[Peter Paul Media] — Below is an investigative timeline of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963:
November 22, 1963 — 12:30 p.m.
Shots ring out in Dealey Plaza. Witnesses scatter, some pointing toward the Texas School Book Depository, others toward the grassy knoll. Police immediately converge on the building. The scene is chaotic. The earliest statements are conflicting, and the foundation for decades of debate is unknowingly being poured.
12:45 p.m.
Investigators begin sweeping the sixth floor. They find spent rifle shells clustered by a window. A rifle is later located tucked behind boxes. None of these items have been fingerprinted yet; the room is crowded and officers move quickly, leaving a future trail of arguments about contamination.
1:15 p.m.
Officer J.D. Tippit is shot 45 minutes after the assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald is detained soon after. His arrest is rushed; evidence is thin, and the motive is unclear. Reporters swarm. The investigation shifts focus from the crime scene to Oswald himself before the physical evidence has been fully processed.
November 23, 1963
The FBI begins drafting what will become an early assessment of the case, even while testimony is still being gathered. The pressure to produce answers is immense. Preliminary conclusions form quickly: Oswald acted alone and fired from the sixth floor. Skeptics later point to how firmly these ideas take hold before all witnesses have been interviewed.
November 24, 1963
Oswald is shot by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters. The nation watches live on television. This single moment collapses the possibility of a normal investigation. Without a trial, the timeline of evidence is forever distorted; what should have been tested in court becomes instead a permanent vacuum.
Late November – Early December 1963
Investigators interview hundreds of witnesses. Many report hearing multiple shots or sounds from more than one direction. Others insist they saw a rifle in the Book Depository window. The contradictory statements are catalogued, but attempts to reconcile them produce tension between local authorities, the FBI and soon the federal commission.
December 1963
President Lyndon Johnson establishes the Warren Commission. Its mission is straightforward: determine the facts and calm a country riddled with grief and suspicion. The commission quickly discovers that the evidence record is uneven. Some materials are incomplete, while others — including witness testimony — diverge sharply.
January–May 1964
The commission reconstructs the shooting using frames of the Zapruder film, medical reports and witness accounts. Analysts debate bullet trajectories and timing. The single-bullet theory emerges during this period, at first as a hypothesis to explain the physics and then as a central pillar of the final report. Critics later argue that the theory is adopted more to preserve a lone-gunman conclusion than to reflect absolute certainty.
June–September 1964
Staff members prepare the final report. Some internal memos express concern about unresolved contradictions, but these never reach the public. The commission publishes its conclusions: three shots from behind, all fired by Oswald, acting alone. The case is closed — officially, if not in the minds of millions.
1975–1979
Years later, congressional investigators reopen key portions of the case. New acoustic and forensic analyses raise the possibility of a second gunman, though the evidence is disputed. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concludes that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy,” but cannot identify who else may have been involved. The timeline splinters again, and the investigation becomes less a straight line and more a branching tree of unresolved questions.
1990s
The release of thousands of previously classified files under the JFK Records Act reshapes public understanding. Many documents reveal investigative gaps, bureaucratic conflicts and intelligence leads that were never fully explored. They do not solve the case, but they restore missing context that had long fed speculation.
Today
Despite decades of analysis, modern investigators face the same problem as those who stood in Dealey Plaza in 1963: too many clues, too many contradictions and too many missing pieces. Every newly released document retraces a step on a timeline that refuses to settle. As long as unanswered questions remain, the investigation continues — not in official offices, but in the collective determination of researchers, historians and citizens who refuse to let the trail go cold.
Peter Paul Media 