Dallas / Fort Worth Local News

DALLAS (CBS 11 News / AP) ― There's new information about Jack Ruby and the JFK assassination today.

Monday morning, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins displayed to the public previously unseen documents related to the case.

Watkins said the documents have been locked in a safe on the 10th floor of the D.A.'s office for decades, but have never been shown to the public until now.

In a Monday morning news conference about the documents, Watkins said today is an "interesting and historic day for Dallas County."

He said he learned of the safe not long after taking office in 2007. Watkins said that every Dallas County D.A. since the JFK assassination has known about the contents of the safe.  All have kept it secret.  "What we decided," Watkins said, "that this information was too important to keep secret."


After learning what was in the safe, Watkins said he and his staff determined that the information should be recorded, a process that is not yet complete. "I foresee that we'd have all this stuff completed and catalogued within the next month," he said.

After archiving the documents for the last year, Watkins said there are two things in particular that will raise eyebrows.

The first is a $1 million movie contract signed by former Dallas County D.A. Henry Wade, the prosecutor in the Ruby trial.  Watkins said the contract would have made Wade a rich man if the movie had been produced.

The other is a highly suspect two-page transcript, allegedly of a conversation between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald, dated Oct. 4, 1963.


The two-page transcript resembles one published by the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination and determined Oswald was the lone gunman.  It reads in part:

Oswald: You said the boys in Chicago want to get rid of the Attorney General.
Ruby: Yes, but it can't be done ... it would get the Feds into everything.
Oswald: There is a way to get rid of him without killing him.
Ruby: How's that?
Oswald: I can shoot his brother.
Ruby: You mean the President?
Oswald: Yes, the President.
Ruby: But that wouldn't be patriotic.
Oswald: What's the difference between shooting the Governor and in shooting the President?
Ruby: It would get the FBI into it.
Oswald: I can still do it, all I need is my rifle and a tall building; but it will take time, maybe six months to find the right place; but I'll have to have some money to live on while I do the planning."

Ruby goes on to tell Oswald that no one must ever know the money for the job came from the Mafia. Ruby adds not to get caught or else he would have to kill Oswald.

"Now we don't know if this is an actual conversation or not," Watkins said. "But what we do know is that as a result of this find, it will open up the debate as to whether there was a conspiracy to assassinate the president."


On March 14, 1964, Jack Ruby was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby fatally shot Oswald on November 24, 1963, just two days after Oswald had been arrested for assassinating President John F. Kennedy. Ruby successfully appealed his conviction but died of cancer before his second trial.
cbs11tv.com was first to report the existence of the documents, in a story published Sunday morning.

Watkins said that he was not "lending his authority" to the authenticity of the documents.

"We're not trying to start this whole conspiracy argument over again. All we're doing is opening up the doors and the secrecy of this office that has been going on for years and letting the public know that this office is not mine, it was not Bill Hill's, or John Vance's, or Henry Wade's, this office is the people of Dallas County and they should have access to this information," Watkins said.

Watkins also displayed documents from other district attorneys that he said showed the poor state of race relations in Texas during the 1960s.

"In some of those documents you would be surprised how people of color are characterized," explained Watkins. "[On official letterhead] one of their claims to fame, in Hunt County, was that they had the blackest land and the whitest people. That tells you how far we've come in criminal justice, not only in this state, but in this country."

Watkins said no decision has been made about what will become of the documents. "We are in the process of deciding which organization is best served to keep these records, preserve them, and to make them public. We haven't made that decision yet," he said.

Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum near where the president was shot, said, "We're looking forward to the opportunity to talk with the district attorney ... We would love to have these records.  We believe very strongly that these records need to stay here in Dallas."
Other items were also in the safe.  Two sets of brass knuckles and a pistol holster were part of the trove and on display Monday morning.  Watkins said all three belonged to Ruby and were taken from him when he was booked into the jail after killing Oswald.  He said the holster held the gun that was used to shoot Oswald.


Other items were also in the safe.Two sets of brass knuckles and a pistol holster were part of the trove and on display Monday morning.  Watkins said all three belonged to Ruby and were taken from him when he was booked into the jail after killing Oswald.  He said the holster held the gun that was used to shoot Oswald.

(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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