Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Let's return now to the subject of the Oswald shooting. One of the things I hear repeatedly is that it must have been Jack Ruby because millions of people saw him do it on live television. Let's examine that.

There was only one live broadcast, and that was by NBC. So, what did people "see" in that broadcast?

I put "see" in quotation marks because there is seeing and seeing. In one sense, anything that is in your visual field, you have "seen," right? But, it doesn't mean that it registered with you. It doesn't necessarily mean that you took notice of it or made any mental awareness of it at all. It depends on where your mind is and where your focus is. Much of your visual field is, in effect, a blur. 

In this case, no one was looking for Jack Ruby. Everyone watching was looking for Oswald: to be brought out. So, their focus was on him. So, look at this first image from the NBC footage, and when I say "first" I mean that when you see and hear the newscaster say, "To Dallas, Texas and Tom Pettit" this is what it goes to:

 That is supposed to be Jack Ruby on the right. It most certainly is not Jack Ruby, but it's supposed to be. But that aside, it is doubtful that the viewers would have taken any notice of that figure anyway at that point in time. They would not have focused on him. They would have just gotten it that there were people lined up waiting to see the transfer. And that's all. It's doubtful they would have retained any mental visual of that guy. So, you can't claim that people "saw" Jack Ruby then. 

So, what is the first mentally retained image of the shooter that viewers got from watching? It has to be this:

So that is the first image of the shooter that viewers were certain to notice, and obviously, you can't tell who he is. You certainly can't tell from that that he is Jack Ruby. Then, from there, it gets worse because he gets his back to the NBC camera.

Now obviously, you can't tell from that that you are looking at Jack Ruby. But then, it goes to this, and it is the most exposure of his face that we are going to get:

Then, after that, he makes his dive into the swarm of police; he goes to them.

And after that, we don't see him any more. He's gone. That's it for the NBC live footage. 

So, the one and only partial profile view of his face is this, the 4th one:

I could say it's the best, but really, it is the only one that provides some visual data with which we can compare to Jack Ruby. Of course, it would help if we had an image of Jack Ruby from the same angle. 

I have the above image from the NBC footage in better form from another source, so we'll go with it:

OK, so that is the best there is. That is the best, most informative image that we have of the face of the Garage Shooter from NBC.

So now, let's start comparing that image to known images of Jack Ruby.

Notice on the left that the skin on the back of the Shooter's neck bunched up. but you don't see that on Ruby on the right. The ears are very different, with Ruby on the right having a thicker ring of cartilage around the outer helix. And, we get the impression of a much fatter face on the left. 

This may be the closet comparison we have in terms of angle. And, I'm seeing a very different cheek contour on Ruby on the right. Another obvious difference is the length of neck, with Ruby's being longer on the right. Look at the distance from his jacket to his hairline and compare it to the other side. The man on the left had a much shorter neck. Ruby's ear on the right looks quite a bit larger. And here's something else: Look at the space between Ruby's hair and his ear. On the right, there is a wide distance. On the left, there is very little distance. It goes from ear to hair with practically no space in-between. And note, for the record, that I maintain that Bookhout, on the left, was wearing a toupee'. 

And finally, we'll go with this comparison from the same day:

And there, you see the obvious difference in the length of the neck and the condition of the back of the neck, with all the scruffy hair growth on Ruby on the left, and the clean-shaved condition of the neck of the Shooter.

The bottom line is this:

1. No one could recognize and identify the Garage Shooter as Jack Ruby by looking at these images. Most of the frames provide no other information but that the shooter was a short, pudgy, middle-aged white man, which means that he could have been one of many thousands of men, and perhaps millions.

2. When we take the one frame that provides the most visual data, this one:

and compare it to known images of Jack Ruby, it fails to confirm the match. On the contrary, it disqualifies it; it disallows it. 

Therefore, the Garage Shooter of Lee Harvey Oswald was not Jack Ruby.