Incarcerated inside an Illinois state prison sits 74-year-old Jimmy Sutton who claims he fired the fatal shot from behind a fence on the grassy knoll that killed the 35th President of the United States at 12:30pm in Dallas back on November 22nd, 1963.
It’s all based on heresay and he can’t prove it but he has provided enough details over the years to convince one woman to write a book about him.
Too bad he has never been subjected to a polygraph test to determine if he is telling the truth or not.
Sutton was only 21-years-old at the time of JFK’s assassination. One internet source says that he was offered $30,000 to take part in the shooting. Sutton claims that he was recruited for the mission by David Atlee Phillips who was a supposed operative for the CIA.
Sutton indicates that he was at Dealey Plaza as early as 10am on that fateful Friday morning armed with a Remington Fireball XP-100 long pistol. He was there as part of an assassination ring with several other members including Charles Nicoletti, an alleged CIA controller with known Chicago mafia connections.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who once served in the marine corps and spoke fluent Russian, was also either CIA or part of the Office of Navy Intelligence in order to infiltrate anti-Cuban rebels. As it turned out, Oswald ended up as the lonely fall guy.
Later that midday while positioned at the grassy knoll and looking through the scope of his weapon pointed at the presidential motorcade that was slowly cruising down Elm Street past the Texas School Book Depository, Sutton said it appeared as if John F. Kennedy was situated just six feet away from him.
After discharging his firearm, Sutton says he picked up the ejected shell and used his teeth to indent the bullet casing which was left at the scene by the stockade fence.
The coroner’s autopsy examination revealed that Kennedy suffered an entrance wound in his back and an exit wound from his throat as well as a blast to the head which blew out cerebral matter causing First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to climb out of her seat and onto the vehicle’s trunk to retrieve.
This visual was captured on the home movie film of bystander Abraham Zapruder which also showed the reaction of the President getting hit by gunfire, throwing his head back and to the left. Sutton sumises that Kennedy’s head was struck simultaneously by gunfire both front and back. The other shot coming from Nicoletti located at the Dal-Tex building.
Sutton insists that he only fired once. His story would be much more believable if he had shot twice.
The silver-haired inmate has been serving a 30-year sentence since 1991 for the attempted murder of a police officer during a roadside shootout in Buffalo Grove. Sutton, who now goes by the name of James Earl Files, is eligible for possible parole in May 2016.
6th floor Earthcam view from the former Texas School Book Depository: http://www.earthcam.com/usa/texas/dallas/dealeyplaza/?cam=dealeyplaza