March 7, 2022 • 30 mins
After 30 years of silence, cab driver Louis Ward comes forward to tell what happened to him when King was shot. A few years later, Ronnie Lee Adkins, who says his family was involved in the assassination, confirms Ward's story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the MLK Tapes, a production of I Heart
Radio 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 I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener
discretion is advised. I was sitting at Quince and Kirkbry
(00:24):
waiting on a call. I heard Paul come in on
the radio and well, I couldn't hear him, but he
talked to the dispatcher and the dispatcher started repeating with
Paul said. He said, you mean doctor Martin Luther King
has been shot, and he said yes, and then he said, well,
I'll send an ambulance. And he said I don't believe
an ambulance can help, because he would repeat it back,
(00:47):
so I knew what he was saying. And he said, well,
I'll send an ambulance anyhow, and send the police. These
are the words of cab driver Louis Ward, taken from
his testimony at the civil trial and de nine and
rent to us by a voice actor. Ward is repeating
the words of another taxi driver, no longer living, who
told him what he saw when Martin Luther King was killed.
(01:11):
Ward had been in another part of town when he
heard his dispatcher talking to Car fifty eighth at the
Lorraine Motel. King had just been shot. An ambulance was
being sent. Ward then heard the dispatcher tell the cabby
to take his fare to the airport and that he
would call the police and tell them what the driver
had seen, something about the man who shot King running
(01:34):
up the street. Ward wasn't sure that he had heard
it right. The man who shot King was running up
the street. On impulse, Ward drove to the airport, where
he found the driver of Car fifty eight, who told
Ward and two other cabbies what he had seen. Ward
would never see that driver again. And when he found
out what happened to him the very night the King
(01:54):
himself was killed, Louis Ward began to fear for himself
and his family. So for twenty five years he kept
what he knew to himself. Then, when the kids were grown,
he decided to come forward. I called the Union Hall.
I said, this a matter of life and death. I said,
(02:15):
I thank these people are planning to kill doctor King.
The authorities were parade. Oh, we found a gun the
James Old raybought in Birmingham that killed Dr King, except
it wasn't the gun that killed Dr King. James Lvey
was upon for the official story from My Heart radio
(02:37):
intender for TV. The plan was to get King to
the city because they wanted it handled in Memphis. Were
dead and in cold handle it and I've lived with
us along my Siri, and they scared for me. The
Lord told me to not the word. I've been wanting
to tell it all my life. I'm Bill Claiburg and
(02:58):
this is the MLK tapes. When Martin Luther King was killed.
Louis ward was forty one, married with three children. He
had been a federal security guard at a local army
depot for twenty years. He drove a cab part time
(03:21):
and was driving the ninth King was shot when he
decided to come forward some twenty five years later. Ward
first went to the police, then to the Attorney General,
but they were not interested in what he had to say.
Then he found Bill Pepper, who sat him down and
turned on the tape recorder the home of Mr Lewis
ward Cardigan Drive. Mr Warden was a taxi driver for
(03:46):
a Yellow can back in and on the evening of
the killing, he was driving and he was parked. Then
he heard a report come over the radio to the dispatcher.
Report was from a driver of cab number fifty, whose
name he does not recall. At this time, Ward would
(04:07):
tell Pepper how it was that he heard about the
killing over the radio, and how we went to the
airport to meet with the driver of cart eight. He said,
the man told him and the other Caveys that he
had been at the rain picking up a fair a
black man with a lot of luggage. Then he said
something that's stuck in Ward's mind. He laved the past
and he picked up He knew what was going on.
(04:30):
The passenger knew what was going on. What made him
think that? It went like this? As the driver was
putting the last bag in the cab, he was looking
in the direction of the brush covered yard facing the motel,
But the passenger seemed to want to divert his attention
that was looking at direct out Momolity. His upervisor at
(04:55):
so and he said, when you don't hear to see
so the passenger told the cabby to look the other way,
just in time to see the bullet explode. On Dr
King's face. The driver said he immediately turned back and
saw a puff of smoke rising from the yard. Then
a man appeared out of the bushes, and though we
had no rifle, the way he was moving made the
(05:15):
driver feel that he was the one who had fired
the shot. Is how he lived as a clerks, and
he didn't have a rappers here. According to the driver,
As related by Louis Ward, the man who came out
of the bushes jumped down off the wall not far
(05:37):
from where the cab was, and ran up the street
toward a police car a block or so away. The
driver said he immediately reported what he had seen to
his dispatcher. He first said to tell the police the
man was running north, but then the man seemed to
disappear into the police car, which then burned rubber as
it sped away, making so much noise that the dispatcher
(05:58):
said he could hear it over the rate EO. So
Ward went to the airport and heard the driver of
Car fifty eight tell him and a couple of other
cabbies what he had seen when King was shot. But
Ward wasn't the only one who came to the airport
for that story. I'm sart harder with the living. They
(06:22):
won't drive them out Californation litter. Hey Ward and the
others stepped away, but they were close enough to hear
what was being said, and the driver told the police
the same story that he had told them a few
minutes before. The Sards serves ca right lietenant hope to
(06:45):
report down and they got start repower. After the police left,
the dispatcher called the driver of car fifty eight and
said that he was wanted down at the cab garage.
So the driver went back a little later, Louis Ward
took a fair to town and drove by the garage.
They were sea clay covers, damn and I they were
(07:08):
you know, paying similarly Poward. Because of the unrest now
in Memphis, Ward's security work increased and it was days
before he returned to drive a cab. Well, I wouldn't
all my first amc workfar standing the rail and this
head when they help would mean I don what we
(07:29):
just want to call it said that that would have
a high speed in art because the list well you
know I read about it. Yeah, I would page space
and you ever done a play in the paper? Mm
the fact that the driver of Car fifty eight was
(07:50):
said to have been murdered and that nothing had been
said about it in the newspapers put fear into Louis Ward.
