April 11, 2022 • 36 mins
Interviews with Ryan Jones, historian at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, & Brian Dominski, court reporter for the '93 HBO trial and the '99 Civil Trial.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the MLK Tapes, a production of iHeartRadio and
Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast
are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating
in the podcast, and do not represent those of iHeartMedia,
Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis traces the history
of slavery in America and then follows the nation's long
struggle for human rights. Its rooms portray lunch counter sit ins,
freedom rides, bus boycotts, and burned churches. To walk through
its halls is a moving experience, made all the more
exceptional because the museum is built into the shell of
(00:47):
the former Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was murdered.
Being at the Lorraine also helps to bring into focus
some of the unresolved questions surrounding the death of doctor King,
more so because in two thousand and two, the museum
acquired the neighboring rooming house from where James Earl Ray
was said to have fired the fatal bullet. The rooming
(01:09):
house has been renovated to accommodate the public and its
access from the museum by way of a tunnel. Its
interior is dedicated to displays that pertained to the assassination,
such as a rifle said to be the murder weapon
and a replica of Ray's famous white Mustang. But a
few places had been preserved in the condition in which
(01:29):
they were found after the murder, such as the bedroom
that Ray had rented and the bathroom from which he
was said to have fired the shot. When I visited
Memphis last year, I was joined by historian Ryan Jones,
who accompanied me through both the Lorraine and the rooming
house sections of the museum. I was not permitted to
(01:49):
record any sound, so the voice of mister Jones that
you'll hear in this segment was recorded at a later date.
Mister Jones had grown up in Memphis and has been
with the museum for ten years. He is an expert
on the King assassination, and I asked him what God
him interested in the case.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
It wasn't until I moved back to Memphis in nineteen
ninety seven.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
I think I was watching a talk show.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
It may have been Montell Williams to be exact, and
the King family, some of his children appeared on that
talk show and they were talking of getting James Olray,
the accused assassin, a trial here in Memphis, which he
never got in nineteen sixty eight and sixty nine. And
I really didn't get back into it until I began
(02:39):
starting to work at the museum.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
And it was there when I realized that the.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Museum holds all of the state's evidence against James Alray
and its collections, and I just began to go by
box by box, file by file.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
I left no foul, you know, unturned.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
So I just began to do my own individual research
and began to interview people. And almost ten years later,
you know, I feel like I have a pathway of
what truly happened here in Memphis at the Lorraine on
April fourth, nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It should be noted here that on the issue of
whether James Earl Ray was the lone assassin or if
others were involved, the museum itself takes what it calls
a neutral position. The people who work there are entitled
to their opinions, But we should remember that Ryan Jones
is speaking here on his own and not for the
museum itself. Of course, working at the museum in the
(03:39):
old Lorraine motel. Jones is in an excellent position to
have an informed opinion about certain matters. For example, did
King always stay at the Lorraine when he came to Memphis,
has some said? Or did he usually stay at other
places and was shamed or maneuvered into staying at the
Lorraine because a certain reception had been planned.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
There is this myth that has been floating around for
the past fifty two years that doctor King was a
normal guest, and even that he stayed at the Lorraine
on numerous occasions.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
This is, however, not true. This is indeed false.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
The Reverend James Lawson, who lived in Memphis at the time,
whom King met with the day before his assassination, stated
affirmatively many times that when he came to Memphis, they
would stay at his house, they'd go to the Peabody,
They'd stayed at the Admiral Bimbo.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
On March twenty eight, the night following the Memphis March
that became a riot, King stayed at the Rivermont Hotel
and held a press conference there the next morning, where
he condemned the riot but couldn't say for sure how
it had started, though there were those in his camp
who believed the window smashing and looting had somehow been
arranged in advance. Seven years later, in congressional hearings, it
(04:55):
would be revealed that the same morning that King was
speaking to the press, document was being produced by the
FBI in Washington. It was in the form of a
press release that criticized King for staying at the Rivermont
and specifically named the Lorraine Motel as the more appropriate
place for him to stay. It bore the approving initials
(05:15):
of J at Gar Hoover and was to be circulated
to what the FBI called friendly news outlets.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
The very next day, on the twenty ninth, there is
a press release calling doctor King a hypocrite, and it
pretty much states that you are staying at a predominantly
white business and you're asking African Americans to boycott white
merchants when you're not even given business to the lavish
and plus Lorraine Motel. This was an FBI memorandum that
(05:47):
was released on March to twenty ninth, nineteen sixty eight.
Whyou the FBI care where doctor King stays at this
time unless the Lorraine Motel was a particular area that
they needed him to be at, and of course, you know,
he was eventually moved from his original room which was
(06:08):
down below, and was moved upstairs to three of six.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And just how did this room change come about? There
are two stories. Both come from the owner of the Lorraine,
Walter Bailey.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Mister Bailey told this story to an investigative reporter by
the name of Wayne Chastain, and the story states that
someone who appeared to be very tall and athletic with
it like complexion, came to missus Bailey, who did all
(06:42):
of the hotel reservations, and stated that doctor King did
not want this nice room inside and away from the
original trajectory, and that he wonted room three US six
on the second floor. The second story is that it
(07:03):
was a phone call from Atlanta that was made so
that the Bailey's got a phone call from Atlanta a
day or two before they arrived, stating that doctor King
specifically won at room three oh six.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Why two stories, both supposedly from mister Bailey, we don't know,
But if the real story involved the phone call from Atlanta,
why would Walter Bailey make up another story of a tall,
athletic man coming to the Lorraine to make the room change.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
It makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
But if it were the other way around, and the
room was changed by someone posing as an advanced man,
a description of that man might, upon further thought, be
a dangerous story to tell and give birth to the
supposed phone call. Of course, a quick conversation with missus
Bailey who changed the room could clear up the situation,
(07:56):
but as mister Jones explains, that was never possible.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Her name was Laurie Bailey, and she really was the
one who ran the Loraino Motel. On the afternoon of
April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, doctor King speaks with Missus
Bailey standing on the balcony and he says, listen, Missus Bailey,
if the food over at Reverend Kyle's's home is not good,
(08:21):
I'm going to come back and count on you. And
she kind of blushed and said, of course, anything for you,
Doctor King, And then they go back into the kitchen
area of the diner of the Lorraine. Then the shot
rings out and the Baileys hear it from inside. They
walk outside and they see doctor King Worley wounded on
the second floor outside of room three of six, and
(08:44):
immediately Missus Bailey says, why why, why? She took her
hand and she kept hitting the side of her temple
to the point where he could see her blood vessels
moving oddly enough, mister Bailey left the Lora Hotel a
few hours he lays his wife when there's police and
(09:05):
investigators all over the motel's grounds, and he goes to
his other job at the Holiday Inn on Lamar Avenue,
and he gets a call from his brother, Beatrice Bailey,
and Beatrice says Laurie, he's not an answering, She's not answering,
And then they finally get to her, and they found
her slumped over and she's gone into a coma to
(09:28):
a stroke where she never gains consciousness again and actually
dies at nine am on April and ninth, nineteen sixty eight.
