January 17, 2022 • 53 mins
Attorney Art Hanes Jr. and his father decide to represent James Earl Ray who says he didn't kill King. As they prepare for trial, they discover serious problems with the case against Ray.
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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. We received a letter Dear Mr Haynes,
(00:26):
I'm here in jail. I've been accused of a murder.
I don't know anything about it. Will you please come
help me? Signed Raymond George Snead in England. We couldn't
talk to Ray without a police officer right there with us,
so as far as we were concerned, he was Raymond
George Snead. And when he came back to the United States,
(00:47):
he was brought down on a charter flight with FBI
agents and all of that, and came in late late
one evening. It was dark, and they landed at the
far side of the airport, and police cars and vans
came to the airplane to get the Great Mystery Man,
because there was some doubt as to his identity in
(01:08):
the first place, and certainly there was doubt as to
whether he was the leader of a Revolutionary Army, or
or what was going on. The great mystery Man was
grabbed from his aeroplane, put in a caravan of vans
and police cars, and taken to the Shelby County, Tennessee jail.
(01:30):
And in that jail there was a special floor that
had not been developed yet, old concrete floor. And on
that floor in the jail was a jail within a jail.
It was a cage. It was a four sighted cage
with the heavy traditional iron bars. When he got there
that night, my dad and I went to see him
(01:53):
for the first time in the United States. By then
the whole circumstances were such that there was probably doably
rightly a bit of paranoia on the defense side. My
dad was a very savvy man. He deemed the most
secure place in the jail was the shower stall. So
(02:13):
the first time we met Ray in the United States,
my dad Ray and I. We're sitting need a knee
on the floor of that shower stall. And the first
thing out of anybody's mouth was my Dad looking at
this client of ours and saying, who are you? I
(02:37):
called the Union Hall. I said, it's a matter of
life and death. I said, I think these people are
planning to kill Dr King. The authorities were parade. Oh,
we found a gun that James L. Ray bought in
Birmingham that killed Dr King. Except it wasn't the gun
that killed Dr King. James L. Ray was upon in
(03:00):
the official story from My Heart Radio and tender Foot TV.
The plan was to get King to the city because
they wanted it handled in memphisfore dead in Nam cat
Hamon and I've lived with it alone, mansieur, and they
skied for me. The lawd told me to not the word.
(03:21):
I've been wanting to tell it all my life. I'm
Bill Claiburn and this is d MLK tapes. At the
top of the episode, you heard Judge Arthur Haynes Jr.
Describing the first time he met James Earl Ray, the
(03:43):
man accused of killing Martin Luther King. Haynes grew up
in Birmingham, Alabama, and after high school, he went to
Princeton and then the law school at the University of Alabama,
where he graduated in the spring of nineteen He then
joined his father's law practice. Art Haynes, Sr. Was a
fierce segregationist who had been mayor of Birmingham from nineteen
(04:05):
sixty one to sixty three. In his first year in office,
he closed over a hundred parks, playgrounds, and swimming pools
rather than integrate them as required by a federal court order.
He was also mayor when Sheriff Bull Connor said dogs
and fire hoses on peaceful demonstrators, many of them children.
Haynes was by a narrow vote put out of office
(04:27):
in nineteen sixty three, and he began a practice in
criminal law. In nineteen sixty civil rights activist Viola Leozzo
was shot dead while driving participants back and forth in
the Selma to Montgomery Freedom March, and three clan members
were charged with the murder. When their first attorney died,
Art Haynes assumed their defense and won the case by
(04:49):
way of a hung jury, though the men were later
convicted in a federal court a year later. Art Haynes Jr.
Would Join his father, and in June of nineteen sixty
eight they idle letter from James Earl Ray in London
asking for help. As a criminal defense attorney. More often
than not, you defend criminals. In the case of our
(05:10):
Haynes and his father, they defended some of the worst,
including Bob Chambliss, who murdered four little girls when he
blew up the sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. But
Chambliss would be the very last criminal that our junior
would defend. The whole thing made him so sick inside
that he turned his back on criminal law, left his
father's practice and went on to have a distinguished legal career.
(05:33):
He served eighteen years as a judge in Alabama, and
when he left the bench, he became an adjunct professor
at the University of Alabama Law School, and he began
a civil practice that specializes in arbitration. I sat with
him in his law office in Birmingham. I'm here to
talk to you today because at a particular moment in time,
(05:55):
you and your father, the late Arthur Haynes, Sr. Became
the defense attorne is for one James Earl Ray. You
graduated from law school in sixty seven, and one year
later found yourself representing the man who's accused of murdering
Martin Luther King. I was very well aware that uh
(06:15):
I was part of history. I also knew that statistically,
at any rate, I would outlive all the other participants.
Haynes then told me the story you heard about getting
the letter from some guy in London asking for help
with a murder. He knew nothing about. The man writing
the letter turned out to be James Earl Ray, and
(06:36):
the man murdered was Martin Luther King. Not having any
idea of where this story would lead, Haines father and
son decided to take the case over the next four months.
They would be the ones and the only ones in
contact with Ray, and they would be the ones getting
the first look at the evidence, which is why what
ar Hanes Jr. Has to say about it today is important.
(07:00):
I asked him about Ray. Was he the person you
expected to meet? What what were your impressions of him?
Ray is every man and no man. He was invisible.
He was remarkably nondescript. You could dress him in a
tuxedo and send him to a debutante ball, or dress
him in in ragged sweat clothes and send him to
(07:22):
a homeless camp, and he would be equally in place
at either place, a remarkably colorless person. Did Ray ever
say to you that he shot Martin Luther King? Never?
He denied it. From day one, moment one until the
last moment he did wind up pleading guilty, But he
(07:43):
told me later that he had done that because he
realized that the lawyer who took over for us had
done nothing to prepare the case for trial. Did you,
when you took over the case begin your own investigation?
Did you interview witnesses? Oh? Absolutely good, gracious, we had
a complete trial file. I guess I probably talked to
(08:03):
every one oh in Memphis. So we worked on that
case from his arrest in June of solidly until the
trial in the fall of and you thought you had
a pretty good chance going to trial. We were absolutely confident.
What was the evidence that the authorities had that they
(08:24):
say proved that James el Ray murdered Martin with the King?
We'll see, that's the problem. There was a lot of talk.
For instance, the authorities would parade, Oh, we found a
gun that James ol Ray bought in Birmingham. There's no
doubt about it. It was the rifle that Ray bought
in Birmingham. It simply wasn't the gun that killed Dr. King. Moreover,
(08:46):
perhaps the only legitimate witness in the whole area was
a man named Knips, who ran the amusement shop where
the package was thrown down. Mr Knips was prepared justifi
that the package was thrown down that contained the rifle
before the shot that killed Dr King was fired. When
(09:10):
Judge Haynes refers to the package, he's talking about a
strange collection of things, including some books, cans of beer,
a small radio, underwear, and a rifle with raised fingerprints,
all of it tied up in a bedspread and found
on the street in front of a small store owned
by Mr Guy Knipe. When you talked to Mr Knight,
(09:31):
did he have a clear recollection of the package? Well,
sure is, and he said that he believes it was
ten minutes before the shot that the package was dropped off,
and that would make sense because the street would be
empty then and somebody could do that and not be seen.
Do you believe he was sincere? Oh? I absolutely, He
(09:53):
had no motive or stake in it, and truthfully was
not particularly excited to be involved, but he was willing
to be. You'll see the fire station overlooks the Lorraine Motel.
That fire station was packed with city policeman, federal agents,
of spectators, curiosity seekers and others who were looking out
(10:18):
over the Lorraine Motel to see the activities of Dr
King and his entourage. The moment the shot was fired
and Dr King went down, that fire station erupted like
a beehive, police going in all directions. The very idea
(10:38):
that someone could fire that shot stopping a room, very
carefully wrapped that package, put the gun in it, and
tie it and then drop it is, in our way
of thinking, simply preposterous and unbelievable. When they put their
so called trial on, which wasn't a trial at all,
(11:00):
It was just a show where they brought forth what
evidence they said they would have brought forth had there
been a trial, And in that proceeding they referred to
their eyewitness, one Charlie Stevens. Oh, good, gracious, Charlie Stevens
was drunk as a goat when Dr King was killed.
We had a taxi driver who was going to testify.
(11:24):
Stevens had called a cab and the cab driver refused
to lead him in the cab because he was too
drunk to ride in a cab. So if your star
witness is too drunk to ride in a cab, we
felt his testimony was worth nothing. Tell me what was
the official authorities, what was their official motive? What did
(11:46):
Ray kill King? According to them, We were never quite
clear on that there was some noble that there was
a convict in Missouri who was going to say that
Ray had made some racist comments years before. But it
was a very very weak and probably untrue declaration. Had
(12:08):
Bray ever done engaged in violence that you know of?
Nothing we know of he He was, of course a
petty criminal. He had no history of violence that we
were aware of. We should note that James Earl Ray
did own a pistol, though we did not carry it
around in his everyday life. He might brandish the weapon
(12:29):
during a hold up, but there was no record of
him ever shooting someone. Now back to our hands, I'm
telling you, Bill, Martin Luther King was not on James
Earl Ray's radar screen, part of his life or his
interest at all. A convict doing time is interested in
(12:50):
his daily bread and survival. That was James Earl Ray.
He had had no interest in politics, or world affairs
or anything. We tried everything in the world to evoke
any kind of reaction from Ray, arranging from ductr King
deserved to die to whoever killed him should be summarily executed. Nothing,
(13:14):
no reaction one way or the other. Ray told art
Hanes from the start that he did not shoot King,
and Haines was unable to find in Ray even the
semblance of a motive for such a crime. Of course,
the press found it easy to brand him as a racist,
and when they wanted to put a little frosting on
(13:34):
the cake, they would say he was a hardened criminal.
