Dallas

Hugh Aynesworth, leading reporter on JFK assassination, dies at 92

Aynesworth witnessed the assassination in Dealey Plaza while working for The Dallas Morning News. The four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist went on to break ‘almost every major assassination story.’

Hugh Aynesworth poses in 2013 beside a photograph of Jack Ruby shooting and killing Lee Harvey Oswald. Aynesworth was about 40 feet away when he witnessed the event on Nov. 24, 1963. Aynesworth died Saturday at 92.(David Woo / DMN Staff Photographer)
David Woo / DMN Staff Photographer

Hugh Aynesworth, a renowned Texas journalist who became an eyewitness to three key events surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and whose career was defined by that historic moment, died shortly after 9 p.m. Saturday at his home in northwest Dallas. He was 92.

Veteran reporter Hugh Aynesworth shares his memories of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

His death was confirmed by his family, who did not specify a cause.

“No one knows more about murder and malice than Hugh, who has stalked politicians, movie stars, wayward preachers and priests gone bad, mad men, crazed widows and serial killers, for more than a half-century,” wrote Wesley Pruden, the former editor of the Washington Times, in his foreword to Aynesworth’s 2003 book, JFK: Breaking the News.

Over the years, Aynesworth worked for a half-dozen newspapers, including The Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times Herald, a wire service, Newsweek magazine and ABC’s 20/20.

Read the rest of this story from our partners at The Dallas Morning News here.

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