what happened to martin luther king jr in 1935
June 12, 2005
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Obfuscation, manipulation, lies, greed, and distortion of the facts accept characterized this case, allowing James Earl Ray to escape full blame. The truth of the matter is that Ray murdered Rex and he acted alone when he shot him. I or both of Ray'south brothers -- earlier and/or after the fact -- may have aided him.
by Mel Ayton
One thousandore than 35 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. polls continue to indicate that the truth nearly the murder is still unclear for the bulk 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 near James Earl Ray, Dr. Rex's lone assassinator, arose almost immediately after the ceremonious rights leader was fatally shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. From the start, during Male monarch's funeral, his aides voiced suspicions that a conspiracy was responsible for their leader's decease.
The political civilisation of America in the late 1960s and 1970s was very favorable to any theory that gave acceptance to government- oriented murder plots confronting public figures who challenged the potency of the institution. 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 take received some kind of assist from sophisticated plotters -- most likely in the pay of the government.
There were no witnesses who saw Ray kill King. The regime relied on circumstantial evidence, admitting bear witness that strongly indicated Ray's guilt. Scrutinizing the Rex murder case carefully, citizens on both sides of the conspiracy debate found many puzzling anomalies that were hard to explicate. This is typical of most murder cases that are based entirely on circumstantial show where the accused denies guilt. There are loose ends that are never tied upwardly. This was truthful of the Kennedy assassinations no less than the Male monarch bump-off. Law enforcement officials know that all the pieces of evidence volition not ever tie up. There will always be mysteries and even afterwards a murder is "solved" there will be evidence that just doesn't fit.
That Ray did not go to trial was, in some function, his ain fault. On Nov. x, 1968, two days before his trial was originally scheduled, Ray fired his first defence 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 subsequently Foreman took over the case, the state'southward prosecutors fabricated Ray an offer: in exchange for a guilty plea, the country would not ask for the expiry penalty. Subsequently considering the case confronting his client, Foreman spelled it out to Ray: He did not stand up a chance of being found not guilty and in Tennessee potent 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 judgement -- 99 years -- if he pled guilty, merely this would not be a existent problem for Ray. If Ray had received the minimum judgement for murder, 20 years for the Country 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 exist arrested immediately and extradited to Missouri to complete his original twenty-year judgement. On the March half-dozen, 1969, Ray signed a 55-paragraph confession.
As a result of Ray's guilty plea, the trial became a simple process to nowadays the evidence of Ray's guilt to the court. The jury was provided with information of a bargain between the defense and the prosecution and the prosecution provided the courtroom with the brief and essential elements of the case confronting Ray. The approximate, Due west. Preston Battle, then issued the agreed upon sentence. There was nada sinister in the arrangement. Similar agreements had been made thousands of times in courts across the nation. Prosecution and defense force deals were designed to save the state the costs of a trial and to salve 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 adult a feeling that the American people had been robbed of a proper trial in which all problems surrounding the tragedy had been thoroughly examined. There were some witnesses who were not consistent with their stories. The bullet that killed Male monarch could non be matched to the Remington rifle found at the scene of the crime. And the coexisting and ballistics evidence provided opportunities for Ray'due south defenders to claim that there was reasonable doubt every bit to the alleged assassin'south guilt. Enough unanswered questions existed to allow conspiracy theorists to present doubt near the prosecution's case.
The U.Due south. 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 only at that place was a likelihood he had been part of a conspiracy that had been planned by a group of right-fly Southerners.
Justice Department officials, responding to the HSCA's investigation, could discover no solid prove with which to charge whatsoever 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 offering a compensation on Male monarch's caput, had died of natural causes in the early 1970s.
The HSCA investigation plant that Kauffmann had numerous links to the Missouri State Penitentiary where Ray had been incarcerated earlier his 1967 escape. Kauffmann was a friend of the prison medico, Hugh Maxey, who had treated Ray at the prison house. It was too believed that Kauffman, who would after 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 acquaintance, wealthy businessman John Sutherland, helped finance the entrada and Kauffman was actively involved every bit a entrada worker.