We know now that a bud vessel ruptured in her brain.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Mister Jones and I walk through the tunnel to the
basement of the rooming house and then take the elevator
up to the second floor. We come upon a glass
case displaying the rifle that was found on the street
just minutes after the shooting. Mister jo Jones gives a
small laugh and informs me that the scope on the
rifle is still not properly sighted. The rooming house has
(10:07):
been gut renovated, so on the inside it doesn't look
like it did in nineteen sixty eight, but the room
that Ray rented and the bathroom down the hall had
been recreated to be replicas of what was found right
after King was killed. Over the years, a lot has
been made about Ray choosing room five B because of
its window rather than the only other room, which had
no view but did have a stove. I asked Jones
(10:30):
about five B and what problems it might present to
a would be assassin.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
You are able to see the Lorainotel, and you are
able to see the second four balcony of the Lorainmotel
as well. Now, however, if your purpose is to assassinate
Martin Luther King Jr. And you're using a rifle, you
have a significant problem. In order to get a sufficient trajectory,
(11:00):
have to walk outside of the bedroom of five B,
down the hall and into a community bathroom in order
to even get an attempt.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
The problem with that window was although you could see
the rear part of the Lorraine Motel, you could not
see room three h six, where doctor King was staying.
Without opening the window and leaning out, and no one
has ever said the shot was fired from there. I
asked mister Jones to describe the bathroom, but I encourage
the listener to look on her website to see the
(11:33):
photo of the tiny room to better understand the issues
at play here.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
When you look inside of this very small community bathroom
that was shared by other people who were staying on
the same floor, you see a commode, you see a
very small sink, and until the left and the corner
right beneath a partially open window, there's a bathtub. Now
(11:59):
here's a significant red flag with that. James Olray was
six feet in height, and the weapon that he admitted
to buying in Birmingham, Alabama, a few days prior to
doctor King's death is not a small weapon at all.
It's a fairly large weapon with a scope as well.
(12:20):
And James Alray, we know, was a right handed marksman.
I about six feet, I'm about five to nine, and
I've gotten into that bathtub with a rifle that's not
the size of the one that rifle is accused of musing.
And it was almost impossible for myself, also right handed,
(12:41):
to have gotten a sufficient trajectory and My honest estimation
is that if there was a shot fired from that
community bathroom, which I don't think happened, you will have
had to have been a left handed marksman to situate
yourself in the bathtub in a very uncomfortable position.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
The bathroom window is small and leaves very little room
for a weapon and a body to gain the needed
angle to make the shot not impossible, But it's not
like someone would just walk up to this window, take aim,
and shoot something directly in front of it. As it
exists today, the window is now open, just a matter
of benches, as it apparently was on the day of
(13:26):
the murder, and it appears to me as though the
wooden bottom frame of the window would block or partially
block the view through the scope of the rifle, even
assuming it was properly sighted. But what got me most
when I looked at the bathroom is the tub, a small, narrow,
old fashioned bathtub with steep sloping sides. So instead of
(13:49):
spreading his legs and creating a secure base for a
difficult shot, our presumed shooter, mister Ray has to stand
with his feet close together inside this narrow bathtub and
get all balanced and squared away at just the time
the King came out of his room at the Lorraine.
Then Ray fired the only bullet he had loaded into
his gun because he was that certain of his skill
(14:11):
with the rifle he had only owned for four days.
Then there is the question of what needs to happen
in the next couple of minutes. As soon as the
fatal shot us fired. Ray would need to return to
Room five B, place the rifle in the box, and
throw his personal belongings into a bag made from a bedspread,
if he hadn't already done that before making his way
down to his car. But instead of just throwing his
(14:34):
stuff into his car, he leaves the bag and the
gun on the street. Harold Weisberg's nineteen seventy one book
Frame Up was the first to call into question the
official story of the king murder, and we all owe
him a debt. He died in two thousand and two,
but I'd like to play for you here. His take
(14:56):
on the stuff found on the street with Ray's rifle ridiculous.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
He's required of going to his room in the flophouse
and picked up the why does collection of junk bobby pins,
bobby pins, cans of beer that hadn't been opened. You know,
a guy has been a crime like that and he's
playing for his life. You're going to pick up a
couple of cans of beer or bobby pin. The box
didn't hold the rifle. He had to put the rifle
in that all sorts of other junk, ridiculous collection of it.
(15:23):
The one thing that that bundle served to do was
the point a finger it ready.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Ryan Jones agrees with Weisberg's doubt about the likelihood that
Ray was the one who left the bundle with the
rifle on the street.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Why he would have ever have done that will always
be a mystery. The car wasn't parked right in front
of Jim's drills.
Speaker 7 (15:44):
Parked a little closer to the firehouse, but it's close
enough to where he does not have to like run
a significant long way.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
He had more than enough time. It was probably safer
for him to just put the rifle and his car
and drive off.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
It was strange to stand on South Maine with Ryan
Jones and try to imagine things that had happened.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
There's no question that James Earl Ray rented Room five
B from Bessie Brewer the day of the murder, but
all the rest of it seems unlikely. I was grateful
for the time Ryan Jones spent with me, so I
asked him if he had anything else he wanted to say.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
I think that this would have been a very very
interesting trial had Ray gone to trial. We have this
weapon and it's never you know, the ballistics and trajectory
are not tested. The room changed, Why the weapon was
found when it was found? Who supplied Ray? The aliases
(16:51):
of Gault Lobyer, Willard Bridgeman, Snay and you know what,
this was a hate crime. You know I'm not buying
it is said, hey crime, any ku kluks klansmen could
have gotten doctor King of Montgomery. They could have got
him in Reachville, Georgia. They could have gotten him in Birmingham.
They could have got him in Saint Augustine Selma, Chicago,
(17:12):
walking the two hundred and twenty one mile distance from
Memphis to Jackson at the March against Fear. But no,
they don't get him until he is opposing the Vietnam
War in April of nineteen sixty seven. For the very
last year. They wait and get him when he proposes
on December fourth, nineteen sixty seven to the Poor People's Campaign,
(17:34):
where he wants to bring black and white people who
are stricken by poverty to the nation's capital and to
demand that the country, you know, write the check to
the people out in their backyard versus an a war.
I think that the story that we've been given for
the past fifty three years is just fictional. It's laughable
(17:57):
in certain areas that this limon was sold to the
American public, that this insignificant man is James Olray was
able to kill Martin Luther King Junior standing on the
balcony of a Memphis hotel room, and to flee and
get away untouched, not once. At the end of the day,
when we look at it, the people who hated him
(18:18):
the most yetbi who was committed to discrediting him, to
destroy him, who urged him to commit suicide in January
nineteen sixty five, are the same people responsible for investigating
his death. If that's done a disservice to justice in
this country, I don't know it is. And I feel
that the story will never rest, and I will never
(18:40):
rest until we get it to the bottom of it,
until we give the justice that's due and served to
doctor King's family into history.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
One of my court reporters was down at the Shelby
County Courthouse and said there was a British English producer
named Jack Saltman there and he was going to be
doing this teletrial that never occurred, the trial of James
Earl Ray. I thought it was a hoax at first,
but I threw on my coat, ran down seven blocks
on a cold winter's day, and there was Jack Saltman
with contract in hand. He said, I need a real
(19:30):
time court reporting for this trial I'm doing. It's going
to be a real trial for all intents and purposes,
but it will have no judicial weight. Trial of James
Earl Ray is what it was called.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I'm in Memphis, a block away from the Formula Rainbow
Tel talking to Brian de Minski, who is a court
reporter and someone who has lived in Memphis.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
For most of his life.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
For the last three decades, he's had a front row
seat for some of the more important events in the
ongoing challenge to the story of how Martin Luther King
was murdered. As we just heard, Brian's entrance into the
case began when he offered himself as a court reporter
to an English producer who was attempting to stage a.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
Mock trial of James Earl Ray.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
The trial was to mimic in all possible ways a
real trial, with a retired federal judge presiding, attorneys arguing
both sides, and an impartial jury to hear the evidence
and to come to a verdict. This is in nineteen
ninety three. An edited tape of the trial was televised
on HBO on the twenty fifth anniversary of the murder
(20:33):
of Martin Luther King.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
It was a little surreal doing my job as a
court reporter, but so that my left is a track
with a journey on it and a big television camera
filming me. It was cool stuff. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 8 (20:46):
And who were the attorneys involved?
