On November 22, 1963, the world stood nonetheless when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Two years prior and roughly 300 miles away within the smaller metropolis of Midland, Texas, Charles and Diane Harrelson’s world was additionally modified once they had their son, Woody Harrelson.
Whereas Woody turned a well-known actor starring in classics like “Cheers” and “True Detective,” Charles garnered a well-known repute of his personal. He was a contract hitman who was first convicted for the 1968 assassination of grain vendor Sam Degelia Jr and was paid $2,000 for the homicide. He was launched after simply 5 years for “good habits.”
Then in 1979, drug smuggler Jamiel Sagra coughed up much more for him to hold out the primary homicide of a sitting U.S. federal decide, John H. Wooden Jr, referred to as “Most John” for his extreme sentencing of drug traffickers. Sagra paid Charles $250,000, the equal of over $1.2 million in the present day, to verify the decide set to find out his destiny would by no means preside over one other case once more.
In September 1980, Charles was excessive on cocaine when he engaged in a six-hour standoff with the police over the killing. It was throughout that when he confessed not solely that he had killed the decide but additionally JFK. And thus, the idea was born.
Did Woody Harrelson’s dad Charles Harrelson kill JFK?
So, is there any proof that Charles had a hand within the notorious assassination? Subsequent to the constructing that Lee Harvey Oswald shot him from and mere hours after the tragedy, a number of Texas newspapers photographed police escorting three males. They later turned referred to as the “three tramps.”
In response to the writer and prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s e book, “Reclaiming Historical past: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” conspiracy theorist Richard E. Sprague was the primary to uncover the forgotten images of the “three tramps.” He subsequently turned them over to lawyer Jim Garrison who made it well-known when he confirmed them to the world throughout a 1968 look on Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Present,” suggesting that they had one thing to do with the plot.
Quickly folks began to invest who precisely these three homeless arrestees had been.
Some theories claimed that Frank Sturgis was one of many three, also called a part of the 5 perpetrators of the Watergate housebreaking. Others postulated that one of many males was E. Howard Hunt. Hunt was a former CIA officer who was a part of Nixon’s secretive crew to comprise leaks and, earlier than that, had a hand within the U.S.-backed coups in Latin America just like the failed Bay of Pigs.
Conspiracy theorist Jim Marrs was one of many first to popularly hypothesize that maybe Charles was one of many males. He claimed that the tallest and youngest of the three resembled him. The speculation obtained some legs when Lois Gibson supplied her experience. Gibson had secured over 1,000 convictions for her work and was dubbed “the world’s most profitable forensic artist” by the Guinness World Information in 2017. She used side-by-side pictures of the 2 males, evaluating their facial constructions to claim that they had been the identical individual.
So, Charles being a Texas native, a famed hitman and bearing a resemblance to one of many males all made this principle extremely juicy.
Nevertheless, Charles finally went again on his declare.
In a Dallas tv interview quickly after his seize, Charles gave why he mentioned through the standoff that he was concerned within the JFK assassination plot.
“On the identical time I mentioned I had killed the decide, I mentioned I had killed Kennedy, which could provide you with an thought to the state of my thoughts on the time,” he mentioned. “It was an effort to elongate my life.”
On high of that, in 1992, journalist Mary La Fontaine recognized the three males utilizing arrest data as Gus Abrams, Harold Doyle and John Gedney, who police took from a railroad automobile close to the assassination website, in keeping with Bugliosi.
Charles spent the rest of his life behind bars as a result of killing of the district decide. Although Woody visited him a number of occasions, describing their relationship extra as mates than father and son due to his absence in his childhood. So, for now, the conspiracy stays simply that. Possibly at some point we’ll get a film with Woody taking part in his father as a result of the tales of his which might be confirmed are—virtually—as wild.
Ethan Cotler is a author dwelling in Boston. He writes on leisure and information.
