I.C. man who was medical examiner when Kennedy was killed dies at 85

IOWA CITY - Many of the writers who attempted to portray Earl Rose's role as Dallas County medical examiner when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 got it wrong.

His wife told The Gazette on Tuesday - just hours after her husband died in Iowa City at age 85 - that Rose wasn't angry about the decision to move Kennedy's body out of state before his office could conduct an autopsy in the city where the crime occurred.

“Some writers have described him as angry,” Merilyn Rose said. “He was dismayed, but not angry.”

Earl Rose was a Dallas County pathologist from 1962 to 1968, when he and his family moved to Iowa City so he could take a position as professor and forensic pathologist at the University of Iowa. When Kennedy was shot on Nov. 22, 1963, the president was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, and Rose, Dallas medical examiner at the time, insisted the autopsy be performed there.

Merilyn Rose on Tuesday said Kennedy's wife and staff wanted to take Kennedy's body to Maryland for an autopsy, over her husband's objections. News outlets have reported that Earl Rose went so far as to stand in the doorway and block Kennedy's aides as they removed his coffin.

“He felt the correct and right thing would have been for them to leave the body in Dallas to do the autopsy,” she said. “He was concerned about a break in the evidence. By taking the body away, the trail of evidence was totally disrupted. How do you do justice then?”

Rose also conducted the autopsies of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of killing Kennedy, and Jack Ruby, the man who shot Oswald. The Rose family at the time was flooded with phone calls and press inquires, his wife said, and writers since have portrayed Rose in books and film.

“They were not very kind to him,” she said Tuesday, referencing the William Manchester book, “The Death of a President” and the Oliver Stone movie, “JFK.”

“The Oliver Stone movie was not factual at all,” she said.

Merilyn Rose said the family faced a lot of unknowns at that time, recalling the situation as “difficult.”

“There was a lot of stress,” she said, “but we both handled it very well.”

The issue continued to garner media attention for years as conspiracy theories arose. But, after the family's move to Iowa City in the late 1960s, Rose said her husband didn't bring up the experience with students or friends.

“He was very reluctant to talk about it,” she said.

Earl Rose, who died at 3:15 a.m. Tuesday at Oaknoll retirement community after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and then dementia, became a respected professor at the UI, as well as a friend to many and a husband and father of six.

“I would much prefer them remember him as a very good teacher and a creative writer,” Marilyn Rose said, adding, “He very much enjoyed Iowa City.”

The Rose family moved from Dallas to Iowa City because Earl Rose was interested in teaching, and the couple wanted to be nearer their parents in South Dakota.

Charles Platz, a retired UI professor of pathology, said Rose fast become a supportive friend and colleague who was a “superb teacher” with a sense of humor. After their retirements, they met up occasionally and more frequently as Rose's illness progressed, Platz said.

“I enjoyed coming over and getting him out in the convertible,” Platz said. “We would drive around the countryside. I think he enjoyed that. He referred to it as our convertible, which meant a great deal to me.”

Platz said Rose didn't talk much about his experience with the Kennedy assassination, and he respected that. Retired professor of pathology Jo Benda said that experience was in Rose's past, and he didn't spend a lot of time dwelling on it.

He focused on teaching, she said, at which he was excellent.

“He was always showing you something new about something you through you knew everything about,” Benda said. “He had a good sense of humor and a great deal of knowledge.”

The family is planning a public memorial on June 11, although the details haven't been finalized.