June 12, 2005
The Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination:
What Really
Happened?
by Mel Ayton
More than 35 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. polls continue to indicate that the truth about the murder is
still unclear for the majority of Americans. Despite government investigations
and extensive research by writers who have concluded that no evidence is
available to support the claims made by the conspiracy advocates, the case
remains one of America's great whodunits.
Doubts about James Earl Ray, Dr. King's lone assassin,
arose almost immediately after the civil rights leader was fatally shot on the
balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. From the start,
during King's funeral, his aides voiced suspicions that a conspiracy was
responsible for their leader's death.
The political culture of America in the late 1960s and
1970s was very favorable to any theory that gave credence to government-
oriented murder plots against public figures who challenged the authority of the
establishment. The U.S. public, confronted with a litany of stories about the
Kennedy assassinations, CIA plots against foreign leaders, and the scandalous
reports about J. Edgar Hoover's FBI domestic spying activities, were ready to
believe that a pathetic individual like James Earl Ray must have received some
kind of assistance from sophisticated plotters -- most likely in the pay of the
government.
There were no witnesses who saw Ray kill King. The
government relied on circumstantial evidence, albeit evidence that strongly
indicated Ray's guilt. Scrutinizing the King murder case carefully, citizens on
both sides of the conspiracy debate found many puzzling anomalies that were hard
to explain. This is typical of most murder cases that are based entirely on
circumstantial evidence where the accused denies guilt. There are loose ends
that are never tied up. This was true of the Kennedy assassinations no less than
the King assassination. Law enforcement officials know that all the pieces of
evidence will not always tie up. There will always be mysteries and even after a
murder is "solved" there will be evidence that just doesn't fit.
That Ray did not go to trial was, in some part, his own
fault. On Nov. 10, 1968, two days before his trial was originally scheduled, Ray
fired his first defense lawyer, Arthur Haynes, who had already plead Ray not
guilty to the charge of murdering King. Ray, convinced by his brother Jerry that
famous Houston lawyer Percy Foreman could provide him with a better defense,
fired Haynes and took on Foreman.
Soon after Foreman took over the case, the state's
prosecutors made Ray an offer: in exchange for a guilty plea, the state
would not ask for the death penalty. After considering the case against his
client, Foreman spelled it out to Ray: He did not stand a chance of being found
not guilty and in Tennessee stiff penalties were given even for men with
previously spotless records -- and for accomplices as well as killers.
Furthermore, Foreman told Ray, Memphis juries had been hard on first-degree
murder defendants. Foreman told him he would probably receive a long sentence --
99 years -- if he pled guilty, but this would not be a real problem for Ray. If
Ray had received the minimum sentence for murder, 20 years for the State of
Tennessee, this would effectively have meant that Ray would serve the rest of
his life in prison. Once that sentence was over, he would be arrested
immediately and extradited to Missouri to complete his original 20-year
sentence. On the March 6, 1969, Ray signed a 55-paragraph confession.
As a result of Ray's guilty plea, the trial became a
simple procedure to present the evidence of Ray's guilt to the court. The jury
was provided with information of a deal between the defense and the prosecution
and the prosecution provided the court with the brief and essential elements of
the case against Ray. The judge, W. Preston Battle, then issued the agreed upon
sentence. There was nothing sinister in the arrangement. Similar agreements had
been made thousands of times in courts across the nation. Prosecution and
defense deals were designed to save the state the costs of a trial and to save
the time of court officials. In addition, guilty pleas guaranteed the
prosecution a conviction.
After Ray was sentenced, he retracted his confession,
claiming he was forced to plead guilty by Foreman. There developed a feeling
that the American people had been robbed of a proper trial in which all issues
surrounding the tragedy had been thoroughly examined. There were some witnesses
who were not consistent with their stories. The bullet that killed King could
not be matched to the Remington rifle found at the scene of the crime. And the
circumstantial and ballistics evidence provided opportunities for Ray's
defenders to claim that there was reasonable doubt as to the alleged assassin's
guilt. Enough unanswered questions existed to allow conspiracy theorists to
present doubt about the prosecution's case.
The U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations
Investigation
In the mid-1970s, the U.S. House of Representatives
initiated a Congressional investigation (HSCA) into the assassination of Dr.
King and concluded, in 1979, that Ray had been the assassin but there was a
likelihood he had been part of a conspiracy that had been planned by a group of
right-wing Southerners.
Justice Department officials, responding to the HSCA's
investigation, could find no solid evidence with which to charge any suspects.
The two suspects who were named by the HSCA, St. Louis businessmen John
Sutherland and John Kauffmann, who the HSCA said were racially inspired to offer
a bounty on King's head, had died of natural causes in the early 1970s.
The HSCA investigation found that Kauffmann had numerous
links to the Missouri State Penitentiary where Ray had been incarcerated before
his 1967 escape. Kauffmann was a friend of the prison doctor, Hugh Maxey, who
had treated Ray at the prison. It was also believed that Kauffman, who would
later be tried for drug dealing, supplied illegal drugs to the prison through an
accomplice. However, it was the 1968 Wallace presidential campaign that provided
the likely conduit for the bounty offer. Kauffmann's associate, wealthy
businessman John Sutherland, helped finance the campaign and Kauffman was
actively involved as a campaign worker.
