Wormser Airliner hat worn by Dallas police detective Elmer Boyd

After several years of polite declines, retired Dallas police detective Elmer Boyd finally agreed to an oral history recording with me on February 23, 2007. It was at his home in Blooming Grove, Texas that I first saw the original Wormser Airliner hat captured in so many photographs during the weekend of the assassination. He proudly shared it during our videotaped interview and then politely, but firmly, declined to donate this historic artifact to the Museum. I had the great honor of keeping in touch with Elmer over the years, and we were so pleased to have him visit the Museum for a public program in 2015. In 2023, more than sixteen years after I first met Elmer, he returned to the Museum at age 95 to donate his Dallas police badge, firearms and the handcuffs used to restrain suspect Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963. Naturally, in advance of his visit, I once again inquired about the possibility of Elmer donating his hat. He decided that it would remain with the family. However, much to my shock and delight, Elmer secretly brought the hat with him when he donated the other artifacts and surprised me by including the hat in his donation that day. It was a personally gratifying moment for me, and I am deeply indebted to Elmer and the entire Boyd family for their support of the Museum and true dedication to history. It is a tremendous honor for the Museum to be the trusted custodian of the Elmer Boyd Collection. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator

Although Elmer Boyd appears in news footage and a number of photographs from the weekend of the assassination, by far the best and most famous image is the one taken by Dallas Morning News photographer Bill Winfrey as Boyd escorted suspect Lee Harvey Oswald into the third floor hallway of police headquarters after his first interrogation with Captain Will Fritz. Winfrey managed to perfectly frame and capture the very brief moment when Oswald raised his fists in the air, defiantly displaying his handcuffs and - according to some researchers - giving a Communist sign. That image may be found here: https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/11908. - Stephen Fagin, Curator