James Files
{{Short description|American attempted murderer and JFK assassination figure}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2016}}
{{Infobox criminal
| name = James Files
| image =
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name = James Earl Files
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1942|01|24}}
| birth_place = Oakman, Alabama, U.S.
| death_date =
| death_place =
| death_cause =
| resting_place =
| residence =
| nationality = American
| other_names = James Sutton
| occupation =
| religion =
| criminal_charge = Attempted murder (2 counts)
Aggravated discharge of a firearm
Aggravated battery with a firearm
Armed violence
| penalty = 50 years
| conviction_status = Paroled in May 2016
| spouse =
| children =
| victims =
| date = May 7, 1991
| time = 3:45 pm
| beginyear =
| endyear =
| country = United States
| states = Illinois
| locations = Round Lake Beach, Illinois
| targets = David Ostertag
Gary Bitler
| fatalities =
| injuries = David Ostertag
| weapons = 9mm pistol and AK47 (spring broke in AK, so it would not fire)
| apprehended = May 7, 1991
| imprisoned = Stateville Correctional Center
| footnotes =
}}
James Earl Files (born January 24, 1942), also known as James Sutton,{{efn|In his testimony before the Assassination Records Review Board, Robert G. Vernon said that the name "James Sutton" was an alias.{{cite book |title=United States of America Assassination Records Review Board: Public Hearing |url=http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=145536 |date=November 18, 1994 |publisher=United States Government Printing Office |location=Washington, D.C. |pages=27–32}} In Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vincent Bugliosi wrote that "James Sutton" was his "true name".{{cite book |last=Bugliosi |first=Vincent |author-link=Vincent Bugliosi |title=Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy |access-date=June 3, 2012 |year=2007 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York |isbn=978-0-393-04525-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/reclaiminghistor00bugl/page/917 917–919] |chapter=Other Assassins |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7jrKTKDhvfkC&pg=PA917 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/reclaiminghistor00bugl/page/917 }}}} is an American former prisoner. In 1994, while serving a 50-year sentence for the 1991 attempted murders of two police officers, Files gave interviews stating that he was the "grassy knoll shooter" in the 1963 assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy.{{cite news |title=Sleuths plan JFK assassination conspiracy convention |first=John |last=Hanchette |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QMYgAAAAIBAJ&pg=1425%2C6224101 |agency=Gannett News Service |newspaper=Sun-Journal |location=Lewiston, Maine |date=September 29, 1994 |page=12 |access-date=March 6, 2012}}{{cite book |title=JFK Assassination Logic: How to Think about Claims of Conspiracy |last=McAdams |first=John |author-link=John C. McAdams |year=2011 |publisher=Potomac Books, Inc. |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-1-59797-489-9 |page=188 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2OJeNytAOZkC |chapter=Too Much Evidence of Conspiracy |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2OJeNytAOZkC&pg=PA188 |access-date=March 6, 2012}}{{cite book |last1=Kroth |first1=Jerome A. |title=Conspiracy in Camelot: The Complete History of the Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OA0X3ixhqlsC |access-date=March 6, 2012 |year=2003 |publisher=Algora Publishing |isbn=0-87586-247-0 |pages=195, 197, 215–223 |chapter=Chapter 5. Paradox |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OA0X3ixhqlsC&pg=PA215}}
He said he took one shot at Kennedy with a Remington XP-100 "fireball" gun, which was the final, fatal, head shot which infamously caused Kennedy's to jerk violently back and to the left.{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8DGv6KSBZI | title=A Confession from the Man Who Shot JFK | Confessions of an Assassin | @DocoCentral | website=YouTube | date=December 15, 2024 }}{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44x5I-kP48o | title=The Shocking JFK Confession from Prison | Files on JFK | @DocoCentral | website=YouTube | date=August 11, 2024 }} Files has subsequently been interviewed by others and discussed in multiple books pertaining to the assassination and related theories. In 1994, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was quoted as having investigated Files' allegation and found it "not credible".{{cite news |title=JFK the target of mobsters? |first=Jerry |last=Urban |url=http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1994_1187299/jfk-the-target-of-mobsters.html |work=Houston Chronicle |location=Houston, Texas |date=March 5, 1994 |page=A35 |access-date=March 6, 2012}}
