JFK Jr. Hired Investigators to Look Into Late Father’s Assassination Before His Death

For most of his life, John F. Kennedy Jr. was obsessed with bringing his late father John F. Kennedy‘s assassins to justice, and in the months before his own shocking death, a former prosecutor was reportedly convinced that JFK Jr. finally had an airtight case against the men behind the president’s murder. The young Kennedy, who launched George magazine in 1995, is said to have been preparing to go public with details of a chilling contract between the Mafia and JFK’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, when fate knocked his small private plane out of the sky, sealing his lips forever. “In the end, John and his father were cheated out of justice,” a source close to the Kennedy family says. “But I take personal satisfaction John died knowing the truth. He’d worked long and hard to crack the riddle surrounding his dad’s death in Dallas.”

John’s quest began as a kid after he learned his beloved mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, “couldn’t sleep without heavy medication” because of the trauma she’d endured, the source shares. “Jackie suffered a recurring nightmare, reliving the motorcade, the gun shots, Jack’s head exploding and her desperate attempt to retrieve his skull from the limo’s trunk,” the source reveals. “She’d wake up crying, soaked with sweat. Young John often went into his mother’s room to comfort her even though he didn’t know what was wrong. But later, Caroline [Kenndedy] explained their ‘Mummy’ was having terrible dreams about their dad’s death.”

Jackie tried to shelter her kids from the horror, but it was an impossible task. “Caroline and John shed bitter tears together when they found out the shocking details of what really happened,” says the source. “As he got older, John’s love for the father he barely remembered became obsession. He filled his bedroom with JFK’s pictures, clothes and war souvenirs. And he started asking tough questions about the assassination. When he was met with stony silence from family members, his frustration turned to anger. He decided he’d find out on his own.”

By college, JFK Jr. was a cauldron of rage. The more he learned, the more he believed his father’s real killers had escaped justice, inflicting a lifetime of pain on his family. “He swore he’d use the Kennedy name, contacts and their millions to bring them to justice,” the source says.

“Over drinks, Ted [Kennedy] told John the Mafia — and LBJ — were behind the assassination,” claims the source. “Their motive was simple: power, greed and revenge. Ted said the Chicago Syndicate helped steal the 1960 presidential election for JFK by rigging voting results in Illinois after cutting a deal with John’s grandfather [Joe Kennedy Sr.]. In exchange for helping JFK, Joe Sr. promised the Kennedy Administration would go easy on the Mafia.”

But once in office, JFK and his brother Robert F Kennedy, who he’d appointed U.S. Attorney General, went after organized crime in a big way. And the brothers had decided to drop LBJ from the presidential ticket in 1964, which would effectively end his political career.

“So, Ted explained, JFK’s murder was payback — and so was Bobby’s 1968 California assassination,” the source says. “Ted said he’d been warned any other Kennedy who got in the way would get the same treatment. He believed it — and ordered John to let sleeping dogs lie.”

But JFK Jr. was too stubborn. According to the relative, JFK Jr. turned to his uncle Sargent Shriver, a powerful lawyer and former politician who had worked closely with JFK and Johnson. Eventually, John Jr. was put in touch with Burke Marshall, a Kennedy family retainer and Bobby’s aide at the U.S. Justice Department. Marshall had handled the family’s private inquiries into both JFK and RFK’s deaths.

“Marshall gave John copies of top secret government files, particularly secret findings of the Warren Commission’s probe into JFK’s murder,” the source says of the group, which infamously concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. “John spent the rest of his summer poring over documents and inspecting gruesome images of his father’s death, including autopsy pictures never made public. It became obvious to John that the Warren Commission, which was handpicked by LBJ, was a total fraud. He learned the FBI had evidence of a conspiracy to kill his father and had even named the suspects. But the investigation was blocked at the highest level of government.”

When Ted and Jackie got wind of the dangerous path the determined young man was walking, he was once again ordered to back off. And to spare his mom more grief, he agreed.

But after Jackie died, John teamed up with Marshall again and assembled his own team of veteran investigators, another insider reveals. His private eyes reported that “Chicago Mob boss Sam Giancana was key to the conspiracy,” the insider says. “Accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy — and Jack Ruby, the man who killed him, was in the Mafia’s pocket. At least two pros on Giancana’s payroll carried out the actual hit on JFK and slipped away clean. The fix was in and the cover-up seemed ironclad.”

John’s investigators “discovered at least three Chicago mobsters linked to the assassination were still alive and retired,” says the insider. “With the help of family friend President Bill Clinton, John hoped to squeeze them by turning over his case to the FBI while publishing the evidence so the world could learn the truth.”

Once again, his uncle Ted stepped in during the spring of 1999. “He warned John he was putting his wife and family at risk with his brash plan,” says the insider. “And Ted said exposing LBJ as a vicious murderer would rock America’s foundation and destroy the public’s trust in government.”

That gave JFK Jr. pause. “He loved his family and his country — and wanted neither to come to harm. He told Ted he’d hold off for a little while,” continues the insider. “He’d waited all his life for justice and a few months more didn’t seem to matter as he made up his mind about a final course of action.”

But John-John never got the chance to make his decision. By July 1999, he was dead. And Ted made sure the chilling secrets were buried with his nephew, the insider says, by ordering “all the evidence JFK Jr. gathered be destroyed once and for all.”