by Jim Marrs
Fruge also confirmed the woman’s story by talking to a Louisiana lounge owner. The owner related how two men and a woman had stopped at his lounge about November 20 and that the owner knew the men to be two pimps who regularly transported prostitutes from Florida. He said the woman became intoxicated and was taken outside after one of her companions “slapped her around.”
Fruge said he soon contacted Dallas police captain Will Fritz, the man in charge of the assassination investigation, believing that he had uncovered valuable information. However, after Fritz told him he “wasn’t interested,” Fruge dropped his investigation.
Interestingly, the House committee found that although the FBI had no record of Cheramie’s prediction of the assassination, it did have reports that a Melba Marcades (Cheramie) had tipped bureau agents that she was traveling to Dallas to deliver heroin to a man in Oak Cliff, then to Galveston to pick up a shipment of drugs. The bureau had looked into the matter but, unsurprisingly, decided that the woman’s information was “erroneous in all respects.”
On September 4, 1965, one month after yet another attempt to contact the FBI with similar information, Marcades/Cheramie was found dead by a highway near Big Sandy, Texas—a small town in east Texas about midway between Dallas and Louisiana. A man told authorities that Cheramie was lying in the roadway, apparently after being thrown from a car, and that he drove over her head while trying to avoid her. Police could find no relationship between the woman and the driver and the case was closed. However, Fruge later told researchers that when he attempted to contact the driver, he found the man’s Tyler, Texas, address to be nonexistent.
While the entire Rose Cheramie episode was extensively covered in a staff report to the House Select Committee on Assassinations and essentially verified, oddly there was no mention of her in the committee’s report.
Did Ruby and Oswald Know Each Other?
Both federal investigations of the assassination announced publicly that they could not establish any link between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald.
The Warren Commission flatly stated, “There is no evidence that Oswald and Ruby knew each other or had any relationship through a third party or parties.”
Yet according to the Commission’s own internal memos, staffers were not all that certain. Arguing that further investigation was needed, Commission lawyers Burt Griffin and Leon Hubert wrote, “In short, we believe that the possibility exists, based on evidence already available, that Ruby was involved in illegal dealings with Cuban elements who might have had contact with Oswald.”
In its report, the House Select Committee on Assassinations also seems to question the Warren Commission’s conclusion by pointing out:
The Commission also found no evidence that Ruby and Oswald had ever been acquainted, although the Commission acknowledged that they both lived in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, [both] had post office boxes at the Terminal Annex, and had possible but tenuous third party links. These included Oswald’s landlady, Earlene Roberts, whose sister, Bertha Cheek, had visited Ruby at his nightclub on November 18, and a fellow boarder at Oswald’s rooming house, John Carter, who was friendly with a close friend and employee of Ruby, Wanda Killam.
While leaving the impression that no link existed between Ruby and Oswald, the House committee in fact left the possibility open by concluding, “The Committee’s investigation of Oswald and Ruby showed a variety of relationships that may have matured into an assassination conspiracy. Neither Oswald nor Ruby turned out to be ‘loners,’ as they had been painted in the 1964 investigation.”
And the body of evidence connecting Ruby and Oswald continues to grow.
As far back as 1964, General Edwin A. Walker—himself a figure in the assassination case—told this author, “The Warren Commission Report was ridiculous and a sham as well as an insult to the public’s intelligence. Rubenstein knew Oswald; Oswald knew Rubenstein. The report would have to start all over on this basic fact.”
Recall that Julia Ann Mercer identified both Ruby and Oswald as the men she saw near the Triple Underpass with a rifle shortly before the assassination and that Oswald’s mother, Marguerite, claimed an FBI agent showed her a photograph of Jack Ruby the night before Oswald was shot.
Stories have circulated around Dallas since 1963 about Ruby and Oswald being seen together. On November 26, 1963, the Dallas Morning News quoted assistant district attorney Bill Alexander as saying, “[Investigators] have received at least a hundred tips [linking Oswald to Jack Ruby] and are checking out each one. As far as I know, none has panned out.” This merely meant none were accepted.
As early as Monday, November 25, 1963, news reporters were receiving information of a Ruby-Oswald link. Some were not easy to dismiss, especially the number from Ruby’s Carousel Club.
Madeleine Brown worked for one of Dallas’s leading advertising firms in 1963. She handled some of the agency’s biggest accounts. After work, she and coworkers would unwind at various watering holes, including the Carousel Club. Brown recalled that in the spring of 1963 as she and her friends sat in the Carousel Club the conversation turned to speculation over who might have taken a shot at General Edwin A. Walker. The group was surprised to hear Jack Ruby blurt out that the man who shot at Walker was Lee Oswald.
Brown took note of the name because she had never heard it before and because Ruby seemed so confident of the name of Walker’s assailant. She was shocked the following November to see the names Ruby and Oswald tied to the assassination. She told this author, “I asked around and found out that many people knew that Oswald and Ruby knew each other. In fact, I just assumed that everyone knew this. I was surprised when, well into the 1980s, I learned that officially they were not supposed to be connected.”
Another fascinating story was offered by former Dallas cabdriver Raymond Cummings. During the Garrison investigation, Cummings saw a news story with a photograph of David Ferrie, who claimed that he had never been in Dallas. Cummings contacted Garrison’s office to say he had driven David Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald to Ruby’s Carousel Club in the early part of 1963.
Even more convincing are the accounts of Ruby and Oswald seen together by employees of the Carousel Club. William D. Crowe Jr., a magician and entertainer who was using the stage name Bill DeMar and performing in Ruby’s Carousel Club at the time of the assassination, called a news media friend right after Oswald’s arrest. He said Oswald had participated in his act about a week prior to the assassination.
On November 25, Crowe told the Associated Press he was “positive” Oswald had patronized Ruby’s club: “I have a memory act in which I have 20 customers call out various objects in rapid order. Then I tell them at random what they called out. I am positive Oswald was one of the men that called out an object about nine days ago.”
Crowe later told the Dallas Morning News that after the Associated Press story appeared, he was contacted by FBI agents who told him to check out of his Dallas hotel and go into hiding.
The Warren Commission Report went to great lengths to downplay Crowe’s story, including quoting Crowe as saying, “I never stated definitely, positively [that I saw Oswald], and they said I did, and all in all, what they had in the paper was hardly even close to what I told them.” Crowe was not asked if he had been intimidated or why he told the same story of seeing Oswald to Dallas Morning News reporter Kent Biffle several days later.
The Warren Commission likewise brushed off the testimony of Dallas electronics salesman Robert K. Patterson, who said that Jack Ruby along with a man who looked like Oswald bought some equipment from him on November 1, 1963. Commissioners said Ruby’s companion most likely was a Carousel Club employee named Larry Crafard who “bears a strong resemblance to Oswald.”
The Commission noted that at least four other persons had told them of seeing Oswald in the Carousel Club, but these stories also were dismissed. No mention was made of Rose Cheramie or Beverly Oliver, the Dealey Plaza assassination witness who told researchers Ruby introduced her to “Lee Oswald of the C
IA” a few weeks before the assassination.
Oliver, now a Christian evangelist using another name, told British television:
I purposely waited this long [to publicly tell the story] because I felt threatened. . . . I didn’t want to become another statistic. About two weeks prior to the assassination, between shows [she was a singer at the nearby Colony Club and would frequently visit Ruby’s Carousel Club], I trotted over. There was this girl who danced there by the name of Jada. And she was sitting at a table with Jack Ruby and another man. I went and sat down with them to have a drink. As I sat down, Ruby introduced me to this man. He said, “Beverly, this is my friend Lee.” And after Jack Ruby went into the police station and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, it was then I realized it was the man I had met in the club two weeks before the assassination. . . . Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald were linked together but I don’t know how. . . . But I know in my heart that Lee Harvey Oswald, or the man shot in the police station, was the man I met in the club two weeks before the assassination.
