News Archive - May 2010
Participants in the JFK Assassination Story Pass Away
May 3: In the past several weeks, some witnesses and other participants in the JFK assassination story have passed away. These include Aubrey Rike, Ed Hoffman, William McKenzie, and H. Louis Nichols.
Aubrey Rike, who died on April 22 at the age of 72, was the ambulence driver who helped place Kennedy's body in the bronze casket from which it left Dallas. See Rike's obituary in the Dallas Morning News. He was at Parkland Hospital by virtue of having been called to Dealey Plaza to transport a man who apparently suffered a seizure ten minutes before the arrival of the motorcade (though the man walked out of Parkland Hospital without any treatment). Rike's account of his befriending of Jackie Kennedy at the hospital is recounted in the book At the Door of Memory, written with Colin McSween.
Ed Hoffman, the deaf-mute whose account of seeing a man firing from beyond the grassy knoll fence is recorded in the books Eyewitness and Beyond the Fence Line, died in late March.
Attorney William McKenzie died on April 18 at the age of 87. His Dallas Morning News obituary notes that "He began a lifelong friendship with former President Gerald Ford through his representation of clients, particularly Marina Oswald during her appearances and testimony before the Warren Commission." McKenzie's other connections to the case are noted in articles by Jerry Rose and Scott Van Wynsberghe.
Also recently passed away is H. Louis Nichols, an attorney who visited Lee Harvey Oswald in his Dallas jail cell.