James R. Leavelle, Detective on Lee Harvey Oswald, Dies at 99



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Unable to resume fighting, Mr. Leavelle became a civilian employee of the Army Air Force, operating a military warehouse in Riverside, California. He later became an auditor of the federal government, investigating colleges receiving money under the G.I. Invoice.

He spent his first six years in Dallas patrol forces before becoming a detective in 1956 and returned from the robbery and homicide robbery squad, where he was working when President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Mr. Leavelle retired in 1976 and founded a polygraph business that he sold to his daughter Karla in 1980. He underwent a triple bypass heart surgery in 2004.

Mr. Leavelle, who remained active until the late '90s, went with the help of a Dallas police officer to Washington's National Law Enforcement Museum in late 2018 to rewrite a story. Oral that he had done several years before the opening of the museum in October.

In his last years, Mr. Leavelle served on the Board of Directors of Crime Stoppers in Garland, Texas, and continued to meet with police and school groups, generally around the commemorations of the 22nd. November. In 2018, he was still making a few appearances. He received about 500 autograph requests a year – "more than I needed" – and, during a phone interview in December, he had "four or five on my desk" . at the moment. He was particularly proud, he said, of the invitation to speak at the end of the IBB training course. in October 2006 in Quantico, Virginia.

In January, he lived alone and without help. At 98½, he fell while he was shopping at Garland, but he went home and planned to see a doctor a few days later. "It will stop hurting in a moment," he told a Times reporter.

For years, the light-colored, double-breasted suit that Mr. Leavelle wore in the famous photo gathered in his closet. He later lent it to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, in the former Texas textbook depot, from which Mr. Oswald would have fired the deadly shots. He is posted behind a window with his hat, his tie and his handcuffs.

The exposed boots are a later addition. He had thrown the pair that he was wearing on November 22, 1963.

"I did not know that they were worth something," he said.

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