JFK assassination film held by feds could be worth $900M – and could prove 2nd shooter on ‘grassy knoll’
Nix died in 1972, and his granddaughter continued her late dad’s legal war to recover his film — which she’s convinced is worth more than $900 million as it may hold the key to exposing one of history’s biggest cover-ups.
Now a federal judge has ruled that the battle over the film can go forward — and the footage might finally see the light of day.
Unlike the famous Zapruder film showing the moment President John F. Kennedy was shot in the head, Nix’s camera was pointed at the infamous grassy knoll — the exact spot where many witnesses thought shots originated. Conspiracy theorists have long believed a second gunman was hiding behind a fence on the knoll.
The Nix film captured first lady Jackie Kennedy climbing on the back of the presidential limo immediately after her husband was shot — and a view of the fence.
The film could reveal evidence that gunman Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t act alone — thanks to new optic technologies and AI, according to Scott Watnik of Wilk Auslander LLP, a lawyer for Nix’s granddaughter, Linda Gayle Nix Jackson.
“It’s really the only one that is known to have captured the grassy knoll area of Dealey Plaza right as the assassination occurs,” Watnik told The Post, noting that the film could bolster a 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations report that found Kennedy “was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.” That panel obtained the Nix film and played a role in the legal saga over its return.
“If we subjected the camera-original film to optics technology of 2026, we can certainly capture details in the film that we never could have captured when … the committee had the film in 1978,” he said.
The FBI, in its own 1980 analysis, found inaccuracies in that report, which relied on acoustic analysis to try to pinpoint the location of a potential second shooter.
During the last six decades, the Nix film has been held by the FBI, news outlet United Press International, Congress, and a private firm called the Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles, which analyzed it and says it handed it back to the National Archives.
The National Archives in 1988 said it had only a copy of it — and the legal discovery process set forth by Court of Federal Claims Judge Stephen Schwartz in a Jan. 15 order gives lawyers a chance to try to force the government to reveal information about its stewardship.
The family’s case rests on the 5th Amendment, which states that the government shall not take property without providing “just compensation” in return.
But the 1992 JFK Records Act law granted the government ownership rights to JFK assassination evidence, while setting up a process for release of records to the public.
But the family’s massive monetary demand could run into trouble — given that an arbitration panel valued the Nix film’s more famous counterpart, the 8mm film shot by dress maker Abraham Zapruder, at $16 million back in 1999, calling it “a unique historical item of unprecedented worth.”
Lawyers for Nix’s granddaughter cite that value as a benchmark for what Nix’s film might have been worth back then — but want their client to get a whole lot of interest, based on the government’s longtime possession.
“If one were to say this film is worth what that one is worth as of ’92, and you apply 32 years of compound interest at a quarterly compound basis, you start to get numbers in the many, many hundred of millions,” Watnik said. One “preliminary estimate” his team reached was $930 million.
It’s not just about getting money to Nix’s heirs — Nix’s son, Orville Nix Jr., died in July, slowing proceedings.
Lawyers for Nix Jackson say they want to use the court case and potential trial that would come if no settlement is reached to force new information from the government about how and where it has stored materials, including fragments of JFK’s brain, and recordings of internal communications by Dallas cops the day of the shooting.
“This is evidence of a murder, after all, of our nation’s president,” said Watnik. “So it’s even more important that we know where these records are.” The Nix family’s lawyers aren’t willing to take the government’s responses at face value. Among the Kennedy records they say have become “unlocated” over the years: the original copy of the supplementary autopsy report of the president, up to three photos taken at the autopsy, and Kennedy’s brain.
The National Archives and Records Administration did not respond to a request for comment.
The 1964 Warren Commission report concluded that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository as the president’s motorcade drove past, but conspiracy theorists have long dismissed its conclusions.
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