The HSCA was unable to found conclusively the truth nearly the St. Louis-based conspiracy. In 1998 the chief counsel for the HSCA, G. Robert Blakey, said, "What we came upwards with was the possibility of a race-based conspiracy in St. Louis where a $fifty,000 compensation had been offered on Dr. Rex's life involving two men, Sutherland and Kauffman. It was only a possibility; nosotros couldn't show it and both of them were dead earlier our investigation started. But we were able to trace Kauffman to the Grapevine Tavern in St. Louis, where he used to concur meetings of the American Party. James Earl Ray's brother, John, endemic the tavern. Was it possible that the $50,000 compensation was discussed in the tavern and heard past John Ray, and that John Ray then conveyed it to James Earl? Aye. Were nosotros ever able to say definitively that John Ray was the conduit from the Kauffman grouping to James Earl? No."
Apparent and substantial evidence that would confirm any straight link betwixt Ray and individuals or groups who had offered a bounty has never been plant. Nonetheless, the strands of various witness statements gathered by regime investigations and independent researchers accept 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, information technology appears likely that Ray did have specific knowledge of coin being offered by one or more groups to anyone who would impale Rex. There is no bear witness to suggest an offer was made to Ray personally or that promises were made to deliver any coin to him. At that place is credible evidence that one or both of Ray'southward brothers aided him in the assassination, and the iii of them had discussed the murder of King.
Both Jerry and John Ray were in communication with their brother James before and post-obit his escape from Missouri State Penitentiary in April 1967. John Ray was operating the Grapevine Tavern in St. Louis during this menstruation and, similar every habitual criminal, James Earl Ray was looking for the big score.
John Ray was in continual clan with workers for George Wallace'due south presidential campaign. They often frequented his establishment considering their headquarters were in the aforementioned block as the Grapevine Tavern. Sutherland, a committed racist who oft dressed in Confederate regalia, participated actively in the White Citizens Council of St. Louis and began holding meetings in a edifice not far from the Grapevine. When the meetings finished, some members would get over to the Grapevine and socialize with campaign workers. Others would engage John Ray in chat. Given the nature of John and Jerry Ray'south extremist right-wing politics, information technology is plausible that the discipline of Martin Luther King had been discussed. Information technology is likewise possible individuals in Kauffman's grouping discussed the idea of a compensation. During John's prison visits he may accept told James nigh his conversations at the Grapevine and that an offer of a compensation 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'southward traveling money, following his 1967 escape from Missouri State Penitentiary, was probably his prison savings -- coin accrued through his "merchant" activities in prison and, equally the HSCA suspected, the proceeds from the robbery of an Alton, Ill., banking concern.
Author George McMillan provided some evidence to back up the idea that no coin had been collected from alleged conspirators. McMillan said that some fourth dimension post-obit Ray'south 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 near the conservative lawyer in a paper, 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 re-create of the tape was handed over to the HSCA in the late 1970'south. 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 information technology, at that place were many signs that Jerry Ray had assisted his brother prior to and following the assassination. The HSCA did not believe at that place was sufficient testify to profer whatsoever charges against either of Ray's brothers, even though One thousand. Robert Blakey thought John Ray should take been at to the lowest degree charged with perjury for falsely testifying at the committee hearings.
Earlier 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, nevertheless there is some other interpretation: One or both of his brothers had assisted Ray. At the very least, DeMere'due south testimony eliminates the possibility Ray was a patsy. And, co-ordinate to Ray's lawyer, Percy Foreman, in sworn testimony before the HSCA, the lawyer "…cross-examined James Earl Ray for hours and the merely name that he ever mentioned other than his ain at any phase of his grooming for the killing…was his brother Jerry…Jerry was with him when he bought the rifle in Birmingham, the one he did not utilize because it was low caliber. He took it dorsum…and Jerry was not with him…but he was with him the day before at the same place where he bought some other rifle for (the purposes of killing Male monarch)."
