In JFK Docuseries, Witnesses Recall Shock of Learning That Jack Ruby Murdered Lee Harvey Oswald (Exclusive)

In a sneak peek of Nat Geo's upcoming docuseries "JFK: One Day in America," surviving witnesses recall the president's assassination 60 years ago — and the chaos that followed

Sixty years after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, some of the last surviving witnesses are sharing their testimony of that day and the events that followed for the first time in a documentary.

Former journalist Peggy Simpson, Dallas reporter Bill Mercer, and former police officer Rusty Robbins recall what they experienced on Nov. 22, 1963, in JFK: One Day In America — the second installment of National Geographic’s Emmy Award-winning One Day In America historical docuseries franchise.

The series, which premieres Nov. 5 to mark the 60th anniversary of Kennedy's death, serves as something of an oral history from the perspectives of those on the ground, tapping into their lived experiences.

"It was just impossible to believe," Mercer, who was the first to inform Lee Harvey Oswald he was being charged with murder, says in the series of first learning that Kennedy had been shot.

Related: JFK Assassination 60 Years Later: Surviving Witnesses Speak Out in New Docuseries Trailer (Exclusive)

But the tragedy surrounding the president's death would soon be eclipsed by the murder of Oswald himself just two days later — when authorities were preparing to transfer him to the Dallas County courthouse.

Simpson, the only female Associated Press reporter working in Texas in 1963, was an eyewitness when local Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot Oswald while he was being walked through the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters.

"I was on the phone with my bureau chief and I heard the cops say, 'This is Jack Ruby,'" Simpson recounts in an exclusive clip obtained by PEOPLE. Simpson's boss, she adds, responded, "What? I drink in his bar. How can this be?"

"He was a known person. He wasn't someone they expected to do any harm," Simpson adds.

Robbins echoes the shock of learning that it was Ruby who fatally shot Oswald.

"I was sorry that he had messed up like that. He committed a grave error — one that you can't eradicate," Robbins says in the series.

He continues: "Jack did what he did. He wanted to be somebody. Everybody loved the president so everybody hated the man who had killed the president. Somehow [Jack thought] this was going to make Jack a hero."

Related: Former Secret Service Agent Makes Startling Claim About Bullet Found After Kennedy Assassination

The three-part limited series, in official collaboration with The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, will encompass “a comprehensive account of that tragic moment in American history and the ripples that followed,” according to a press release.

“The landmark docuseries weaves archival footage, some colorized for the first time, with key testimony from the last surviving witnesses to create an immersive, minute-by-minute examination of that pivotal day that forever changed history," per the release.

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