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.{{cite journal|last=Levin |first=Hillel |date=November 2010 |title=How the Outfit Killed JFK |journal=Playboy |access-date=June 3, 2012 |url=http://www.playboy.com/playground/newsroom/politics/how-the-outfit-killed-jfk |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609031601/http://www.playboy.com/playground/newsroom/politics/how-the-outfit-killed-jfk |archive-date=June 9, 2012 }} In 2022 Ted Nelson posted a video interview with Files on his YouTube channel.{{cite web |last1=Nelson |first1=Ted |title=CONFESSION OF JFK SHOOTER-- detailed and plausible |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VrzWF6vf9k |website=Youtube |publisher=Ted Nelson |access-date=1 July 2022 |language=en}}
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.{{cite news |last=Hytha |first=Michael |date=February 20, 1996 |title=Awed by mob, he just bit bullet, pulled trigger |url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/V%20Disk/Vernon%20Bob/Item%2001.pdf |newspaper=Contra Costa Times |volume=85 |issue=272 |location=Walnut Creek, California |pages=1A, 4A |access-date=August 6, 2014}} On May 7, 1991, Files and his friend, David Morley, were involved in a roadside shootout in Round Lake Beach, Illinois, with two police officers, Detective David Ostertag and his partner, Gary Bitler. Ostertag and Bitler tried to apprehend the two for driving a stolen vehicle. During the shootout, Morley shot Detective Ostertag in the chest. Both Files and Morley shot at Detective Bitler, but missed. Files and Morley then fled on foot, but were arrested a few hours later. Files was charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count each of discharge of a firearm, aggravated battery with a firearm and armed violence. In August 1991, a jury found Files guilty of two counts of attempted murder. He was sentenced to 30 years for the shooting of Detective Ostertag and 20 years for attempting to shoot Detective Bitler.{{cite news |last=Hytha |first=Michael |date=February 20, 1996 |title=Illinois inmate says he did it |url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/V%20Disk/Vernon%20Bob/Item%2001.pdf |newspaper=Contra Costa Times |volume=85 |issue=272 |location=Walnut Creek, California |pages=1A, 4A |access-date=August 6, 2014}}{{cite web|title=The People Of the State Of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee v. James Files, Defendant-Appellates.|url=http://il.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19940415_9987.il.htm/qx|publisher=findacase.com|access-date=July 4, 2016|archive-date=August 17, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160817095431/http://il.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19940415_9987.il.htm/qx|url-status=dead}} Files was initially imprisoned at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois, before being transferred to Danville Correctional Center in Danville, Illinois.{{cite web |url=http://www.idoc.state.il.us/subsections/search/inms_print.asp?idoc=N14006 |title=ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS INTERNET INMATE STATUS : N14006 - FILES, JAMES |author=Illinois Department of Corrections |author-link=Illinois Department of Corrections |publisher=Illinois Department of Corrections |location=Springfield, Illinois |access-date=August 6, 2014}} Files was paroled in May 2016.
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.{{cite book |last1=Hersh |first1=Burton |title=Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gA6xmt1I2fYC |access-date=March 7, 2012 |year=2007 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-7867-3185-5 |chapter=Chapter 19 - The Patsy |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gA6xmt1I2fYC&pg=PT641}} On August 17, 1992, West interviewed Files at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois. After West's death in 1993, his family requested that his friend, Houston television producer Bob Vernon, take over the records concerning the story. Vernon is the owner of a bullet casing with teeth marks on it, even though it was not found until 1987.
Critical analysis
Vincent Bugliosi, author of Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, characterized Files as "the Rodney Dangerfield of Kennedy assassins." According to Bugliosi, very few within the majority of Americans (75%) who believe there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy respect him or his story. However, conspiracy author Jerome Kroth described Files as "surprisingly credible" and said his story "is the most believable and persuasive" about the assassination.
Notes
{{notelist}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Files, James}}
Category:People associated with the assassination of John F. Kennedy
Category:People from Walker County, Alabama