Although Ray's fingerprints were on the rifle, the HSCA could non make up one's mind whether or non the slug establish in Male monarch'due south body could be matched straight with the Remington establish at the scene of the crime. Conspiracy buffs pointed to this fact every bit proof that another weapon was used to impale King. (In that location 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 get out distinctive marks on bullets. Furthermore, information technology had e'er been Ray'due south contention that Raoul shot Male monarch with the rifle found in Canipe's doorway; in other words if the 1997 tests had indeed been right in establishing it was not the rifle that killed King, Raoul planted the wrong rifle.)
What the 1997 tests did institute was that the rifle constitute at the scene of the King bump-off cannot exist excluded as the murder weapon. Its barrel does not possess any consistent distinguishing marks and it has the aforementioned general characteristics as the markings left on the decease slug. General rifling characteristics are the consistent features inside the barrel of all rifles of the same brand and model. All tests carried out on the rifle, including those experts retained by Ray'southward attorney, plant that the bullet and the test fires shared the same rifling characteristics.
The 1999 Conspiracy Trial
In 1995 Ray's London-based chaser, William Pepper, asserted that his client was innocent. The conspiracy to kill King, Pepper claimed, was organized by the U.Southward. regime. Pepper alleged that government agents gave the contract to the head of organized offense in New Orleans who, in turn, solicited the assistance of a Mafia fellow member in Memphis to handle the arrangements. The Memphis Mafia boss then hired Loyd Jowers, owner/operator of Jim'southward Grill below Ray'due south rooming house, to handle the payoff and dispose of the murder weapon. A U.South. Army sniper team was in place to shoot King if the Mafia hit failed. Pepper declared that the FBI, CIA, the media, Army Intelligence, and country and metropolis officials helped cover up the assassination. In the late '90s Pepper claimed to have found Ray's handler, the mysterious Raoul (at present re-named Raul by Pepper). Raul was allegedly a Portuguese immigrant living in New York State.
During the menstruum when the Justice Department had been investigating these new allegations of conspiracy, the Male monarch family, represented by Pepper, sued Loyd Jowers in a wrongful-death lawsuit. They believed Jowers'south 1993 televised admission that he had participated in a "conspiracy" to kill King gave Rex'south family sufficient grounds to initiate a private law conform. During the 1999 four-week ceremonious 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 testify that Jowers was just a tool in a larger conspiracy involving the FBI, the Military, the CIA, and the Mafia. Pepper'south thesis centered on the reasons why the authorities wanted to eliminate the civil rights leader.
From the outset, Pepper's courtroom allegations were viewed past many commentators equally 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 vi blacks and six whites, took three hours to accomplish its verdict of conspiracy involving Jowers. The King family unit received a token $100 honour. The guilty verdict was hardly surprising, considering that Jowers's lawyer never disputed the contentions of the King lawyers. Every bit 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, artificial.
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 back up the team's conclusions.
Pepper never presented whatsoever 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 outset identify. Contrary to the claims made by conspiracy advocates, it is clear that FBI senior officials kept an open up 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 Managing director Rosen that Los Angeles should continue in mind that King may have been killed past a hired assassin."
Some other memo, written by J. Edgar Hoover, corroborates this finding. The memo states, "I said (to Atty. Gen. Ramsay Clark)...there volition exist efforts to kill (Ray) if there is a conspiracy and if at that place 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 non closing our minds that others might exist associated with him and nosotros have to run downward every atomic number 82."
Historian Gerald McKnight believes there is no bear witness to support the allegations the FBI was involved in King'due south killing and, furthermore, such ideas were far-fetched and illogical. McKnight wrote, "...there is goose egg in the released documents to back up, and persuasive testify to reject, assertions that the FBI and Memphis Police Department conspired to assassinate King."
