Dallas loses legend

Hugh Grant Aynesworth was, as the title of his first book declared, “a witness to history.” For such an amiable — even soft-spoken — man, Aynesworth had a resumé of news stories and investigations that reads like a chronicle of the past 60 years of American violence and trauma. He personally saw and covered the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the arrest and shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. In 1993, he covered the Branch Davidian siege at Waco. He reported on the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City which killed 168 people. Over the course of a year, he and a partner interviewed serial killer Ted Bundy in a Florida prison in 1980 while Bundy’s murder convictions were still being appealed. On November 12 this year, after Aynesworth was admitted to the UT Southwestern emergency room, doctors determined he had suffered a stroke months before. After a week at the hospital and a week in rehab, he returned home on November 25. Earlier this month, his wife, Paula Aynesworth, decided he needed to enter hospice care. He died Saturday at home. Aynesworth was 92. Plans for a memorial service have not been announced. For the complete tribute for Aynesworth by KERA’s Jerome Weeks, visit KERA.org. — Jerome Weeks