60 years ago: JFK, Dallas & Jack Ruby’s dog

PREFACE: Today is the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination. Like almost everyone I know, I once went down that rabbit hole and left convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.

So, what’s new to say about it in 2023? Well… I do have a very quirky angle to share that can help mark the day.

(Please don’t erroneously take this as a sign that I suddenly believe the Warren Commission and I’m thus in need of any JFK-splaining in the comments section.) 

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Years ago, I interviewed the late Darnay Hoffman about his efforts to track down the reclusive chess master, Bobby Fischer. Hoffman was a lawyer with a notorious client list that included Bernie Goetz, the Son of Sam, Joel Steinberg, and JonBenet Ramsey’s babysitter.

He was also married to Sidney Biddle Barrows, the infamous Mayflower Madam. In other words (for those too young to get all the above references), Darnay Hoffman was no stranger to controversy. 

To bring this back to today’s anniversary, Hoffman once told me: “I am not part of the 89 percent of Americans who doggedly believe in a JFK conspiracy.”

Hoffman’s position was not the result of any startling new evidence or testimony of a long-ignored witness or the hunger to merely buck a trend.

Rather, his rationale was Jack Ruby’s dog.

Animal-lover, Jack Ruby.

Here are the basics of Hoffman’s counter-theory: 

As confirmed by the Warren Commission Report, innumerable assassination books, and even Oliver Stone himself, Jack Ruby loved animals. The strip club owner lived with a dozen canines, doting on them, and even calling them his “children.” But it was a special dog, a dachshund named Sheba, that Ruby referred to as his “wife.” 

“She rarely left his side,” Hoffman explained. “Even in the film JFK, a celluloid Sheba strolls with her master through the strip club he owned.” 

This brings us back to Dallas in November 1963.

For someone acting in concordance with a massive, well-oiled conspiracy, Ruby’s behavior was paradoxical on the morning of November 24, 1963. 

“Although Oswald’s prison transfer was scheduled for 10 A.M., according to his roommate, Ruby was still lounging about in his underwear,” Darnay chuckled as I struggled to erase this image from my mind.

Moreover, the only reason Ruby left his apartment that day was to visit the local Western Union office. It appears one of his dancers had called and Ruby promised to wire her a $25.00 advance to pay her rent. 

So, Jack and Sheba took a little drive.

With Sheba waiting in the car, Ruby entered Western Union. Although the Oswald prison transfer was delayed, this fact was not made public so he could not have known the accused assassin was still being held in the police station directly across the street. 

In other words, Jack seemingly left the house only because he was asked to wire money and he (theoretically) couldn’t have known his drive would coincide with the rescheduled prison transfer.

At 11:17 A.M., Western Union records show Jack Ruby sending a money order for $25.00 to the stripper in need. Oswald was murdered at 11:21 A.M. 

“Obviously, during those four minutes, Ruby decided Sheba could wait in the car while he checked out the commotion across the street at the Dallas police station,” Hoffman postulated. “Then, as Ruby himself testified before the Warren Commission, the sight of a smirking Oswald was just too much for him to bear.”  

If renowned animal-lover Jack Ruby intended to shoot Oswald, knowing full well he’d be caught and arrested, would he leave the beloved Sheba — his “wife” — locked alone in the car? 

Plus, when you consider that Ruby was standing just to Oswald’s right — with a loaded gun in his pocket — during the midnight press conference of November 22, you’d have to wonder why he didn’t pull the trigger right then and there… especially with Sheba safely ensconced at home.

“It matters little which conspiracy theory you subscribe to; Jack Ruby is a major player in them all,” concluded Hoffman. “In other words, to disprove Ruby’s role is to disprove the presence of a conspiracy, and Sheba may do more than the testimony of 552 witnesses to dispel one of this nation’s most powerful and enduring myths.”

If Darnay Hoffman was correct, many of us were barking up the wrong tree for six decades. 

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