Wild life of Woody Harrelson’s hitman dad who may have also fathered Matthew McConaughey

Woody Harrelson’s dad died behind bars after a life of crime, which saw him working as a professional hitman for a Texan drug lord.

The revelation that Woody and Matthew McConaughey could be brothers, would mean that they would share the same father, Charles Harrelson.

Oscar winner, McConaughey, said a conversation with his mother, who told him she ‘knew’ Harrelson’s father, along with other links and occurrences, led him to question whether he could in fact be Woody’s sibling.

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Charles Harrelson, who disappeared from Woody’s life in 1968 when the future Hollywood star was just seven-years-old, spent most of his life in prison.

His brushes with the law started in 1959 when he was charged with robbery in Los Angeles, where he worked as an encyclopedia salesman.

But his criminal career quickly escalated to being a hitman for hire, where his kills included offing a sitting US federal judge for $250k.

Born in Lovelady Texas in 1938, Charles was the youngest of six, with many of his family members working in law enforcement.

Four years after Woody was born in 1961, Charles was living in Houston and gambling full-time.

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According to prison memoirs he later wrote, he claimed to have been involved in dozens of murder-for-hire plots during this time before he left his family in 1968.

That year, Harrelson was arrested three times, including twice for murder.

But in 1973, he was convicted of killing a grain dealer named Sam Degelia Jr. for $2,000 and sentenced to 15 years behind bars, though he was released after just five years for good behaviour.

Within months of his release, Charles was contracted to carry out a hit on U.S. District Judge John H. Wood Jr, by Texas drug lord Jimmy Chagra.

The judge, who defence attorneys nicknamed Wood “Maximum John” because of the harsh life sentences he handed down to drug dealers, was due to preside over Chagra’s case.

Facing a life sentence for narcotics smuggling, Chagra forked out over $250,000 to Harrelson to fell the judge, which he did on May 29, 1979 with a single bullet to the back.

It was the first time in U.S. history that a sitting federal judge had been assassinated, and he was finally arrested in September 1980.

Unaware of his father’s life choices Woody Harrelson heard a news broadcast discussing the murder trial of Charles V. Harrelson in 1981, and asked his mother if the elder Harrelson was any relation.

She confirmed that he was and Woody followed his father’s trial until he was given two life sentences in December 1982.

Despite their estrangement the actor said he tried to have a relationship with his father beginning in the early 1980s.

“I don’t feel he was much of a father. He took no valid part in my upbringing,” Woody Harrelson told People in 1988.

“But my father is one of the most articulate, well-read, charming people I’ve ever known. Still, I’m just now gauging whether he merits my loyalty or friendship. I look at him as someone who could be a friend more than someone who was a father.”

The Hollywood A-lister even said he easily spent $2million in legal fees trying to get his father a new trial, according to The Guardian .

Chagra, the drug lord, was acquitted of conspiracy charges in connection with the assassination.

He supposedly entered the witness protection program after helping the feds on other drug cases.

The theory was that if Chagra himself was innocent, then Harrelson could be not guilty of murder.

A judge didn’t agree with Harrelson’s lawyers, and Charles Harrelson spent the rest of his days behind bars.

He died of a heart attack in prison in 2007.

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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk