David William Ferrie (March 28, 1918 – February 22, 1967) was an American pilot who was alleged by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison to have been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Garrison also alleged that Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald. Ferrie denied any involvement in a conspiracy and said he never knew Oswald. Decades later, photos emerged establishing that Ferrie had been in the same Civil Air Patrol unit as Oswald in the 1950s, but critics have argued this does not prove that either Ferrie or Oswald was involved in an assassination plot. Early life Ferrie was born in Cleveland, Ohio. A Roman Catholic, Ferrie attended St. Ignatius High School, John Carroll University, St. Mary's Seminary, where he studied for the priesthood, and Baldwin Wallace College. He next spent three years at the St. Charles Seminary in Carthagena, Ohio. He suffered from alopecia areata, a skin condition which results in hair loss and whose severity may increase with age. Later in life, to compensate for his hair loss, Ferrie wore a homemade auburn wig and false eyebrows. In 1944 Ferrie left St. Charles because of "emotional instability." He obtained a pilot's license and began teaching aeronautics at Cleveland's Benedictine High School. He was fired from the school for several infractions, including taking boys to a house of prostitution. He then became an insurance inspector and, in 1951, moved to New Orleans where he worked as a pilot for Eastern Air Lines, until losing his job in August 1961, after being arrested twice on morals charges. Ferrie was involved with the Civil Air Patrol in several ways: He started as a Senior Member (an adult member) with the Fifth Cleveland Squadron at Hopkins Airport in 1947. When he moved to New Orleans, he transferred to the New Orleans Cadet Squadron at Lakefront Airport. There he served as an instructor, and later as the Commander. After a Ferrie-trained cadet pilot perished in a December 1954 crash, Ferrie's annual re-appointment was declined. He was asked to be a guest aerospace education instructor at a smaller squadron at Moisant Airport, and lectured there from June to September 1955. On July 27, 1955, 15-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald joined this squadron. In March 1958, a former cadet-turned-commander invited Ferrie back to the New Orleans Cadet Squadron. Ferrie served unofficially for a time and was reinstated as Executive Officer in September