In that regard, it might be useful to review rays
rap sheet. Discharged from the army for failure to adapt
to military life. Sentenced to ninety days for stealing a typewriter,
two sentenced to two years in prison for stealing eleven
(13:57):
dollars from a cab driver. Five served three years, and
Leavenworth for stealing money orders nine sentenced to twenty years
Missouri State pen for stealing a hundred dollars from a supermarket.
That's it, except for a bunch of escape attempts. A
rap sheet, of course, is not a complete record of
(14:18):
a person's criminal activity. It's just the record of crimes
he's been caught at. So we can assume from this
list that Ray pulled off other robberies and hold ups.
But the list does illustrate the kinds of crimes he
was inclined to commit. And nowhere does it appear that
he wants to be a famous criminal. And why would
(14:38):
that matter? It would matter because of what William Bradford
Huey said in an article for Look magazine following Raised
plea of guilty. Hughie had been putting up money for
Raised defense, and in return he got the inside track
on race story by way of handwritten accounts by Ray
of where he had been and what he had done.
(14:58):
Hughie had written two previous articles for Look where he
said he would show that there was a conspiracy to
assassinate King, but Hughie suddenly changed course and in his
final article said that James Ray alone had murdered King.
But why did Ray kill King? Did he hate black people?
Did he hate King? No? According to hue Ray felt
(15:23):
insecure about his position in the world, so he wanted
to make sure that everyone knew that he was the
one who killed King. This was the explanation that the
nation received by way of Look magazine from a man
who had inside information from Ray himself. But Ray never
told him that. Huie just came to it on his own.
(15:43):
But Hughie never spent any time at all with Ray.
But Judge Haynes had spent many hours with him, what
did he think? Did Ray ever demonstrate anything to you
to indicate that he wanted to be known as the
man who killed King? Why? Certainly not. He did not
it vehemently from the beginning. He was an escaped con
(16:04):
He didn't care. He just didn't want to go back
to the penitentiary. So how was it that Ray came
to Memphis. Well, his brother Jerry and Ray himself are
about to tell us. And we gave up real boring
(16:32):
journey at in person plays. We lived out of them.
These are the words of Jerry Ray, James Earl Ray's
younger brother, testifying at the civil trial. In the court
recording here was muddy. So we've taken the liberty of
reading Ray's words from the trial transcript. We came up
(16:55):
real poor during the depression days. We lived out on
a far most of the time. But back there in
the depression, everybody had it bad. James had been born
in ninety eight in Alton, Illinois, the oldest of eight.
His mother, Lucille, was nineteen. James was followed by his
sister Marjorie, brother John, and then Jerry there were seven
(17:17):
years between Jerry and James asked if he had noticed
any signs of racial hatred, and his brother Jerry said
he hadn't. No, he never did, have no hostility towards
any race, not only Blacks, but Hispanics or anybody. The
one thing he tried to do is live and let live.
Before he went into the army. He was a hard
(17:38):
worker and he just lived a life of crime after that.
It's true that James Earl Ray did not have an
arrest record before entering the army in nineteen forty six,
but he was already traveling a difficult road. He had
to do first grade twice because of some forgery trouble
where the family had to leave town. His father was
frequently drunk and his mother was always signet. She gave
(18:01):
birth eight times and lost Marjorie when the six year
old caught fire standing next to a stove. James left
school in the middle of eighth grade and went to
live with his grandparents, where he would sometimes spend evenings
with his uncle Earl. Evenings had often ended up at
Big Marie's brothel, where Ray would sometimes run errands for
the girls, as he called them. The behavior he fell
(18:24):
into is what he had seen all his life. Jerry
Ray watched his older brother from a distance of seven years,
but he did have one insight about James that is
worth mentioning. If he uh makes friends with somebody, he's
easily led around, easily led around. That's what his brother
(18:45):
said about him. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch,
James met a guy named Rife who had stolen some
postal money orders. Rife recruited Ray to help cash them
until they got caught. James went to federal prison in Leavenworth.
He got out three years later and ran into a
guy named Owens, and they robbed a grocery store for
(19:05):
a hundred and twenty dollars, but they were caught twenty
minutes later because a witness notified the police about his
vehicle for that robbery. Ray was sentenced to twenty years.
James hated prison life, and his record is filled with
various attempts to escape, which always put more years on
(19:26):
enough so that in the spring of nineteen sixty seven,
after having served six years, he still had eighteen years
left on his twenty years sentence. But James came up
with yet another scheme and he rode out of Jefferson
City Prison in style, hidden under loads of bread in
a bakery truck. It required the help and probably the
permission of some people on the inside, and James would
(19:48):
never say who those people were. After his escape, Ray
said that he walked along a railroad for six days
until his feet were swollen and bloody. Then he caught
a bus to Chicago and met with his brothers, John
and Jerry. It is also possible, perhaps likely, that Ray
was picked up by his brother John somewhere along the way,
and the two of them drove to Chicago, where the
(20:11):
brothers gave him some money and James answered an ad
for work at a restaurant. Ray took the work under
his brother's name, John Raynes, and he used his brother
social Security number. The plan was to earn enough money
to buy an old car and drive to Canada. James
worked hard at the Indian Trail restaurant and one of pay,
(20:31):
raise and the respect of the owners, Clara and Harvey Klingman.
There was something about him that they liked. After Ray
had been captured and brought back to Memphis, Clara Klingman
was shocked to hear that the person she knew as
John Raines was really James L. Ray, the man who
had murdered Martin Luther King. She could not believe that
(20:52):
he had harbored such invisible hatred. She had seen none
of it. Whatever he is and whatever he is done,
she would say, while he was here, we saw a
spark of dignity in John Raines doing so well. Ray
might have stayed on at the restaurant, but he was
a wanted man and a social Security number was not his.
(21:15):
So after eight weeks he left, bought an old car
and went to Montreal, where he hoped to discover what
he needed to get a Canadian passport. Ray had been
in Montreal just a couple of days. When he was
sitting at a table in a neptune bar, a man approached,
pulled out a chair and sat down. From this point
(21:37):
on the voice of James Earl Ray that you will
hear is from a deposition he gave in and answers
to questions asked by Attorney Lewis Garrison. Where you first
met in Montreal, Canada and a place called bar in Montville,
(22:00):
East Mark, Yo. And what was your unforted person going
in my drawways? Your tune to do when you got there,
I try to get try to get some tel dipars
and leave the counting. How long would you been there
when you met raw at this Neptune bar. It's just
day exactly been all right? He hadn't been over it.
I said week, last, a week wheter week? It probably
(22:20):
have wait six seven days. I wouldn't want to get
hit down. Just how many days? And when he came in?
What what attracted you to him? Or how did you
get the current sation? Started him? I didn't started conversation
and in in sit down started conversation maybe just talking about
general things and and you and this gentle start up
the conversation general things such as a weather or something
(22:41):
like that. And how long did you said to you? Really? Well,
I don't know. I wan't too long. I mean, I
mean i've been how are you conversation bars feed less?
What you just get some kind of teach you? But
we didn't sit there too long, and I don't think
we just started talking and I was can you tell
us just about to row about sad person? Was was
(23:01):
a fast with ten uh traffic? Leven or half of
found where it really taller you or short in you well,
but with Tana, I just simon the ground and five
with a year nine or maybe somewhere in that general
or again that it's hard to estimated bet with weight,
but I didn't think it would be any can't wait
(23:22):
a whole lot, but I've got any waited by earn
forty or forty five pounds. I just can't can't leave
start on someone weight like that cod here here, I
had a kind of a it's a dark hair dark
which I called a slight red tanda. The talk like
you have been someone who had been uh Ripken, Canada,
(23:45):
or Detroit or someone in uh tweople of Mississippi or
told you what was your intrusion on? Well, yes, some
much spanis accident. And I had a lot of association
with Mexican that been in Mexico before and that and
les was a lot of time, so I certainly used
(24:07):
that person. Ray said that in their first meeting he
had mentioned that he wanted travel documents. Raoul said he
might be able to help with that. They agreed to
meet again, and did so a day or two later.
When the conversation became specific, Raoul told Ray that he
(24:27):
could help him get a Canadian passport and other documents
he might need, but it would take some time. In
the meanwhile, he had some work to offer if Ray
were interested. It involved carrying some things across the border
and race car. According to Ray, Raoul's promised to get
him the documents he desired was the very thing he
most wanted to hear, so he ended up crossing the
(24:48):
border a couple of times carrying things hidden under the
back seat of his car. Ray didn't know what he
had been transporting for Raoul, but he was well paid
for his time. However, the promised documents were not produced,
but they were still being offered. So when Raoul said
he wanted ready to go to Alabama, where he would
(25:09):
buy Ray a much nicer car to be used for
a few errands, Ray agreed. So one day in late August,
Jerry Ray got a call from James and agreed to
meet him in Chicago, where James said he'd give Jerry
his sixty two Plymouth and that Jerry could put him
on a train south. Here's Jerry's memory of that meeting.
(25:30):
And we spent a Nightingale had pratice together, and he
was thought maybe he was all happy and earliers. He
had plenty money on him, so he said, I'm gonna
move down to Birmingham and by a late model Paris.
He had as he said written and Mr Raol, I
get decided to remember Ala Raoul came and I work
for again named Raoul or something like that. Didn't I
(25:52):
sure go out? There was no over carman and suddenly
I didn't know what it was. And uh he said
he worked as uh he as a guy go rabul
that um to get that money. Un So you get
out of the will get out of the Canada and
the United States boat he ever mentioned. Dr Hardin came
(26:15):
gaging that the game came name never came up and
uh the last name name that was mad about was
you know Jackson or Gang or Candier ended held he
though he was drying to stay out of rot. So
James went to Birmingham, where he said Raoul gave him
two thousand dollars to buy a white sixties six Mustang.