Additionally, if Hoover had planned to neutralize King past killing him he would accept start destroyed the COINTELPRO records that independent evidence of the FBI'south illegal surveillance of the ceremonious rights leader. It is also rational to conclude that the bureau would never conspire with organizations or individuals outside the agency for such a risky undertaking. After all, the FBI maintained its power by acting every bit a country inside a state. Any noesis of its activities past outsiders would have left the bureau extremely vulnerable. Equally FBI profiler John Douglas wrote, "...anyone who'south worked in the government, even in the intelligence community, will tell you that NOTHING that big or well publicized stays hole-and-corner for long. The big bureaucracy is fundamentally incapable of carrying out a conspiracy and keeping information technology under wraps."
Conveniently, much of the evidence Pepper presented at the 1999 conspiracy trial was curiously absent-minded -- including the real rifle declared to shoot Male monarch (at the lesser of the Mississippi River), the Memphis Police Department shooter (dead before his accusers went public), the Mafia organizer of the conspiracy (expressionless before his accusers "found" evidence of his part in the offense), 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-chosen "2nd Mustang" (it was likely another white car of a different brand, 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 establish at the scene of the crime, policemen dropping from the wall opposite the Lorraine Motel, Rev. Kyles's poor selection of words to depict his deportment shortly earlier King was killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel ("Only equally I moved abroad and so he could have a clear shot…"), the innocent statements made by the Portuguese immigrant'south girl that the "government" had helped her family -- all became part of Pepper's malevolent conspiracy jigsaw puzzle that distorted the truth well-nigh the assassination.
Every bit visiting scholar at the American University of Arts & Sciences, David Greenburg, wrote, "Despite multiple debunking these (conspiracy) fantasies endure…a crackpot named William F. Pepper has convinced Male monarch's entire family that the U.Southward. Regime, 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 prove, 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'due south Raul and discovered that the Portuguese immigrant had nothing to do with the bump-off. In 2000, the DOJ investigators plant proof inside the FBI files that the car radio in Ray's Mustang did not piece of work at the time of the assassination, thereby putting to prevarication Ray's story that he starting time heard about Male monarch'south assassination when he collection abroad 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 past an ex-FBI amanuensis, allegedly proving the beingness 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 effect 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 style in which Pepper stopped at cipher to malign innocent participants who had been defenseless up in his quest to evidence 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 merely likewise 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'due south want 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 as well accused King bump-off authors Gerold Frank and George McMillan of having sinister ties to the FBI and/or CIA, implying they conspired with the authorities 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 grapheme 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'south former investigator, Ken Herman, told BBC documentary makers, "Pepper is the most gullible person I accept ever met in my life".
Pepper's thesis is plain absurd. The idea that the U.Due south. government had Rex executed means that high officials of the Johnson assistants were prepared to hazard riot and arson in order to attain the elimination of a unmarried individual. It is inconceivable that Johnson officials would have failed to encounter that the murder of a prominent African-American leader would accept 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 bump-off are far removed from the exaggerations and speculative accounts of the conspiracy-minded. Ray made every decision and took every action leading upwardly to the assassination. No apparent evidence exists that would bespeak he was used equally a patsy or was instructed to participate in the law-breaking. Ray researched the burglarize, the ammunition, and the telescopic sight. Ray bought the Mustang, had it serviced, rented the rooms on his journeys, made his ain telephone calls, bought his ain apparel, and had them laundered.
Ray was identified by landlady Bessie Brewer as the person who rented Room 5B of the S Main Street rooming business firm, and he was also identified by lodger Charles Q. Stephens, as the homo 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 nether oath that Stephens was "intoxicated but in full control of himself.")
Ray's fingerprints proved that he endemic the package that was dropped in the doorway of Canipe'due south 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 offense. Incontrovertible and overwhelming show exists to prove these facts.
The Motive
Many investigators and researchers have provided proof of Ray'south underlying motive for the crime, but conspiracy advocates refuse to accept the results of their enquiry. George McMillan'southward interviews with Jerry and John Ray in the early 1970s and Gerald Posner's first-class 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 fourth dimension or another working on the instance. They asked those who had known Ray if the assassin had ever expressed racial hatred towards African-Americans and Martin Luther Male monarch Jr. in particular. Literally dozens of people, who lived far apart from one some other, testified that Ray harbored a deep hatred for African-Americans and had expressed that hatred oft up to the fourth dimension he committed his mortiferous human action.