With a family to protect, Ward felt the best thing
would be the up and keep quiet, and that's what
he did for twenty five years. But when he did
come forward and finally found someone who would listen to him,
in the person of Bill Pepper, he could no longer
(08:11):
remember the name of the murdered cab driver, and Pepper
knew this detail was important. Mr Ward, Can you describe
this man? How old was he? And you don't recall
his name? Do you? I was about forty one forty two,
let's say, but he was probably about six. I knew
his name with that tim but I had my best
(08:34):
today and I cannot get that name to say. You
might laugh, but the identity of the driver is key.
So towards the end of the interview, Bill Pepper comes
forward with an interesting idea hypnosis. The ability to bring
back the name of the of the driver would be
very helpful if I could be done. How would you
(08:55):
feel about undergoing hypnosis for the purpose of taking you back?
I'm putting you face to face with this man to
see if you could remember his name. Ward wasn't exactly eager,
but he did agree to the hypnosis, and that session
took place a few weeks later. The audio quality of
that tape is awful, so I'll do my best to
(09:17):
tell you about it. Will see it and see yourself
highly will of the cat hips yourself. The hypnotist Dr
Joseph Cassius begins a session in a way we've all
seen in the movies. I'm going to take you back
in time, Louis in an imaginary taxi. I'm going to
(09:39):
take you through a tunnel of time. The more relaxed
you are, the more it will come to you, bit
by bit, piece by piece, more and more and more.
Ward apparently goes into a light trance, but little in
the way of new memories appear. The obvious problem is
that War didn't witness the shooting. He was only told
(10:01):
about it, so it's not as though hypnosis could help
him remember something he had forgotten. Even so, success was
still in reach if Ward could remember the name of
the driver, who Ward now thought may have been called Paul.
Doctor Cassius does his best. More and more will come
to you better and better. Each time, the last name
(10:23):
will come to you. Paul's last name will come to you. Now,
as Paul's last name comes to you, a name finally
comes to Louis Ward, a last name to go with Paul.
It was Harvey. Dr Cassius decides to try it out.
(10:43):
Harvey Harvey, Paul Harvey, Yes, Paul Harvey. Neither man made
the connection at that moment. But in the nineteen sixties,
Paul Harvey was a ubiquitous ABC radio journalist with his
own self and manner of speaking. People loved him. If
(11:03):
you drove your car anywhere, you'd hear him on the radio,
and he would end each broadcast in his own stylized way.
You know, just a little fitty crack and Mrs Backerman's
driveway in Kennis On, Nebraska, I mean a teensy crack.
You couldn't push your pencil through it. And yet out
of that crack two watermelon vines are growing, and they
produced seven big watermelons. She still can drive around them,
(11:25):
but she'd no longer get in the garage door. One
thing more, today's bumper sneaker. This was seen by Marshall
Miller in Stone Mountain, Georgia. It says vote yes on
preparation H Paul Harvey good Day. So Hypnosis offered up
a former well known radio personality as the possible driver
(11:45):
of car fifty eight, not the result they were hoping for.
Pepper then tried to find people who were drivers at
Yellow Cab when King was killed to see if they
would know, But no one he found wanted to talk
about it, and more strange, no one could remember who
the dispatcher was that night. But Ward clearly remembered the
police taking a statement at the airport, so Pepper went
(12:08):
looking for it. We couldn't find them, as I recall, Oh,
we didn't find any record of any police interrogation or
any police interview. And that's where things stood for a
few years. It was like Louis Ward had dreamed the
whole thing. But then in Bill Pepper got some information
(12:29):
that the man they were looking for might be a
fellow named Paul Butler. The name rang a bell in
Ward's head, and he felt that this was probably the
guy's name, and the pieces seemed to fit. Butler did
drive for Yellow Cab. He was in his sixties back then,
and he seemed to have disappeared around nineteen sixty eight.
So when Ward took the witness stand in late nine nine,
(12:52):
at age seventy one, he told his story publicly for
the first time and gave the name of the driver
of Car fifty eight as Paul Butler. Within a matter
of months, there was an official response to Louis Ward's
shocking story. It came in the Department of Justice Report
of the year two thousand, sometimes known as the Renal Report,
which said that Paul Butler died in August of nineteen
(13:14):
sixty seven, a full eight months before Martin Luther King
was murdered. That would seem to be conclusive. Butler couldn't
possibly tell Ward about the murder of King if he
was already dead. So what happened here was the Paul
Butler name a simple mistake or disinformation? Has someone monkeyed
(13:39):
around with the death records? I had seen such things
and worse in the L A. P d S totally
corrupt RFK murder investigation, so I don't rule it out.
But false death records in this instance seem unlikely to me.
So let's accept that Paul Butler died in nineteen sixty seven.
Does that solve the puzzle. I don't think it does,
(14:01):
because in order for that fact to make keV fifty
eight dissolve into the mist, Louis Ward's account would have
to be a fabrication, a lie, and a very big one.
And I don't think it is a lie because everything
about Ward and his story rings true. And Ward first
approached the police and then the a G before he
ever went to Bill Pepper. And there is no conceivable
(14:22):
reason for him to come forward at this point in
his life and invent a detailed, an elaborate lie about
the murder of Dr. King. And if Ward's story is true,
it doesn't matter what the driver's name was. Another put
down of Ward was that he really isn't a witness,
just someone passing along some unsubstantiated hearsay. And that might
(14:44):
be partly true. But within an hour of King being shot,
Louis Ward became an eye witness because he was out
at the airport when the police showed up. The lieutenant
wrote the report down, says Ward. Yet there is no
such report in the police files. Of course, if such
a report were preserved, the police would have some explaining
to do. Who was the running man, who was driving
(15:08):
the police car that took him away, and why were
they so desperate to leave the scene of a crime.