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Bill Pepper, William Pepper and Pickman Ewing Junior, who was
our United States District Attorney for the Western District of
Tennessee prior to that he had left that post and
they hired him as the prosecutor against versus Bill. James
Rolry tested via satellite for two full days and one
of the days was a vigorous cross examination by Hickman
(21:11):
Ewing Jr. The jury was sequestered every evening. It was
done airtight, better than the ones that I actually would
handle in my other court reporting life.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
And for our listeners who were not in class that day,
what was the result of the trial.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
That Ray was not guilty of the assassination of Martin
Luther King?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Okay, so tell us about Bill Pepper? What was he like?
Speaker 5 (21:34):
He was very difficult during that entire time. He was frankly,
he was an ass to everybody. And as you and
I know, he's a charming, wonderful man. But during that
trial it was so intense because he was having his
shot now. He was extremely intense and he was difficult
to everybody. He even made his co consul cry during
the trial. April Ferguson made her cry because I don't
(21:58):
know what the issue was, so she left the table
during one of the days in tears.
Speaker 8 (22:02):
Did you feel going into the HBO trial that there
was something wrong with the King murder or did you
basically think that Ray had done ed? What was your
mindset before you went in or did it change during
the trial.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
I had an open mind. As the days unfolded, though,
I was just astounded at what I didn't know and
then what I was learning.
Speaker 8 (22:23):
What witnesses stick out in your mind from that trial, Well,
there's there's Lieutenant Hamby who is sent to a coroner
of Francisco's office to pick up the slug and bring
it back to Director Holloman's office, the head of Fire
in place of Memphis.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
He saw it was an intact bullet. And now even
at the Civil Rights Museum across the street from where
we're at, there was this three fragments of a bullet.
I recall they were going to put Lloyd Jowers on
the stand. I think he actually was on the stand,
and there were certain questions that Judge Frankel said, we're
not going there. You're not going to ask this. Well,
Pepper tried to ask it anyway. He asked, mister Jowers, well,
(22:59):
you know what were you doing behind your bar and
grilla in that day? And Judge Frankel said, you'll see
me in chambers right now. And they went into the chambers,
hic Youing and Jowers, lawyer Lewis Garrison and Bill and
they came back out and they took Jowers off the stand.
Speaker 8 (23:17):
Frankel had some objection to asking Jowers whether he was
involved or what he might have been doing.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Correct now. During the HbA trial is when I first
saw the photograph of the open window where they alleged
ray what fired the shot from in the rooming house.
Sergeant Papia testified and he said that he came upon
the scene at approximately six point thirty and goes up
to the rooming house and then requisitions a photographer to
come up there. So that's the exact position of the window.
(23:47):
And in the Civil Rights Museum there is a photograph
of that on the wall. And when you look at
that window, it is open. We couldn't go in the
bathroom and measure it three four inches max. If you
take the Remington game Master with scope and you put
it into that window sill, the scope then a butts
into the wood of the window sill. That's the first
(24:08):
time I came across that evidence. After the HBO trial,
we left shaking hands and he went on his way.
I went on my way, thinking I'd never hear from
him again. About three years later, he calls me up
out of the blue and says, I need to use
your services and your conference room, Brian, and I want
you to be the court reporter. We have another trial
coming up, a civil trial involving doctor King's death, and
(24:28):
this one will be in Shelby County Circuit Court, and
we need to take some depositions. Can you do that?
And of course I said yes, And it was a
different William Pepper this time around. I like to say
that once that aired on HBO and national television, it
shook things loose because people saw that and they said
I was there that day too, or I know this,
and they started contacting William Pepper or others saying I'd
(24:51):
like to come forth and give you my testimony of
what happened. So that was a real watershed event for
the case.
Speaker 8 (24:58):
So who did you depose?
Speaker 5 (25:00):
We had a series of people like Glinda Grabo, the
captain of the fire station, Carthel Whedon, taxi drivers. We
deposed the Jowers. Although I didn't do Jowers deposition, one
of my associates did. At that day. A lot of
the people that appear in the ninety nine trial were deposed. First.
Speaker 8 (25:18):
Now, you said you deposed Glinda Grabo. Tell me about
Glenda Grabo, Well.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
She was extremely nervous. She was going to testify a trial,
but she became ill. She didn't want to take the
stand in a public forum. But she did give her deposition.
It speaks for itself. But she tied in the fact
that she knew Raoul the operative that we had learned
that was raised operative leading him around the country.
Speaker 8 (25:43):
I'm kind of interested in your perception of her as
a person. Did she have some reason to come and
make up a story that you're aware of?
Speaker 5 (25:51):
I sensed her she was fearing for her life just
giving her deposition. I mean, she was extremely nervous, and
Pepper had a kind of draw out from her by
this point that William Pepper is representing the King family,
not James Alray. They've come to him and they said,
you know, we know you're onto something. We believe what
you've got. We'd like to retain you for the civil trial.
What was it like.
Speaker 8 (26:11):
I don't know being there with Coreta Scott King.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
I'm not a big spiritual person, but when Missus King,
she was the first witness when she took the stand,
the jury hadn't come out yet, and the core reporters
spot was right in front of the witness stand, so
Missus King was standing there and I introduced myself and
we chatted for a moment, and she had this angelic
glow about her, just a specially touched person. And again
I'm not spiritual, but she had just a glower aura
(26:36):
that she was unique.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
We are listening to a conversation that I had this
past summer with court reporter Brian Domnski, who's been involved
in the King case in one way or another for
thirty years. He has told us how he was brought
in as court reporter for the nineteen ninety three hbo
Mont trial, which found James Earl Ray not guilty of
murdering Martin Luther King. Now we served the same function
(27:01):
in the nineteen ninety nine civil trial King Family versus Showers,
which found that doctor King had been killed by a conspiracy.
But in the twenty plus years following the civil trial,
Dominski participated in or was witnessed to a half dozen
events that brought new understanding to the murder of doctor King.
One of those events was something Dominski did on his own,
(27:24):
the publication of the entire transcript of the ninety nine
civil trial.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
It took me a good five years because I was
fearful too that if I put this out, particularly under
my name in Memphis I'd have lawyers saying I'm never
using Dominski again. I finally came to the conclusion. I said,
somebody's going to find this transcript in my attic one
day after I'm deceased and go, oh my god, this
is the ninety nine King trial, and then read it
and go, wait a second. They've just proved that it
wasn't James, all right.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
The book is titled The Thirteenth Juror, and anyone can
buy it online. It is seven hundred and fifty pages,
a complete record of the civil trial, and it was
a has helped me in the making of this podcast.