The HSCA was unable to establish conclusively the truth
about the St. Louis-based conspiracy. In 1998 the chief counsel for the HSCA, G.
Robert Blakey, said, "What we came up with was the possibility of a race-based
conspiracy in St. Louis where a $50,000 bounty had been offered on Dr. King's
life involving two men, Sutherland and Kauffman. It was only a possibility; we
couldn't prove it and both of them were dead before our investigation started.
But we were able to trace Kauffman to the Grapevine Tavern in St. Louis, where
he used to hold meetings of the American Party. James Earl Ray's brother, John,
owned the tavern. Was it possible that the $50,000 bounty was discussed in the
tavern and heard by John Ray, and that John Ray then conveyed it to James Earl?
Yes. Were we ever able to say definitively that John Ray was the conduit from
the Kauffman group to James Earl? No."
Credible and substantial evidence that would confirm any
direct link between Ray and individuals or groups who had offered a bounty has
never been found. Nonetheless, the strands of various witness statements
gathered by government investigations and independent researchers have provided
a likely scenario of how Ray had been inspired by offers of a bounty on King.
From the evidence provided by the FBI files and the HSCA
report, it appears likely that Ray did have specific knowledge of money being
offered by one or more groups to anyone who would kill King. There is no
evidence to suggest an offer was made to Ray personally or that promises were
made to deliver any money to him. There is credible evidence that one or both of
Ray's brothers aided him in the assassination, and the three of them had
discussed the murder of King.
Both Jerry and John Ray were in communication with their
brother James before and following his escape from Missouri State Penitentiary
in April 1967. John Ray was operating the Grapevine Tavern in St. Louis during
this period and, like every habitual criminal, James Earl Ray was looking for
the big score.
John Ray was in continual association with workers for
George Wallace's presidential campaign. They often frequented his establishment
because their headquarters were in the same block as the Grapevine Tavern.
Sutherland, a committed racist who often dressed in Confederate regalia,
participated actively in the White Citizens Council of St. Louis and began
holding meetings in a building not far from the Grapevine. When the meetings
finished, some members would go over to the Grapevine and socialize with
campaign workers. Others would engage John Ray in conversation. Given the nature
of John and Jerry Ray's extremist right-wing politics, it is plausible that the
subject of Martin Luther King had been discussed. It is also possible
individuals in Kauffman's group discussed the idea of a bounty. During John's
prison visits he may have told James about his conversations at the Grapevine
and that an offer of a bounty had been discussed.
If a bounty was offered and taken up by the Ray brothers,
it was never collected. The source of James Earl Ray's traveling money,
following his 1967 escape from Missouri State Penitentiary, was probably his
prison savings -- money accrued through his "merchant" activities in prison and,
as the HSCA suspected, the proceeds from the robbery of an Alton, Ill., bank.
Author George McMillan provided some evidence to support
the idea that no money had been collected from alleged conspirators. McMillan
said that some time following Ray's capture and extradition to Memphis, Jerry
Ray approached Kent Courtney, leader of a right-wing political organization in
New Orleans. James Earl Ray had read about the conservative lawyer in a
newspaper, The American Independent. Jerry wanted help for his brother
but was unable to pay for it. Courtney had recorded the conversation with Jerry
and a copy of the tape was handed over to the HSCA in the late 1970's. As
McMillan argued, if James Earl Ray had been paid for killing King, the
solicitation of funds would have been unnecessary.
The HSCA suspected that Ray's mysterious co-conspirator
Raoul was, in fact, Jerry Ray (James Earl Ray has never provided any concrete
proof that Raoul actually existed). Although the HSCA could never prove it,
there were many signs that Jerry Ray had assisted his brother prior to and
following the assassination. The HSCA did not believe there was sufficient
evidence to profer any charges against either of Ray's brothers, even though G.
Robert Blakey thought John Ray should have been at least charged with perjury
for falsely testifying at the committee hearings.
Before his trial James Earl Ray spoke to Dr. McCarthy
DeMere, who examined him in the Shelby County Jail. DeMere asked Ray, "Did you
really do it"? Instead of denying guilt or relating how he was an innocent
patsy, Ray said, "Well, let's put it this way, I wasn't in it by myself."
Conspiracy advocates would naturally point to this story to show how Ray
admitted a widespread conspiracy, yet there is another interpretation: One or
both of his brothers had assisted Ray. At the very least, DeMere's testimony
eliminates the possibility Ray was a patsy. And, according to Ray's lawyer,
Percy Foreman, in sworn testimony before the HSCA, the lawyer "…cross-examined
James Earl Ray for hours and the only name that he ever mentioned other than his
own at any phase of his preparation for the killing…was his brother Jerry…Jerry
was with him when he bought the rifle in Birmingham, the one he did not use
because it was low caliber. He took it back…and Jerry was not with him…but he
was with him the day before at the same place where he bought another rifle for
(the purposes of killing King)."
