I got to know him better when he came to Jeff City with a sentence for robbery. The New Times article also asserted that Jerry Ray, if he were involved, might have been duped himself-might have thought he was setting up something other than an assassination. The verdict in King vs. Jowers found a government conspiracy involving city, state, and federal agents complicit in the murder. All three bore the fingerprints of an escaped convict named James Earl Ray. The 12-person jury verdict unanimous exonerated the "patsy" James Earl Ray for any role in the assassination of MLK. Benny Edmondson thought it was hilarious that William Bradford Huie thought he was "Raoul." On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. It was then learned he'd been the site engineer for the West German Pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal. I served my six months, got out and was put right back in for using amphetamine. Ray pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. The facts are these. I went to Memphis to deliver a rifle to this man called Raoul, Ray told me. Different convicts had different hustles to make money. The day after a stabbing, for example, virtually everyone in the prison who is considered "solid" would know who had done the stabbing. (In the period 1963-64, there were 550 serious assaults inside Jefferson City, including hundreds of stabbings, which is why, An egregious example of shoddy workmanship is the book. He made the FBI Most Wanted List before his recapture. Since Ray's arrest for the assassination, he has become mythified. My review took issue with many assumptions in the book, such as those centering on Ray's involvement with drugs in prison, and how he escaped from Jefferson City. He said that another person he met in Canada by the name Raoul was the actual person who plotted the murder and ultimately pulled the trigger. Therefore, I challenge your authority to hear it. [17] In audio obtained by WREG[18] and an available transcript on eonline.com,[19] Brown can be heard arguing that the judge didn't have the authority to sit on the bench. King vs. Loyd Jowers and conspirators unknown. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Ray told me several times, and I have it on tape, that he bought the rifle that was used in the King slaying. His perceived inability to deal successfully with those problems led to an overwhelming defeat in his bid for reelection. The introduction to the paper observed that since 1956, King had occupied a prominent role in the drive for equal rights for Negroes in the Untied States. It continued by noting, The course King chooses to follow at this critical time could have momentous impact on the future of race relations in the United States, and for that reason this paper has been prepared to give some insight into the nature of the man himself as well as the nature of his views, goals, objective, tactics, and the reason therefore., The papers summary of Kings planned Washington Spring project is contrary to the image of King painted by most historians as a man who employed only the most peaceful means. From 1961 through 1965 I used a substantial amount of amphetamine, and so did many of the people I associated with, and I never bought any from James Earl Ray. But, having tried to escape from the maximum-security prison, we both had joined a small list of convicts who would be watched at all times by the guards. [18][24][25], This article is about the person. On the night of April 4, 1968 50 years ago now James Earl Ray killed the Rev. There were half a dozen guys who rented magazines, and they hawked their wares by the yard shack (a small rock building where the guards stayed). By that time I was classified as incorrigible. ", The Miami police were sufficiently impressed with Milteer's seriousness that the Secret Service was alerted, and an imminent presidential motorcade into the city was canceled. [4] While on the bench he was known for his sometimes unusual sentences, such as, sentencing a child molester to confess to his church congregation and ordering a drug trafficker to apologize in a newspaper letter.[5]. To believe that the King family was motivated exclusively by publicity, one must believe that all of its members were involved in selling out the truth of their loved ones assassination for three figures. Brown claimed that the sentence was excessive, and that he should have only been fined; Dan Michael, the Shelby County Juvenile Court chief magistrate that found Brown in contempt, responded that "This is not Hollywood. [16] Brown surrendered to the Shelby County Sheriff on August 27, 2015, to serve his five-day sentence at the Shelby County Corrections Facility in Memphis. The paper quotes Kings statement explaining his strategy: To dislocate the function of a city without destroying it can be more effective than a riot, because it can be longer lasting, costly to society, and not wantonly destructive., Kings admission that the strategy he planned for Washington, D.C, would be costly to society is startling in view of a fact noted in The Urban Institute report, Our Changing City, which observed: 1950 also marked the start of the white exodus to the suburbs. But it turned out that rather than discharging this key Red, he had transferred and promoted ODell to a higher