Typical of the assembly 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 equally a event. 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 nigh Negroes. He didn't treat them at all. There was nothing detail 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, impale them all...He was unreasonable in his hatred for niggers. He hated to see them breathe. If y'all pressed it, he'd get violent in a conversation about it. He hated them! I never did know why..."
Ray kickoff fled to Canada where he spent some time at a ski resort, Grey Rocks. There he met a woman he liked but he may accept been using her to secure a passport. The divorced woman, Claire Keating, was a Canadian ceremonious servant. She told author, William Bradford Huie, "I can't remember how the bailiwick came upwardly only he said something like, 'You got to live virtually niggers to know 'em.' He meant that he had no patience with the racial views of people similar me who don't 'know niggers' and that all people who 'know niggers' hate them."
During Ray'southward stay in Mexico he became acquainted with a number of bar girls, one of whom related a telling example of Ray'due south acrimony towards African-Americans. Manuela Aguirre Medrano (known equally "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'due south personality changed as the conversation turned to the issue of civil rights and that, during ane date with Medrano, Ray grew angry at four African-Americans sailors who had been sitting at the bar. Medrano could not empathize why Ray became angry with them but did say that at one bespeak Ray went to his automobile to go 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 past the HSCA and denied Ray'south reactions to the African-American sailor's remarks was "racist." Even so, every bit Gerald Posner ended, "…information technology is…likely that the crewman's race incited (Ray), more and then than someone accidentally touching his $8-a-day prostitute."
Another racial incident involving Ray occurred in Los Angeles where the avoiding went following his curt stay in United mexican states. Bob Del Monte, a bartender at the Rabbit'southward Foot Gild, said Ray became involved in a heated discussion most race with one of the bar's women patrons, Pat Goodsell. Patently, Goodsell had spotted Ray's Mustang that was ever parked outside the society when Ray visited the establishment. The machine showed Alabama license plates. Goodsell berated Ray for the way people in Alabama treated African-Americans. Ray ended upwardly dragging Goodsell to the bar'southward door saying, "I'll drop you off in Watts and we'll see how you like information technology in that location." Del Monte also recalled that shortly after this incident an African-American patron of the Rabbit's Foot was struck on the head past a rock or brick while in the nearby parking lot. He suspected Ray threw the rock.
Deputy Sheriff William DuFour guarded Ray post-obit the assassin'southward capture and extradition to Memphis. DuFour had been 1 of the TACT forcefulness officers near the Lorraine Motel when Male monarch was shot. He reached Rex as he lay dying. DuFour helped to carry King downwardly to the ambulance, drenching himself with Rex's blood. DuFour would play card games and lookout television with Ray during his shifts and adult a shut relationship with the accused assassinator. DuFour said that Ray had pet names for people including the man he was defendant of murdering. Ray oft referred to Martin Luther King as "Martin Friction match Male monarch".
On the evening post-obit Ray'southward guilty plea his brothers said, "All his life Jimmy has been wild on ii subjects. He's been wild against niggers, and he's wild on politics. He's wild against any pol who'due south for niggers, and he'due south 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 non have to be afraid of a capital punishment for killing King, "(considering) no white man has always been executed in Tennessee for killing a nigger." It was only later that Ray realized that prosecutors would indeed push for the capital punishment. Foreman persuaded Ray that the case was likewise big to rely on local prejudices and that he would be constitute 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 messages 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 key event in Ray's life, yet whenever he mentioned King it was only in the context of his attempts to become a new trial. The messages revealed his bigotry and hatred for African-Americans. They too show how he became a fan of an all-nighttime "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 messages. Stoner'south 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. Information technology 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 accept determined that the assassin must take received assistance in obtaining the passports from a sophisticated group of conspirators, most probable the government. However, the procedure 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.Due south. fugitives obtained their false passports. Canadian bureaucracy at the time made it easy to obtain a fake nascence certificate and the travel agencies in that location did all the work in obtaining passports for their customers. An appearance earlier a government official was not a requirement.
