James Files

James Earl Files (born January 24, 1942), also known as James Sutton, is an American prisoner at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois who stated in a 1994 interview that he was the "grassy knoll shooter" in the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy. Files has subsequently been interviewed by others and discussed in various books pertaining to the assassination and related conspiracy theories. In 1994, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was quoted as having investigated File's allegation and found it "not to be credible".

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.

Background


Files was convicted of the attempted murder of two police officers in 1991 and sentenced to fifty-years at Statesville Correctional Center.

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. On August 17, 1992, West interviewed Files at Statesville. After West's death in 1993, his family requested that his friend, Houston television producer Bob Vernon, take over the records concerning the story.

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." According to Bugliosi, very few within the community of people who believe there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy respect him or his story. Conspiracy author Jerome Kroth described Files as "surprisingly credible" and said his story "is the most believable and persuasive" about the assassination.

Files' claims have caused heated debates among JFK assassination researchers, even between those who firmly believe a conspiracy existed. Noted JFK researchers such as Jim Marrs, Robert Groden, David Scheim, John R. Craig, Gary Shaw, Barr McClellan, Dick Russell and Fabian Escalante give credence to Files' confession. However, critics claim he has changed his story on numerous occasions. They question the historical accuracy of some of his claims, plus inaccurate descriptions of the weapon he says he used.