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This Month's Oddity in the News:

The house where Lee Harvey Oswald slept before "that" day is now a museum

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Home where Oswald slept the night before the Kennedy assassination now museum

November 6, 2013 (Reuters) -- The suburban Dallas home where Lee Harvey Oswald spent the night before he assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy opened as a museum on Wednesday ahead of the 50th anniversary of the shooting later in November.

Oswald stored the rifle he used to kill Kennedy in the garage at the modest tract house owned by Michael and Ruth Paine in a middle-class neighborhood of Irving, Texas.

Its notoriety has continued to draw curiosity seekers ever since, so the city of Irving bought the house in 2009 and restored it to its 1963 appearance, down to the single-pane windows typical of that era.

"We're trying to tell the human side of this story," said Kevin Kendro, Irving's archives coordinator. "The story of the assassination is filled with huge characters but here were two housewives doing ordinary things and taking care of their children but got caught up in it."

Oswald's wife, Marina, had met Ruth Paine at a party for Russian immigrants earlier in 1963 and the two became good friends. Marina lived with Paine while Oswald looked for work in New Orleans. Marina joined Oswald that summer in New Orleans, but they moved back to Texas when he lost his job.

Ruth Paine offered Marina a place to stay while awaiting the birth of her second child. Meanwhile, Oswald moved into a rooming house along a bus route to his job at the Texas Book Depository in downtown Dallas.

Oswald typically spent weekends with Marina at the Paine house. But he arrived unexpected on Thursday, November 21, the evening before the assassination.

Ruth Paine, 81, who moved from the home in 1966 and now lives in California, said nothing seemed out of the ordinary that evening or the next morning.

"Lee went to work and we watched the news about the president's visit in Fort Worth," Paine told Reuters. "I went to the dentist with the kids and watched the coverage of the motorcade afterwards."

Paine and Marina learned of the assassination from television news coverage.

"We had no clue that Lee was involved until the police showed up that afternoon," she said.

Paine also said she didn't know that Oswald's rifle was in the garage until she translated the officer's question for Marina, who pointed to a blanket where he concealed it. The gun was missing, she said.

The museum interprets the discovery and other details of the women's lives through re-enactments projected on glass screens.

"They really did an excellent job," Paine said. "At first, I couldn't understand why anyone cared about all this but now I'm convinced they do."

(Reporting by Marice Richter; Editing by David Bailey and Lisa Shumaker)

See the entire article HERE

More ghoulish Oswald news from 2010:

LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S COFFIN IS SOLD AT AUCTION

From MSNBC (December 16, 2010):

LOS ANGELES — The simple wooden coffin that was supposed to be Lee Harvey Oswald's final resting place will soon have a new resting place of its own after a mystery bidder bought it at auction for more than $87,000.

The coffin was put on the auction block late last month by a Texas funeral home owner who swapped it with Oswald's family for a new one when the body was briefly exhumed in 1981.

It sold Thursday evening for $87,469, which includes a 20 percent buyers' fee.

"Anything connected to the JFK assassination sells for really high," said Nate D. Sanders of Nate D. Sanders Auctions in Santa Monica.

Link no longer active as reference.

OSWALD'S BROTHER DISPUTES SALE OF COFFIN:

From The Washington Post (December 20, 2010):

LOS ANGELES -- The brother of Lee Harvey Oswald said Monday a coffin that once held the body of the presidential assassin should have been destroyed years ago rather then being auctioned off and allowed to exist as a ghoulish keepsake.

Robert L. Oswald said he didn't know the coffin still existed until he read in a Texas newspaper this month that it had been put up for sale.

Oswald, 76, said he attempted to contact a funeral home owner to halt the sale, but his call was not returned. He said a similar request was ignored by the Santa Monica auction house that handled the sale.

"This is not about money on my part." Oswald said. "The coffin should have been destroyed years ago, and that is what I desire now."

Link no longer active as reference.

LEE HARVEY OSWALD'S BODY WAS EXHUMED ON OCTOBER 4, 1981.

Details about the exhumation can be found HERE.

 

Does converting the Oswald home into a museum give accreditation to a terrible crime? You be the judge.

Being led by police on November 24, 1963 just moments before being shot (below).

At the moment of the shooting.

Oswald's face at autopsy.

The Oswald autopsy.