(26:36):
What followed was weeks of crazy trips in and out
of Mexico, spare tires that were exchanged for other spare tires.
James believed that he was running drugs and money, but
he didn't know. He just did as he was told.
Then the trips dried up, and James ceased to believe
that there were any travel documents coming his way. So
he told Raoul, who seemed fine with it, that he
(26:59):
planned to go to Los Angeles, And so he went
to l A, where he stayed from November to March,
taking dance lessons and a course in har Attending. Some
months later, Ray said he got a letter from Raoul
saying he wanted to meet in New Orleans. According to Ray,
he met with Raoul who said he wanted him to
(27:21):
come back East. Ray was running low on money, so
we agreed. When Ray got to Birmingham, Raoul said there
was some sort of gun deal coming down and he
needed Ray to purchase a rifle to show to a
prospective customer. And while none of this made a lot
of sense, one must remember that Ray had already done
some number of things for Raoul that didn't seem to
make sense, but he hadn't asked questions and he had
(27:44):
always been paid. So in pursuit of the needed rifle,
Ray goes to a sports store in Birmingham named Aero Marine. Again,
here's Ray and Louis garrison. Did he take what kind
of well when he wants you to take a look at? Well?
When I got there, I asked for a deare a
(28:06):
rival than it was? Wonn't you us for it? That's
the type of ros used. But I don't know too
much about the roding? So what kind of right would
you take you look at? He probably gave me some drives,
but it wasn't good enough for I could say exactly
what I wanted? Did you writeing man? Did I? Did
he write him man for you? No? No? Not so
(28:28):
you walked in and did that? What kind of rival?
You won't him want a brand? What caliber? Want anything?
You just said, I want to hear up? Yeah, I
told him I was gonna out there is my brother
law and not like looks at vibes and he said,
he said, this is what you want. This is about
the best thing. Ay said, where is that effect? And
I said, okay, that's about more So. The store mounted
a scope on the rifle, which turned out to be
(28:49):
a quite fine two forty three Winchester. Gray left the
store with that gun. Because when you get back to
the hotel, are you waiting for you? Yes? Get one
with him? No? And do you take the guy in? Yes,
What do you say about it? I think he said
was wrong type of trap or on caliber? On brand? Wrong?
What I think he said? This wan type? It was
(29:11):
his word. What do you what do you meant? So
they don't What do you really wanted? No? I didn't.
I had brochure. The Salesmenking a brochure, So I just
brochure to take out what he wanted, and I go
back and rochure Sara Hees. Raoul pointed to a certain gun,
and Ray called the store and asked if he could
make the exchange. They said yes, but that he should
(29:33):
come in the following day. According to Ray, the next
time he met Raoul was at the New Rebel Motel
just outside of Memphis on the stormy night before King
was killed. Raoul left with a gun, and Ray says
he never saw it again. So what to make of this?
In many ways, it's a quintessential James Earl Ray story.
(29:56):
It doesn't make sense, none of it. If there was
a un deal, what purpose would be served to show
up with a rifle that anyone could buy in a store?
And was Ray really such a dope when it comes
to guns? It seems that he was. Bill Pepper talked
to the guy who sold Ray the rifle. I spoke
to the Don Woods who managed the story. Told Donald
(30:20):
again about three or four months ago. He said, this
guy absolutely nothing about is incredible. Yeah, nothing. So some
guy who knows nothing about guns comes in to buy
a rifle and he's pleased to take whatever is offered
and leaves the store happy as a clan. But then
an hour or so later he calls and says he
(30:42):
needs to exchange the gun. But why. In the official
version of the crime, Ray was completely on his own,
So who was unhappy with the gun? For ten years,
no one even tried to answer this question. But to
their credit, the House Committee finally solve the problem. Gun
number one, they said, being exchanged for gun number two
(31:05):
showed quote significant signs of unwitting aid or knowing complicity
in the assassination itself. So finally, this crazy gun exchange
story merits the interpretation that there was at least another person,
and the House Committee had a suspect in mind, and
it wasn't Raoul. It was raised brother Jerry and supported
(31:29):
this idea. They offered a few casual comments that James
had made along the way in California, James apparently told
the woman he was going east to see his brother,
and later at the gun store, he told the salesman
that he was going hunting with his brother. But of
course neither of these statements is evidence of anything, and
Jerry Ray was working in Chicago then, and for all
(31:51):
this to work, he kind of needed to be in Birmingham.
To their credit, the House Committee did try to deal
with this. They said in their report that every Ray
work from eleven pm to seven a m. And if
he had Thursdays off, he could, quoting here conceivably have
gone to Birmingham, given advice on the initial rifle purchase
(32:11):
on Friday afternoon, and returned to Chicago in time to
be on the job by eleven pm that night. So
apparently it was possible. It just seems like a lot
of trouble to go to to advise your older brother
on a gun purchase, and it must have felt the
same way to the House Committee, because a couple of
sentences later they suggest that perhaps Jerry didn't come down
(32:33):
to Birmingham after all, that maybe the entire advising consent
took place over the phone. They then leave it to
us to imagine the conversation. If we were to set
the House Committee solution to this riddle aside for the moment,
and we're to accept james explanation that includes Raoul, then
(32:56):
what does wrong type or wrong gun mean? Well, the
first rifle was a two forty three Winchester, an excellent
hunting gun and perfectly adequate for killing a human if
that's what you wanted to do. The second, a Remington
thirty six game Master, fired a larger bullet, so in
this instance might be considered more ideal for killing a person.
(33:20):
But is that what Raoul meant when he said wrong gun?
Doesn't seem likely, because if Raoul and others were involved,
the murder was a planned event, And if it was
a planned event, then the shooter, whoever he was, which
surely not agreed to a plan that relied upon the
arrival of a weapon to be purchased the day before
(33:41):
by some guy. Seems a little casual for the importance
of the event. So if the newly bought gun is
not going to be the murder weapon, wrong gun takes
on a different meaning. If the purpose of the gun
Ray bought is to connect Ray to the murder. Then
the two forty three Winchester is truly the wrong gun.
(34:03):
If King was to be killed by a thirty caliber bullet,
a throwdown weapon that could not fire such a bullet
would give up the game. Though he did not know
why Ray had to go back and change the gun.
(34:31):
Where were you reported decision? I wasn't understand, say Ray
told Attorney Lewis Garrison that on the evening of April third,
Raoul stopped by to see him at the New Rebel
Motel just outside of Memphis. Raoul took the new rifle
that Ray had purchased and told Ray to meet him
(34:52):
at three thirty the next day at Jim's Grill, which
was two and a half south Maine. The address was
a little funny, so Ray wrote it down. Then he
spoke of the next day on April fourth, I think
I checked out the motel. I just guessed about let
him fly. Pointever, they running out of the places, just
(35:12):
too early to go to have his mates set on
the outside of Memphis, asked her some Mephiles say I
had I was getting ready to come back and have
his meeting room. I had a flat tire, so I
hadn't think said, so, where were you going? There's some
words out in there. I'm not certain his works there,
(35:33):
Race said. He removed the tire and put on the spare,
and then drove into Memphis. It took a little exploring
and he had to ask for directions, but he did
end up at Jim's grill, and Raoul was not there.
Ray had left his car some distance away and thought
to retrieve it. When he returned, he parked it right
outside the grill. And then when I went in this time,
(35:56):
la Raoul, wasn't it this time? You see main name
rising sting. So when when when I went out the door,
it uh. He wanted to be rear a room upstairs
to saidy laid up there with some start learned. Name
is Bessy Brower, I toold. I want I like to
wear a room for room a week, I think it was.
She had two rooms, so she showed me two different rooms.
(36:18):
One of was a sleeping room and one on was
some type of ring where you're cooking. So I told
her I was just interested in sleeping room. So she
practice she ran into the sleeping room. I would like
her too long. Rob would come up there and uh
and started talking He said that we might be around
her two three days, a couple of days. And he said,
I should winging in my clothing everything I had to
(36:42):
put in the room. But I didn't do that. But
I didn't wing an overnight case up there, and U
and I think I bought a something that sleep on,
something thin sheet or something. Raoul then sent rayan and
Errand to buy a pair of infrared binoculars, the inference
being that this was somehow part of the gun deal.
(37:04):
But the store Ray was sent to only had common binoculars,
so Ray bought a pair of those, and when he
returned to the room, Raoul didn't seem to care. It
was approaching six o'clock and Raoul suggested that Ray clear
out for a while, maybe go see a movie. So
Ray left. From this point on in the story, you
(37:26):
can flip a coin. According to the House Select Committee,
Ray told his lawyer Art Haynes Sr. That quote. At
approximately six pm on April four, he was sitting in
his park Mustang in front of four twenty two and
a half South Main Street when Raoul came running out
of the rooming house, jumped in the back of the car,
threw a white sheet over himself and told Ray to
(37:48):
drive away. After they had driven a few blocks, Raoul
jumped out, never to be seen again. But according to Ray,
that was a false story. He had become distrustful of
Bradford Huey, the writer who was paying for access to
a story, because Ray felt that he was sharing everything
Ray said with the FBI. So Ray decided to throw
(38:09):
him a curveball and made up the story of driving
away with Raoul. Perhaps not the smartest thing to do,
but it was for Ray certainly in character. What really happened,
according to Ray, was that he went to the gas
station looking to fix his tire, and I gotta think
about had flat tire earlier that day, so I am
(38:31):
I thought to get clixed. I woke back down to
the room house and got the must night and then
I thought I was road waiting, probably a game girls.
Several blocks I turned right, you know, I think I went,
you know, one or two, blocked down and turn right again.
My attention trying to get tik clax and the park
(38:53):
where right where it was? Evidence does this to support
Ray's gas station account. In five years after the murder,
Bill Pepper found at the bottom of a drawer in
the police files, evidence that had never been chaired with anyone.