Another unique contribution by Domnski was his in depth interview
of Lewis Garrison, the lawyer for the self confessed conspirator
(28:11):
Lloyd Jowers.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
So we have Lewis Garrison, who represented Lloyd Jowers from
approximately nineteen seventy two, and he was his lawyer for
the HBO trial. He was a lawyer for the ninety
nine trial. I know Lewis. He's a Memphis lawyer. I'd
known him over the years. We would chat about the
case because we both intimately involved. So in twenty seventeen,
Lewis calls me he says, Brian, because of your involvement
(28:33):
in the case and being licensed corport as stenographer, I'd
like you to come to my office. I want to
tell you everything I know. Lewis is about eighty nine
at this point eighty seven, and I don't know if
it's a Catharsis or what. But I videoed it as well,
since wasn't an illegal proceeding pending anymore, I just called
it a video affidavit of Lewis Garrison not attaching in
(28:54):
I llegal proceeding. But yet I swore him in under oath,
and he being a member of the Memphis barr he
felt that oath was binding. And he testified for about
an hour and a half and he spoke of everything
that mister Jowers had told him over the years as
his lawyer. But he said the Jowers had received one
hundred thousand dollars from mister Loberto and bought the cab
company shortly some time after the assassination, and how he
(29:18):
could have never done that owning a greasy spoon bar
and grill, and he didn't have one hundred thousand dollars
to buy that. And Lewis Garrison said he bought the
cab company with the money he got for acting as
the facilitator. Lewis had said when Lloyd Jowers passing away
on his deathbed, he called Lewis up and the day
before he died he told Lewis that yes, I was
a shooter. Now, that's in juxtaposition to two other stories
(29:42):
that we know.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Dominski was also in the room with Bill Pepper and
Martin king Thid for the two thousand and three sworn
deposition of Lenny Curtis.
Speaker 5 (29:54):
Lenny Curtis was a janitor at the MPD shooting range
and Jim and on the day of the assassination. Lenny
Curtis testified that Frank Strauser had came in early that
day and was carrying a rifle and went down to
the shooting range and was constantly firing away. Around noon,
Director Hollman, Mayor Loeb and two people he doesn't know
(30:14):
in suits and ties come and meet with Frank Strauser
in a conference room. He's next door sweeping. He's trying
to listen in and he doesn't quite pick up on
what they're talking about, but they leave. Strausser then goes
and practices a little longer and then leaves in a
sports car with the rifle.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
As we heard Curtis tell us in episode eleven, he
felt certain that Strausser was intending to shoot doctor King.
Curtis tried to call a minister he knew to pass
the warning along, but he couldn't get through. Curtis told
his story in the presence of Martin King II, with
a promise that no one could listen to it or
even hear of it until after he had died. But
(30:54):
after Curtis did die, Bill Pepper sought out Frank Strausser
and offered him five hundred if he would have.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
Lunch with him.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Strausser agrees, and the two men meet and Brian Demnsky
is sitting at a nearby table.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Ahead of time. Bill asked that I have him wired
for sound, and we did a rudimentary attempt at that
recorder in his pocket, but Bill welcomed him and they
sat down and they had about a forty five minute
chat about what life was like in nineteen sixty eight
in Memphis and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
In episode eleven, you can hear our recreation of Pepper's
conversation with Frank Strausser that Brian de Minsky overheard and
taped via recorder in Bill Pepper's shirt pocket. Dominski was
also in the room, this time as a court reporter.
During the stunning seven hours sworn deposition by Ronnie Lee Atkins.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
Ronnie Lee was a fascinating interesting man. He was an
iron horseman, biker and his family. They were the Dixie
Mafia family, not mafia as an Italian mafia. Dixie Mafias
in Southern tough guys that do things, illicit things, and
they still exist. He gave his deposition for seven hours.
At first I was skeptical. He almost looked like Hulk Hogan.
(32:10):
He's had this flowing hair, big mustache. I had to
be two eighty but really built strong. But as he
gave his testimony over those seven hours, he had so
many intricate Memphis facts. No, he's from Memphis, so it's understandable,
but he had so much detail that he couldn't have
possibly made this up. Bill. He was telling the story
of his life and his family's life back in the day.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
As we were beginning to pack up, I asked Brian
Demnsky if looking back, he felt encouraged by all the
people that have braved the storm and come forward and
all the evidence they have brought with them, or was
he discouraged by how immune to it all the lie
surrounding King's murder seemed to be he was upbeat.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
Pepper would like this, I'm a wax poetic, but doctor
King used to like to quote the truth crushed Earth
will rise again. So as the years passed, it is rising.
It's coming out. But we're not totally there now. The
ninety nine Trials a wonderful template, and there's more, of course,
the weave on Earth, and there's still a little bit
more that we don't have, but we did a pretty
(33:12):
good job of those two trials.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
This is Bill Klaber, creator of the MLK Tapes. Before
we walk away from the podcast, I wanted to play
the interviews you just heard of two people who have
had a front row seat as this story has played
out in Memphis. For most of us, the murder of
Martin Luther King is something that took place over fifty
years ago, but for Ryan Jones and Brian Deminski, it
(33:41):
is a battle between truth and lies that is still
very much alive today. If you are with us this far,
I would like to think that you now know a
great deal more about the murder of Martin Luther King
than you did before, and considering the importance of the
man murdered, I hope that feels odd to you, and
it should, because US Americans think King was killed by
(34:02):
alone assassin driven by racial hatred. They think this because
for fifty years, the American media has seen fit to
champion the single corrupt story that was provided to them
and to allow for nothing else. So, for example, if
you have written a book that challenges the official version
of this crime, as Bill Pepper has done, your book,
(34:24):
no matter how carefully vetted, will not even be reviewed.
Polite people don't talk about the.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
Murder of doctor King.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
But podcasts offer a way around those gatekeepers. So we
have put the evidence as we know it into audio
episodes and shot them out into the ether, where from
now on.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
Anyone can access them.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Anyone can hear how Percy Foreman was paid to make
sure that James Earl Ray pled guilty, and they can
ask themselves how did this happen and why? And of course,
none of this could have happened if Bill Pepper hadn't
decided to investigate the murder of his friend Martin King,
so I want to thank Bill again for those efforts
and for his bravery. I also want to thank Donald
(35:06):
Albright and Jamie Olbright of Tenderfoot TV, and Matt Frederick
and Trevor Young of iHeartMedia for the belief and the
importance of this story and for their confidence in me.
I'm grateful for their exceptional talent and for the spirit
they brought with it. It's not every day that one
gets to shatter a lie as big as this one.
Speaker 9 (35:32):
Thanks for listening to The MLK Tapes, a production of
iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. This podcast is not specifically endorsed
by the King Family or the King of State. The
MLK Tapes is written and hosted by Bill Clayber, Matt Frederick,
and Alex Williams our executive producers on behalf of iHeartRadio,
with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Fonk. Donald Albright and
(35:52):
Payne Lindsay are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Dedman. Original music by
Makeup and Vanity Set. Cover art by Mister Soul two
one six with photography by Artemis Jenkins. Special thanks to
Owin Rosenbaum and Grace Royer at UTA, the Nord Group,
Beck Median Marketing, Envision Business Management, and Station sixteen. If
(36:16):
you have questions, you can visit our website, the emailktapes
dot com. We posted photos and videos related to the
podcast on our social media accounts. You can check them
out at the emailk Tapes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio
and Tenderfoot TV, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Welcome to the MLK Tapes, a production of iHeartRadio and
Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast
are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating
in the podcast, and do not represent those of iHeartMedia,
Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis traces the history
of slavery in America and then follows the nation's long
struggle for human rights. Its rooms portray lunch counter sit ins,
freedom rides, bus boycotts, and burned churches. To walk through
its halls is a moving experience, made all the more
exceptional because the museum is built into the shell of
(00:47):
the former Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was murdered.