As far as Ward's story being unsubstantiated, that would cease
to be the case fifteen years later, when another person
would come forward, now forty years after King's death, with
a very detailed eyewitness account of the murder of Dr King,
(15:28):
an account that supports the things reported by Louis Ward,
including a positive idea of the man who jumped the
wall and ran up the street cranks back up my
(15:56):
old ass up somewhere Avenue, hit Parkway, come all the
way up, turn, come down, cooled in between the damn
boards up there, the billboards and the mill boards. I said,
I sold it. I turned well, all right. One side
is a parking well, all parks something there anywhere, I guess. So,
So where did you meet Junior? He was standing in
buying a poster board. Okay, so was Jars. Showers was
(16:21):
out there at that point as well. In two thousand
and nine, some forty years after the fact, Ronnie Lee Atkins,
who we've already met in episode seven, came up from
Texas with his lawyer, Stephen Tolin, and gave a seven
hour deposition regarding his family's involvement in the murder of
Martin Luther King. At the time King was shot, Atkins
(16:43):
was sixteen and on a motorcycle out on Mulberry Street
near the Lorraine. In his deposition, Atkins often refers to Junior,
who was his half brother and twenty years his senior,
and who, according to Ronnie Lee, replaced his father upon
his dead in a leadership role in the plot to
kill King. The person asking the questions here is Bill Pepper.
(17:08):
Then what did you do? I did what he told
me to do, which was right around. You told me
to ride around down there. If I saw anything that
was out of order that I knew it was crooked,
get up there and let him know. I told him why. Okay,
So you went down to Mulbury Man. I was all
over the place down there. I went to Union Station. Uh,
I've seen Holly. Holly was going up on the station. Uh.
(17:29):
I went around and checked and was checking on Chess.
Chess wasn't in his spot. According to Atkins, the plot
to kill King had several alternate scenarios. If the attempt
to shoot him on the balcony did not come off,
his planned if Solomon was driving like he was supposed to,
he was gonna put King up front on the passenger side.
(17:51):
That would give Holly a straight shot all the way
down that street. And there was no way for him
to turn and come up name because the police blocked
that all where the fire station was just passed there
before you got to that corner. You're saying the police
would have been there to any of They was already there.
And if King was only wounded by the shot, there
(18:12):
was something else in the works. There was a man
that was a sign to get the King before anybody
could run up from anywhere to get the King and
make sure he was dead. It was already arranged that
he was to go to Saint Joseph's Hospital down the street.
He never was gonna make it out of that emergency
room alive. Bill Pepper then asked Atkins to describe the
(18:35):
things he saw when King was shot. I was leaning
back against the body when I heard the shot, when
I saw him get hit, and when I saw him
go down. Now, I'm no doctor, but there was no
question to me that the man was hit hard. I
mean he was hit hard. So I see the man
jump over the edge of where the trees met the
(18:57):
rim and start side of ways across of those immediately
turned around and go that direction. So I didn't have
to worry about. What I'm trying to tell you is
I didn't have to worry about anybody coming out through here,
and I didn't have to worry about Holly's job. It
was like once the shot went off, it was every
dog for his own. Did you know that a man
was going to come down over the wall. I didn't
(19:18):
know that he was going to run out there there,
like nos, I really didn't. Did you recognize him at
the time? Uh? Who was he? It was Earl Clark?
So you recognize Earl Clark getting down and running north
on Mulberry. Yes, he ran the way, he ran Ketty Corner.
He was running northeast. Yeah, he was running across. Cab
(19:40):
driver was there, had the doors open, had to back up.
There was a black guy there with a ship, little
bags trying to get in there. Everybody's running and come
and screaming and ship and guy's going up the stairs.
And uh noticed the guy that Junior and Holloman was
talking to the day before, the black guy that ended
(20:01):
up checking to make sure that King was dey at
doc anythinking what that guy's lame was around McCullough. Yeah, McCullough,
I guess that's him. But he was a fad anyway,
so they was. He was one of Holloman's guys. When
King went down, Merrill McCullough was in the parking lot below,
but in a flash, he ran up the stairs and
was the first to reach Dr. King. He is the
(20:23):
man leaning over King in the iconic photo of people
pointing on the balcony. There is no dispute that McCullough
was a federal agent on loan to the Memphis Police
who had successfully infiltrated the invaders, the Memphis Black Radical Group.
As we heard from Ronnie Leatkins. There are some who
believe that it was McCullough's job to ascertain if King
(20:44):
had been fatally wounded, but McCullough, while acknowledging his undercover role,
has always denied that he had anything to do with
the assassination. But leaving McCullough aside, what Ronnie Lee Atkins
saw on the other side of mole Bray Street may
had more bearing on the case, because he saw a
man jump off the wall run up the road and
(21:07):
hop into a car that sped away, just like what
the cab driver had reported to Louis Ward. The only
important difference between the two accounts is that Atkins not
only saw the man come over the wall, he knew
who he was. It was Captain or Clark, and Atkins
got a good look at him because he almost caught
up with Clark on his motorbike. When I got behind
(21:28):
him and got to the corner, he had done gotten
that Chevrolet and he was there was a cop car
in front of him, and pulled off and went to
the corner internal leup. They pulled off, went to the
corner internal leup. I will pull in behind them and
went to this building right here. Pepper had suspected that
Captain Clark was one of the people in the brush
covered yard facing the Lorraine, so he was not surprised
by this report, But he also felt strongly that there
(21:50):
was a third person there. In fact, he had someone
in mind. But now there was a person who could
solve this mystery once and for all. So Pepper asked
the question, all right, and and who was the guy
in the pushes? So who was the third shooter? My
brother Russell m He he took it on himself. I
believe so. He tells you that he was the one
(22:13):
who did the shooting straight up. Yeah, he told me
popped you know, I mean if he popped me, popped him.
It was three guys out there were Lauel Clark, my brother,
and and no old man. And no man didn't have
guts to do it, and I don't think they trusted
him to do it. He is to shake in ship.