Although Ray's fingerprints were on the rifle, the HSCA
could not determine whether or not the slug found in King's body could be
matched directly with the Remington found at the scene of the crime. Conspiracy
buffs pointed to this fact as proof that another weapon was used to kill King.
(There is a common misperception that if a bullet is fired from a gun it can
always be matched to the weapon to the exclusion of all other weapons. Some guns
do not leave distinctive marks on bullets. Furthermore, it had always been Ray's
contention that Raoul shot King with the rifle found in Canipe's doorway; in
other words if the 1997 tests had indeed been correct in establishing it was not
the rifle that killed King, Raoul planted the wrong rifle.)
What the 1997 tests did establish was that the rifle found
at the scene of the King assassination cannot be excluded as the murder weapon.
Its barrel does not possess any consistent distinguishing marks and it has the
same general characteristics as the markings left on the death slug. General
rifling characteristics are the consistent features inside the barrel of all
rifles of the same make and model. All tests carried out on the rifle, including
those experts retained by Ray's attorney, found that the bullet and the test
fires shared the same rifling characteristics.
The 1999 Conspiracy Trial
In 1995 Ray's London-based attorney, William Pepper,
asserted that his client was innocent. The conspiracy to kill King, Pepper
claimed, was organized by the U.S. government. Pepper alleged that government
agents gave the contract to the head of organized crime in New Orleans who, in
turn, solicited the assistance of a Mafia member in Memphis to handle the
arrangements. The Memphis Mafia boss then hired Loyd Jowers, owner/operator of
Jim's Grill beneath Ray's rooming house, to handle the payoff and dispose of the
murder weapon. A U.S. Army sniper squad was in place to shoot King if the Mafia
hit failed. Pepper alleged that the FBI, CIA, the media, Army Intelligence, and
state and city officials helped cover up the assassination. In the late '90s
Pepper claimed to have found Ray's handler, the mysterious Raoul (now re-named
Raul by Pepper). Raul was allegedly a Portuguese immigrant living in New York
State.
During the period when the Justice Department had been
investigating these new allegations of conspiracy, the King family, represented
by Pepper, sued Loyd Jowers in a wrongful-death lawsuit. They believed
Jowers's 1993 televised admission that he had participated in a "conspiracy" to
kill King gave King's family sufficient grounds to initiate a private law suit.
During the 1999 four-week civil trial, which was held in a Shelby County Court
House in Memphis, Pepper repeated the claims he had made in his 1995 book,
Orders To Kill. Pepper had no interest in seeing Loyd Jowers go to jail. The
whole thrust of Pepper's efforts was in trying to prove that Jowers was merely a
tool in a larger conspiracy involving the FBI, the Military, the CIA, and the
Mafia. Pepper's thesis centered on the reasons why the government wanted to
eliminate the civil rights leader.
From the start, Pepper's courtroom allegations were viewed
by many commentators as ludicrous, dependent as they were on the stories of many
discredited witnesses who did not reveal their far-fetched tales until many
years after the assassination. The jury, which consisted of six blacks and six
whites, took three hours to reach its verdict of conspiracy involving Jowers. The King family received a token $100 award. The guilty verdict was
hardly surprising, considering that Jowers's lawyer never disputed the
contentions of the King lawyers. As the jury heard no evidence to rebut the
conspiracy theory, it was inevitable it would return a verdict favorable to
Pepper and the King family. The trial was, effectively, bogus.
The DOJ team of investigators (appointed by U.S. Atty.
Gen. Janet Reno and which had no connection to the FBI) released its report in
June 2000. The report rejected all of Pepper's conspiracy claims that had been
made during the conspiracy trial, and provided evidentiary proof to support the
team's conclusions.
Pepper never presented any credible evidence that would
have supported his allegations, especially those of FBI involvement in the
murder, or the allegation that the bureau never looked for a conspiracy in the
first place. Contrary to the claims made by conspiracy advocates, it is clear
that FBI senior officials kept an open mind during their assassination
investigation. An FBI memo written by FBI Supervisor John S. Temple supports
this conclusion. Temple wrote, "Supervisor Long also advised that Assistant
Director DeLoach told Assistant Director Rosen that Los Angeles should keep in
mind that King may have been killed by a hired assassin."
Another memo, written by J. Edgar Hoover, corroborates
this finding. The memo states, "I said (to Atty. Gen. Ramsay Clark)...there will
be efforts to kill (Ray) if there is a conspiracy and if there is no conspiracy,
the supporters of Dr. King will do everything in their power to kill him...I
said I think he acted entirely alone but we are not closing our minds that
others might be associated with him and we have to run down every lead."
Historian Gerald McKnight believes there is no evidence to
support the allegations the FBI was involved in King's killing and, furthermore,
such ideas were far-fetched and illogical. McKnight wrote, "...there is nothing
in the released documents to support, and persuasive evidence to reject,
assertions that the FBI and Memphis Police Department conspired to assassinate
King."