Being at the Lorraine also helps to bring into focus
some of the unresolved questions surrounding the death of doctor King,
more so because in two thousand and two, the museum
acquired the neighboring rooming house from where James Earl Ray
was said to have fired the fatal bullet. The rooming
(01:09):
house has been renovated to accommodate the public and its
access from the museum by way of a tunnel. Its
interior is dedicated to displays that pertained to the assassination,
such as a rifle said to be the murder weapon
and a replica of Ray's famous white Mustang. But a
few places had been preserved in the condition in which
(01:29):
they were found after the murder, such as the bedroom
that Ray had rented and the bathroom from which he
was said to have fired the shot. When I visited
Memphis last year, I was joined by historian Ryan Jones,
who accompanied me through both the Lorraine and the rooming
house sections of the museum. I was not permitted to
(01:49):
record any sound, so the voice of mister Jones that
you'll hear in this segment was recorded at a later date.
Mister Jones had grown up in Memphis and has been
with the museum for ten years. He is an expert
on the King assassination, and I asked him what God
him interested in the case.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
It wasn't until I moved back to Memphis in nineteen
ninety seven.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
I think I was watching a talk show.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
It may have been Montell Williams to be exact, and
the King family, some of his children appeared on that
talk show and they were talking of getting James Olray,
the accused assassin, a trial here in Memphis, which he
never got in nineteen sixty eight and sixty nine. And
I really didn't get back into it until I began
(02:39):
starting to work at the museum.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
And it was there when I realized that the.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Museum holds all of the state's evidence against James Alray
and its collections, and I just began to go by
box by box, file by file.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
I left no foul, you know, unturned.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
So I just began to do my own individual research
and began to interview people. And almost ten years later,
you know, I feel like I have a pathway of
what truly happened here in Memphis at the Lorraine on
April fourth, nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It should be noted here that on the issue of
whether James Earl Ray was the lone assassin or if
others were involved, the museum itself takes what it calls
a neutral position. The people who work there are entitled
to their opinions, But we should remember that Ryan Jones
is speaking here on his own and not for the
museum itself. Of course, working at the museum in the
(03:39):
old Lorraine motel. Jones is in an excellent position to
have an informed opinion about certain matters. For example, did
King always stay at the Lorraine when he came to Memphis,
has some said? Or did he usually stay at other
places and was shamed or maneuvered into staying at the
Lorraine because a certain reception had been planned.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
There is this myth that has been floating around for
the past fifty two years that doctor King was a
normal guest, and even that he stayed at the Lorraine
on numerous occasions.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
This is, however, not true. This is indeed false.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
The Reverend James Lawson, who lived in Memphis at the time,
whom King met with the day before his assassination, stated
affirmatively many times that when he came to Memphis, they
would stay at his house, they'd go to the Peabody,
They'd stayed at the Admiral Bimbo.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
On March twenty eight, the night following the Memphis March
that became a riot, King stayed at the Rivermont Hotel
and held a press conference there the next morning, where
he condemned the riot but couldn't say for sure how
it had started, though there were those in his camp
who believed the window smashing and looting had somehow been
arranged in advance. Seven years later, in congressional hearings, it
(04:55):
would be revealed that the same morning that King was
speaking to the press, document was being produced by the
FBI in Washington. It was in the form of a
press release that criticized King for staying at the Rivermont
and specifically named the Lorraine Motel as the more appropriate
place for him to stay. It bore the approving initials
(05:15):
of J at Gar Hoover and was to be circulated
to what the FBI called friendly news outlets.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
The very next day, on the twenty ninth, there is
a press release calling doctor King a hypocrite, and it
pretty much states that you are staying at a predominantly
white business and you're asking African Americans to boycott white
merchants when you're not even given business to the lavish
and plus Lorraine Motel. This was an FBI memorandum that
(05:47):
was released on March to twenty ninth, nineteen sixty eight.
Whyou the FBI care where doctor King stays at this
time unless the Lorraine Motel was a particular area that
they needed him to be at, and of course, you know,
he was eventually moved from his original room which was
(06:08):
down below, and was moved upstairs to three of six.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And just how did this room change come about? There
are two stories. Both come from the owner of the Lorraine,
Walter Bailey.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Mister Bailey told this story to an investigative reporter by
the name of Wayne Chastain, and the story states that
someone who appeared to be very tall and athletic with
it like complexion, came to missus Bailey, who did all
(06:42):
of the hotel reservations, and stated that doctor King did
not want this nice room inside and away from the
original trajectory, and that he wonted room three US six
on the second floor. The second story is that it
(07:03):
was a phone call from Atlanta that was made so
that the Bailey's got a phone call from Atlanta a
day or two before they arrived, stating that doctor King
specifically won at room three oh six.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Why two stories, both supposedly from mister Bailey, we don't know,
But if the real story involved the phone call from Atlanta,
why would Walter Bailey make up another story of a tall,
athletic man coming to the Lorraine to make the room change.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
It makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
But if it were the other way around, and the
room was changed by someone posing as an advanced man,
a description of that man might, upon further thought, be
a dangerous story to tell and give birth to the
supposed phone call. Of course, a quick conversation with missus
Bailey who changed the room could clear up the situation,
(07:56):
but as mister Jones explains, that was never possible.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Her name was Laurie Bailey, and she really was the
one who ran the Loraino Motel. On the afternoon of
April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, doctor King speaks with Missus
Bailey standing on the balcony and he says, listen, Missus Bailey,
if the food over at Reverend Kyle's's home is not good,
(08:21):
I'm going to come back and count on you. And
she kind of blushed and said, of course, anything for you,
Doctor King, And then they go back into the kitchen
area of the diner of the Lorraine. Then the shot
rings out and the Baileys hear it from inside. They
walk outside and they see doctor King Worley wounded on
the second floor outside of room three of six, and
(08:44):
immediately Missus Bailey says, why why, why? She took her
hand and she kept hitting the side of her temple
to the point where he could see her blood vessels
moving oddly enough, mister Bailey left the Lora Hotel a
few hours he lays his wife when there's police and
(09:05):
investigators all over the motel's grounds, and he goes to
his other job at the Holiday Inn on Lamar Avenue,
and he gets a call from his brother, Beatrice Bailey,
and Beatrice says Laurie, he's not an answering, She's not answering,
And then they finally get to her, and they found
her slumped over and she's gone into a coma to
(09:28):
a stroke where she never gains consciousness again and actually
dies at nine am on April and ninth, nineteen sixty eight.