According to Apkins, the three men out in the yard
(22:33):
behind the grille where the old man who was Lloyd Owers,
Captain Earl Clark, who ours had already placed there, and
Atkins brother Russell Jr. Which is new and surprising information
to Bill Pepper, who keeps asking questions What did he
do with the gun? Where did he go? He handed
the gun to Earle and he went and got in
(22:54):
the car and he left through the where the two
billboards at turn Ryant got a must I took uh.
Earl handed the gun the old man, old man, and
carried it inside. Earl jumped the wall and took out.
I took out behind Earl. We all went under the quanta.
Earl gave the gun to Chowers, Yes he did. Jowers
took it inside apparently, So what happened to that taxi driver?
(23:17):
The taxi driver I was told was killed on either
how one or how Away fifty five by Chess Butler.
How do you know Chess Butler did that? Well, I
heard Chess how you killed him? But that was in
Chest's house when he was telling the Mildred, my mother
that he took care of you in the house at
the time he was I was in the bedroom, was
sitting on the end of the bed. Linda Butler was
(23:38):
sitting on the left side of the bed. I was
sitting in the middle of Danny Butler sitting on the
right side of the bed. The door opened out that
a way, and obviouldly Mildred the back of Mildred Mama
was sitting right there, and Chess was standing up at
the end of the table taking a drink whiskey. What
did you actually hear him saying? Powered him to say
that he took care of the cab driver who told
him to do that? You know, I'm gonna say it's
(23:59):
for eight he's gon be Hallman or or Russell Jr.
Or Clark, one of the other I'm gonna say it
originated with Earl, because apparently there was a lot of
conversation down there at Earle about who saw him and
who could identify him, and who knew him that was there.
So apparently the cab driver got a head on look
(24:20):
at him after he had come down the wall and
when he turned, so apparently that was a problem. So
they sent Chess on him. So what did Chess, they say,
How did he say he actually killed him? I didn't
hear that. I mean, you know, uh no, I mean
you know, I wasn't looking for blood and gut shit.
I just said a man. Was his head blowed up
or his cham blowed up? Was the driver shot? Was
(24:40):
he thrown off a bridge? How did he? How did he?
He just said he dumped him up on the side
of the road. I think he just took care of
before he dropped. This is what I do know. He
was good with a knife. He loved the ice pick.
He would shoot the ship out of somebody. So, according
to Ronnie Lee Atkins, the driver of CAD fifty eight
was murdered by Chess Butler, a friend of the family
(25:02):
and someone who Atkins knew intimately he had been in
Butler's house when he heard him say that he killed
the Cabby. But the most puzzling thing for Bill Pepper
was that Atkins had said his brother Russell had fired
the shot that killed Kim. Because Pepper already had strong
evidence that it was somebody else, so Pepper asked Atkins
(25:23):
again if he was sure it was Junior. Yeah, I
think Junior popped. What chance could there be that there
was somebody else there that he would never have been
told about? Kundog's chance and the hill, Kundo's chance and
Hill not not know who was there? Not much chance?
You think what had I from where I was that,
(25:44):
not from what I was seen, and not from what
I know, and not from what we've discussed. And and
it wasn't a whole lot of discussing about that after that,
you know. Now there was some discussion about it, but
it was between Junior and May and between Mama and
Junior and between Mama Junior a mate, and that was
where it stopped. Today is the first day I put
that out, Steve about it. So you just might be
(26:07):
letting my family's asked out there on the highway, But
that's all right. It needs to come out so in
graphic fashion. In his own words in a legal deposition,
Ronnie Lee Atkins incriminated his father, mother, brother, and himself,
along with the chief of police and many other people
Ronnie knew as he was growing up. But why would
(26:27):
Russell Jr. Tell his little brother that he killed King
if it were not true? I put this question to
Bill Pepper to protect him. If if it was the
brother that did it, and brother convinced the younger brother
that he's the one who did it, it would give
him that type of insulation, that type of protection. But
(26:49):
I think that that's why it's about. Pepper's explanation makes sense.
If the killer who shot King is still alive, anyone
who knows his identity is at some k So Ron's
brother may have just been protecting him, or he might
have been bragging to his little brother, letting him think
that he was the big man. In any case, Bill
(27:09):
Pepper was in possession of strong evidence that pointed to
another man as the actual shooter that day, but at
the time of the Atkins deposition, he couldn't say anything
about it even if he had wanted to. He was
sworn to secrecy. The evidence Pepper had had been presented
to him in the year two thousand and three and
recorded under oath in the presence of King's eldest son,
(27:32):
Martin Third. But the fear that came with this testimony
was such that Pepper had to promise not to reveal
the evidence until the witness himself had died. Not your
everyday kind of deal. So who was this man? He
was a custodian at a rifle range. Next time on
(27:58):
the MLK tapes he laid it on the counter, said, Lenny,
how you like that scound book? That baby as it's
a rifle act resta right, It's not easy, just a
special one, that baby special. The deal was that I
would not reveal what he said while she was alive.
I had only a two phone called fair. I called
(28:20):
the Union Hall, talked to the later. It was a
reception there. The young lady I spoke to I told us,
said this is something very important, and she said what
is it to I says a matter of life and death.
I said, I think these people are planning to kill
Dr King. I'll just say this much, and I have
a profound belief in this. I don't think James L.
(28:41):
Ray could have put all this together. You're right about that.
Earl Clark was a good friend of mine. He had
strong feelings about certain things. Was he a good shot?
Oh yeah, and you are a hell of a shooter
from what I understand, I'm a dead shot. I was then, Well,
I don't have any idea would do that. Thanks for
(29:11):
listening to The m l K Tapes, a production of
I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV. This podcast is not
specifically endorsed by the King Family or the King of State.
The email K Tapes is written and hosted by Bill Claiper.
Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf
of I Heart Radio with producers Trevor Young and ben Keebrick.
Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay are executive producers on behalf
(29:33):
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Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Cover art by
Mr Soul two six with photography by Artemis Jenkins. Special
thanks to Owen Rosenbaum and Grace Royer at u t A,
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(29:54):
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Welcome to the MLK Tapes, a production of I Heart
Radio 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 I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener
discretion is advised. I was sitting at Quince and Kirkbry
(00:24):
waiting on a call. I heard Paul come in on
the radio and well, I couldn't hear him, but he
talked to the dispatcher and the dispatcher started repeating with
Paul said. He said, you mean doctor Martin Luther King
has been shot, and he said yes, and then he said, well,
I'll send an ambulance. And he said I don't believe
an ambulance can help, because he would repeat it back,
(00:47):
so I knew what he was saying. And he said, well,
I'll send an ambulance anyhow, and send the police. These
are the words of cab driver Louis Ward, taken from
his testimony at the civil trial and de nine and
rent to us by a voice actor. Ward is repeating
the words of another taxi driver, no longer living, who
told him what he saw when Martin Luther King was killed.
(01:11):
Ward had been in another part of town when he
heard his dispatcher talking to Car fifty eighth at the
Lorraine Motel. King had just been shot. An ambulance was
being sent. Ward then heard the dispatcher tell the cabby
to take his fare to the airport and that he
would call the police and tell them what the driver
had seen, something about the man who shot King running
(01:34):
up the street. Ward wasn't sure that he had heard
it right. The man who shot King was running up
the street. On impulse, Ward drove to the airport, where
he found the driver of Car fifty eight, who told
Ward and two other cabbies what he had seen. Ward
would never see that driver again. And when he found
out what happened to him the very night the King
(01:54):
himself was killed, Louis Ward began to fear for himself
and his family. So for twenty five years he kept
what he knew to himself. Then, when the kids were grown,
he decided to come forward. I called the Union Hall.
I said, this a matter of life and death. I said,
(02:15):
I thank these people are planning to kill doctor King.
The authorities were parade. Oh, we found a gun the
James Old raybought in Birmingham that killed Dr King, except
it wasn't the gun that killed Dr King. James Lvey
was upon for the official story from My Heart radio
(02:37):
intender for TV. The plan was to get King to
the city because they wanted it handled in Memphis. Were
dead and in cold handle it and I've lived with
us along my Siri, and they scared for me. The
Lord told me to not the word. I've been wanting
to tell it all my life. I'm Bill Claiburg and
(02:58):
this is the MLK tapes. When Martin Luther King was killed.
Louis ward was forty one, married with three children. He
had been a federal security guard at a local army
depot for twenty years. He drove a cab part time
(03:21):
and was driving the ninth King was shot when he
decided to come forward some twenty five years later. Ward
first went to the police, then to the Attorney General,
but they were not interested in what he had to say.
Then he found Bill Pepper, who sat him down and
turned on the tape recorder the home of Mr Lewis
ward Cardigan Drive. Mr Warden was a taxi driver for
(03:46):
a Yellow can back in and on the evening of
the killing, he was driving and he was parked. Then
he heard a report come over the radio to the dispatcher.
Report was from a driver of cab number fifty, whose
name he does not recall. At this time, Ward would
(04:07):
tell Pepper how it was that he heard about the
killing over the radio, and how we went to the
airport to meet with the driver of cart eight. He said,
the man told him and the other Caveys that he
had been at the rain picking up a fair a
black man with a lot of luggage. Then he said
something that's stuck in Ward's mind. He laved the past
and he picked up He knew what was going on.
(04:30):
The passenger knew what was going on. What made him
think that? It went like this? As the driver was
putting the last bag in the cab, he was looking
in the direction of the brush covered yard facing the motel,
But the passenger seemed to want to divert his attention
that was looking at direct out Momolity. His upervisor at
(04:55):
so and he said, when you don't hear to see
so the passenger told the cabby to look the other way,
just in time to see the bullet explode. On Dr
King's face. The driver said he immediately turned back and
saw a puff of smoke rising from the yard. Then
a man appeared out of the bushes, and though we
had no rifle, the way he was moving made the
(05:15):
driver feel that he was the one who had fired
the shot. Is how he lived as a clerks, and
he didn't have a rappers here. According to the driver,
As related by Louis Ward, the man who came out
of the bushes jumped down off the wall not far
(05:37):
from where the cab was, and ran up the street
toward a police car a block or so away. The
driver said he immediately reported what he had seen to
his dispatcher. He first said to tell the police the
man was running north, but then the man seemed to
disappear into the police car, which then burned rubber as
it sped away, making so much noise that the dispatcher
(05:58):
said he could hear it over the rate EO. So
Ward went to the airport and heard the driver of
Car fifty eight tell him and a couple of other
cabbies what he had seen when King was shot. But
Ward wasn't the only one who came to the airport
for that story. I'm sart harder with the living. They
(06:22):
won't drive them out Californation litter. Hey Ward and the
others stepped away, but they were close enough to hear
what was being said, and the driver told the police
the same story that he had told them a few
minutes before. The Sards serves ca right lietenant hope to
(06:45):
report down and they got start repower. After the police left,
the dispatcher called the driver of car fifty eight and
said that he was wanted down at the cab garage.
So the driver went back a little later, Louis Ward
took a fair to town and drove by the garage.
They were sea clay covers, damn and I they were
(07:08):
you know, paying similarly Poward. Because of the unrest now
in Memphis, Ward's security work increased and it was days
before he returned to drive a cab. Well, I wouldn't
all my first amc workfar standing the rail and this
head when they help would mean I don what we
(07:29):
just want to call it said that that would have
a high speed in art because the list well you
know I read about it. Yeah, I would page space
and you ever done a play in the paper? Mm
the fact that the driver of Car fifty eight was
(07:50):
said to have been murdered and that nothing had been
said about it in the newspapers put fear into Louis Ward.
With a family to protect, Ward felt the best thing
would be the up and keep quiet, and that's what
he did for twenty five years. But when he did
come forward and finally found someone who would listen to him,
in the person of Bill Pepper, he could no longer
(08:11):
remember the name of the murdered cab driver, and Pepper
knew this detail was important. Mr Ward, Can you describe
this man? How old was he? And you don't recall
his name? Do you? I was about forty one forty two,
let's say, but he was probably about six. I knew
his name with that tim but I had my best
(08:34):
today and I cannot get that name to say. You
might laugh, but the identity of the driver is key.
