Jack Ruby Took Drugs Before Shooting Oswald

May 24, 1965 - Jack Ruby, who killed President Kennedy’s assassin, declared today that he had taken numerous pills — “they stimulate you” — shortly before he shot Lee Harvey Oswald.

He made the admission — the first such revelation — at a court hearing during which his counsel, Joe Tonahill, was removed from Ruby’s forthcoming sanity hearing.

Ruby and his family had sought to have Tonahill removed from the case. Tonahill contends that Ruby signed a valid contract and that Ruby since has become insane and is incompetent to determine who his counsel will be.

Judge Louis Holland of Montague, Tex., said the question of Ruby’s representation will be decided by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Ruby’s fresh testimony that he took pills that “make you want to do positive things” before killing Oswald and that he feared there would be an attempt in future years to link him as a conspirator with Oswald against President Kennedy caused a stir at the hearing.

“To the American people and the world, I’m going to be branded a part of a conspiracy with Oswald,” he declared in an emotional courtroom scene.

“You’re going to forget how I felt about the beloved President Kennedy,” he said. “There has been so much torment, so much hardship.”

In his sometimes rambling discourse, Ruby testified to waking up Sunday morning, Nov. 24, 1963, and brooding about the fact that the Kennedy children were fatherless.

“What quirked me after that I don’t know,” he said. “As God is my judge, that is the truth.”

Ruby said that after getting up the day he killed Oswald, he took 30 antibiotic pills and some other pills that “stimulate you and make you want to do positive things.” This was the first time he had referred to taking any pills that morning.

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