We know now that a bud vessel ruptured in her brain.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Mister Jones and I walk through the tunnel to the
basement of the rooming house and then take the elevator
up to the second floor. We come upon a glass
case displaying the rifle that was found on the street
just minutes after the shooting. Mister jo Jones gives a
small laugh and informs me that the scope on the
rifle is still not properly sighted. The rooming house has
(10:07):
been gut renovated, so on the inside it doesn't look
like it did in nineteen sixty eight, but the room
that Ray rented and the bathroom down the hall had
been recreated to be replicas of what was found right
after King was killed. Over the years, a lot has
been made about Ray choosing room five B because of
its window rather than the only other room, which had
no view but did have a stove. I asked Jones
(10:30):
about five B and what problems it might present to
a would be assassin.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
You are able to see the Lorainotel, and you are
able to see the second four balcony of the Lorainmotel
as well. Now, however, if your purpose is to assassinate
Martin Luther King Jr. And you're using a rifle, you
have a significant problem. In order to get a sufficient trajectory,
(11:00):
have to walk outside of the bedroom of five B,
down the hall and into a community bathroom in order
to even get an attempt.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
The problem with that window was although you could see
the rear part of the Lorraine Motel, you could not
see room three h six, where doctor King was staying.
Without opening the window and leaning out, and no one
has ever said the shot was fired from there. I
asked mister Jones to describe the bathroom, but I encourage
the listener to look on her website to see the
(11:33):
photo of the tiny room to better understand the issues
at play here.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
When you look inside of this very small community bathroom
that was shared by other people who were staying on
the same floor, you see a commode, you see a
very small sink, and until the left and the corner
right beneath a partially open window, there's a bathtub. Now
(11:59):
here's a significant red flag with that. James Olray was
six feet in height, and the weapon that he admitted
to buying in Birmingham, Alabama, a few days prior to
doctor King's death is not a small weapon at all.
It's a fairly large weapon with a scope as well.
(12:20):
And James Alray, we know, was a right handed marksman.
I about six feet, I'm about five to nine, and
I've gotten into that bathtub with a rifle that's not
the size of the one that rifle is accused of musing.
And it was almost impossible for myself, also right handed,
(12:41):
to have gotten a sufficient trajectory and My honest estimation
is that if there was a shot fired from that
community bathroom, which I don't think happened, you will have
had to have been a left handed marksman to situate
yourself in the bathtub in a very uncomfortable position.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
The bathroom window is small and leaves very little room
for a weapon and a body to gain the needed
angle to make the shot not impossible, But it's not
like someone would just walk up to this window, take aim,
and shoot something directly in front of it. As it
exists today, the window is now open, just a matter
of benches, as it apparently was on the day of
(13:26):
the murder, and it appears to me as though the
wooden bottom frame of the window would block or partially
block the view through the scope of the rifle, even
assuming it was properly sighted. But what got me most
when I looked at the bathroom is the tub, a small, narrow,
old fashioned bathtub with steep sloping sides. So instead of
(13:49):
spreading his legs and creating a secure base for a
difficult shot, our presumed shooter, mister Ray has to stand
with his feet close together inside this narrow bathtub and
get all balanced and squared away at just the time
the King came out of his room at the Lorraine.
Then Ray fired the only bullet he had loaded into
his gun because he was that certain of his skill
(14:11):
with the rifle he had only owned for four days.
Then there is the question of what needs to happen
in the next couple of minutes. As soon as the
fatal shot us fired. Ray would need to return to
Room five B, place the rifle in the box, and
throw his personal belongings into a bag made from a bedspread,
if he hadn't already done that before making his way
down to his car. But instead of just throwing his
(14:34):
stuff into his car, he leaves the bag and the
gun on the street. Harold Weisberg's nineteen seventy one book
Frame Up was the first to call into question the
official story of the king murder, and we all owe
him a debt. He died in two thousand and two,
but I'd like to play for you here. His take
(14:56):
on the stuff found on the street with Ray's rifle ridiculous.
Speaker 6 (15:01):
He's required of going to his room in the flophouse
and picked up the why does collection of junk bobby pins,
bobby pins, cans of beer that hadn't been opened. You know,
a guy has been a crime like that and he's
playing for his life. You're going to pick up a
couple of cans of beer or bobby pin. The box
didn't hold the rifle. He had to put the rifle
in that all sorts of other junk, ridiculous collection of it.
(15:23):
The one thing that that bundle served to do was
the point a finger it ready.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Ryan Jones agrees with Weisberg's doubt about the likelihood that
Ray was the one who left the bundle with the
rifle on the street.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Why he would have ever have done that will always
be a mystery. The car wasn't parked right in front
of Jim's drills.
Speaker 7 (15:44):
Parked a little closer to the firehouse, but it's close
enough to where he does not have to like run
a significant long way.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
He had more than enough time. It was probably safer
for him to just put the rifle and his car
and drive off.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
It was strange to stand on South Maine with Ryan
Jones and try to imagine things that had happened.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
Fifty years ago.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
There's no question that James Earl Ray rented Room five
B from Bessie Brewer the day of the murder, but
all the rest of it seems unlikely. I was grateful
for the time Ryan Jones spent with me, so I
asked him if he had anything else he wanted to say.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
I think that this would have been a very very
interesting trial had Ray gone to trial. We have this
weapon and it's never you know, the ballistics and trajectory
are not tested. The room changed, Why the weapon was
found when it was found? Who supplied Ray? The aliases
(16:51):
of Gault Lobyer, Willard Bridgeman, Snay and you know what,
this was a hate crime. You know I'm not buying
it is said, hey crime, any ku kluks klansmen could
have gotten doctor King of Montgomery. They could have got
him in Reachville, Georgia. They could have gotten him in Birmingham.
They could have got him in Saint Augustine Selma, Chicago,
(17:12):
walking the two hundred and twenty one mile distance from
Memphis to Jackson at the March against Fear. But no,
they don't get him until he is opposing the Vietnam
War in April of nineteen sixty seven. For the very
last year. They wait and get him when he proposes
on December fourth, nineteen sixty seven to the Poor People's Campaign,
(17:34):
where he wants to bring black and white people who
are stricken by poverty to the nation's capital and to
demand that the country, you know, write the check to
the people out in their backyard versus an a war.
I think that the story that we've been given for
the past fifty three years is just fictional. It's laughable
(17:57):
in certain areas that this limon was sold to the
American public, that this insignificant man is James Olray was
able to kill Martin Luther King Junior standing on the
balcony of a Memphis hotel room, and to flee and
get away untouched, not once. At the end of the day,
when we look at it, the people who hated him
(18:18):
the most yetbi who was committed to discrediting him, to
destroy him, who urged him to commit suicide in January
nineteen sixty five, are the same people responsible for investigating
his death. If that's done a disservice to justice in
this country, I don't know it is. And I feel
that the story will never rest, and I will never
(18:40):
rest until we get it to the bottom of it,
until we give the justice that's due and served to
doctor King's family into history.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
One of my court reporters was down at the Shelby
County Courthouse and said there was a British English producer
named Jack Saltman there and he was going to be
doing this teletrial that never occurred, the trial of James
Earl Ray. I thought it was a hoax at first,
but I threw on my coat, ran down seven blocks
on a cold winter's day, and there was Jack Saltman
with contract in hand. He said, I need a real
(19:30):
time court reporting for this trial I'm doing. It's going
to be a real trial for all intents and purposes,
but it will have no judicial weight. Trial of James
Earl Ray is what it was called.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I'm in Memphis, a block away from the Formula Rainbow
Tel talking to Brian de Minski, who is a court
reporter and someone who has lived in Memphis.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
For most of his life.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
For the last three decades, he's had a front row
seat for some of the more important events in the
ongoing challenge to the story of how Martin Luther King
was murdered. As we just heard, Brian's entrance into the
case began when he offered himself as a court reporter
to an English producer who was attempting to stage a.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
Mock trial of James Earl Ray.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
The trial was to mimic in all possible ways a
real trial, with a retired federal judge presiding, attorneys arguing
both sides, and an impartial jury to hear the evidence
and to come to a verdict. This is in nineteen
ninety three. An edited tape of the trial was televised
on HBO on the twenty fifth anniversary of the murder
(20:33):
of Martin Luther King.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
It was a little surreal doing my job as a
court reporter, but so that my left is a track
with a journey on it and a big television camera
filming me. It was cool stuff. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 8 (20:46):
And who were the attorneys involved?
