James Files
James Earl Files (born January 24, 1942), also known as James Sutton,[lower-alpha 1] is an American prisoner at the Danville Correctional Center in Danville, Illinois[2][3] who stated in a 1994 interview that he was the "grassy knoll shooter" in the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy.[4][5][6] Files has subsequently been interviewed by others and discussed in various books pertaining to the assassination and related theories.[5][6] In 1994, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was quoted as having investigated Files' allegation and found it "not to be credible".[4][7]
In 2010, Playboy magazine published an article by Hillel Levin in which Files also implicated Charles Nicoletti and John Roselli in the assassination of Kennedy.[8]
Background
Files has stated that he was born in Alabama, moved to California with his family shortly thereafter, then to an Italian neighborhood in Chicago.[9] Files was convicted of the attempted murder of two police officers during a roadside shootout in 1991 and sentenced to fifty years.[2][10]
An "anonymous FBI source", later identified as Zack Shelton, has been reported by some researchers as having told Joe West, a private investigator in Houston, in the early 1990s about an inmate in an Illinois penitentiary who might have information about the Kennedy assassination.[6][11] On August 17, 1992, West interviewed Files at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois.[2] After West's death in 1993, his family requested that his friend, Houston television producer Bob Vernon, take over the records concerning the story.[2][4]
Critical analysis
Vincent Bugliosi, author of Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, has characterized Files as "the Rodney Dangerfield of Kennedy assassins."[2] Many conspiracy believers state that Files' story was concocted to achieve notoriety and royalties.[10] According to Bugliosi, very few within the community of people who believe there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy respect him or his story.[2] Conspiracy author Jerome Kroth described Files as "surprisingly credible" and said his story "is the most believable and persuasive" about the assassination.[2]
According to John C. McAdams, Files has changed his story on numerous occasions.[12]
Notes
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- ↑ The Assassin From Blockbuster Video
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