Dallas Police Department Homicide Report for President John F. Kennedy

Object numberL2017.1.150

Date11/22/1963 - 11/23/1963

ClassificationsDocuments

Creator Dallas Police Department

ObjectDocument

Credit LineLoaned Courtesy the Dallas County District Attorney's Office/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

MediumPaper

Dimensions11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm)

Collections

DescriptionCopy of a City of Dallas Police Department Homicide Report for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The name typed on the form as "Persons Arrested" is Lee Harvey Oswald, and the "Charge" is typed as "MURDER". The form has the "Date of Occurrence" typed as "11/22/63", "Time of Day" typed as "12:30PM". The "Date Reported" is typed as "11/23/63". The time reported, received, and typed is listed as "5:10PM" in two different boxes. The report was received by Sue Mayo who was a Police Complaint Stenographer in the Records Bureau with the Dallas Police Department. At the top of the page, the form identifies the name of the person killed as: "KENNEDY, John F (PRESIDENT OF U. S.)". The residence of the victim is listed as: "Washington, D. C. (White House)". The officers who filed the report were Charles Dhority and Herbert Blessing, detectives in the Homicide and Robbery Bureau in the Dallas Police Department. The "Coroner Notified" field has the name "Joe B. Brown" typed in it; this name refers to Joe B. Brown, Jr. who was a Justice of the Peace at the time of the Ruby trial. The text in the "Pronounced Dead by Physician" field is "Dr. Kemp Clark, 1PM, Parkland Hospital". The "Witness Taken Into Custody [space] Address" field has the following text typed into the box: "All witnesses affidavits are in Homicide Office". The arresting officers are identified as Elmo Cunningham, a member of the Forgery department in DPD, and Maurice N. "Nick" McDonald, a DPD patrol officer. The largest box on the report is the field labeled "Details of Offense (Give Circumstances of Occurrence of Offense and Its Investigation) Use Both Sides of This Sheet." The text typed in this box is as follows: "The expired was riding in motorcade with wife and Governor John Connally, and his wife. Witnesses heard gun shot and saw the expired slump forward. More shots were heard and the expired fell into his wife's lap. Governor Connally was also shot at this time. Car in which they were riding was escorted to Parkland Hospital by Dallas Police Officers." This object was originally part of the evidence collected by the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office and specifically prosecutors Henry Wade and Bill Alexander during the investigation leading up to the Jack Ruby trial for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Curatorial Commentary

In order to ensure its long-term care and preservation and to facilitate public access, the Dallas County District Attorney's Office placed their Jack Ruby Trial Collection (sometimes referred to as "the DA's Jack Ruby file") on long-term loan with The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in 2017. The Museum is working to make the entire collection accessible through this online collections database. To find out more about this collection or to access materials not yet included here, contact the Museum's Reading Room at readingroom@jfk.org. - Megan Bryant, Director of Collections & Interpretation

Curatorial Commentary

This item, along with materials from the DA's Ruby file (which is on loan to the Museum) and from the Museum's permanent collection, briefly appeared in a temporary display on the Museum's seventh floor in 2017. - Lindsey Richardson, Curator of Collections