So towards the end of the interview, Bill Pepper comes
forward with an interesting idea hypnosis. The ability to bring
back the name of the of the driver would be
very helpful if I could be done. How would you
(08:55):
feel about undergoing hypnosis for the purpose of taking you back?
I'm putting you face to face with this man to
see if you could remember his name. Ward wasn't exactly eager,
but he did agree to the hypnosis, and that session
took place a few weeks later. The audio quality of
that tape is awful, so I'll do my best to
(09:17):
tell you about it. Will see it and see yourself
highly will of the cat hips yourself. The hypnotist Dr
Joseph Cassius begins a session in a way we've all
seen in the movies. I'm going to take you back
in time, Louis in an imaginary taxi. I'm going to
(09:39):
take you through a tunnel of time. The more relaxed
you are, the more it will come to you, bit
by bit, piece by piece, more and more and more.
Ward apparently goes into a light trance, but little in
the way of new memories appear. The obvious problem is
that War didn't witness the shooting. He was only told
(10:01):
about it, so it's not as though hypnosis could help
him remember something he had forgotten. Even so, success was
still in reach if Ward could remember the name of
the driver, who Ward now thought may have been called Paul.
Doctor Cassius does his best. More and more will come
to you better and better. Each time, the last name
(10:23):
will come to you. Paul's last name will come to you. Now,
as Paul's last name comes to you, a name finally
comes to Louis Ward, a last name to go with Paul.
It was Harvey. Dr Cassius decides to try it out.
(10:43):
Harvey Harvey, Paul Harvey, Yes, Paul Harvey. Neither man made
the connection at that moment. But in the nineteen sixties,
Paul Harvey was a ubiquitous ABC radio journalist with his
own self and manner of speaking. People loved him. If
(11:03):
you drove your car anywhere, you'd hear him on the radio,
and he would end each broadcast in his own stylized way.
You know, just a little fitty crack and Mrs Backerman's
driveway in Kennis On, Nebraska, I mean a teensy crack.
You couldn't push your pencil through it. And yet out
of that crack two watermelon vines are growing, and they
produced seven big watermelons. She still can drive around them,
(11:25):
but she'd no longer get in the garage door. One
thing more, today's bumper sneaker. This was seen by Marshall
Miller in Stone Mountain, Georgia. It says vote yes on
preparation H Paul Harvey good Day. So Hypnosis offered up
a former well known radio personality as the possible driver
(11:45):
of car fifty eight, not the result they were hoping for.
Pepper then tried to find people who were drivers at
Yellow Cab when King was killed to see if they
would know, But no one he found wanted to talk
about it, and more strange, no one could remember who
the dispatcher was that night. But Ward clearly remembered the
police taking a statement at the airport, so Pepper went
(12:08):
looking for it. We couldn't find them, as I recall, Oh,
we didn't find any record of any police interrogation or
any police interview. And that's where things stood for a
few years. It was like Louis Ward had dreamed the
whole thing. But then in Bill Pepper got some information
(12:29):
that the man they were looking for might be a
fellow named Paul Butler. The name rang a bell in
Ward's head, and he felt that this was probably the
guy's name, and the pieces seemed to fit. Butler did
drive for Yellow Cab. He was in his sixties back then,
and he seemed to have disappeared around nineteen sixty eight.
So when Ward took the witness stand in late nine nine,
(12:52):
at age seventy one, he told his story publicly for
the first time and gave the name of the driver
of Car fifty eight as Paul Butler. Within a matter
of months, there was an official response to Louis Ward's
shocking story. It came in the Department of Justice Report
of the year two thousand, sometimes known as the Renal Report,
which said that Paul Butler died in August of nineteen
(13:14):
sixty seven, a full eight months before Martin Luther King
was murdered. That would seem to be conclusive. Butler couldn't
possibly tell Ward about the murder of King if he
was already dead. So what happened here was the Paul
Butler name a simple mistake or disinformation? Has someone monkeyed
(13:39):
around with the death records? I had seen such things
and worse in the L A. P d S totally
corrupt RFK murder investigation, so I don't rule it out.
But false death records in this instance seem unlikely to me.
So let's accept that Paul Butler died in nineteen sixty seven.
Does that solve the puzzle. I don't think it does,
(14:01):
because in order for that fact to make keV fifty
eight dissolve into the mist, Louis Ward's account would have
to be a fabrication, a lie, and a very big one.
And I don't think it is a lie because everything
about Ward and his story rings true. And Ward first
approached the police and then the a G before he
ever went to Bill Pepper. And there is no conceivable
(14:22):
reason for him to come forward at this point in
his life and invent a detailed, an elaborate lie about
the murder of Dr. King. And if Ward's story is true,
it doesn't matter what the driver's name was. Another put
down of Ward was that he really isn't a witness,
just someone passing along some unsubstantiated hearsay. And that might
(14:44):
be partly true. But within an hour of King being shot,
Louis Ward became an eye witness because he was out
at the airport when the police showed up. The lieutenant
wrote the report down, says Ward. Yet there is no
such report in the police files. Of course, if such
a report were preserved, the police would have some explaining
to do. Who was the running man, who was driving
(15:08):
the police car that took him away, and why were
they so desperate to leave the scene of a crime.