Additionally, if Hoover had planned to neutralize King by
killing him he would have first destroyed the COINTELPRO records that contained
evidence of the FBI's illegal surveillance of the civil rights leader. It is
also rational to conclude that the bureau would never conspire with
organizations or individuals outside the bureau for such a risky undertaking.
After all, the FBI maintained its power by acting as a state within a state. Any
knowledge of its activities by outsiders would have left the bureau extremely
vulnerable. As FBI profiler John Douglas wrote, "...anyone who's worked in the
government, even in the intelligence community, will tell you that NOTHING that
big or well publicized stays secret for long. The big bureaucracy is
fundamentally incapable of carrying out a conspiracy and keeping it under
wraps."
Conveniently, much of the evidence Pepper presented at the
1999 conspiracy trial was curiously absent -- including the real rifle alleged
to shoot King (at the bottom of the Mississippi River), the Memphis Police
Department shooter (dead before his accusers went public), the Mafia organizer
of the conspiracy (dead before his accusers "found" evidence of his role in the
crime), photographs showing Ray did not shoot King (they have never surfaced),
members of an Army sniper team (anonymous and "living in another country"), and
their purported leader, whom Pepper mistakenly named.
Innocent events -- the so-called "second Mustang" (it was
likely another white car of a different make, parked nearby or witnesses became
confused when Ray left the rooming house then parked in a different spot when he
returned), the damaged scope on the rifle found at the scene of the crime,
policemen dropping from the wall opposite the Lorraine Motel, Rev. Kyles's poor
choice of words to describe his actions shortly before King was killed on the
balcony of the Lorraine Motel ("Only as I moved away so he could have a clear
shot…"), the innocent statements made by the Portuguese immigrant's daughter
that the "government" had helped her family -- all became part of Pepper's
malevolent conspiracy jigsaw puzzle that distorted the truth about the
assassination.
As visiting scholar at the American Academy of Arts &
Sciences, David Greenburg, wrote, "Despite multiple debunking these (conspiracy)
fantasies endure…a crackpot named William F. Pepper has convinced King's entire
family that the U.S. Government, including President Lyndon Johnson, was
responsible for his death…Conspiracists adopt the trappings of scholarship,
touting irrelevant titles and credentials. They burrow into the arcana of their
topics and inundate potential acolytes with a barrage of pedantic detail. Rather
than build a case from evidence, conspiracists deny the available evidence,
maintaining that appearances deceive. Rather than admit to inconvenient facts,
they dismiss them as lies, making their own theories irrefutable."
Gerald Posner looked into the background of Pepper's Raul
and discovered that the Portuguese immigrant had nothing to do with the
assassination. In 2000, the DOJ investigators found proof within the FBI files
that the car radio in Ray's Mustang did not work at the time of the
assassination, thereby putting to lie Ray's story that he first heard about
King's assassination when he drove away from the scene of the crime. The DOJ
investigators also proved that many of the Jowers's trial witnesses were
motivated by financial gain, documents provided by an ex-FBI agent, allegedly
proving the existence of Ray's handler, Raoul, were bogus and the allegations of
U.S. Army involvement in the murder were fabricated lies. During my own research
I discovered that Ray was an occasional smoker. It is an issue that addresses
the myth, propagated over the years, that Ray had an accomplice who left
cigarette butts in the Mustang's ashtray.
What became unfortunate about this case was the way in
which Pepper stopped at nothing to malign innocent participants who had been
caught up in his quest to prove a non-existent and far-fetched conspiracy
organized by the U.S. government. He disgracefully pointed the finger of guilt
at not only Rev. Kyles but also accused the widow of a Memphis Police Department
"conspirator" of having lied about her husband's role in the conspiracy. Raul,
the innocent Portuguese immigrant, had his life turned upside down by Pepper's
desire to implicate him in a plot. Pepper displayed no guilt in accusing each of
his targets of criminal acts, perjury in the first instance and murder in the
second. He also accused King assassination authors Gerold Frank and George
McMillan of having sinister ties to the FBI and/or CIA, implying they conspired
with the government to hide the truth or simply were duped when they
investigated the King murder. He even gave credence to one of his star
witnesses, Glenda Grabow, a JFK conspiracy fantasist who maligned the character
of LBJ aide Jack Valenti by describing him as a pornographer. Instead of showing
her the door, he enlisted her as a Jowers trial witness. As Pepper's former
investigator, Ken Herman, told BBC documentary makers, "Pepper is the most
gullible person I have ever met in my life".
Pepper's thesis is manifestly absurd. The idea that the
U.S. government had King executed means that high officials of the Johnson
administration were prepared to risk riot and arson in order to attain the
elimination of a single individual. It is inconceivable that Johnson officials
would have failed to see that the murder of a prominent African-American leader
would have led to this inevitable outcome. Considering all that had happened in
the previous four years, including the terrible destruction and rioting that
occurred in major cities across the United States, his allegations become
preposterous.
The true facts about the assassination are far removed
from the exaggerations and speculative accounts of the conspiracy-minded. Ray
made every decision and took every action leading up to the assassination. No
credible evidence exists that would indicate he was used as a patsy or was
instructed to participate in the crime. Ray researched the rifle, the
ammunition, and the telescopic sight. Ray bought the Mustang, had it serviced,
rented the rooms on his journeys, made his own telephone calls, bought his own
clothes, and had them laundered.
