Brother: Destroy Lee Harvey Oswald's Coffin

The brother of Lee Harvey Oswald says Oswald's coffin belongs to him and never should have been sold at auction as a kind of historical souvenir.

Instead, Robert Oswald says the coffin that once held his brother, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, should be destroyed. The casket was sold last week for $86,469 at a California action to an anonymous bidder.

"This is not about money on my part," Oswald told The Associated Press. "The coffin should have been destroyed years ago, and that is what I desire now."

Oswald, 76, told the AP he bought the casket in 1963, when his brother was shot dead in Dallas, Texas, as he was being held as a suspect in Kennedy's assasination. He said he tried to stop the auction but never got any response from Nate D. Sanders Auctions of Santa Monica, Calif.

Lee Harvey Oswald's body was exhumed in 1981 to dispel conspiracy theories that someone else was buried in the coffin, and the body was placed in a new coffin. Oswald was killed before he could stand trial for Kennedy's assasination.

Read more at The Associated Press.