CNN has acquired phone recordings that raise questions about Bill O'Reilly's presence at the suicide of a figure involved in the investigation of JFK's assassination.
Then a reporter at WFAA, a televisions news station in Dallas, O'Reilly wrote he "heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide" of George de Mohrenschildt, a Russian immigrant who knew Lee Harvey Oswald, in his 2012 book, "Killing Kennedy," according to CNN. The suicide occurred at a house in South Florida.
O'Reilly has claimed the same many times since, including on a Fox News segment, shown below. The relevant bit, where O'Reilly says he heard Mohrenschildt "blow his brains out with a shotgun," starts around 40 seconds.
The recordings, provided to CNN by Gaeton Fonzi's widow, Marie, however, tell a different story.
The tapes reveal that O'Reilly called Fonzi, an investigative journalist known for his work on JFK's assassination, in 1977 and asked if he had heard any details about the suicide.
"I'm coming down there tomorrow," O'Reilly also said. "I'm coming to Florida."
Both details suggest that O'Reilly was neither in Florida at the time of the suicide nor knew about Mohrenschildt's death until after the fact.
Earlier this week, Media Matters reported that two of O'Reilly's former colleagues called his claims a lie, as well.
"Bill O'Reilly's a phony, there's no other way to put it," Tracy Rowlett, an anchor who worked at a Dallas TV station with O'Reilly in 1977, told Media Matters. "He was not up on the porch when he heard the gunshots, he was in Dallas. He wasn't traveling at that time."
Byron Harris, another reporter at the station, confirmed O'Reilly "was in Dallas," according to Media Matters. Otherwise, WFAA would have reported it as an exclusive, Harris claims.
Fox News has declined to comment, referring questions to the O'Reilly's publisher, according to CNN.
Following Brian William's recent demise, O'Reilly already faces serious scrutiny about his reporting on the Falklands War in 1982.