How the Kennedy assassination in Dallas, Texas still plays a big role

In 2024, according to Bowden, there was a similar plot that ended with Secret Service snipers shooting Crooks. “Crooks was the sacrificial lamb who was supposed to fire a shot but fortunately it missed and the police were there afterwards to dispose of the evidence,” he said.

A 2023 Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Americans believed that Kennedy was not killed by Oswald alone. A decade earlier, the satirical website The Onion mocked the spread of theories: “Kennedy killed by CIA, Mafia, Castro, LBJ, Teamsters, Freemasons: President shot 129 times from 43 different angles.”

Rodger Jones, 73, an artist who sells paintings in Dealey Plaza, said: “The people who come here for the Kennedy crime story are, by and large, Trump people.” They use similar thought processes today because they are one “We see a president who was persecuted and spied on during his four years in office.”

Mr. Jones had heard the theory that another gunman had emerged from a sewer to kill Kennedy, or that the driver in his limousine had turned around and shot him. Another suspect, according to the Warren Commission, was police officer JD Tippit, who was killed by Oswald.

The artist believes that the CIA was involved in the assassination attempt, but may not have been responsible for it. “It’s pretty clear that Oswald was either a CIA employee or was in very close contact with the CIA, and they may have had him on a leash, but the leash may have been a little too long,” he speculated.

At least for now, theories about Crooks are less sophisticated. “Kennedy existed more than 60 years ago, so it’s relatively early,” Bowden said.