Hugh Aynesworth

He is a producer, known for Oswald's Ghost (2007), Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019) and Murder Made Me Famous (2015).

Aynesworth co-authored seven books with Stephen G. Michaud. His 2003 book JFK: Breaking the News is "a companion piece to a documentary on the 40th anniversary of the event."

In 1993, Aynesworth covered the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, once referring to it as "[t]he Branch Davidian massacre". Commenting on the event in an interview, he said: "I couldn't believe I stood there and watched people burn in that. I couldn't believe what was happening."

Aynesworth has been very critical of Garrison throughout the years. Addressing a 1991 article written by Mark Seal that discussed Garrison's influence on Oliver Stone's JFK, Ayensworth said: "There is simply no way that a rational person – with any knowledge of Mr. Garrison and his background the assassination – could believe that he really knew anything about the assassination that he didn't read first in the very publications he now mocks." In a 1998 interview, Aynesworth said: "Garrison was one of the sickest people that I've ever known. There's no doubt in my mind that the man was insane! Despite being brilliant in many ways, he knew the arts, famous things in history, and he was learned. The man was a devious, nasty man who committed more crimes in his investigation than anybody that he ever accused."

At ABC News, Aynesworth was an investigator for 20/20. In the mid-1990s, he was the Dallas/Southwest bureau chief of The Washington Times. In 2007, Aynesworth was elected President of the 300-member Press Club of Dallas, an organization of which he had been a member since the early 1960s. He has served on the board of directors for The Texas Observer's MOLLY National Journalism Prize.

In 1986, Aynesworth and Jim Henderson, also of the Dallas Times Herald, were named as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting "[f]or their persistent and thorough investigation of self-proclaimed mass murderer Henry Lee Lucas, which exposed him as the perpetrator of a massive hoax." Their work showed that Lucas could not have killed more than a hundred people that the Texas Rangers claimed he had. Aynesworth and Henderson's work led to then-Governor George W. Bush commuting Lucas' death sentence.

In 1980, Stephen Michaud, a former Business Week reporter, enlisted the help of Aynesworth in interviewing serial killer Ted Bundy, who initially claimed he was innocent and was interested in cooperating on a book. The two Newsweek colleagues conducted a series of interviews with Bundy and eventually authored two books about the killer. The New York Daily News called their portrait of Bundy, The Only Living Witness, one of the ten best true-crime books ever written. Their second book on the subject, Conversations with a Killer, contained edited transcripts of the interviews.

Aynesworth has been reported to have spent much of his career attempting to refute conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination. He supports the official conclusion that Oswald acted alone and believes that conspiracy theories have been generated by people motivated by money and fame. In an interview in 1979 on KERA, the Dallas PBS affiliate, he said, "I'm not saying there wasn't a conspiracy. I know most people in this country believe there was a conspiracy. I just refuse to accept it and that's my life's work."

In 1967, Aynesworth had just begun working in Newsweek's Houston bureau at the time of the Jim Garrison investigation. He said Garrison invited him to New Orleans to "compare notes". According to Aynesworth, "[Garrison] was paranoid as hell, but he was no fool." Described as Garrison's "nemesis", he worked openly with Clay Shaw's attorneys to defend Shaw against Jim Garrison. Irvin Dymond characterized Aynesworth's help in the case as "crucial".

Aynesworth covered the United States space program for the Dallas Morning News as a space and aviation reporter, a position he held at the time of the Kennedy assassination in 1963. In 1967, he started for Newsweek in their Houston bureau, where he eventually succeeded Philip Carter as head of that bureau. Returning to the Dallas Times Herald where he first began working in the 1950s, Aynesworth was an investigative chief in 1975.

Aynesworth was a business writer for the Dallas Times Herald at 26, then was hired to work for United Press International in their Denver, Colorado news bureau in 1959. While in Denver, he was stabbed in the throat by an unknown man who broke down his apartment door one night. Those who speculated on the motivation for the attack believed Aynesworth may have been targeted in a case of mistaken identity or by a jealous husband. Aynesworth himself reported he thought that the Teamsters may have been involved due to a story on which the UPI was working at the time. While still bandaged from the attack, he interviewed and was hired by the Dallas Morning News in 1960.

Aynesworth's next two positions were with Donald W. Reynolds-owned newspapers in Fort Smith, Arkansas. From 1950 to 1954, he was a sports editor for the Fort Smith Times Record making $32/week. At the age of 23, he was then hired as managing editor of the Southwest American. According to Aynesworth, at that time he may have been the youngest managing editor of a daily newspaper in the United States. He also conducted his first interview with a murderer while working at the American. In 1957, Aynesworth left the American after a dispute with Reynolds regarding compensation.

Aynesworth's started as a newspaperman in 1948. He first worked in his home state as a freelancer for the Clarksburg Exponent-Telegram.

Hugh Aynesworth was born on August 2, 1931 in Clarksburg, West Virginia, USA as Hugh Grant Aynesworth.