She told this author of meeting David Ferrie in the Carousel Club. She said Ferrie was there so often that she initially took him to be assistant manager of the club. Her story was supported by other Carousel employees who also recalled seeing Ruby and Oswald together.
Karen Bennett Carlin, who danced in Ruby’s club using the name “Little Lynn,” was the woman to whom Ruby mailed a $25 money order minutes before shooting Oswald. Interviewed by the FBI on November 24, 1963, Carlin “seemed on the verge of hysteria.” FBI agent Roger C. Warner reported:
Mrs. Carlin was highly agitated and was reluctant to make any statement to me. She stated to me that she was under the impression that Lee Oswald, Jack Ruby, and other individuals unknown to her, were involved in a plot to assassinate President Kennedy and that she would be killed if she gave any information to the authorities.
Janet Adams Conforto, known as “Jada,” told Dallas news reporters shortly after the assassination that she had seen Oswald in the Carousel Club. Likewise, Bill Willis, a musician at the club, reportedly recalled Oswald sitting “right in the corner of the [club’s] stage and runway.”
Ruby stripper Kathy Kay told the Dallas Times Herald in 1975 that she recalled seeing Oswald in the club and even danced with him on one occasion.
This account is supported by Bobbie Louise Meserole, who danced at the Carousel Club under the name Shari Angel. Meserole, who went on to become an ordained minister in Dallas, remembered Jack Ruby fondly. She told this author she recalled conversations with Kathy Kay and others in which they laughingly told how Ruby had ordered Kay to dance a bump and grind to embarrass Oswald.
Shari Angel’s husband, Walter “Wally” Weston, who was the Carousel Club’s master of ceremonies until five days before the assassination, told of striking Oswald. In a 1976 interview with the New York Daily News, Weston said he had seen Oswald with Ruby in the Carousel Club at least twice prior to the assassination. Weston recalled:
I was working in the club one night approximately three weeks before the assassination. I was on stage, doing my bit, and this guy was standing near the back wall. The club was pretty crowded. The guy walked up in the middle of the club, right in front of the stage, and for no reason he said, “I think you’re a communist.” I said, “Sir, I’m an American. Why don’t you sit down.” He said, “Well, I still think you’re a communist,” so I jumped off the stage and hit him. Jack was right behind him when I hit him. He landed in Jack’s arms and Jack grabbed him and said, “You [son of a bitch], I told you never to come in here.” And he wrestled him to the door and threw him down the stairs.
After the assassination, Weston said he recognized Oswald as the man in the club but did not say anything when questioned briefly by the FBI and a Dallas detective because he was afraid after discussing the matter with other Carousel employees. He said, “[Carousel drummer] Billy Willis saw me hit [Oswald]. When I discussed it with him [and dancer Kathy Kay], he said, ‘Wally, the best thing to do is to stay out of it. Just keep your mouth shut. Don’t say anything. That’s what I’m going to do. I don’t want any part of this.’”
Willis later told a former FBI agent that he changed both his name and Social Security number after all the other members of the Carousel band were killed. Willis said he definitely recalled one incident shortly before the assassination in which he returned a satchel to Oswald in the club’s parking lot after Oswald had left it in a circular booth.
Weston visited Ruby in jail several times. He recalled, “The one time I mentioned it to him, I said, ‘Jack, wasn’t that the guy I hit in the club?’ He just looked at me and didn’t say yes or no.”
Another reason Weston decided to talk in 1976 was that he claimed to have “bumped into” a gangster in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who had been at a meeting with Ruby in the Carousel Club five days before the assassination. In a published interview, Weston said, “[This guy] said to me, ‘I know you, you were Jack Ruby’s emcee.’ I asked him when he had been at the Carousel Club and he told me he was at the table the night the gun went on the floor.”
