Posted on 03/08/2005 8:10:03 AM PST by jtminton
FORT WORTH - The name is etched on a pink granite tombstone only inches from the grave of one of the most notorious killers in American history.
"Nick Beef."
The neighboring gravestone, nearly identical, says merely:
"Oswald."
Lee Harvey Oswald was buried Nov. 25, 1963, in east Fort Worth's Rose Hill Cemetery. It was three days after the assassination of President Kennedy in downtown Dallas and one day after Oswald was fatally shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
Oswald's mother, Marguerite, who died Jan. 17, 1981, is buried next to him. The Beef marker is on the other side. It is not clear who placed the Beef tombstone, or exactly when it appeared.
The rectangular tombstones are the same size. Each bears only a name, without the customary inscription of date of birth and death. On holidays, when the cemetery blooms with flowers from loved ones, both plots typically remain barren.
But there is one big difference between the two grave sites:
"Nick Beef's" is empty.
Just about every aspect of Oswald's life and death has been examined and re-examined by reporters, history buffs and conspiracy theorists, all looking for another small clue into what drove him to kill the president.
But the Beef marker, sitting so close to the infamous grave, is virtually unknown to some of the most veteran scholars of the Kennedy assassination.
"I've just never, ever, run across that name," said Gary Mack, curator for the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, where Oswald fired the shots into Kennedy's motorcade.
Deby Alexander, general manager of Shannon Rose Hill Funeral Chapel & Cemetery, said no "interment card" is on file for the Nick Beef plot.
"A burial," she said, "has not been done there."
Alexander said she cannot reveal who owns the plot, for privacy reasons. She has heard the unsubstantiated accounts, many of them circulated on the Internet, that the marker was placed by a comedian with the stage name Nick Beef.
So where's the humor in placing a fake grave site next to a man who killed a president?
"We've scratched our heads about this for a long time," said Barb Junkkarinen, a self-described JFK researcher who lives in Forest Grove, Ore.
Junkkarinen said she first saw the Beef marker in November 1998, when she visited Rose Hill while attending a Dallas event commemorating the assassination.
Another assassination buff, Arthur Snyder, a scientist and researcher for Stanford University, said he also noticed the Beef stone in 1998. It wasn't there a year earlier, Snyder said, when he and his wife visited Oswald's grave.
"We were shocked to see it there," said Snyder, of Palo Alto, Calif.
Snyder and Junkkarinen said they were among a group of JFK/Oswald enthusiasts who sought out Rose Hill workers to find out about the new marker.
Junkkarinen said several of workers told them that "Nick Beef" was the stage name for a comedian from the Northeast who paid $2,000 for the plot.
The comedian bought the plot, the group was told, as part of an act in which he told audiences they could get directions to Oswald's grave by asking Rose Hill employees for the Beef burial site.
The workers are not allowed to divulge the location of Oswald's grave.
"Only thing is, now they won't tell people where Nick Beef's grave is either!" Junkkarinen wrote on a Web site.
Alexander, the general manager at Rose Hill, acknowledged that curiosity-seekers are not told how to find his grave at the sprawling cemetery, out of respect for his relatives.
"The family is very private about it," she said.
If there is any truth to the story that a comedian tried to turn the national tragedy of Kennedy's murder into a comic skit, his show apparently flopped.
Among the veteran journalists, scholars and members of the entertainment world who have studied the assassination, few know about the "Nick Beef" mystery.
It is a piece of an unsolved puzzle that never came up when Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone was doing his research for the 1991 movie JFK.
"He's never heard of this guy's name before," said Rob Wilson, a spokesman for Stone.
Ian Griggs, a retired British police officer and co-founder of the overseas research group the Dealey Plaza UK, said he has studied the Kennedy assassination for more than 30 years and remains baffled by the Beef marker.
Like Snyder and Junkkarinen, Griggs said he noticed the gravestone while attending a Kennedy conference in Dallas. He said he got this response when he questioned a Rose Hill worker: "Mr. Beef is not dead."
Computerized property records suggest only one possibility -- that a "Nick Beef" might have lived in a high-rise apartment complex in New York City during the middle to late 1990s. The spot is in Manhattan's trendy West Village, known for its nightspots -- and comedy clubs.
But there is no phone number for a "Nick Beef," and several residents of the complex said they do not remember a neighbor by such a name.
Only a block from the complex is the Comedy Cellar, one of New York City's most established stage-comedy clubs, whose featured entertainers have included Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock.
But, as with everything else, when it comes to the name "Nick Beef," the trail quickly turns cold.
Estee Adoram, manager and 23-year veteran employee of the Comedy Cellar, said she doubts that a comic has ever tried to make people laugh about the Kennedy assassination.
She added, "I don't think there was a stand-up comedian by this name."
News Researchers Cathy Belcher and Marcia Melton Contributed to This Report.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jack Douglas Jr., (817) 390-7700 jld@star-telegram.com
Oswald Grave N 32 43.948’ W 097 12.192’
Interesting
So where's the humor in placing a fake grave site next to a man who killed a president?
Pretty lame comedian, IMO. Now, if he'd had the stone marked "Arch Stanton", that might be worth a chuckle or two (Trivial Pursuit time - the Hollywood Edition...).
I think she was Belarussian. Wasn't she from Minsk?
No, Rochelle, Rochelle was from Minsk. Or she lived there for a time.
"If there is any truth to the story that a comedian tried to turn the national tragedy of Kennedy's murder into a comic skit, his show apparently flopped."
Don't remember a comedian trying to do comedy skit about Kennedy's murder. I do remember a popular comedian (name escapes me but he was a large man whose comedic style was in the wise-cracking Rodney Dangerfield mode) who was dressed down and ordered off stage by Jerry Lewis on his national comedy show shortly after the assassination. His offense was making some off-hand remark along the lines of "so and so, you know, another Harvard man." Disappeared from TV, national career essentially over.
(Of course, considering how bad the Jerry Lewis Show was, maybe just being ON the show killed his career. Sorry France.)
I feel a Fox News Alert coming on.
Bill Carson is buried in the one next to that one, right?
That really needs to be removed. Very improper.
I think Nick Beef is a porn star.
What about the Sienfeld episode where Keith Hernandez spit on Kramer and Newman.
Beef, Nick
Beatnick
Kennedy was killed by hippies!
"Banned or Temporarily Suspended"
I think the one "next door" is simply marked "Unknown". Either way, one wonders about what's really buried next to ol' Arch...
Thanks! The photo of Marina in Minsk (on the link you provided) shows her to be an attractive women. The transcripts of her interviews/cross examinations shows her to be not-to-bright and/or uncooperative.
Thanks! The photo of Marina in Minsk (on the link you provided) shows her to be an attractive women. The transcripts of her interviews/cross examinations shows her to be not-to-bright and/or uncooperative.
I thought Roger McDowell spit on Newman and Kramer from the grassy knoll, as Hernandez walked by.
What a pitiful photo this is. They didn't do the killing. they look so sad. The brother looks like he is contemplating why and the mother looks like she is cradling the baby with the thought why did your father do this and the wife and little girl...they just look totally lost and alone. Sad to think sometimes people like Oswald and their ilk only think of the moment and not what their selfish acts will do to those left behind to deal with the tragedy, embarassment and the sadness of it all. Personally, I don't give rats teeth who Nick Beef is. It's done. It's over. Why would anyone want to see Oswalds grave anyway? I saw Kennedy's grave once and that is it. What a world we live in.
Now that makes sense. Seems to me in all these years since 1963 that someone would know where the gravesite was. I wouldn't waste my time going there but a lot of people would. Now they know where to go.
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