Ray'due south movements following the assassination too leave no room for sinister interpretation. He flew to London's Heathrow Airport, and so immediately caught a flight to Lisbon. Information technology was an attempt to notice a mercenary organization and safety 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, and 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 near Ray's movements and the event 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 law and community officers to exist on the warning for Ray. Ray was arrested before he could board his flight to Brussels.
From the showtime Ray adopted an improvisational approach to his alibi. When researchers discovered new information that purportedly supported Ray, he would change his story to arrange the new possibilities. There is no prove 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'due south heed the difference between "truth" and "legal truth." Ray could therefore persuade himself that he was actually innocent because the courts had not established the full circumstances of the crime. He knew that the assist given to him by his brothers established, to his ain 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 conform his own version of the truth. This was the reason why the polygraph results were inconclusive when Ray answered questions nigh a conspiracy. The aforementioned polygraph examiner determined Ray had been lying when he denied killing Rex.
Information technology is probable Ray's resolve in sticking to his story would have dissipated had it not been for the back up he was given by conspiracy writers. According to Douglas and Anne Brinkley, who examined the prison letters Ray wrote over a flow of 30 years, "Ray exploited the fact that foreign journalists with an anti-American sensibility had no problem accepting his story that the White Business firm and the FBI had ordered King's assassination."
For each and every fact about the Male monarch example that provides some suspicion, conspiracy writers are prone to deliver their ain 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 fourth dimension on the run or that he had made coin in prison every bit a drug dealer. Every bit his blood brother John told FBI agents, "(James never had) any real need for money equally 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, even so, did non consider robberies that had a value of less than $5,000.
There is a wealth of testify, 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 pause out of prison house; a schemer who was involved in diverse money-making ventures, including buying and selling amphetamines, and lending money to other prisoners. Ray's drug use was confirmed by a family unit 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'south London rooming houses a hypodermic needle had been institute.
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 house prior to his expiry. There were simply too many risks attached to this scenario. If conspirators, specially government-led killers, could successfully murder America'due south foremost civil-rights leader and so 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 equally the murder had been carried out. They would not have immune him to be exposed then many times during his ii months on the run. Conspirators would not have put themselves in jeopardy by assuasive Ray the opportunity to identify fellow conspirators. And, if Ray had been an unwilling patsy, conspirators could not have been sure that Ray would flee the scene of the criminal offence. Under these circumstances, had Ray stayed put, the whole conspiracy may have complanate.
Why would the regime employ and then many people in the conspiracy when the risk of leakage would have been and 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. Rex was an easy target for any killer aptitude on eliminating him. Male monarch did non have an armed guard; he frequently left his home on pes; and his travel arrangements were well publicized. The government could as well have destroyed King by but arranging for all the scandal-filled surveillance tapes to be released to a friendly announcer to publicize them. This would non take been at all unusual. In the 1960s, the CIA enlisted the assistance of journalists and pupil groups to promote the government'southward 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 subsequently. The porno business organization or drug smuggling he discussed with his brothers seemed to offer keen fiscal rewards. Ray abased the idea, likely realizing he didn't accept the skills or contacts required for those criminal enterprises. He would besides 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 example information technology can be ended 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 bump-off. Information technology is reasonable to presume 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 law-breaking scene as proof he had murdered King. Yet, every bit Ray admitted, he threw the camera equipment away, probably in a state of panic, equally he fled Memphis. Ray'southward plan was to go to a country that did not accept extradition arrangements with the United States. Perhaps at some engagement in the future a President George Wallace would pardon him.
Information technology is besides articulate 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 Us that makes celebrities of famous murderers. He was besides fully aware that the killers of ceremonious-rights workers Medgar Evers and Viola Liuzzo had been treated leniently by Southern courts. Book, mag, and television contracts would ever be on offer to pay for defense lawyers and fiscal provision for his brothers. If he had been lucky plenty to escape to a foreign country, he could take sold his story. He would also have been aware that racist right-wing organizations and a large torso of American public opinion would exist behind him.
