Reporter Who Witnessed Kennedy Assassination Calls Conspiracy Theories 'Nonsensical'
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Decades before Maurice "Mickey" Carroll was the Director of the Quinnipiac Poll, he was a reporter for the now-defunct Herald Tribune.
On the day of Kennedy's assassination, Carroll was sent to Dallas, where he ended up a few feet from Jack Ruby when he shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald at Dallas Police headquarters.
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Former Reporter Mickey Carroll Remembers JFK Assassination
He was standing next to New York Radio reporter Ike Pappas.
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"Ike, next to me, stepped forward, put his microphone out toward Oswald as he went by."
"He said, 'Lee - did you have anything...' -- and just at that point you hear 'pop' that's the gun and 'uhhhh,' that was the groan of Oswald."
Former Reporter Mickey Carroll Remembers JFK Assassination
And from that moment on all of the good police work done in Dallas was forgotten as the majority of Americans chose to believe in one evil wide-ranging conspiracy or another.
Carroll says there's not a chance.
Former Reporter Mickey Carroll Remembers JFK Assassination
"Oswald was a nut, and Ruby was a dummy," he said.
"I often wondered what would happen if he didn't have a gun in his pocket," said Carroll. "He probably would've slapped him or punched him, and you know what? There would've been a sentence in the story saying, 'A strip tease owner named Jack Ruby punched the murderer.'"