They were official statements made to the FBI by two men,
(39:16):
Ray Hendrix and Bill Reid on the day King was killed.
The two men were at Jim's grill late in the afternoon.
They left together at around five thirty. Both of these
statements were read into the record at the civil trial.
What we will do here is read the statement given
to the FBI by Mr Hendrix. Mr Hendrix commented that
(39:38):
when he left Jim's grill, he forgot his jacket and
had to return for the jacket. He said he learned
later that while he was getting his jacket, Bill Reid
looked at a white Mustang that was parked almost in
front of jim Scroll. He stated, however, when he and
Bill Reid approached the intersection of Vance in South Main Street,
Bill Reid pulled him back from the curb because the
(39:59):
car was turning the corner. He said that this car
was a white Mustang, and after the car turned the corner, though,
Read commented to him that this was the Mustang that
was parked in front of Jim's grill which he looked
at while he Hendrix was retrieving his jacket. Neither Hendrix
nor Reid could say who was driving, though both said
(40:20):
there was only one person in the car, and Reid
said that the driver was not young, but not old.
Reid also described the color of the Mustang as off white,
which would be a strong indication that it was raised
off white Mustang that he saw making the turn, the
same car that he looked at in front of Jim's grill.
(40:40):
The best estimate of the encounter on Band Street would
be somewhere near five. This would conform with Ray's account
of driving to a guess station at that time. There
has never been any explanation as to why this evidence
had been kept hidden by law. It should not have been,
and if James hil Ray had had a trial, such
(41:02):
evidence might have been sufficient to establish the reasonable doubt
required for Ray's acquittal. And what about the tire? According
to Ray, he never got to fix that day. When
he got to the gas station and talked to the attendant,
the man said he didn't have the time just then, so,
(41:23):
according to Ray, he headed back to Main Street. But
when he got there he saw all kinds of commotion
from the place he had just come from. I lived
down manistrate and looked like three more in vaga replacement
running around on her and I think had labor squad,
bar police cars, black later sectionary, black office street. So
something looked like the way around. So waiting his arm
(41:44):
around impossible way to big los Aires turned less, turning right,
I find that come out a manastrate ray was an
escaped convict. Any contact with the police was unwelcome, so
we did not need a lot of incentive to drive
away and ask questions later, and his radio in the
(42:06):
car was on. His vote came over radio saying that
Reverend Martlin's King and shots. So I didn't take too
much canse on that, but I kept on driving. Was
too long I have heard and said, uh, they were
looking for a white man and white mustang and the
next one the shooting reverend King. So I decided him
that you know, did have died, So it's back. So
(42:28):
instead of magnate phone calls, I just kept going going
south in the Mississippi of returning from there, I went
on into the land. From the land, I went through. Uh,
they joined him by Canada. Before we move on, I
think it important to note that there are places in
(42:50):
race story where he is obviously not telling all he knows.
As mentioned earlier, Ray always refused to reveal who helped
him escape from federal prison. According to Bill Pepper, Ray
had been a convict for most of his adult life
and he lived by the code that you don't tell
on people. And while Ray says it was only Raoul
that he met on his two trips to New Orleans,
(43:12):
it may have been not just Raoul. Ray's first lawyer,
Art Haynes, told me about an interesting piece of evidence
that turned up and raised mustang. A matchbook cover had
a New Orleans phone number written only he forbad us
to look into it and go beyond it. Then there
is the matter of the four excellent false identities that
(43:34):
Ray used while he was on the run from the law.
This is the late phil Alanson, who wrote one of
the early books on the murder of King The alias's
question is crucial because it was unexplained by official investigations,
and it's obviously central to this case. James ol Ray
was able to use the names of people who looked
like him, who were totally innocent, and in the case
(43:55):
of Mr gald who shared uncanny characteristics with Ray, when
Ray had no capacity to have gone to Toronto and
scouted these names out or gotten them from a file.
Over the years, Ray would offer vague explanations as to
how he came by these identities, like maybe he got
them out of a phone book, but someone had to
have provided them to Ray, and he would never say who.
(44:18):
Milansen's theory was that Ray, whose role in this crime
seemed to be that of the fall guy, understood that
more people involved would not make him look more innocent,
and beyond that, exposing other people might well get him killed.
So as we move forward, it is important to know
that Ray did not tell everything he knew, even to
(44:38):
proven friends like Bill Pepper. So Ray was arrested in
Great Britain and then sent back to Memphis, where he
was kept out of sight. As Judge Hines explained, the
more familiar he and his father became with the evidence,
the more certain they were that they would win the case.
But rays enforced isolation presented a problem because everyone knew
(45:00):
from all the reports that their client was the monster
who had shot Dr King, but no one had seen him,
and as Arthur Haynes said, if they were going to
have a chance to win the case, they would need
to change the visuals. He still remained the great mystery man.
Nobody had ever seen him. There was no picture of him,
there were no purple walks in those days. You had
(45:22):
this great mystery Man. All in all, he was being
crucified in the press of the world, and we felt
like we needed to do something to at least stem
the tide. So the lights were on all the time,
and we talked to Ray about it, and he said, yeah,
so the hard sleep. So we thought this is a
(45:43):
great opportunity. Number one to parade out the Great Fiend
and let the world see that he's just a little
petty criminal. And number two to start the whole proceedings
with a lock cinch winning decision. So we followed a
motion to turn off the lights, that it was cruel
and unusual punishment, and to turn off the lights so
(46:06):
that he could sleep at night. Oh, it was a
great day in Memphis. They had reserved a large room
for the press. There were no cell phones, of course,
with telephones, and incomes the Great Fiend to the courtroom
to hear the motion to turn off the lights. I'll
never forget it. Ray was on the stand and ultimately
(46:31):
the crucial question was asked, Mr Ray, are the lights
on in your cell twenty four hours a day? As
answered wise, yes they were. And then the Kuda Gras
was to come and my dad asked him, and how
does that affect you, Mr Ray, And I will tell
(46:54):
you word for word his answer, Oh, it doesn't bother me.
No one a typical James Earl Ray move. And I
used this example with my trial students because the lesson
is you can prepare all you want to, but you
(47:14):
never know what a witness is going to say in court.
Back in It's November and you've been on the case
for four months and you're about to go to trial.
The entire world thinks that James el Ray murdered King.
But you know the prosecution's eye witness is a fraud.
Charlie Stephens that the supposed the purported murder weapon is
(47:39):
most likely a plant, and the motive given to Ray
is a fabrication. But virtually everyone else in the universe
thinks the case is a slam dunk for the prosecution.
You're six, were you ever? Did you have any apprehension
or any fear? That is the advantage of being a
twenty six year old lawyer about to make the opening
(48:01):
statement and the trial of the accused killer of Martin
Luther King. So all I knew was, of course, we're
gonna win this one too. We went to the jail.
I had spent all Friday with Ray getting ready for
the case. I have learned in retrospect that almost immediately
upon my leaving the jail on Friday to come back
(48:23):
to Birmingham, this lawyer from Texas was allowed in the
one that ultimately spent the weekend in the cell with
Ray persuading him to change lawyers. We got there and interestingly,
James Earl Ray and my dad were exactly the same size.
We had bought two of suits for him to wear
(48:46):
the trial and ties to go with them, and we
were going to take him the suits and buck him
up a little bit on the even before trial when
we got to the jail, the spitting snow was right cold.
That night we got the jail, we were handed a
note and said thanks for all you've done, but I've
decided to change lawyers. So we left. I mean, we
(49:11):
were just lawyers. We were lawyers doing our duties. My
dad wore those suits though for years and we always
called him, as James Earl Ray suits why was Foreman there?
And by there, I mean why did Foreman push his
way into the case. Do you ever wonder about that?
Did we ever wonder how Foreman got in the case? Only?
(49:35):
Every day from that day until the day my father died.
There are a lot of possible answers to that question.
I'd like to end with something fun, or what I
think is fun. In January of seventy, Ray is locked
(49:57):
up for the rest of his life, no trial, and
he learns that your dad has been ill and is
in the hospital. So James el Ray sits down and
writes to your dad, I'm gonna just read it, dear Arthur.
I have read in the paper where you have been
a little under the weather. I trust the young nurses
will have you back in condition before you receive this letter. Sincerely,
(50:21):
James el Ray. P s at least you don't have
Percy Foreman for a doctor. There's something so simple and
human about that. And he's able to look at I mean,
he's in jail for the rest of his life, and
he's chosen the wrong lawyers, and he's been duped again,
and he's able to sort of make a little joke
about it. That's exactly it. So why did celebrity attorney
(50:46):
Percy Foreman at the very last moment push his way
into the case. As Judge Haines says, not a day
went by that they didn't wonder about that, and they
came up with a bunch of possible answers. But as
we shall see, the closer you look at Foreman, the
darker those answers become. Next time on the email K tapes.
(51:11):
The truth of the matter is Percy Foreman was the
biggest fraud and blow hard I ever encountered in over
fifty years of practicing law. The jail made He told
me that if I would this missing him, he wouldn't
get involved literary contest he might ask. I saw absolutely
(51:32):
no evidence of any inclination or willingness on his part
to defend that case as it should have been defended.
And the Foreman game said this wis at all? Could
you ever feel that you could ever do more than
save his life? Never at any time, And so told
(51:52):
him from the day I came in, and he never
expected anything else from the first and I never expected
to accomplish this. You had a government case where ballistics
were weak, you had a key eye witness who was
an alcoholic. Doesn't that bring the odds down to a
little better than Wouldn't that give you a fighting chance
for a reasonable doubt? Thanks for listening to The m
(52:23):
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. Damail Ka 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 half of Tenderfoot
(52:45):
TV with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Steadman. Original music
by Makeup and Vanity Said. Cover art by Mr Soul
two six with photography by Artemus Jenkins. Special thanks to
Owen Rosenbaum and Grace Royer at ut A, the Nord Group,
back Median Marketing, Envisioned Business Management, and Station sixteen. If
(53:06):
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,
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. We received a letter Dear Mr Haynes,
(00:26):
I'm here in jail. I've been accused of a murder.