Ray was identified by landlady Bessie Brewer as the person
who rented Room 5B of the South Main Street rooming house, and he was also
identified by lodger Charles Q. Stephens, as the man who left the bathroom of
the rooming house following the shooting. (Despite attempts by conspiracy
advocates to claim Stephens was drunk at the time Ray left the bathroom
and therefore could not be a credible witness, police officers have testified
under oath that Stephens was "intoxicated but in full control of himself.")
Ray's fingerprints proved that he owned the bundle that
was dropped in the doorway of Canipe's Amusement store shortly after the
shooting. The bundle contained the rifle used to shoot King. Ray had expressed
hatred for African-Americans. Ray lied time and time again about his movements
when he fled the scene of the crime. Incontrovertible and overwhelming evidence
exists to prove these facts.
The Motive
Many investigators and researchers have provided proof of
Ray's underlying motive for the crime, but conspiracy advocates refuse to accept
the results of their research. George McMillan's interviews with Jerry and John
Ray in the early 1970s and Gerald Posner's excellent research in the 1990s
proved that Ray did indeed harbor racist sentiments. During the FBI's 1968
investigation of the assassination, agents interviewed practically everyone
who had known James Earl Ray from the time he was a young boy. It had over 3,000
agents at one time or another working on the case. They asked those who had
known Ray if the assassin had ever expressed racial hatred towards
African-Americans and Martin Luther King Jr. in particular. Literally dozens of
people, who lived far apart from one another, testified that Ray harbored a deep
hatred for African-Americans and had expressed that hatred frequently up to the
time he committed his deadly act.
Typical of the associates of Ray who were interviewed was
Ray's uncle, William E. Maher. Maher told FBI agents that, prior to Ray's entry
into the Army, Ray worked at a shoe tannery in Hartford, Ill., where he became
associated with an individual who had pro-Nazi leanings; Ray became anti-Negro
and anti-Jewish as a result. Maher also said that, while in military service,
Ray was stationed in Germany where his anti-Negro and anti-Jewish opinions
crystallized.
Another close associate of Ray's was Walter Rife.
Ex-convict Rife had known Ray since he was a teenager in Quincy, Ill. They were
close friends in the 1950s, and Ray and Rife were also colleagues in crime. Rife
said, "Yeah, Jimmy was a little outraged about Negroes. He didn't care for them
at all. There was nothing particular he had against them, nothing they had done
to him. He said once they ought to be put out of the country. Once he said,
'Well, we ought to kill them, kill them all...He was unreasonable in his hatred
for niggers. He hated to see them breathe. If you pressed it, he'd get violent
in a conversation about it. He hated them! I never did know why..."
Following Ray's April 1967 escape from the Missouri State
Penitentiary, he spent time in Chicago (April/June 1967), Canada (July/August
1967), Birmingham, Ala., (September/October 1967), Mexico (October/November
1967) and Los Angeles (November 1967- March 1968). Many people who crossed paths
with Ray during his post-prison escape travels corroborate his hatred of
African-Americans.
Ray first fled to Canada where he spent some time at a ski
resort, Grey Rocks. There he met a woman he liked but he may have been using her
to secure a passport. The divorced woman, Claire Keating, was a Canadian civil
servant. She told author, William Bradford Huie, "I can't remember how the
subject came up but he said something like, 'You got to live near niggers to
know 'em.' He meant that he had no patience with the racial views of people like
me who don't 'know niggers' and that all people who 'know niggers' hate them."
During Ray's stay in Mexico he became acquainted with a
number of bar girls, one of whom related a telling example of Ray's anger
towards African-Americans. Manuela Aguirre Medrano (known as "Irma La Douce")
worked at the Casa Susana, a brothel in Peurto Vallarta. She said that Ray told
her he "hated niggers" and he said many insulting things about
African-Americans. Medrano observed how Ray's personality changed as the
conversation turned to the issue of civil rights and that, during one date with
Medrano, Ray grew angry at four African-Americans sailors who had been sitting
at the bar. Medrano could not understand why Ray became angry with them
but did say that at one point Ray went to his car to get his pistol. According
to Medrano he wanted to follow them out of the bar with his pistol but she
stopped him. Ten years later Medrano was interviewed by the HSCA and
denied Ray's reactions to the African-American sailor's remarks was "racist."
However, as Gerald Posner concluded, "…it is…likely that the sailor's race
incited (Ray), more so than someone accidentally touching his $8-a-day
prostitute."
Another racial incident involving Ray occurred in Los
Angeles where the fugitive went following his short stay in Mexico. Bob Del
Monte, a bartender at the Rabbit's Foot Club, said Ray became involved in a
heated discussion about race with one of the bar's women patrons, Pat Goodsell.
Evidently, Goodsell had spotted Ray's Mustang that was always parked outside the
club when Ray visited the establishment. The car showed Alabama license plates.