The shaken Weston vividly recalled that night:
There was a meeting held at Jack Ruby’s club the night I left there, which was five days before the assassination of President Kennedy. There were approximately six to eight guys from Chicago who came into the club—friends of Jack Ruby. I first really noticed them at about 1:30 in the morning, right before closing. Four of them were sitting at a front table, the rest hung around the bar. I was on stage telling jokes and while I was up there, the ones at the table were talking to each other. So I walked to the front of the stage where they were sitting and said, “Hey, you guys, cool it.” One of them looked at the others and said, “Who is this son of a bitch?” and he pulled a gun out of his waistband. . . . It looked like a cannon pointed in my direction. At this precise time, two uniformed policemen came in the front door. They just happened to walk in—which was not unusual at Jack’s club. I said to the four guys at the table, “The police are here.” The gun went to the floor immediately and was kicked over to the side. Jack Ruby, in the meantime, was explaining to the policemen that everything was all right and that there was no problem. After the show, Jack introduced me to the men. . . . He didn’t introduce them to me by name, he just said, “These are friends of mine from Chicago.”
Weston might not have thought too much about this incident except that he returned to the club after closing to retrieve his jacket. One of the men from Chicago opened the door but refused to allow him inside. When he asked the man to go get Jack Ruby the man also refused, saying, “You can’t come in now.” Understanding that something very secret was going on in the club, Weston left.
In 1976, after encountering one of the Chicago toughs who had been at the meeting, Weston decided he should tell his story. Incredible as Weston’s story seems, at least two people have corroborated it. A convicted murderer and mobster named Myron Thomas Billet, also known as Paul Buccilli, admitted in 1976 that he attended just such a meeting in Ruby’s club. Billet stated:
I was at the Whitemarsh Valley Country Club back in the late part of 1963 when I was contacted by the Mob for a meeting in Dallas at Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club. As I remember it, there was myself, Jack Ruby, Lee Oswald, Sam Giancana, John Roselli, and an FBI man. The meeting was to set up a “hit” on John F. Kennedy. I can’t say what the arrangement was because Sam and I left. Sam told me he wanted nothing to do with it. Hell, he helped put Kennedy in office. But three weeks later, JFK was hit and we all knew it wasn’t done by one man. Sam told me then that he figured this would get us all killed before it was over.
One man never questioned by the government was C. B. Caldera, a resident of Neely Street. In 1990, he told of seeing Oswald, whom he recognized as his neighbor, inside Ruby’s Carousel Club.
Then there is the experience of Ester Ann Mash, who came forward only in recent years. Mash told this author she served drinks at a meeting in the Carousel Club that included �
��gangsters” from Chicago, Jack Ruby, and Lee Harvey Oswald.
She had been a waitress at a restaurant near Love Field when a Dallas detective introduced her to Ruby early in 1963. Shortly after their introduction, Ruby enticed her into working at the Carousel Club, but only as a waitress and champagne hostess. She explained, “He wanted me to strip, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do that.” In addition to her club duties, Mash became a lover to Ruby, who she said took her to gambling parties around Dallas.
In the late spring of 1963, she said, Ruby asked her to serve drinks at a gathering in a meeting area of the Carousel Club. Mash said the meeting was composed of Ruby, five “gangster types,” and a young man who only sipped beer. She described the meeting:
I had to follow Jack’s orders to the letter for that meeting. He demanded absolute privacy and no interruptions. I was the only person allowed to enter the room and that was just to serve the drinks and then get out. Five men dressed in suits, looking very businesslike, came in about ten thirty that night. They were all dark, swarthy men who looked like gangsters out of some movie. There was another man, dressed real casual—he didn’t look like he fit in with the rest of the group at all. There were seven all together [including Ruby]. They talked until about one o’clock in the morning. Then the men in suits left. Jack went to his apartment behind the club. And the other guy stayed until closing watching the strippers. He couldn’t take his eyes off them. That man was Lee Harvey Oswald. I really remember him because he was so unusual from the rest. He kept ordering beer. Everyone else drank mixed drinks but this wimpy-looking little guy. I might not remember a name, but I always remember a face. It was a serious meeting and although I did not overhear what they were talking about at the time, I am convinced that they were discussing killing Kennedy. I knew it had something to do with the Mafia because everybody in town in those days knew Ruby had something to do with the mob. Also, Jack asked me to take care of these guys, so later I played up to them a little and discovered they were Mafia guys from Chicago.