post within Kings Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 2023 www.tennessean.com. The new trial was never granted. In order to hang onto your drugs, people had to know that you would kill them without hesitation. Happy 300th Birthday, Richard Price! An international manhunt led to his capture in June 1968 at Heathrow Airport in London, where he was caught carrying two fake Canadian passports. In prison I knew men who would stab you to death over a carton of cigarettes, or for even a slight insult. There are records of Ray receiving plastic surgery in Los Angeles about a month before Kings murder in Memphis. Riots erupted in Memphis; one person was killed and sixty were injured. The 20-page paper, which was classified as. In the hours and days after the Tucson shootings, the left wing media in America attempted to blame the Tea Party and right wing rhetoric for the deaths of six and the injuries of thirteen. Because Ray had previously tried to escape by hiding out inside the prison, the officials assumed this was another bungled attempt, and they began a meticulous search of the prison, which covered 47 acres. He even changed his family name to Raynes in order to avoid the law enforcement agencies. There is an important flaw in that logic as well; the defendant was only sued for $100, which he was ordered to pay. He did not want to be buried in the USA because he considered that the American government did not treat him fairly. Godspeed." Likewise, this statement is attributed (without sourcing) to Limbaugh in 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America. On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the citys firefighters. James Earl Ray was the assassin of American Baptist minister and civil rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ray was born in on March 10, 1928 in a poor Irish-American family of Alton, Illinois, and was raised a Catholic. During the 1950 and 60s, the FBI surveilled and harassed King, his family and his associates. On 30 January 1961, Dexter Scott King, the third child of Martin and Coretta Scott King, was born. He was named after the church where his father held his first pastorate. Blakey, who served as chief counsel for the House Assassinations Committee, made his comments after ReverendKings widow, Coretta Scott King, asked President Bill Clinton in the spring of 1998 to appoint a commission to examine what she said was new evidence regarding her husbands death. Those who express skepticism at the results of the 1999 trial in which James Earl Ray was found innocent of assassinating King have an incredible hurdle to overcome the belief of the King family, which sides with Ray. Starting with his contribution to the presidential campaign of Wallace, Ray developed a strong animosity towards Martin Luther King Jr. In March 2014, Brown won the Democratic primary for the position of Shelby County district attorney. 15. While taking dancing classes, he was attracted to the presidential campaign of George Wallace. In the course of our conversation, I pressed him for details regarding drug sales or any other illegal activities in which staff and/or inmates might have been involved. For years after Ray's capture there was a close association between Stoner and Jerry Ray, James Earl Ray's brother. While attending law school, Brown worked as a substitute teacher. When the day came, Ray walked up to the bread box, got in, and asked a guy named Don to cover him. Ray, a white supporter of segregationist George Wallace, was a career criminal whod been convicted at least four separate times for robbing a cafe, a taxi, a post office and a grocery store. The President, Milteer said, would be shot "from an office building with a high-powered rifle," and a patsy would be picked up within hours . Martin Luther King Jr.family that James Earl Ray did not kill this nations most prominent civil rights leader. We miss you, James. For the first 25 years after Kings death, Jowers did not claim any involvement in the murder. One of Kings principal advisors is Stanley David Levison. On June 11, 1977, while housed at the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, TN, Ray and five other inmates escaped. This should have been driven home years ago when a surreptitious tape recording was made of J.A. Over the years, parties other than Ray have filed additional lawsuits related to the assassination. The King family started to publicly voice the opinion in 1997. "Somebody's gotta get him.". Ten years after his death, Rays brother John Larry Ray wrote a book along with writer Lyndon Barsten called Truth At Last: The Untold Story Behind James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. six grooves with a right twist. While on the lam in the 1950s, Ray lived in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico under the pseudonym Eric Stalvo Galt. While there, Eric Galt ordered video equipment through the mail to start up a business as a small-time pornographer. pleaded guilty to the first degree murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination. When ODell was again exposed, King went through the same routine of announcing his dismissal. When I got out the third time, I worked in the Tag Plant. While serving in the military, Ray was often charged with drunkenness and breaking