The last surviving police detective tasked with investigating the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas has died Friday at 96 years old.
Elmer L. “Sonny” Boyd died in Corsicana, Texas — about 50 miles from Dealey Plaza, where Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy more than 60 years ago, The Sixth Floor Museum announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
“Elmer was deeply involved in the local Kennedy assassination investigation, searching the Texas School Book Depository for evidence and later leading Lee Harvey Oswald down the hallways of Dallas police headquarters,” the Museum shared.
“He was a true Southern gentleman and will be deeply missed. Our heartfelt condolences go out to the entire Boyd family.”
Born in Blooming Grove outside of Dallas, Boyd joined the Dallas Police Department as a patrolman in May 1952 and was later promoted to a homicide and robbery detective in October 1957.
Boyd was initially assigned to be part of President Kennedy’s motorcade as it rolled through Dallas On Nov. 22, 1963.
However, a last-minute change had him waiting for the former commander and chief at Trade Mart — the location JFK was supposed to meet for a luncheon on the fateful day, according to the Corsicana Daily Sun.
“We were told Kennedy was five minutes away from arrival, but then we got word he’d been in an accident,” Boyd told the outlet in 2017.
After word spread that the president was shot, Boyd and his partner Richard Sims followed Kennedy’s motorcade as it rushed to Parkland Hospital.
On arrival at the hospital, Boyd and other Dallas police officers were ordered to the Texas School Book Depository building at Dealey Plaza.
“They had track of everyone but Lee Harvey Oswald. They had an address in Irving, but it turned out to be Marina’s (his spouse) address,” he explained.
Boyd was one of three men put on guard on the sixth floor of the book depository when they found out Officer J.D. Tippit — a Dallas patrolman killed by Oswald during the manhunt — had been shot.
“We got word to call the office … and they said they thought the one they wanted was coming in — Oswald,” he recounted.
He and Sims would later be photographed escorting Oswald into Dallas to the police station.
The now historical photograph was brought to Boyd’s attention years after it was taken when a man from Ireland sent him a copy, according to the outlet.
“He wanted me to sign it and send it back so he could put it up in his brother’s pub,” the former Dallas detective explained.
Boyd would take part in the interrogations of the then-suspected assassin, explaining he sat in on about “75-80%” of all interviews with Oswald while he was in custody, he told The Sixth Floor Museum in 2007.
After working two nights in a row until 3 a.m., he said he went to his mother-in-law’s house to get some rest.
While watching TV with his family on the morning of Nov. 24, Boyd and his family watched as Oswald was gunned down by Jack Ruby while being transferred to prison.
Boyd said he recognized Ruby as the gunman right away.
“Jack Ruby thought of himself as a big gangster, but he was just a nightclub owner,” Boyd told the Corsicana Daily Sun.
“He wanted to be the hero by killing Oswald, though he said it was to spare Jackie (Kennedy) the trauma of having to come back to Dallas for the trial.”
Boyd and his partner were then called back on duty, where they guarded Ruby following his arrest.
He believed Ruby could have never planned out the shooting since the transfer time for Oswald had changed without the public being informed.
Later, during the investigation of Kennedy’s assassination, his name and badge number were on a Disturbing The Peace report involving Ruby and Oswald — who was using an alias — that allegedly linked them together from October 1963 — one month before the president was killed.
He explained the report disclosed a “Jr Rubenstein” (Ruby) and “Alek Hidell” (Oswald’s alis) getting into an altercation at an apartment, but no police action was required, he told The Sixth Floor Museum.
That charge was added to the Warren Commission Report — the 888-page official government report that investigated the assassination of President Kennedy.
Two men from Washington then met with Boyd to discuss the charges with the report in hand.
“They saw it as proof that Ruby and Oswald knew each other before the shooting,” he told Corsicana Daily Sun.
Boyd said he’s unsure how his badge number ended up on the report involving Ruby and Oswald, but it was an official filing sheet from the Dallas Police Department.
The Warren Report ultimately found that Ruby and Oswald never knew each other before the JFK assassination.
Boyd left the Dallas Police Department in 1978 and worked for 11 more years with the Euless Police Department until he retired in 1989.
He married his wife, Yvonne Smith, in 1950, and the couple stayed together for 65 years until she died in 2015. They had three daughters together.
In 2023, Boyd donated his firearms, cowboy hat, and the handcuffs used on Oswald after his arrest to The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.
