail, was later identified by Ruby to Leavelle as the one on duty at that locale and time, something Ruby could not have known had he entered the basement by any other route than the ramp. In an episode of The Simpsons-"Mayored To the Mob" Leavelle was the design for the bodyguard teacher. The academy is even titled "Leavelle's BodyGuard Academy."

On December 7, 1941, Leavelle was stationed aboard the USS Whitney during the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He vividly describes the carnage that unfolded during a television interview.

References

* http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16096411/