Last surviving Dallas detective who investigated JFK assassination 61 years ago dies

May 2024 · 2 minute read

The last surviving Dallas police homicide detective who investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has died.

Elmer Boyd was deeply involved in the investigation and eventually took gunman Lee Harvey Oswald into custody, according to The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

President Kennedy was shot just after noon on Nov. 22, 1963, as he rode through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas in a motorcade.

Shots were fired as the motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository. President Kennedy hit in the neck and head. Texas Gov. John Connally was also wounded.

Boyd led the crime scene investigation at the Texas School Book Depository.

He was doing a final sweep at the Trade Mart where Kennedy was supposed to speak, when he got a radio call about the shooting.

Boyd and his partner were ordered to the school book depository where casings were found on the sixth floor, near the window.

Boyd and his partner escorted Oswald to the police station, and Boyd took part in the interrogations.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Lee Harvey Oswald killed our president and J.D. Tippit,” the detective told a reporter in 2013, referring to the Dallas police officer who was killed that day.

Last year, Boyd donated his firearms, cowboy hat, and the handcuffs used to restrain Oswald after his arrest to The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.

Boyd also took part in the museum's Living History series in 2015 where he recounted everything from the political atmosphere in Dallas during the 1960s, to the interrogation and deadly shooting of Oswald.

Elmer Boyd was 96 years old.

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