Goodsell berated Ray for the way people in Alabama treated African-Americans.
Ray ended up dragging Goodsell to the bar's door saying, "I'll drop you off in
Watts and we'll see how you like it there." Del Monte also recalled that shortly
after this incident an African-American patron of the Rabbit's Foot was struck
on the head by a rock or brick while in the nearby parking lot. He suspected Ray
threw the rock.
Deputy Sheriff William DuFour guarded Ray following the
assassin's capture and extradition to Memphis. DuFour had been one of the TACT
force officers near the Lorraine Motel when King was shot. He reached King as he
lay dying. DuFour helped to carry King down to the ambulance, drenching himself
with King's blood. DuFour would play card games and watch television with Ray
during his shifts and developed a close relationship with the accused assassin.
DuFour said that Ray had pet names for people including the man he was accused
of murdering. Ray often referred to Martin Luther King as "Martin Lucifer King".
On the evening following Ray's guilty plea his brothers
said, "All his life Jimmy has been wild on two subjects. He's been wild against
niggers, and he's wild on politics. He's wild against any politician who's for
niggers, and he's wild for any politician who's against niggers. Nobody can
reason with Jimmy on the two subjects of niggers and politics."
James Earl Ray told his lawyer Percy Foreman that he did
not have to be afraid of a death sentence for killing King, "(because) no white
man has ever been executed in Tennessee for killing a nigger." It was only later
that Ray realized that prosecutors would indeed push for the death sentence.
Foreman persuaded Ray that the case was too big to rely on local prejudices and
that he would be found guilty and executed.
Ray's racist sentiments were confirmed when his papers,
including 400 letters to his brothers written between 1969 and 1997, were
acquired by Boston University in 2000. In none of the letters did Ray confess to
the murder of King. However, the letters reveal a startling lack of empathy with
the slain civil-rights leader. It was the central event in Ray's life, yet
whenever he mentioned King it was only in the context of his attempts to get a
new trial. The letters revealed his bigotry and hatred for African-Americans.
They also show how he became a fan of an all-night "Whitepower" radio station.
Among his papers is a newspaper clip that chronicles the rise of racist
politicians David Duke and J.B Stoner, who figure prominently in the letters.
Stoner's letters to Ray conclude "With Best Racist Wishes." In one letter Ray
gave Stoner legal advice on how to escape culpability for a racist bombing. It
didn't prevent the rabid racist from finally being brought to justice for his
crimes.
The "Illogical" Conspiracy
Conspiracy buffs have, for years, pointed to the fact that
Ray secured false passports to enable him to flee the country. They have
determined that the assassin must have received assistance in obtaining the
passports from a sophisticated group of conspirators, most likely the
government. However, the process of obtaining false identity documentation in
the 1960s was not difficult.
Following the abandonment of the getaway car in Atlanta,
Ray made his way to Toronto where he easily obtained a passport – in much the
same way many U.S. fugitives obtained their false passports. Canadian
bureaucracy at the time made it easy to obtain a false birth certificate and the
travel agencies there did all the work in obtaining passports for their
customers. An appearance before a government official was not a requirement.
Ray's movements following the assassination also leave no
room for sinister interpretation. He flew to London's Heathrow Airport, then
immediately caught a flight to Lisbon. It was an attempt to find a mercenary
organization and safe passage to southern Africa. But he was running out of
money and thought it would be easier to commit robberies in London where he
could speak the language, so he returned. A phone call to a London reporter gave
him the information that mercenary groups were established in Brussels. He made
his way to the airport but the FBI had, by now, discovered the truth about Ray's
movements and the issue of a false Canadian passport in the name of Ramon George
Sneyd. The FBI tipped off Scotland Yard, which issued an all-points-bulletin for
police and customs officers to be on the alert for Ray. Ray was arrested before
he could board his flight to Brussels.
From the start Ray adopted an improvisational approach to
his alibi. When researchers discovered new information that purportedly
supported Ray, he would change his story to accommodate the new possibilities.
There is no evidence that Ray met with a mysterious Raoul or had any
conspiratorial contact with anyone except his family following his escape from
the Missouri State Penitentiary.
It was evident that Ray was able to convince himself that
he had a plausible case to make. In 1959 Ray had told an arresting police
officer, "I cannot deny it and I won't admit it." During the late 1970s his
lawyer, Mark Lane, had put in Ray's mind the difference between "truth" and
"legal truth." Ray could therefore persuade himself that he was really innocent
because the courts had not established the full circumstances of the crime. He
knew that the assistance given to him by his brothers established, to his own
satisfaction, a case for conspiracy. The state had not proven a conspiracy had
existed therefore he had been telling the "truth." In fact Ray had been
manipulating reality to suit his own version of the truth. This was the reason
why the polygraph results were inconclusive when Ray answered questions about a
conspiracy. The same polygraph examiner determined Ray had been lying when he
denied killing King.
It is likely Ray's resolve in sticking to his story would
have dissipated had it not been for the support he was given by conspiracy
writers. According to Douglas and Anne Brinkley, who examined the prison letters
Ray wrote over a period of 30 years, "Ray exploited the fact that foreign
journalists with an anti-American sensibility had no trouble accepting his story
that the White House and the FBI had ordered King's assassination."