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Bill Pepper, William Pepper and Pickman Ewing Junior, who was
our United States District Attorney for the Western District of
Tennessee prior to that he had left that post and
they hired him as the prosecutor against versus Bill. James
Rolry tested via satellite for two full days and one
of the days was a vigorous cross examination by Hickman
(21:11):
Ewing Jr. The jury was sequestered every evening. It was
done airtight, better than the ones that I actually would
handle in my other court reporting life.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
And for our listeners who were not in class that day,
what was the result of the trial.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
That Ray was not guilty of the assassination of Martin
Luther King?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Okay, so tell us about Bill Pepper? What was he like?
Speaker 5 (21:34):
He was very difficult during that entire time. He was frankly,
he was an ass to everybody. And as you and
I know, he's a charming, wonderful man. But during that
trial it was so intense because he was having his
shot now. He was extremely intense and he was difficult
to everybody. He even made his co consul cry during
the trial. April Ferguson made her cry because I don't
(21:58):
know what the issue was, so she left the table
during one of the days in tears.
Speaker 8 (22:02):
Did you feel going into the HBO trial that there
was something wrong with the King murder or did you
basically think that Ray had done ed? What was your
mindset before you went in or did it change during
the trial.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
I had an open mind. As the days unfolded, though,
I was just astounded at what I didn't know and
then what I was learning.
Speaker 8 (22:23):
What witnesses stick out in your mind from that trial, Well,
there's there's Lieutenant Hamby who is sent to a coroner
of Francisco's office to pick up the slug and bring
it back to Director Holloman's office, the head of Fire
in place of Memphis.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
He saw it was an intact bullet. And now even
at the Civil Rights Museum across the street from where
we're at, there was this three fragments of a bullet.
I recall they were going to put Lloyd Jowers on
the stand. I think he actually was on the stand,
and there were certain questions that Judge Frankel said, we're
not going there. You're not going to ask this. Well,
Pepper tried to ask it anyway. He asked, mister Jowers, well,
(22:59):
you know what were you doing behind your bar and
grilla in that day? And Judge Frankel said, you'll see
me in chambers right now. And they went into the chambers,
hic Youing and Jowers, lawyer Lewis Garrison and Bill and
they came back out and they took Jowers off the stand.
Speaker 8 (23:17):
Frankel had some objection to asking Jowers whether he was
involved or what he might have been doing.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Correct now. During the HbA trial is when I first
saw the photograph of the open window where they alleged
ray what fired the shot from in the rooming house.
Sergeant Papia testified and he said that he came upon
the scene at approximately six point thirty and goes up
to the rooming house and then requisitions a photographer to
come up there. So that's the exact position of the window.
(23:47):
And in the Civil Rights Museum there is a photograph
of that on the wall. And when you look at
that window, it is open. We couldn't go in the
bathroom and measure it three four inches max. If you
take the Remington game Master with scope and you put
it into that window sill, the scope then a butts
into the wood of the window sill. That's the first
(24:08):
time I came across that evidence. After the HBO trial,
we left shaking hands and he went on his way.
I went on my way, thinking I'd never hear from
him again. About three years later, he calls me up
out of the blue and says, I need to use
your services and your conference room, Brian, and I want
you to be the court reporter. We have another trial
coming up, a civil trial involving doctor King's death, and
(24:28):
this one will be in Shelby County Circuit Court, and
we need to take some depositions. Can you do that?
And of course I said yes, And it was a
different William Pepper this time around. I like to say
that once that aired on HBO and national television, it
shook things loose because people saw that and they said
I was there that day too, or I know this,
and they started contacting William Pepper or others saying I'd
(24:51):
like to come forth and give you my testimony of
what happened. So that was a real watershed event for
the case.
Speaker 8 (24:58):
So who did you depose?
Speaker 5 (25:00):
We had a series of people like Glinda Grabo, the
captain of the fire station, Carthel Whedon, taxi drivers. We
deposed the Jowers. Although I didn't do Jowers deposition, one
of my associates did. At that day. A lot of
the people that appear in the ninety nine trial were deposed. First.
Speaker 8 (25:18):
Now, you said you deposed Glinda Grabo. Tell me about
Glenda Grabo, Well.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
She was extremely nervous. She was going to testify a trial,
but she became ill. She didn't want to take the
stand in a public forum. But she did give her deposition.
It speaks for itself. But she tied in the fact
that she knew Raoul the operative that we had learned
that was raised operative leading him around the country.
Speaker 8 (25:43):
I'm kind of interested in your perception of her as
a person. Did she have some reason to come and
make up a story that you're aware of?
Speaker 5 (25:51):
I sensed her she was fearing for her life just
giving her deposition. I mean, she was extremely nervous, and
Pepper had a kind of draw out from her by
this point that William Pepper is representing the King family,
not James Alray. They've come to him and they said,
you know, we know you're onto something. We believe what
you've got. We'd like to retain you for the civil trial.
What was it like.
Speaker 8 (26:11):
I don't know being there with Coreta Scott King.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
I'm not a big spiritual person, but when Missus King,
she was the first witness when she took the stand,
the jury hadn't come out yet, and the core reporters
spot was right in front of the witness stand, so
Missus King was standing there and I introduced myself and
we chatted for a moment, and she had this angelic
glow about her, just a specially touched person. And again
I'm not spiritual, but she had just a glower aura
(26:36):
that she was unique.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
We are listening to a conversation that I had this
past summer with court reporter Brian Domnski, who's been involved
in the King case in one way or another for
thirty years. He has told us how he was brought
in as court reporter for the nineteen ninety three hbo
Mont trial, which found James Earl Ray not guilty of
murdering Martin Luther King. Now we served the same function
(27:01):
in the nineteen ninety nine civil trial King Family versus Showers,
which found that doctor King had been killed by a conspiracy.
But in the twenty plus years following the civil trial,
Dominski participated in or was witnessed to a half dozen
events that brought new understanding to the murder of doctor King.
One of those events was something Dominski did on his own,
(27:24):
the publication of the entire transcript of the ninety nine
civil trial.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
It took me a good five years because I was
fearful too that if I put this out, particularly under
my name in Memphis I'd have lawyers saying I'm never
using Dominski again. I finally came to the conclusion. I said,
somebody's going to find this transcript in my attic one
day after I'm deceased and go, oh my god, this
is the ninety nine King trial, and then read it
and go, wait a second. They've just proved that it
wasn't James, all right.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
The book is titled The Thirteenth Juror, and anyone can
buy it online. It is seven hundred and fifty pages,
a complete record of the civil trial, and it was
a has helped me in the making of this podcast.