I don't know anything about it. Will you please come
help me? Signed Raymond George Snead in England. We couldn't
talk to Ray without a police officer right there with us,
so as far as we were concerned, he was Raymond
George Snead. And when he came back to the United States,
(00:47):
he was brought down on a charter flight with FBI
agents and all of that, and came in late late
one evening. It was dark, and they landed at the
far side of the airport, and police cars and vans
came to the airplane to get the Great Mystery Man,
because there was some doubt as to his identity in
(01:08):
the first place, and certainly there was doubt as to
whether he was the leader of a Revolutionary Army, or
or what was going on. The great mystery Man was
grabbed from his aeroplane, put in a caravan of vans
and police cars, and taken to the Shelby County, Tennessee jail.
(01:30):
And in that jail there was a special floor that
had not been developed yet, old concrete floor. And on
that floor in the jail was a jail within a jail.
It was a cage. It was a four sighted cage
with the heavy traditional iron bars. When he got there
that night, my dad and I went to see him
(01:53):
for the first time in the United States. By then
the whole circumstances were such that there was probably doably
rightly a bit of paranoia on the defense side. My
dad was a very savvy man. He deemed the most
secure place in the jail was the shower stall. So
(02:13):
the first time we met Ray in the United States,
my dad Ray and I. We're sitting need a knee
on the floor of that shower stall. And the first
thing out of anybody's mouth was my Dad looking at
this client of ours and saying, who are you? I
(02:37):
called the Union Hall. I said, it's a matter of
life and death. I said, I think these people are
planning to kill Dr King. The authorities were parade. Oh,
we found a gun that James L. Ray bought in
Birmingham that killed Dr King. Except it wasn't the gun
that killed Dr King. James L. Ray was upon in
(03:00):
the official story from My Heart Radio and tender Foot TV.
The plan was to get King to the city because
they wanted it handled in memphisfore dead in Nam cat
Hamon and I've lived with it alone, mansieur, and they
skied for me. The lawd told me to not the word.
(03:21):
I've been wanting to tell it all my life. I'm
Bill Claiburn and this is d MLK tapes. At the
top of the episode, you heard Judge Arthur Haynes Jr.
Describing the first time he met James Earl Ray, the
(03:43):
man accused of killing Martin Luther King. Haynes grew up
in Birmingham, Alabama, and after high school, he went to
Princeton and then the law school at the University of Alabama,
where he graduated in the spring of nineteen He then
joined his father's law practice. Art Haynes, Sr. Was a
fierce segregationist who had been mayor of Birmingham from nineteen
(04:05):
sixty one to sixty three. In his first year in office,
he closed over a hundred parks, playgrounds, and swimming pools
rather than integrate them as required by a federal court order.
He was also mayor when Sheriff Bull Connor said dogs
and fire hoses on peaceful demonstrators, many of them children.
Haynes was by a narrow vote put out of office
(04:27):
in nineteen sixty three, and he began a practice in
criminal law. In nineteen sixty civil rights activist Viola Leozzo
was shot dead while driving participants back and forth in
the Selma to Montgomery Freedom March, and three clan members
were charged with the murder. When their first attorney died,
Art Haynes assumed their defense and won the case by
(04:49):
way of a hung jury, though the men were later
convicted in a federal court a year later. Art Haynes Jr.
Would Join his father, and in June of nineteen sixty
eight they idle letter from James Earl Ray in London
asking for help. As a criminal defense attorney. More often
than not, you defend criminals. In the case of our
(05:10):
Haynes and his father, they defended some of the worst,
including Bob Chambliss, who murdered four little girls when he
blew up the sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. But
Chambliss would be the very last criminal that our junior
would defend. The whole thing made him so sick inside
that he turned his back on criminal law, left his
father's practice and went on to have a distinguished legal career.
(05:33):
He served eighteen years as a judge in Alabama, and
when he left the bench, he became an adjunct professor
at the University of Alabama Law School, and he began
a civil practice that specializes in arbitration. I sat with
him in his law office in Birmingham. I'm here to
talk to you today because at a particular moment in time,
(05:55):
you and your father, the late Arthur Haynes, Sr. Became
the defense attorne is for one James Earl Ray. You
graduated from law school in sixty seven, and one year
later found yourself representing the man who's accused of murdering
Martin Luther King. I was very well aware that uh
(06:15):
I was part of history. I also knew that statistically,
at any rate, I would outlive all the other participants.
Haynes then told me the story you heard about getting
the letter from some guy in London asking for help
with a murder. He knew nothing about. The man writing
the letter turned out to be James Earl Ray, and
(06:36):
the man murdered was Martin Luther King. Not having any
idea of where this story would lead, Haines father and
son decided to take the case over the next four months.
They would be the ones and the only ones in
contact with Ray, and they would be the ones getting
the first look at the evidence, which is why what
ar Hanes Jr. Has to say about it today is important.
(07:00):
I asked him about Ray. Was he the person you
expected to meet? What what were your impressions of him?
Ray is every man and no man. He was invisible.
He was remarkably nondescript. You could dress him in a
tuxedo and send him to a debutante ball, or dress
him in in ragged sweat clothes and send him to
(07:22):
a homeless camp, and he would be equally in place
at either place, a remarkably colorless person. Did Ray ever
say to you that he shot Martin Luther King? Never?
He denied it. From day one, moment one until the
last moment he did wind up pleading guilty, But he
(07:43):
told me later that he had done that because he
realized that the lawyer who took over for us had
done nothing to prepare the case for trial. Did you,
when you took over the case begin your own investigation?
Did you interview witnesses? Oh? Absolutely good, gracious, we had
a complete trial file. I guess I probably talked to
(08:03):
every one oh in Memphis. So we worked on that
case from his arrest in June of solidly until the
trial in the fall of and you thought you had
a pretty good chance going to trial. We were absolutely confident.
What was the evidence that the authorities had that they
(08:24):
say proved that James el Ray murdered Martin with the King?
We'll see, that's the problem. There was a lot of talk.
For instance, the authorities would parade, Oh, we found a
gun that James ol Ray bought in Birmingham. There's no
doubt about it. It was the rifle that Ray bought
in Birmingham. It simply wasn't the gun that killed Dr. King. Moreover,
(08:46):
perhaps the only legitimate witness in the whole area was
a man named Knips, who ran the amusement shop where
the package was thrown down. Mr Knips was prepared justifi
that the package was thrown down that contained the rifle
before the shot that killed Dr King was fired. When
(09:10):
Judge Haynes refers to the package, he's talking about a
strange collection of things, including some books, cans of beer,
a small radio, underwear, and a rifle with raised fingerprints,
all of it tied up in a bedspread and found
on the street in front of a small store owned
by Mr Guy Knipe. When you talked to Mr Knight,
(09:31):
did he have a clear recollection of the package? Well,
sure is, and he said that he believes it was
ten minutes before the shot that the package was dropped off,
and that would make sense because the street would be
empty then and somebody could do that and not be seen.
Do you believe he was sincere? Oh? I absolutely, He
(09:53):
had no motive or stake in it, and truthfully was
not particularly excited to be involved, but he was willing
to be. You'll see the fire station overlooks the Lorraine Motel.
That fire station was packed with city policeman, federal agents,
of spectators, curiosity seekers and others who were looking out
(10:18):
over the Lorraine Motel to see the activities of Dr
King and his entourage. The moment the shot was fired
and Dr King went down, that fire station erupted like
a beehive, police going in all directions. The very idea
(10:38):
that someone could fire that shot stopping a room, very
carefully wrapped that package, put the gun in it, and
tie it and then drop it is, in our way
of thinking, simply preposterous and unbelievable. When they put their
so called trial on, which wasn't a trial at all,
(11:00):
It was just a show where they brought forth what
evidence they said they would have brought forth had there
been a trial, And in that proceeding they referred to
their eyewitness, one Charlie Stevens. Oh, good, gracious, Charlie Stevens
was drunk as a goat when Dr King was killed.
We had a taxi driver who was going to testify.
(11:24):
Stevens had called a cab and the cab driver refused
to lead him in the cab because he was too
drunk to ride in a cab. So if your star
witness is too drunk to ride in a cab, we
felt his testimony was worth nothing. Tell me what was
the official authorities, what was their official motive? What did
(11:46):
Ray kill King? According to them, We were never quite
clear on that there was some noble that there was
a convict in Missouri who was going to say that
Ray had made some racist comments years before. But it
was a very very weak and probably untrue declaration. Had
(12:08):
Bray ever done engaged in violence that you know of?
Nothing we know of he He was, of course a
petty criminal. He had no history of violence that we
were aware of. We should note that James Earl Ray
did own a pistol, though we did not carry it
around in his everyday life. He might brandish the weapon
(12:29):
during a hold up, but there was no record of
him ever shooting someone. Now back to our hands, I'm
telling you, Bill, Martin Luther King was not on James
Earl Ray's radar screen, part of his life or his
interest at all. A convict doing time is interested in
(12:50):
his daily bread and survival. That was James Earl Ray.
He had had no interest in politics, or world affairs
or anything. We tried everything in the world to evoke
any kind of reaction from Ray, arranging from ductr King
deserved to die to whoever killed him should be summarily executed. Nothing,
(13:14):
no reaction one way or the other. Ray told art
Hanes from the start that he did not shoot King,
and Haines was unable to find in Ray even the
semblance of a motive for such a crime. Of course,
the press found it easy to brand him as a racist,
and when they wanted to put a little frosting on
(13:34):
the cake, they would say he was a hardened criminal.