He told boyfriend inmates well-nigh the large score, aware that his burglaries, bank robberies, and footling crimes had amounted to trivial. Psychologically, James Earl Ray wanted to go what his parents had e'er known -- he was the child who was smarter and more than resourceful than the rest. Just 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 Nigh Wanted list. And, reverse to ideas held past some conspiracy advocates, Ray had nerves of steel, peculiarly when amphetamines hyped him up. According to his brother John, "(James has) steel nerves -- he only walks in (to the bank) like it'due south an everyday thing, gets the money, and walks out."
Stalking and so killing King would requite him the status he craved and, if defenseless, he could savour the loftier esteem that goes with this type of law-breaking. Assertive that if he killed Male monarch in the Deep South a white jury would acquit him, Ray knew that in time he would be able to collect his advantage 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 house 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'due south ex-wife, Anna Sandhu, recognized these qualities. Some of his lawyers have spoken of how Ray would dispense them. He was an astute jailhouse lawyer who had spent years learning the fine points of the law, particularly with respect to appeals process and how the law practical to the lawyer/client human relationship. He knew how to continue his hopes for freedom alive. These realities are consequent 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 yous have to brand your own evaluation and maybe come to that decision. I think that could be done today, just not 30 years ago."
In the real world allegation without confirmation is worthless. During his trial, Ray knew he had introduced plenty doubt as to stimulate hereafter public examinations of his instance. He knew the idea of conspiracy would continue his case alive in the public eye. Had there not been a climate of conspiratorial thinking engendered by the public doubt near Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt, it is unlikely the King example would have been intensely scrutinized for the past thirty years. And keeping the real truth almost the bump-off hidden would not have been difficult for a man like Ray. He had ever been a loner who never fully revealed himself to anyone -- non his brothers, his family, his fellow prisoners, his acquaintances or his lawyers.
It is unlikely the factual testify about the King murder case will persuade the American public of Ray's guilt. American club has been influenced as well 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 authorities. 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 cease came about 30 years after the King murder when he succumbed to liver disease. He had been admitted to Columbia Nashville Memorial Infirmary, his 16th hospitalisation since December 1996. Ray was stabbed more than than xx times by four inmates at Brushy Mountain Prison house in 1981, and he may have developed hepatitis from a claret 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 almost the mysterious Raoul. Past keeping silent, Ray was effectively thumbing his nose at a society that had relegated him to the bottom of the heap.
Authorities files on the King slaying are sealed until 2029. Opening these documents will only reveal why investigators have been so convinced of Ray'south guilt and why they have always rejected a wider conspiracy. Obfuscation, manipulation, lies, greed, and distortion of the facts take 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 acquit 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 decease."
The New York Times did carry one story on April iv about Martin Luther Rex - sort of. Buried deep in the paper, the Times reported the following "news": the autopsy videotape of Rex'southward assassin, James Earl Ray, is for sale.
Ray's brother, Jerry Ray, is selling the taped autopsy of his blood brother - some two hours long - for $400,000. With an centre to gruesome irony, Jerry Ray even made his sales pitch for the record on the anniversary of Rex's death - while standing almost the site of King'due south assassination.
Mel Ayton is the author of The JFK Assassination: Dispelling The Myths (Woodfield Publishing 2002) and Questions Of Controversy: The Kennedy Brothers (Academy 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 of america by ArcheBooks in February 2005.
In 2003 he acted as the historical adviser for the BBC's boob tube documentary "The Kennedy Dynasty" broadcast in November of that yr. He has written manufactures for Ireland'due south leading history magazine History Ireland, David Horowitz's Frontpage magazine and History News Network.
hickersonainal1980.blogspot.com
Source: http://www.crimemagazine.com/martin-luther-king-jr-assassination-what-really-happened
0 Response to "what happened to martin luther king jr in 1935"
Post a Comment