Another unique contribution by Domnski was his in depth interview
of Lewis Garrison, the lawyer for the self confessed conspirator
(28:11):
Lloyd Jowers.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
So we have Lewis Garrison, who represented Lloyd Jowers from
approximately nineteen seventy two, and he was his lawyer for
the HBO trial. He was a lawyer for the ninety
nine trial. I know Lewis. He's a Memphis lawyer. I'd
known him over the years. We would chat about the
case because we both intimately involved. So in twenty seventeen,
Lewis calls me he says, Brian, because of your involvement
(28:33):
in the case and being licensed corport as stenographer, I'd
like you to come to my office. I want to
tell you everything I know. Lewis is about eighty nine
at this point eighty seven, and I don't know if
it's a Catharsis or what. But I videoed it as well,
since wasn't an illegal proceeding pending anymore, I just called
it a video affidavit of Lewis Garrison not attaching in
(28:54):
I llegal proceeding. But yet I swore him in under oath,
and he being a member of the Memphis barr he
felt that oath was binding. And he testified for about
an hour and a half and he spoke of everything
that mister Jowers had told him over the years as
his lawyer. But he said the Jowers had received one
hundred thousand dollars from mister Loberto and bought the cab
company shortly some time after the assassination, and how he
(29:18):
could have never done that owning a greasy spoon bar
and grill, and he didn't have one hundred thousand dollars
to buy that. And Lewis Garrison said he bought the
cab company with the money he got for acting as
the facilitator. Lewis had said when Lloyd Jowers passing away
on his deathbed, he called Lewis up and the day
before he died he told Lewis that yes, I was
a shooter. Now, that's in juxtaposition to two other stories
(29:42):
that we know.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Dominski was also in the room with Bill Pepper and
Martin king Thid for the two thousand and three sworn
deposition of Lenny Curtis.
Speaker 5 (29:54):
Lenny Curtis was a janitor at the MPD shooting range
and Jim and on the day of the assassination. Lenny
Curtis testified that Frank Strauser had came in early that
day and was carrying a rifle and went down to
the shooting range and was constantly firing away. Around noon,
Director Hollman, Mayor Loeb and two people he doesn't know
(30:14):
in suits and ties come and meet with Frank Strauser
in a conference room. He's next door sweeping. He's trying
to listen in and he doesn't quite pick up on
what they're talking about, but they leave. Strausser then goes
and practices a little longer and then leaves in a
sports car with the rifle.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
As we heard Curtis tell us in episode eleven, he
felt certain that Strausser was intending to shoot doctor King.
Curtis tried to call a minister he knew to pass
the warning along, but he couldn't get through. Curtis told
his story in the presence of Martin King II, with
a promise that no one could listen to it or
even hear of it until after he had died. But
(30:54):
after Curtis did die, Bill Pepper sought out Frank Strausser
and offered him five hundred if he would have.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
Lunch with him.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Strausser agrees, and the two men meet and Brian Demnsky
is sitting at a nearby table.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Ahead of time. Bill asked that I have him wired
for sound, and we did a rudimentary attempt at that
recorder in his pocket, but Bill welcomed him and they
sat down and they had about a forty five minute
chat about what life was like in nineteen sixty eight
in Memphis and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
In episode eleven, you can hear our recreation of Pepper's
conversation with Frank Strausser that Brian de Minsky overheard and
taped via recorder in Bill Pepper's shirt pocket. Dominski was
also in the room, this time as a court reporter.
During the stunning seven hours sworn deposition by Ronnie Lee Atkins.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
Ronnie Lee was a fascinating interesting man. He was an
iron horseman, biker and his family. They were the Dixie
Mafia family, not mafia as an Italian mafia. Dixie Mafias
in Southern tough guys that do things, illicit things, and
they still exist. He gave his deposition for seven hours.
At first I was skeptical. He almost looked like Hulk Hogan.
(32:10):
He's had this flowing hair, big mustache. I had to
be two eighty but really built strong. But as he
gave his testimony over those seven hours, he had so
many intricate Memphis facts. No, he's from Memphis, so it's understandable,
but he had so much detail that he couldn't have
possibly made this up. Bill. He was telling the story
of his life and his family's life back in the day.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
As we were beginning to pack up, I asked Brian
Demnsky if looking back, he felt encouraged by all the
people that have braved the storm and come forward and
all the evidence they have brought with them, or was
he discouraged by how immune to it all the lie
surrounding King's murder seemed to be he was upbeat.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
Pepper would like this, I'm a wax poetic, but doctor
King used to like to quote the truth crushed Earth
will rise again. So as the years passed, it is rising.
It's coming out. But we're not totally there now. The
ninety nine Trials a wonderful template, and there's more, of course,
the weave on Earth, and there's still a little bit
more that we don't have, but we did a pretty
(33:12):
good job of those two trials.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
This is Bill Klaber, creator of the MLK Tapes. Before
we walk away from the podcast, I wanted to play
the interviews you just heard of two people who have
had a front row seat as this story has played
out in Memphis. For most of us, the murder of
Martin Luther King is something that took place over fifty
years ago, but for Ryan Jones and Brian Deminski, it
(33:41):
is a battle between truth and lies that is still
very much alive today. If you are with us this far,
I would like to think that you now know a
great deal more about the murder of Martin Luther King
than you did before, and considering the importance of the
man murdered, I hope that feels odd to you, and
it should, because US Americans think King was killed by
(34:02):
alone assassin driven by racial hatred. They think this because
for fifty years, the American media has seen fit to
champion the single corrupt story that was provided to them
and to allow for nothing else. So, for example, if
you have written a book that challenges the official version
of this crime, as Bill Pepper has done, your book,
(34:24):
no matter how carefully vetted, will not even be reviewed.
Polite people don't talk about the.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
Murder of doctor King.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
But podcasts offer a way around those gatekeepers. So we
have put the evidence as we know it into audio
episodes and shot them out into the ether, where from
now on.
Speaker 5 (34:41):
Anyone can access them.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Anyone can hear how Percy Foreman was paid to make
sure that James Earl Ray pled guilty, and they can
ask themselves how did this happen and why? And of course,
none of this could have happened if Bill Pepper hadn't
decided to investigate the murder of his friend Martin King,
so I want to thank Bill again for those efforts
and for his bravery. I also want to thank Donald
(35:06):
Albright and Jamie Olbright of Tenderfoot TV, and Matt Frederick
and Trevor Young of iHeartMedia for the belief and the
importance of this story and for their confidence in me.
I'm grateful for their exceptional talent and for the spirit
they brought with it. It's not every day that one
gets to shatter a lie as big as this one.
Speaker 9 (35:32):
Thanks for listening to The MLK Tapes, a production of
iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV. This podcast is not specifically endorsed
by the King Family or the King of State. The
MLK Tapes is written and hosted by Bill Clayber, Matt Frederick,
and Alex Williams our executive producers on behalf of iHeartRadio,
with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Fonk. Donald Albright and
(35:52):
Payne Lindsay are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV,
with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Dedman. Original music by
Makeup and Vanity Set. Cover art by Mister Soul two
one six with photography by Artemis Jenkins. Special thanks to
Owin Rosenbaum and Grace Royer at UTA, the Nord Group,
Beck Median Marketing, Envision Business Management, and Station sixteen. If
(36:16):
you have questions, you can visit our website, the emailktapes
dot com. We posted photos and videos related to the
podcast on our social media accounts. You can check them
out at the emailk Tapes. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio
and Tenderfoot TV, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
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