It's been nearly 50 years since President Kennedy's assassination, and former sherrif Jim Leavelle recalls with INSIDE EDITION the moment assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was shot.
It was a moment in history that unfolded live on TV. Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated JFK, was shot dead by Jack Ruby.
The man in the white Stetson is Jim Leavelle, a homicide detective with the Dallas P.D. who was handcuffed to Oswald. He's still alive and still looks robust at age 93. And yes, he still wears his white Stetson. The iconic photo of Oswald's murder sits on his desk.
His granddaughter, Kate Griendling has made a documentary about the hunt for the assassin, Capturing Oswald which premiered on the Military Channel Tuesday.
Griendling said, "He has a place in history and he ought to share it with anyone who really cares to know."
Oswald spent two nights in a cell. A checkers board can still be seen scratched on the bench.
Leavelle reveals he had an eerie conversation with Oswald.
"I said, 'Lee, if anybody shoots at you I hope they're as good a shot as you are' meaning of course, that they would hit him and not me. And he kind of laughed and said, 'No one's going to shoot at me.' "
And then, just moments later, Oswald was shot.
"I saw Ruby had a pistol in his hand and he was holding it tight against his leg. I knew immediately what was happening," recalled Leavelle.
He says he tried to jerk Oswald out of the line of fire but it was too late. Oswald's death would leave many questions about the assassination unanswered for all time.