In that regard, it might be useful to review rays
rap sheet. Discharged from the army for failure to adapt
to military life. Sentenced to ninety days for stealing a typewriter,
two sentenced to two years in prison for stealing eleven
(13:57):
dollars from a cab driver. Five served three years, and
Leavenworth for stealing money orders nine sentenced to twenty years
Missouri State pen for stealing a hundred dollars from a supermarket.
That's it, except for a bunch of escape attempts. A
rap sheet, of course, is not a complete record of
(14:18):
a person's criminal activity. It's just the record of crimes
he's been caught at. So we can assume from this
list that Ray pulled off other robberies and hold ups.
But the list does illustrate the kinds of crimes he
was inclined to commit. And nowhere does it appear that
he wants to be a famous criminal. And why would
(14:38):
that matter? It would matter because of what William Bradford
Huey said in an article for Look magazine following Raised
plea of guilty. Hughie had been putting up money for
Raised defense, and in return he got the inside track
on race story by way of handwritten accounts by Ray
of where he had been and what he had done.
(14:58):
Hughie had written two previous articles for Look where he
said he would show that there was a conspiracy to
assassinate King, but Hughie suddenly changed course and in his
final article said that James Ray alone had murdered King.
But why did Ray kill King? Did he hate black people?
Did he hate King? No? According to hue Ray felt
(15:23):
insecure about his position in the world, so he wanted
to make sure that everyone knew that he was the
one who killed King. This was the explanation that the
nation received by way of Look magazine from a man
who had inside information from Ray himself. But Ray never
told him that. Huie just came to it on his own.
(15:43):
But Hughie never spent any time at all with Ray.
But Judge Haynes had spent many hours with him, what
did he think? Did Ray ever demonstrate anything to you
to indicate that he wanted to be known as the
man who killed King? Why? Certainly not. He did not
it vehemently from the beginning. He was an escaped con
(16:04):
He didn't care. He just didn't want to go back
to the penitentiary. So how was it that Ray came
to Memphis. Well, his brother Jerry and Ray himself are
about to tell us. And we gave up real boring
(16:32):
journey at in person plays. We lived out of them.
These are the words of Jerry Ray, James Earl Ray's
younger brother, testifying at the civil trial. In the court
recording here was muddy. So we've taken the liberty of
reading Ray's words from the trial transcript. We came up
(16:55):
real poor during the depression days. We lived out on
a far most of the time. But back there in
the depression, everybody had it bad. James had been born
in ninety eight in Alton, Illinois, the oldest of eight.
His mother, Lucille, was nineteen. James was followed by his
sister Marjorie, brother John, and then Jerry there were seven
(17:17):
years between Jerry and James asked if he had noticed
any signs of racial hatred, and his brother Jerry said
he hadn't. No, he never did, have no hostility towards
any race, not only Blacks, but Hispanics or anybody. The
one thing he tried to do is live and let live.
Before he went into the army. He was a hard
(17:38):
worker and he just lived a life of crime after that.
It's true that James Earl Ray did not have an
arrest record before entering the army in nineteen forty six,
but he was already traveling a difficult road. He had
to do first grade twice because of some forgery trouble
where the family had to leave town. His father was
frequently drunk and his mother was always signet. She gave
(18:01):
birth eight times and lost Marjorie when the six year
old caught fire standing next to a stove. James left
school in the middle of eighth grade and went to
live with his grandparents, where he would sometimes spend evenings
with his uncle Earl. Evenings had often ended up at
Big Marie's brothel, where Ray would sometimes run errands for
the girls, as he called them. The behavior he fell
(18:24):
into is what he had seen all his life. Jerry
Ray watched his older brother from a distance of seven years,
but he did have one insight about James that is
worth mentioning. If he uh makes friends with somebody, he's
easily led around, easily led around. That's what his brother
(18:45):
said about him. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch,
James met a guy named Rife who had stolen some
postal money orders. Rife recruited Ray to help cash them
until they got caught. James went to federal prison in Leavenworth.
He got out three years later and ran into a
guy named Owens, and they robbed a grocery store for
(19:05):
a hundred and twenty dollars, but they were caught twenty
minutes later because a witness notified the police about his
vehicle for that robbery. Ray was sentenced to twenty years.
James hated prison life, and his record is filled with
various attempts to escape, which always put more years on
(19:26):
enough so that in the spring of nineteen sixty seven,
after having served six years, he still had eighteen years
left on his twenty years sentence. But James came up
with yet another scheme and he rode out of Jefferson
City Prison in style, hidden under loads of bread in
a bakery truck. It required the help and probably the
permission of some people on the inside, and James would
(19:48):
never say who those people were. After his escape, Ray
said that he walked along a railroad for six days
until his feet were swollen and bloody. Then he caught
a bus to Chicago and met with his brothers, John
and Jerry. It is also possible, perhaps likely, that Ray
was picked up by his brother John somewhere along the way,
and the two of them drove to Chicago, where the
(20:11):
brothers gave him some money and James answered an ad
for work at a restaurant. Ray took the work under
his brother's name, John Raynes, and he used his brother
social Security number. The plan was to earn enough money
to buy an old car and drive to Canada. James
worked hard at the Indian Trail restaurant and one of pay,
(20:31):
raise and the respect of the owners, Clara and Harvey Klingman.
There was something about him that they liked. After Ray
had been captured and brought back to Memphis, Clara Klingman
was shocked to hear that the person she knew as
John Raines was really James L. Ray, the man who
had murdered Martin Luther King. She could not believe that
(20:52):
he had harbored such invisible hatred. She had seen none
of it. Whatever he is and whatever he is done,
she would say, while he was here, we saw a
spark of dignity in John Raines doing so well. Ray
might have stayed on at the restaurant, but he was
a wanted man and a social Security number was not his.
(21:15):
So after eight weeks he left, bought an old car
and went to Montreal, where he hoped to discover what
he needed to get a Canadian passport. Ray had been
in Montreal just a couple of days. When he was
sitting at a table in a neptune bar, a man approached,
pulled out a chair and sat down. From this point
(21:37):
on the voice of James Earl Ray that you will
hear is from a deposition he gave in and answers
to questions asked by Attorney Lewis Garrison. Where you first
met in Montreal, Canada and a place called bar in Montville,
(22:00):
East Mark, Yo. And what was your unforted person going
in my drawways? Your tune to do when you got there,
I try to get try to get some tel dipars
and leave the counting. How long would you been there
when you met raw at this Neptune bar. It's just
day exactly been all right? He hadn't been over it.
I said week, last, a week wheter week? It probably
(22:20):
have wait six seven days. I wouldn't want to get
hit down. Just how many days? And when he came in?
What what attracted you to him? Or how did you
get the current sation? Started him? I didn't started conversation
and in in sit down started conversation maybe just talking about
general things and and you and this gentle start up
the conversation general things such as a weather or something
(22:41):
like that. And how long did you said to you? Really? Well,
I don't know. I wan't too long. I mean, I
mean i've been how are you conversation bars feed less?
What you just get some kind of teach you? But
we didn't sit there too long, and I don't think
we just started talking and I was can you tell
us just about to row about sad person? Was was
(23:01):
a fast with ten uh traffic? Leven or half of
found where it really taller you or short in you well,
but with Tana, I just simon the ground and five
with a year nine or maybe somewhere in that general
or again that it's hard to estimated bet with weight,
but I didn't think it would be any can't wait
(23:22):
a whole lot, but I've got any waited by earn
forty or forty five pounds. I just can't can't leave
start on someone weight like that cod here here, I
had a kind of a it's a dark hair dark
which I called a slight red tanda. The talk like
you have been someone who had been uh Ripken, Canada,
(23:45):
or Detroit or someone in uh tweople of Mississippi or
told you what was your intrusion on? Well, yes, some
much spanis accident. And I had a lot of association
with Mexican that been in Mexico before and that and
les was a lot of time, so I certainly used
(24:07):
that person. Ray said that in their first meeting he
had mentioned that he wanted travel documents. Raoul said he
might be able to help with that. They agreed to
meet again, and did so a day or two later.
When the conversation became specific, Raoul told Ray that he
(24:27):
could help him get a Canadian passport and other documents
he might need, but it would take some time. In
the meanwhile, he had some work to offer if Ray
were interested. It involved carrying some things across the border
and race car. According to Ray, Raoul's promised to get
him the documents he desired was the very thing he
most wanted to hear, so he ended up crossing the
(24:48):
border a couple of times carrying things hidden under the
back seat of his car. Ray didn't know what he
had been transporting for Raoul, but he was well paid
for his time. However, the promised documents were not produced,
but they were still being offered. So when Raoul said
he wanted ready to go to Alabama, where he would
(25:09):
buy Ray a much nicer car to be used for
a few errands, Ray agreed. So one day in late August,
Jerry Ray got a call from James and agreed to
meet him in Chicago, where James said he'd give Jerry
his sixty two Plymouth and that Jerry could put him
on a train south. Here's Jerry's memory of that meeting.
(25:30):
And we spent a Nightingale had pratice together, and he
was thought maybe he was all happy and earliers. He
had plenty money on him, so he said, I'm gonna
move down to Birmingham and by a late model Paris.
He had as he said written and Mr Raol, I
get decided to remember Ala Raoul came and I work
for again named Raoul or something like that. Didn't I
(25:52):
sure go out? There was no over carman and suddenly
I didn't know what it was. And uh he said
he worked as uh he as a guy go rabul
that um to get that money. Un So you get
out of the will get out of the Canada and
the United States boat he ever mentioned. Dr Hardin came
(26:15):
gaging that the game came name never came up and
uh the last name name that was mad about was
you know Jackson or Gang or Candier ended held he
though he was drying to stay out of rot. So
James went to Birmingham, where he said Raoul gave him
two thousand dollars to buy a white sixties six Mustang.
(26:36):
What followed was weeks of crazy trips in and out
of Mexico, spare tires that were exchanged for other spare tires.