For each and every fact about the King case that provides
some suspicion, conspiracy writers are prone to deliver their own biased
interpretation. Conspiracy writers who investigated Ray's finances, for example,
concluded that Ray must have received funds from conspirators. They did not
consider the possibility that Ray committed robberies during his time on the run
or that he had made money in prison as a drug dealer. As his brother John told
FBI agents, "(James never had) any real need for money as he was always able to
pick it up by ways of burglaries or robberies during his travels." In all the
states Ray traveled, following his escape from prison, the FBI carried out
inquiries. There were numerous unsolved robberies of banks, stores, gas
stations, and liquor stores. The FBI assassination investigation, however, did
not consider robberies that had a value of less than $5,000.
There is a wealth of evidence, never presented by
conspiracy advocates, that Ray was an habitual user of drugs and sold them to
fellow inmates. From defenders and adversaries alike, Ray emerges from the FBI
reports as a loner with few friends; a prisoner who was always devising some
scheme to break out of prison; a schemer who was involved in various
money-making ventures, including buying and selling amphetamines, and lending
money to other prisoners. Ray's drug use was confirmed by a family friend of the
Rays, his uncle, Jack Gawron. He told agents that he supplied Ray with inhalers,
and that he believed Ray trafficked in amphetamines while in prison. Ray's
fluctuating weight in prison added to the suspicions of investigators.
Additional support that Ray was a drug user was discovered in the Scotland Yard
files. In one of Ray's London rooming houses a hypodermic needle had been found.
Because Ray had proclaimed the existence of a conspiracy
during his trial, it is far-fetched that conspirators would have allowed him to
remain alive during the three decades he spent in prison prior to his death.
There were simply too many risks attached to this scenario. If conspirators,
especially government-led killers, could successfully murder America's foremost
civil-rights leader and then cover up the circumstances surrounding the act,
they would assuredly have had little problem in eliminating Ray. If Ray had
indeed been aided by co-conspirators, they would have spirited him away and
placed him in hiding as soon as the murder had been carried out. They would not
have allowed him to be exposed so many times during his two months on the run.
Conspirators would not have put themselves in jeopardy by allowing Ray the
opportunity to identify fellow conspirators. And, if Ray had been an unwilling
patsy, conspirators could not have been certain that Ray would flee the scene of
the crime. Under these circumstances, had Ray stayed put, the whole conspiracy
may have collapsed.
Why would the government employ so many people in the
conspiracy when the risk of leakage would have been so much greater? Had
President Johnson wanted to eliminate King all that was required was for him to
request the CIA Director or private parties to arrange a contract and that would
have been the end of it.
This was no sophisticated murder, as conspiracy advocates
maintain. King was an easy target for any killer bent on eliminating him. King
did not have an armed guard; he frequently left his home on foot; and his travel
arrangements were well publicized. The government could also have destroyed King
by simply arranging for all the scandal-filled surveillance tapes to be released
to a friendly journalist to publicize them. This would not have been at all
unusual. In the 1960s, the CIA enlisted the assistance of journalists and
student groups to promote the government's policies.
What Really Happened?
When Ray escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in
1967 he knew that if he continued with his lifetime career of robbing banks it
would guarantee a return to prison sooner or later. The porno business or drug
smuggling he discussed with his brothers seemed to offer great financial
rewards. Ray abandoned the idea, likely realizing he didn't have the skills or
contacts required for those criminal enterprises. He would also risk exposure.
Feeling trapped and nowhere else to go, he decided to return to his long held
idea of the big score.
From the accumulated evidence in the case it can be
concluded that Ray believed the bounty on King was genuine, although there is no
credible evidence that he made arrangements to collect it prior to or following
the assassination. It is reasonable to assume that Ray may have wanted to
collect whatever money was on offer through his brothers, at some future date.
It is also plausible Ray took photographs of the crime scene as proof he had
murdered King. However, as Ray admitted, he threw the camera equipment away,
probably in a state of panic, as he fled Memphis. Ray's plan was to go to a
country that did not have extradition arrangements with the United States.
Perhaps at some date in the future a President George Wallace would pardon him.
It is also clear that Ray's actions were not predicated on
the provision of a bounty. Ray knew that his crime was of such overwhelming
proportions that publicity generated by the murder would never die, especially
in a country like the United States that makes celebrities of famous murderers.
He was also fully aware that the killers of civil-rights workers Medgar Evers
and Viola Liuzzo had been treated leniently by Southern courts. Book, magazine,
and television contracts would always be on offer to pay for defense lawyers and
financial provision for his brothers. If he had been lucky enough to escape to a
foreign country, he could have sold his story. He would also have been aware
that racist right-wing organizations and a large body of American public opinion
would be behind him.
He told fellow inmates about the big score, aware that his
burglaries, bank robberies, and petty crimes had amounted to little.
Psychologically, James Earl Ray wanted to become what his parents had always
known -- he was the child who was smarter and more resourceful than the rest.
