Orville Orhel Nix (April 16, 1911 – January 17, 1972)[1][2] was a witness to the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
[4] He was reported to have had a fourth grade education and later worked as an air conditioning engineer for the General Services Administration in Dallas.
[5][6] He was married to Ella Louise Robison in 1938 with whom he had one son, Orville Jr.[4] On November 22, 1963, Nix walked from his office in the Terminal Annex building on the south side of Dealey Plaza to the northwest corner of the intersection of Main Street and Houston Street with his Keystone Auto-Zoom Model K-810 8 mm movie camera.
In 2002, the Nix family assigned the film’s copyright to the Dallas County Historical Foundation,[10][11] which operates the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
[citation needed] In 2015, Nix's granddaughter, Gayle Nix-Jackson, initiated a lawsuit against the US government for the return of the original film or compensation seeking $10 million.
[citation needed] Nix’s family, who claim to have owned the rights to the film since he died in 1972, are also suing the federal National Archives and Records Administration.