As far as Ward's story being unsubstantiated, that would cease
to be the case fifteen years later, when another person
would come forward, now forty years after King's death, with
a very detailed eyewitness account of the murder of Dr King,
(15:28):
an account that supports the things reported by Louis Ward,
including a positive idea of the man who jumped the
wall and ran up the street cranks back up my
(15:56):
old ass up somewhere Avenue, hit Parkway, come all the
way up, turn, come down, cooled in between the damn
boards up there, the billboards and the mill boards. I said,
I sold it. I turned well, all right. One side
is a parking well, all parks something there anywhere, I guess. So,
So where did you meet Junior? He was standing in
buying a poster board. Okay, so was Jars. Showers was
(16:21):
out there at that point as well. In two thousand
and nine, some forty years after the fact, Ronnie Lee Atkins,
who we've already met in episode seven, came up from
Texas with his lawyer, Stephen Tolin, and gave a seven
hour deposition regarding his family's involvement in the murder of
Martin Luther King. At the time King was shot, Atkins
(16:43):
was sixteen and on a motorcycle out on Mulberry Street
near the Lorraine. In his deposition, Atkins often refers to Junior,
who was his half brother and twenty years his senior,
and who, according to Ronnie Lee, replaced his father upon
his dead in a leadership role in the plot to
kill King. The person asking the questions here is Bill Pepper.
(17:08):
Then what did you do? I did what he told
me to do, which was right around. You told me
to ride around down there. If I saw anything that
was out of order that I knew it was crooked,
get up there and let him know. I told him why. Okay,
So you went down to Mulbury Man. I was all
over the place down there. I went to Union Station. Uh,
I've seen Holly. Holly was going up on the station. Uh.
(17:29):
I went around and checked and was checking on Chess.
Chess wasn't in his spot. According to Atkins, the plot
to kill King had several alternate scenarios. If the attempt
to shoot him on the balcony did not come off,
his planned if Solomon was driving like he was supposed to,
he was gonna put King up front on the passenger side.
(17:51):
That would give Holly a straight shot all the way
down that street. And there was no way for him
to turn and come up name because the police blocked
that all where the fire station was just passed there
before you got to that corner. You're saying the police
would have been there to any of They was already there.
And if King was only wounded by the shot, there
(18:12):
was something else in the works. There was a man
that was a sign to get the King before anybody
could run up from anywhere to get the King and
make sure he was dead. It was already arranged that
he was to go to Saint Joseph's Hospital down the street.
He never was gonna make it out of that emergency
room alive. Bill Pepper then asked Atkins to describe the
(18:35):
things he saw when King was shot. I was leaning
back against the body when I heard the shot, when
I saw him get hit, and when I saw him
go down. Now, I'm no doctor, but there was no
question to me that the man was hit hard. I
mean he was hit hard. So I see the man
jump over the edge of where the trees met the
(18:57):
rim and start side of ways across of those immediately
turned around and go that direction. So I didn't have
to worry about. What I'm trying to tell you is
I didn't have to worry about anybody coming out through here,
and I didn't have to worry about Holly's job. It
was like once the shot went off, it was every
dog for his own. Did you know that a man
was going to come down over the wall. I didn't
(19:18):
know that he was going to run out there there,
like nos, I really didn't. Did you recognize him at
the time? Uh? Who was he? It was Earl Clark?
So you recognize Earl Clark getting down and running north
on Mulberry. Yes, he ran the way, he ran Ketty Corner.
He was running northeast. Yeah, he was running across. Cab
(19:40):
driver was there, had the doors open, had to back up.
There was a black guy there with a ship, little
bags trying to get in there. Everybody's running and come
and screaming and ship and guy's going up the stairs.
And uh noticed the guy that Junior and Holloman was
talking to the day before, the black guy that ended
(20:01):
up checking to make sure that King was dey at
doc anythinking what that guy's lame was around McCullough. Yeah, McCullough,
I guess that's him. But he was a fad anyway,
so they was. He was one of Holloman's guys. When
King went down, Merrill McCullough was in the parking lot below,
but in a flash, he ran up the stairs and
was the first to reach Dr. King. He is the
(20:23):
man leaning over King in the iconic photo of people
pointing on the balcony. There is no dispute that McCullough
was a federal agent on loan to the Memphis Police
who had successfully infiltrated the invaders, the Memphis Black Radical Group.
As we heard from Ronnie Leatkins. There are some who
believe that it was McCullough's job to ascertain if King
(20:44):
had been fatally wounded, but McCullough, while acknowledging his undercover role,
has always denied that he had anything to do with
the assassination. But leaving McCullough aside, what Ronnie Lee Atkins
saw on the other side of mole Bray Street may
had more bearing on the case, because he saw a
man jump off the wall run up the road and
(21:07):
hop into a car that sped away, just like what
the cab driver had reported to Louis Ward. The only
important difference between the two accounts is that Atkins not
only saw the man come over the wall, he knew
who he was. It was Captain or Clark, and Atkins
got a good look at him because he almost caught
up with Clark on his motorbike. When I got behind
(21:28):
him and got to the corner, he had done gotten
that Chevrolet and he was there was a cop car
in front of him, and pulled off and went to
the corner internal leup. They pulled off, went to the
corner internal leup. I will pull in behind them and
went to this building right here. Pepper had suspected that
Captain Clark was one of the people in the brush
covered yard facing the Lorraine, so he was not surprised
by this report, But he also felt strongly that there
(21:50):
was a third person there. In fact, he had someone
in mind. But now there was a person who could
solve this mystery once and for all. So Pepper asked
the question, all right, and and who was the guy
in the pushes? So who was the third shooter? My
brother Russell m He he took it on himself. I
believe so. He tells you that he was the one
(22:13):
who did the shooting straight up. Yeah, he told me
popped you know, I mean if he popped me, popped him.
It was three guys out there were Lauel Clark, my brother,
and and no old man. And no man didn't have
guts to do it, and I don't think they trusted
him to do it. He is to shake in ship.
According to Apkins, the three men out in the yard
(22:33):
behind the grille where the old man who was Lloyd Owers,
Captain Earl Clark, who ours had already placed there, and
Atkins brother Russell Jr. Which is new and surprising information
to Bill Pepper, who keeps asking questions What did he
do with the gun? Where did he go? He handed
the gun to Earle and he went and got in
(22:54):
the car and he left through the where the two
billboards at turn Ryant got a must I took uh.
