Marina Oswald Porter
Marina Oswald Porter was once married to Harvey Lee Oswald, the man accused of killing president John F. Kennedy.
Marina was married to Oswald for about two years, in that time the couple produced two children. Daughters, June Lee, born in 1962 and Rachel born in 1963. She later re-married and had two more children. She is a retired pharmacist.
Her husband, Harvey Lee Oswald, a former Marine –was born October 18, 1939 and was killed by gunman Jack Ruby on Nov. 24, 1963; as he was being transported to the Dallas County Jail two days after he allegedly assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
Marina was born Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova on July 17, 1941 in Russia –where she met Oswald in 1961 after he defected to the Soviet Union.
Six weeks after meeting Marina, they were married. The next year Oswald took his new wife and their four-month-old daughter back to America. At the time, Marina Oswald Porter was in her early 20’s and was a pharmacology student. The couple settled in Dallas but struggled to find a place for their young family and Oswald was living apart from Marina and their two young daughters when President Kennedy was shot dead.
Marina lived with a friend Ruth Paine, in Irving, Texas, while Oswald looked for work. Even when he got a job at the Texas Book Depository, he stayed in Dallas during the week, usually visiting Irving on weekends.
Due to her link with Oswald, Marina found herself the focus of intense scrutiny and has since spent decades trying to live a quiet life in rural Dallas.
Less than two years after her first husband was himself killed, Marina married second husband and drag racer Kenneth Porter. Less than a year into their marriage she accused him of domestic violence but eventually were reunited.
She became a U.S. citizen and the couple moved to Texas settling in Rockwell. Marina and Kenneth are the parents of one son, Mark.
According to the Daily Mail, following Kennedy’s assassination, the Russian born believed her husband was guilty; but after reading some books and conspiracy theories about the shooting, she – like the majority of U.S. citizens – changed her mind.
Her close friend and documentary film maker Keya Morgan, said Mrs Porter believes her first husband was set up to take the fall for conspirators in the CIA and Mafia.
Now in her 70’s, the wife, mother and grandma, has refused several times huge amounts of money to sell her story to the media, in part because of fear of being thrust back into the limelight.
In 2013, for the 50th anniversary of the assassination, she had Oswald’s wedding ring auctioned off, along with a note containing the line: “At this time of my life I don’t wish to have Lee’s ring in my possession because symbolicly [sic] I want to let go of my past that is connecting with November 22, 1963.”
Will Marina Oswald Porter have something to say with the release of about 2,800 unredacted government documents related to Kennedy’s murder?
More Stories for you