But he had chosen a life where success is not measured by conventional
standards. Success to Ray was attaining respect from his peers, the criminal
fraternity, making the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. And, contrary to ideas held
by some conspiracy advocates, Ray had nerves of steel, especially when
amphetamines hyped him up. According to his brother John, "(James has) steel
nerves -- he just walks in (to the bank) like it's an everyday thing, gets the
money, and walks out."
Stalking and then killing King would give him the status
he craved and, if caught, he could enjoy the high esteem that goes with this
type of crime. Believing that if he killed King in the Deep South a white jury
would acquit him, Ray knew that in time he would be able to collect his reward
if not as a free man then certainly through his brothers.
Ray had practiced deception all his life. A psychiatrist
employed by the Missouri State prison system had been convinced that Ray was
capable of murder. Rather than the bumbling crook he is portrayed by his
defenders, Ray was instead, cunning, crafty, and manipulative. Ray's ex-wife,
Anna Sandhu, recognized these qualities. Some of his lawyers have spoken of how
Ray would manipulate them. He was an astute jailhouse lawyer who had spent years
learning the fine points of the law, especially with respect to appeals
procedure and how the law applied to the lawyer/client relationship. He knew how
to keep his hopes for freedom alive. These realities are consistent with Ray's
cryptic reply to Dexter King in 1997 when the civil rights leader's son asked
him if he had killed his father - "No, I didn't, no, no, but sometimes you have
to make your own evaluation and maybe come to that conclusion. I think that
could be done today, but not 30 years ago."
In the real world accusation without confirmation is
worthless. During his trial, Ray knew he had introduced enough doubt as to
stimulate future public examinations of his case. He knew the idea of conspiracy
would keep his case alive in the public eye. Had there not been a climate of
conspiratorial thinking engendered by the public doubt about Lee Harvey Oswald's
guilt, it is unlikely the King case would have been intensely scrutinized for
the past 30 years. And keeping the real truth about the assassination hidden
would not have been difficult for a man like Ray. He had always been a loner who
never fully revealed himself to anyone -- not his brothers, his family, his
fellow prisoners, his acquaintances or his lawyers.
It is unlikely the factual evidence about the King murder
case will persuade the American public of Ray's guilt. American society has been
influenced too much by the conspiracy theorists' world-view and the sub-text
that underlies the promotion of conspiracy stories that are predicated on
disillusionment with the institutions of American government. In 1963, 75
percent of the American population trusted the federal government. Today that
figure has diminished to 25 percent.
Ray served his sentence in Tennessee prisons, mixing with
the inmate population, working on his appeals, and staying in contact with his
brothers. The end came nearly 30 years after the King murder when he succumbed
to liver disease. He had been admitted to Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital,
his 16th hospitalisation since December 1996. Ray was stabbed more than 20 times
by four inmates at Brushy Mountain Prison in 1981, and he may have developed
hepatitis from a blood transfusion.
The death of James Earl Ray in 1998 added to the
discontent and dissatisfaction many people felt at the many attempts to
establish the whole truth about the King killing. Ray left no deathbed
confession nor did he retract the numerous claims he made about the mysterious
Raoul. By keeping silent, Ray was effectively thumbing his nose at a society
that had relegated him to the bottom of the heap.
Government files on the King slaying are sealed until
2029. Opening these documents will only reveal why investigators have been so
convinced of Ray's guilt and why they have always rejected a wider conspiracy.
Obfuscation, manipulation, lies, greed, and distortion of the facts have
characterized this case, allowing Ray to escape blame. The truth of the matter
is that Ray murdered King and he acted alone when he shot him, but one or both
of his brothers before and/or after the fact possibly aided him. As Anna Ray,
the assassin's wife, told television talk-show host Geraldo Rivera in the 1990s,
"(James told me) 'Yeah I did it, so what'?…James will never admit to the killing
again – he'll carry his secret to the grave. He's created a mystique by
recanting his original confession. He doesn't want to go down in history as the
killer of Martin Luther King Jr., so he'll deny it to his death."
The New York Times did carry one story on April 4 about Martin Luther King - sort of.
Buried deep in the paper, the Times reported the following "news": the autopsy videotape
of King's assassin, James Earl Ray, is for sale.
Ray's brother, Jerry Ray, is selling the taped autopsy of his brother - some two hours long
- for $400,000. With an eye to gruesome irony, Jerry Ray even made his sales pitch for the
tape on the anniversary of King's death - while standing near the site of King's assassination.
Mel Ayton is the author of
The JFK Assassination:
Dispelling The Myths (Woodfield Publishing 2002) and
Questions Of
Controversy: The Kennedy Brothers (University of Sunderland Press 2001).
His
latest book,
A Racial Crime – James Earl Ray And The Murder Of Dr Martin
Luther King Jr., was published in the United States by ArcheBooks in
February 2005.
In 2003 he acted as the historical adviser for the BBC's
television documentary "The Kennedy Dynasty" broadcast in November of that year. He
has written articles for Ireland's leading history magazine History Ireland,
David Horowitz's Frontpage magazine and History News Network.
