COPA founder and JFK researcher "never got the credit he deserved.”
William E. “Bill” Kelly, Jr., a longtime JFK assassination researcher and one of the founders of the COPA Conference, died on Feb. 21, 2026, at the age of 74, in Browns Mill, N.J.
Born July 28, 1951 in Camden, N.J., Kelly attended Camden-area schools (McGraw and St. Joseph’s), before graduating from Camden Catholic High School in Cherry Hill in 1969.
He went on to obtain a bachelor’s degree in secondary education, with a concentration in history and English, from the University of Dayton in 1973. He then pursued graduate studies at the Antioch Center for Social Research.
His interests were quite varied and were reflected in his professional life, which included journalism and history writing. At one juncture he maintained and contributed to 16 different blogs on everything from the history of the Jersey Shore to Naval vessels to James Bond.
He also wrote for a number of regional publications, and as a journalist he covered the America’s Cup races in the late 1980s as well as the fall of the Berlin Wall.
His favorite book, he said, was John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces.”
He published two books of his own: “300 Years at the Point – A History of Somers Point, NJ,” (1995) and “Birth of the Birdie – A History of Golf” (1998).
JFK Scholar
But Kelly’s primary focus was the JFK assassination. As he wrote in the bio for his blog:
“I am a freelance writer, journalist and historian whose major interests are music and history, with a special emphasis on the assassination of President Kennedy.”
In his thoughtful remembrance of Kelly, Assassination Archives & Research Center (AARC) President Dan Alcorn explained how Kelly’s nose for investigation stemmed in part from being the son of a homicide detective.
Alcorn also related the story about Kelly and his University of Dayton friend John Judge stumbling upon a curious and erroneous newspaper report in the National Archives claiming that Curtis LeMay had died in a plane crash on the day of Kennedy’s killing.
In an email to JFK Facts, Alcorn said,
“Bill did original investigating on the case. He did an interview with Volkmar Schmidt that is important. Schmidt hosted the party where the Oswalds were introduced to [George] de Mohrenschildt. Schmidt confessed a feeling of responsibility to Bill, because he had tried to divert Oswald’s tirade on Cuba to a discussion of General [Edwin ]Walker.”
Kelly was to join with Judge and others to create the Coalition on Political Assassinations, known as COPA, which came into being in 1993.
COPA conferences soon became a crucial gathering ground for serious researchers.
Kelly’s own JFKcountercoup blog was a go-to source for those interested in incisive, fascinating information on the assassination.
(It was from Kelly that I learned about author Hunter S. Thompson first using the term “fear and loathing” in a letter written on 11/22/63 in reaction to the assassination.)
He also contributed to the Kennedys and King website.
Kelly’s final piece on countercoup, posted on Nov. 22, 2024, is emblematic of his insight, as he combined his interest in Ian Fleming’s fictional James Bond with real-life players in the JFK assassination.
Kelly discusses the novel, “The Carlos Contract,” written by former CIA major domo David Atlee Phillips, a figure long suspected of having played a role in, or having pre-knowledge of, JFK’s assassination. The book is a fictional account based upon the very real international terrorist known as “Carlos.”
Kelly describes how Phillips, like Fleming, rather cheekily creates “characters” that very closely resemble real people — providing them names that nearly give the game away.
He notes, for example, that:
“The book begins with a former intelligence officer William McLendon being called out of retirement to hunt down Carlos. It’s a thinly veiled reference to the real-life Gordon McLendon, co-founder with Phillips of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO).
Gordon McLendon was a Dallas radio station owner and close friend and associate of Jack Ruby, who called McLendon’s unlisted phone a number of times over the assassination weekend
In a telephone conversation with me, Phillips denied knowing Gordon McLendon during their intelligence careers and only got to know him when they founded the AFIO.”
In the same post, Kelly went on to deliver some of his conclusions about the JFK story.
“Former veteran CIA officer Rolf Mowatt-Larssen says, ‘I think we have solved the assassination, now we just have to prove it,’ and I agree. Narrowing the Dealey Plaza operation to those who knew how to conduct secret covert intelligence operations certainly limits the suspects. Further narrowing the suspects down to those involved in Cuban operations we have a small number of suspects capable of being the mastermind of the assassination, complete with its deception aspects, and getting away with it.
Among those primary suspects are Desmond FitzGerald, J. Edgar Hoover, James Jesus Angleton, David Morales, David Atlee Phillips, Curtis LeMay, Allen Dulles and Mowatt-Larssen adds Jacob Easterline to the pot.”
‘Determination, Guts, and Good Judgment’
Kelly was fondly remembered by his fellow researchers.
Alcorn, via Alan Dale, passed along the words of the estimable Malcom Blunt upon learning of Kelly’s death: “He never got the credit he deserved.”
Anthony Summers, author of the seminal assassination book “Not in Your Lifetime,” told JFK Facts:
“Bill Kelly was a big man in all the best ways, a researcher with determination, guts, and good judgment. And he was great company.”
RIP Bill Kelly.
(This post is courtesy of JFK Facts!)