Earl handed the gun the old man, old man, and
carried it inside. Earl jumped the wall and took out.
I took out behind Earl. We all went under the quanta.
Earl gave the gun to Chowers, Yes he did. Jowers
took it inside apparently, So what happened to that taxi driver?
(23:17):
The taxi driver I was told was killed on either
how one or how Away fifty five by Chess Butler.
How do you know Chess Butler did that? Well, I
heard Chess how you killed him? But that was in
Chest's house when he was telling the Mildred, my mother
that he took care of you in the house at
the time he was I was in the bedroom, was
sitting on the end of the bed. Linda Butler was
(23:38):
sitting on the left side of the bed. I was
sitting in the middle of Danny Butler sitting on the
right side of the bed. The door opened out that
a way, and obviouldly Mildred the back of Mildred Mama
was sitting right there, and Chess was standing up at
the end of the table taking a drink whiskey. What
did you actually hear him saying? Powered him to say
that he took care of the cab driver who told
him to do that? You know, I'm gonna say it's
(23:59):
for eight he's gon be Hallman or or Russell Jr.
Or Clark, one of the other I'm gonna say it
originated with Earl, because apparently there was a lot of
conversation down there at Earle about who saw him and
who could identify him, and who knew him that was there.
So apparently the cab driver got a head on look
(24:20):
at him after he had come down the wall and
when he turned, so apparently that was a problem. So
they sent Chess on him. So what did Chess, they say,
How did he say he actually killed him? I didn't
hear that. I mean, you know, uh no, I mean
you know, I wasn't looking for blood and gut shit.
I just said a man. Was his head blowed up
or his cham blowed up? Was the driver shot? Was
(24:40):
he thrown off a bridge? How did he? How did he?
He just said he dumped him up on the side
of the road. I think he just took care of
before he dropped. This is what I do know. He
was good with a knife. He loved the ice pick.
He would shoot the ship out of somebody. So, according
to Ronnie Lee Atkins, the driver of CAD fifty eight
was murdered by Chess Butler, a friend of the family
(25:02):
and someone who Atkins knew intimately he had been in
Butler's house when he heard him say that he killed
the Cabby. But the most puzzling thing for Bill Pepper
was that Atkins had said his brother Russell had fired
the shot that killed Kim. Because Pepper already had strong
evidence that it was somebody else, so Pepper asked Atkins
(25:23):
again if he was sure it was Junior. Yeah, I
think Junior popped. What chance could there be that there
was somebody else there that he would never have been
told about? Kundog's chance and the hill, Kundo's chance and
Hill not not know who was there? Not much chance?
You think what had I from where I was that,
(25:44):
not from what I was seen, and not from what
I know, and not from what we've discussed. And and
it wasn't a whole lot of discussing about that after that,
you know. Now there was some discussion about it, but
it was between Junior and May and between Mama and
Junior and between Mama Junior a mate, and that was
where it stopped. Today is the first day I put
that out, Steve about it. So you just might be
(26:07):
letting my family's asked out there on the highway, But
that's all right. It needs to come out so in
graphic fashion. In his own words in a legal deposition,
Ronnie Lee Atkins incriminated his father, mother, brother, and himself,
along with the chief of police and many other people
Ronnie knew as he was growing up. But why would
(26:27):
Russell Jr. Tell his little brother that he killed King
if it were not true? I put this question to
Bill Pepper to protect him. If if it was the
brother that did it, and brother convinced the younger brother
that he's the one who did it, it would give
him that type of insulation, that type of protection. But
(26:49):
I think that that's why it's about. Pepper's explanation makes sense.
If the killer who shot King is still alive, anyone
who knows his identity is at some k So Ron's
brother may have just been protecting him, or he might
have been bragging to his little brother, letting him think
that he was the big man. In any case, Bill
(27:09):
Pepper was in possession of strong evidence that pointed to
another man as the actual shooter that day, but at
the time of the Atkins deposition, he couldn't say anything
about it even if he had wanted to. He was
sworn to secrecy. The evidence Pepper had had been presented
to him in the year two thousand and three and
recorded under oath in the presence of King's eldest son,
(27:32):
Martin Third. But the fear that came with this testimony
was such that Pepper had to promise not to reveal
the evidence until the witness himself had died. Not your
everyday kind of deal. So who was this man? He
was a custodian at a rifle range. Next time on
(27:58):
the MLK tapes he laid it on the counter, said, Lenny,
how you like that scound book? That baby as it's
a rifle act resta right, It's not easy, just a
special one, that baby special. The deal was that I
would not reveal what he said while she was alive.
I had only a two phone called fair. I called
(28:20):
the Union Hall, talked to the later. It was a
reception there. The young lady I spoke to I told us,
said this is something very important, and she said what
is it to I says a matter of life and death.
I said, I think these people are planning to kill
Dr King. I'll just say this much, and I have
a profound belief in this. I don't think James L.
(28:41):
Ray could have put all this together. You're right about that.
Earl Clark was a good friend of mine. He had
strong feelings about certain things. Was he a good shot?
Oh yeah, and you are a hell of a shooter
from what I understand, I'm a dead shot. I was then, Well,
I don't have any idea would do that. Thanks for
(29:11):
listening to The m l K Tapes, a production of
I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV. This podcast is not
specifically endorsed by the King Family or the King of State.
The email K Tapes is written and hosted by Bill Claiper.
Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf
of I Heart Radio with producers Trevor Young and ben Keebrick.
Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay are executive producers on behalf
(29:33):
of Tenderfoot TV with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Stepman.
Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Cover art by
Mr Soul two six with photography by Artemis Jenkins. Special
thanks to Owen Rosenbaum and Grace Royer at u t A,
The Nord Group, back Median Marketing, Envisioned Business Management, and
(29:54):
Station sixteen. If you have questions, you can visit our website,
the email k tapes dot com. We posted photos and
videos related to the podcast on our social media accounts.
You can check them out at the email k Tapes.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV,
please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
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