James believed that he was running drugs and money, but
he didn't know. He just did as he was told.
Then the trips dried up, and James ceased to believe
that there were any travel documents coming his way. So
he told Raoul, who seemed fine with it, that he
(26:59):
planned to go to Los Angeles, And so he went
to l A, where he stayed from November to March,
taking dance lessons and a course in har Attending. Some
months later, Ray said he got a letter from Raoul
saying he wanted to meet in New Orleans. According to Ray,
he met with Raoul who said he wanted him to
(27:21):
come back East. Ray was running low on money, so
we agreed. When Ray got to Birmingham, Raoul said there
was some sort of gun deal coming down and he
needed Ray to purchase a rifle to show to a
prospective customer. And while none of this made a lot
of sense, one must remember that Ray had already done
some number of things for Raoul that didn't seem to
make sense, but he hadn't asked questions and he had
(27:44):
always been paid. So in pursuit of the needed rifle,
Ray goes to a sports store in Birmingham named Aero Marine. Again,
here's Ray and Louis garrison. Did he take what kind
of well when he wants you to take a look at? Well?
When I got there, I asked for a deare a
(28:06):
rival than it was? Wonn't you us for it? That's
the type of ros used. But I don't know too
much about the roding? So what kind of right would
you take you look at? He probably gave me some drives,
but it wasn't good enough for I could say exactly
what I wanted? Did you writeing man? Did I? Did
he write him man for you? No? No? Not so
(28:28):
you walked in and did that? What kind of rival?
You won't him want a brand? What caliber? Want anything?
You just said, I want to hear up? Yeah, I
told him I was gonna out there is my brother
law and not like looks at vibes and he said,
he said, this is what you want. This is about
the best thing. Ay said, where is that effect? And
I said, okay, that's about more So. The store mounted
a scope on the rifle, which turned out to be
(28:49):
a quite fine two forty three Winchester. Gray left the
store with that gun. Because when you get back to
the hotel, are you waiting for you? Yes? Get one
with him? No? And do you take the guy in? Yes,
What do you say about it? I think he said
was wrong type of trap or on caliber? On brand? Wrong?
What I think he said? This wan type? It was
(29:11):
his word. What do you what do you meant? So
they don't What do you really wanted? No? I didn't.
I had brochure. The Salesmenking a brochure, So I just
brochure to take out what he wanted, and I go
back and rochure Sara Hees. Raoul pointed to a certain gun,
and Ray called the store and asked if he could
make the exchange. They said yes, but that he should
(29:33):
come in the following day. According to Ray, the next
time he met Raoul was at the New Rebel Motel
just outside of Memphis on the stormy night before King
was killed. Raoul left with a gun, and Ray says
he never saw it again. So what to make of this?
In many ways, it's a quintessential James Earl Ray story.
(29:56):
It doesn't make sense, none of it. If there was
a un deal, what purpose would be served to show
up with a rifle that anyone could buy in a store?
And was Ray really such a dope when it comes
to guns? It seems that he was. Bill Pepper talked
to the guy who sold Ray the rifle. I spoke
to the Don Woods who managed the story. Told Donald
(30:20):
again about three or four months ago. He said, this
guy absolutely nothing about is incredible. Yeah, nothing. So some
guy who knows nothing about guns comes in to buy
a rifle and he's pleased to take whatever is offered
and leaves the store happy as a clan. But then
an hour or so later he calls and says he
(30:42):
needs to exchange the gun. But why. In the official
version of the crime, Ray was completely on his own,
So who was unhappy with the gun? For ten years,
no one even tried to answer this question. But to
their credit, the House Committee finally solve the problem. Gun
number one, they said, being exchanged for gun number two
(31:05):
showed quote significant signs of unwitting aid or knowing complicity
in the assassination itself. So finally, this crazy gun exchange
story merits the interpretation that there was at least another person,
and the House Committee had a suspect in mind, and
it wasn't Raoul. It was raised brother Jerry and supported
(31:29):
this idea. They offered a few casual comments that James
had made along the way in California, James apparently told
the woman he was going east to see his brother,
and later at the gun store, he told the salesman
that he was going hunting with his brother. But of
course neither of these statements is evidence of anything, and
Jerry Ray was working in Chicago then, and for all
(31:51):
this to work, he kind of needed to be in Birmingham.
To their credit, the House Committee did try to deal
with this. They said in their report that every Ray
work from eleven pm to seven a m. And if
he had Thursdays off, he could, quoting here conceivably have
gone to Birmingham, given advice on the initial rifle purchase
(32:11):
on Friday afternoon, and returned to Chicago in time to
be on the job by eleven pm that night. So
apparently it was possible. It just seems like a lot
of trouble to go to to advise your older brother
on a gun purchase, and it must have felt the
same way to the House Committee, because a couple of
sentences later they suggest that perhaps Jerry didn't come down
(32:33):
to Birmingham after all, that maybe the entire advising consent
took place over the phone. They then leave it to
us to imagine the conversation. If we were to set
the House Committee solution to this riddle aside for the moment,
and we're to accept james explanation that includes Raoul, then
(32:56):
what does wrong type or wrong gun mean? Well, the
first rifle was a two forty three Winchester, an excellent
hunting gun and perfectly adequate for killing a human if
that's what you wanted to do. The second, a Remington
thirty six game Master, fired a larger bullet, so in
this instance might be considered more ideal for killing a person.
(33:20):
But is that what Raoul meant when he said wrong gun?
Doesn't seem likely, because if Raoul and others were involved,
the murder was a planned event, And if it was
a planned event, then the shooter, whoever he was, which
surely not agreed to a plan that relied upon the
arrival of a weapon to be purchased the day before
(33:41):
by some guy. Seems a little casual for the importance
of the event. So if the newly bought gun is
not going to be the murder weapon, wrong gun takes
on a different meaning. If the purpose of the gun
Ray bought is to connect Ray to the murder. Then
the two forty three Winchester is truly the wrong gun.
(34:03):
If King was to be killed by a thirty caliber bullet,
a throwdown weapon that could not fire such a bullet
would give up the game. Though he did not know
why Ray had to go back and change the gun.
(34:31):
Where were you reported decision? I wasn't understand, say Ray
told Attorney Lewis Garrison that on the evening of April third,
Raoul stopped by to see him at the New Rebel
Motel just outside of Memphis. Raoul took the new rifle
that Ray had purchased and told Ray to meet him
(34:52):
at three thirty the next day at Jim's Grill, which
was two and a half south Maine. The address was
a little funny, so Ray wrote it down. Then he
spoke of the next day on April fourth, I think
I checked out the motel. I just guessed about let
him fly. Pointever, they running out of the places, just
(35:12):
too early to go to have his mates set on
the outside of Memphis, asked her some Mephiles say I
had I was getting ready to come back and have
his meeting room. I had a flat tire, so I
hadn't think said, so, where were you going? There's some
words out in there. I'm not certain his works there,
(35:33):
Race said. He removed the tire and put on the spare,
and then drove into Memphis. It took a little exploring
and he had to ask for directions, but he did
end up at Jim's grill, and Raoul was not there.
Ray had left his car some distance away and thought
to retrieve it. When he returned, he parked it right
outside the grill. And then when I went in this time,
(35:56):
la Raoul, wasn't it this time? You see main name
rising sting. So when when when I went out the door,
it uh. He wanted to be rear a room upstairs
to saidy laid up there with some start learned. Name
is Bessy Brower, I toold. I want I like to
wear a room for room a week, I think it was.
She had two rooms, so she showed me two different rooms.
(36:18):
One of was a sleeping room and one on was
some type of ring where you're cooking. So I told
her I was just interested in sleeping room. So she
practice she ran into the sleeping room. I would like
her too long. Rob would come up there and uh
and started talking He said that we might be around
her two three days, a couple of days. And he said,
I should winging in my clothing everything I had to
(36:42):
put in the room. But I didn't do that. But
I didn't wing an overnight case up there, and U
and I think I bought a something that sleep on,
something thin sheet or something. Raoul then sent rayan and
Errand to buy a pair of infrared binoculars, the inference
being that this was somehow part of the gun deal.
(37:04):
But the store Ray was sent to only had common binoculars,
so Ray bought a pair of those, and when he
returned to the room, Raoul didn't seem to care. It
was approaching six o'clock and Raoul suggested that Ray clear
out for a while, maybe go see a movie. So
Ray left. From this point on in the story, you
(37:26):
can flip a coin. According to the House Select Committee,
Ray told his lawyer Art Haynes Sr. That quote. At
approximately six pm on April four, he was sitting in
his park Mustang in front of four twenty two and
a half South Main Street when Raoul came running out
of the rooming house, jumped in the back of the car,
threw a white sheet over himself and told Ray to
(37:48):
drive away. After they had driven a few blocks, Raoul
jumped out, never to be seen again. But according to Ray,
that was a false story. He had become distrustful of
Bradford Huey, the writer who was paying for access to
a story, because Ray felt that he was sharing everything
Ray said with the FBI. So Ray decided to throw
(38:09):
him a curveball and made up the story of driving
away with Raoul. Perhaps not the smartest thing to do,
but it was for Ray certainly in character. What really happened,
according to Ray, was that he went to the gas
station looking to fix his tire, and I gotta think
about had flat tire earlier that day, so I am
(38:31):
I thought to get clixed. I woke back down to
the room house and got the must night and then
I thought I was road waiting, probably a game girls.
Several blocks I turned right, you know, I think I went,
you know, one or two, blocked down and turn right again.
My attention trying to get tik clax and the park
(38:53):
where right where it was? Evidence does this to support
Ray's gas station account. In five years after the murder,
Bill Pepper found at the bottom of a drawer in
the police files, evidence that had never been chaired with anyone.
They were official statements made to the FBI by two men,
(39:16):
Ray Hendrix and Bill Reid on the day King was killed.
