November 22, 1963. Even before President Kennedy’s near-lifeless body was pulled from the presidential limousine at Parkland Hospital, initial United Press International reports that “today three shots were fired at President John’s caravan F. Kennedy “ran through teletype machines across the country. With a transistor radio to his ear, one of the millions of Americans who monitored the breaking news was Vernon B. Oneal, a Dallas funeral director whose business also included an ambulance service.

At approximately 12:46 CST, just sixteen minutes after JFK was shot and 47 minutes before White House Assistant Secretary Malcolm Kilduff officially announced the president’s death to the world, Oneal’s phone rang. It was Secret Service agent Clint Hill calling from Parkland Hospital, advising Oneal to select his best coffin and transport it to the hospital “as soon as possible.”

“Is it for the president?” Oneal asked.

“Yes,” Hill replied, “it is for the President of the United States.”

Realizing the urgency of Hill’s directive, Oneal entered his showroom and selected his signature model, an eight hundred pound solid bronze casket called “Brittania.” Manufactured by the Elgin Casket Company, it was double-walled and hermetically sealed. Suitable for a president or king, Oneal’s price was $ 3,995.

As his profession dictated, Vernon Oneal was prepared to quietly comfort and aid the bereaved Kennedy family in every way possible. At Parkland, he whispered words of sympathy to Jacqueline Kennedy. Then he and two of his associates were assisted by nurses to carefully wrap JFK’s remains in various sheets and plastic, in the hope that the blood and brain matter still seeping from the president’s massive head wound would not they will stain the luxurious satin ruffle of the coffin.

Before leaving Parkland, Oneal dutifully stood by Mrs. Kennedy and the coffin as the late President’s White House aides and Secret Service agents endured an ugly shouting match with a local official named Dr. Earl Rose. , who insisted that JFK’s body must, by law, be retained for autopsy in Dallas County. Oneal had every right to assume that his services would continue to be needed until President Kennedy’s burial site, and he wanted Ms. Kennedy to be assured of his loyalty and respect; the full scope of his establishment’s services was at her request, and the man was determined to do whatever it took, whether the funeral was held in Washington or Massachusetts, to satisfy her every wish.

Then suddenly Oneal’s hopes were dashed. Secret Service agents and JFK’s most loyal aides had pushed Dr. Rose aside when the coffin containing the assassinated president was hastily loaded into the back of his Cadillac hearse, the same vehicle as he and his staff. used to deliver the bronze coffin to Parkland. Hospital. It had been Oneal’s intention to bring Kennedy’s body directly to his funeral home for embalming and scheduling funeral arrangements, but the Secret Service commanded the hearse and an agent advised him to follow him in another car, without telling Oneal that his true destination was Air Force One at Love Field Airport.

Along with a police motorcycle escort, three cars began to roll off the Parkland service road: Oneal’s hearse, a car full of Secret Service agents and JFK assistants, and the last with Oneal and two of your employees. The funeral director sensed that something serious was amiss when he noticed his hearse turning left in the direction of the airport instead of directly at his morgue. Agents in the second vehicle radioed their counterparts at Love Field, instructing them to allow “the first two cars only” past the airport fence near Air Force One. Under no circumstances would Oneal and his employees be allowed, or any other vehicle, enter the area near the presidential jet.

Sure enough, the agents allowed the first two cars to pass through a fence within sight of the aircraft, but they stopped Oneal’s sedan. The Undertaker was furious, and with good reason. The martyred president was inside its coffin and its coach, both supposedly destined for its funeral home. The officers ignored his protests and let Dallas police officers assure the embattled businessman that the hearse would be returned to him the moment Air Force One took off. Vernon Oneal felt like a spare tire. The United States government had used it to the extent that its main requirements were met, and then threw it at the door.

Perhaps the latest insult to Vernon Oneal involved paying for the coffin itself. He repeatedly sent a $ 3,900 bill to Jacqueline Kennedy for nearly a year, but she never responded. Finally, fourteen months after JFK’s assassination, in January 1965, the federal government paid him a sum of $ 3,160. But by then Oneal was living a public relations nightmare; his attempts to collect on Ms. Kennedy were widely publicized and his morgue suffered an agonizing 50 percent drop in business.

Interestingly, Oneal’s coffin was not used at John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Its handles and finish were damaged at Love Field as Secret Service agents scrambled to maneuver through the narrow door of Air Force One. Additionally, blood from Kennedy’s head wound was oozing through the protective sheeting and the plastic, ruining the satin interior of the coffin. The flaws were noted prior to the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital, resulting in JFK’s closest aides choosing a new and more expensive casket at Gawler Funeral Home in Washington’s Georgetown district, being a more exquisite example. made of five hundred year old Africans. mahogany. Gawler also prepared the late president’s body for burial after an autopsy in Bethesda.

For many years, the whereabouts of the Oneal coffin remained a closely guarded secret. Understandably, the Kennedy family did not want the artifact to fall into the wrong hands and become a hideous relic. It was finally revealed that, in 1966, the coffin was intentionally loaded aboard an Air Force C-130 transport plane and unceremoniously deposited deep in the Atlantic Ocean, never to be seen again.