The two men were at Jim's grill late in the afternoon.
They left together at around five thirty. Both of these
statements were read into the record at the civil trial.
What we will do here is read the statement given
to the FBI by Mr Hendrix. Mr Hendrix commented that
(39:38):
when he left Jim's grill, he forgot his jacket and
had to return for the jacket. He said he learned
later that while he was getting his jacket, Bill Reid
looked at a white Mustang that was parked almost in
front of jim Scroll. He stated, however, when he and
Bill Reid approached the intersection of Vance in South Main Street,
Bill Reid pulled him back from the curb because the
(39:59):
car was turning the corner. He said that this car
was a white Mustang, and after the car turned the corner, though,
Read commented to him that this was the Mustang that
was parked in front of Jim's grill which he looked
at while he Hendrix was retrieving his jacket. Neither Hendrix
nor Reid could say who was driving, though both said
(40:20):
there was only one person in the car, and Reid
said that the driver was not young, but not old.
Reid also described the color of the Mustang as off white,
which would be a strong indication that it was raised
off white Mustang that he saw making the turn, the
same car that he looked at in front of Jim's grill.
(40:40):
The best estimate of the encounter on Band Street would
be somewhere near five. This would conform with Ray's account
of driving to a guess station at that time. There
has never been any explanation as to why this evidence
had been kept hidden by law. It should not have been,
and if James hil Ray had had a trial, such
(41:02):
evidence might have been sufficient to establish the reasonable doubt
required for Ray's acquittal. And what about the tire? According
to Ray, he never got to fix that day. When
he got to the gas station and talked to the attendant,
the man said he didn't have the time just then, so,
(41:23):
according to Ray, he headed back to Main Street. But
when he got there he saw all kinds of commotion
from the place he had just come from. I lived
down manistrate and looked like three more in vaga replacement
running around on her and I think had labor squad,
bar police cars, black later sectionary, black office street. So
something looked like the way around. So waiting his arm
(41:44):
around impossible way to big los Aires turned less, turning right,
I find that come out a manastrate ray was an
escaped convict. Any contact with the police was unwelcome, so
we did not need a lot of incentive to drive
away and ask questions later, and his radio in the
(42:06):
car was on. His vote came over radio saying that
Reverend Martlin's King and shots. So I didn't take too
much canse on that, but I kept on driving. Was
too long I have heard and said, uh, they were
looking for a white man and white mustang and the
next one the shooting reverend King. So I decided him
that you know, did have died, So it's back. So
(42:28):
instead of magnate phone calls, I just kept going going
south in the Mississippi of returning from there, I went
on into the land. From the land, I went through. Uh,
they joined him by Canada. Before we move on, I
think it important to note that there are places in
(42:50):
race story where he is obviously not telling all he knows.
As mentioned earlier, Ray always refused to reveal who helped
him escape from federal prison. According to Bill Pepper, Ray
had been a convict for most of his adult life
and he lived by the code that you don't tell
on people. And while Ray says it was only Raoul
that he met on his two trips to New Orleans,
(43:12):
it may have been not just Raoul. Ray's first lawyer,
Art Haynes, told me about an interesting piece of evidence
that turned up and raised mustang. A matchbook cover had
a New Orleans phone number written only he forbad us
to look into it and go beyond it. Then there
is the matter of the four excellent false identities that
(43:34):
Ray used while he was on the run from the law.
This is the late phil Alanson, who wrote one of
the early books on the murder of King The alias's
question is crucial because it was unexplained by official investigations,
and it's obviously central to this case. James ol Ray
was able to use the names of people who looked
like him, who were totally innocent, and in the case
(43:55):
of Mr gald who shared uncanny characteristics with Ray, when
Ray had no capacity to have gone to Toronto and
scouted these names out or gotten them from a file.
Over the years, Ray would offer vague explanations as to
how he came by these identities, like maybe he got
them out of a phone book, but someone had to
have provided them to Ray, and he would never say who.
(44:18):
Milansen's theory was that Ray, whose role in this crime
seemed to be that of the fall guy, understood that
more people involved would not make him look more innocent,
and beyond that, exposing other people might well get him killed.
So as we move forward, it is important to know
that Ray did not tell everything he knew, even to
(44:38):
proven friends like Bill Pepper. So Ray was arrested in
Great Britain and then sent back to Memphis, where he
was kept out of sight. As Judge Hines explained, the
more familiar he and his father became with the evidence,
the more certain they were that they would win the case.
But rays enforced isolation presented a problem because everyone knew
(45:00):
from all the reports that their client was the monster
who had shot Dr King, but no one had seen him,
and as Arthur Haynes said, if they were going to
have a chance to win the case, they would need
to change the visuals. He still remained the great mystery man.
Nobody had ever seen him. There was no picture of him,
there were no purple walks in those days. You had
(45:22):
this great mystery Man. All in all, he was being
crucified in the press of the world, and we felt
like we needed to do something to at least stem
the tide. So the lights were on all the time,
and we talked to Ray about it, and he said, yeah,
so the hard sleep. So we thought this is a
(45:43):
great opportunity. Number one to parade out the Great Fiend
and let the world see that he's just a little
petty criminal. And number two to start the whole proceedings
with a lock cinch winning decision. So we followed a
motion to turn off the lights, that it was cruel
and unusual punishment, and to turn off the lights so
(46:06):
that he could sleep at night. Oh, it was a
great day in Memphis. They had reserved a large room
for the press. There were no cell phones, of course,
with telephones, and incomes the Great Fiend to the courtroom
to hear the motion to turn off the lights. I'll
never forget it. Ray was on the stand and ultimately
(46:31):
the crucial question was asked, Mr Ray, are the lights
on in your cell twenty four hours a day? As
answered wise, yes they were. And then the Kuda Gras
was to come and my dad asked him, and how
does that affect you, Mr Ray, And I will tell
(46:54):
you word for word his answer, Oh, it doesn't bother me.
No one a typical James Earl Ray move. And I
used this example with my trial students because the lesson
is you can prepare all you want to, but you
(47:14):
never know what a witness is going to say in court.
Back in It's November and you've been on the case
for four months and you're about to go to trial.
The entire world thinks that James el Ray murdered King.
But you know the prosecution's eye witness is a fraud.
Charlie Stephens that the supposed the purported murder weapon is
(47:39):
most likely a plant, and the motive given to Ray
is a fabrication. But virtually everyone else in the universe
thinks the case is a slam dunk for the prosecution.
You're six, were you ever? Did you have any apprehension
or any fear? That is the advantage of being a
twenty six year old lawyer about to make the opening
(48:01):
statement and the trial of the accused killer of Martin
Luther King. So all I knew was, of course, we're
gonna win this one too. We went to the jail.
I had spent all Friday with Ray getting ready for
the case. I have learned in retrospect that almost immediately
upon my leaving the jail on Friday to come back
(48:23):
to Birmingham, this lawyer from Texas was allowed in the
one that ultimately spent the weekend in the cell with
Ray persuading him to change lawyers. We got there and interestingly,
James Earl Ray and my dad were exactly the same size.
We had bought two of suits for him to wear
(48:46):
the trial and ties to go with them, and we
were going to take him the suits and buck him
up a little bit on the even before trial when
we got to the jail, the spitting snow was right cold.
That night we got the jail, we were handed a
note and said thanks for all you've done, but I've
decided to change lawyers. So we left. I mean, we
(49:11):
were just lawyers. We were lawyers doing our duties. My
dad wore those suits though for years and we always
called him, as James Earl Ray suits why was Foreman there?
And by there, I mean why did Foreman push his
way into the case. Do you ever wonder about that?
Did we ever wonder how Foreman got in the case? Only?
(49:35):
Every day from that day until the day my father died.
There are a lot of possible answers to that question.
I'd like to end with something fun, or what I
think is fun. In January of seventy, Ray is locked
(49:57):
up for the rest of his life, no trial, and
he learns that your dad has been ill and is
in the hospital. So James el Ray sits down and
writes to your dad, I'm gonna just read it, dear Arthur.
I have read in the paper where you have been
a little under the weather. I trust the young nurses
will have you back in condition before you receive this letter. Sincerely,
(50:21):
James el Ray. P s at least you don't have
Percy Foreman for a doctor. There's something so simple and
human about that. And he's able to look at I mean,
he's in jail for the rest of his life, and
he's chosen the wrong lawyers, and he's been duped again,
and he's able to sort of make a little joke
about it. That's exactly it. So why did celebrity attorney
(50:46):
Percy Foreman at the very last moment push his way
into the case. As Judge Haines says, not a day
went by that they didn't wonder about that, and they
came up with a bunch of possible answers. But as
we shall see, the closer you look at Foreman, the
darker those answers become. Next time on the email K tapes.
(51:11):
The truth of the matter is Percy Foreman was the
biggest fraud and blow hard I ever encountered in over
fifty years of practicing law. The jail made He told
me that if I would this missing him, he wouldn't
get involved literary contest he might ask. I saw absolutely
(51:32):
no evidence of any inclination or willingness on his part
to defend that case as it should have been defended.
And the Foreman game said this wis at all? Could
you ever feel that you could ever do more than
save his life? Never at any time, And so told
(51:52):
him from the day I came in, and he never
expected anything else from the first and I never expected
to accomplish this. You had a government case where ballistics
were weak, you had a key eye witness who was
an alcoholic. Doesn't that bring the odds down to a
little better than Wouldn't that give you a fighting chance
for a reasonable doubt? Thanks for listening to The m
(52:23):
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. Damail Ka 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 half of Tenderfoot
(52:45):
TV with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Steadman. Original music
by Makeup and Vanity Said. Cover art by Mr Soul
two six with photography by Artemus Jenkins. Special thanks to
Owen Rosenbaum and Grace Royer at ut A, the Nord Group,
back Median Marketing, Envisioned Business Management, and Station sixteen. If
(53:06):
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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