arrest. James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to killing Dr. King; he challenged the plea and failed. A man named Vincent Harding is credited with writing most of it. Ray left school when he was just fifteen due to his familys financial condition. Benny taught me how to type. The FBI paper then named another communist whose name is very familiar to those who have read articles about Kings communist connections in The New American, its predecessor magazine, American Opinion, and the monthly bulletins of The John Birch Society, the parent organization of both publications. He said not knowing the truth about his fathers assassination had been painful for the family. In the year 1959, he was caught stealing $120 from a Kroger Store in St. Louis. In the 1960s John Larry Ray (another brother) owned a tavern in St. Louis, and that tavern was an unofficial headquarters for the Wallace for President campaign. and other allegedly exculpatory evidence are not worthy of belief. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. James Earl Ray was a racist, but there was circumstantial evidence that a businessman in St. Louis had established a $50,000 bounty for Kings death.. Ray had seven siblings. He was deemed not fit for military service due to the lack of discipline. But a check by United Press International found him still employed by Kings organization. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison. [2] He earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Juris Doctor from UCLA School of Law. However, immediately following King's killing, U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark announced that the killing was the work of a lone assassin. The George Wallace Democrat of the 1960's aligns with the and is the Republican Party we know today. Ray, whose previous history as a criminal was notable only for its ineptness, fled to Canada after the killing, assumed a new identity complete with credentials, then fled to England where he was arrested trying to fly out to another country. Four days after that, Martin Luther King, Jr. was dead. Jerry Ray told me in the 1970s he had taken pictures of the countryside around the prison and had sent them into James Earl Ray. In order to hang onto your drugs, people had to know that you would kill them without hesitation. Thorpe Menn, then book editor of The Star, sent it to me to review. But within a few days of confessing, Ray began to claim his innocence, arguing that that he had been set up by a man he knew only as Raoul. It was Raoul, Ray said, who had directed him to buy the gun and the binoculars, and rent the room across the street from the motel. His body was cremated and his ashes were flown to the land of his forefathers, viz. James Earl Ray was born in a poor family on March 10, 1928 in Alton, Illinois, USA. In the year 1968, Earl Ray brought a Remington Model 760 Gamemaster .30-06-caliber rifle and a box with 20 cartridges. Who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968? There were no cellblock TVs in Jefferson City in 1963 and 1964. Justice on Fire is OConnors detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. In 1999, James Earl Ray was found innocent of killing Martin Luther King Jr. in the same way O.J. Absence of witnesses to corroborate Raoul's existence, Rental of room 5-B at Bessie Brewer's roominghouse, Irreconcilable conflicts of interest of Foreman and Hanes, Foreman's failure to investigate the case, Coercion by Foreman and the Federal Government, Ray's belief a guilty plea would not preclude a new trial, How to File a FOIA Request for Archival Records. After the King shooting, one person living at the rooming house where the shot was fired described the assassin as heavy set with receding hair. Although Westberg liked Ray, he never brought him around us. But within Martin Luther Kings family, there remains a persistent belief that Ray is innocent, and was set up to take the fall. The bread box would have to pass through the truck tunnel, where all incoming and outgoing vehicles were searched. Judge Brown's lawyer filed an appeal, but the appeal was refused. I first met Benny Edmondson at the Algoa Reformatory in 1956, where he was teaching typing at the school. Warden Swenson of the Jeff City prison immediately issued an edict that convicts could no longer correspond with editors. James Earl Ray. One thing never mentioned about Ray's time in Jefferson City is the fact he had a nearly exemplary conduct record, with the exception of the two escape attempts. Ostensibly only a New York City attorney and businessman, Levison is, in fact, a shrewd, dedicated communist. in the Q2 rifle. Ray died on April 23, 1998 at the Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital due to Hepatitis C at the age of 70. That year, Kings son Dexter Scott King visited Ray in prison to draw attention to the familys push to appeal his case. All the seven prisoners who escaped from the prison were recaptured within two days and sent back to the prison. Benny and I studied programming together, and in 1966 we worked in the programming office together. Shortly after Ray pled guilty to the King murder, Clay Blair's book The Strange Case of James Earl Ray was published. His first prison break happened in 1967, when he escaped the Missouri State Penitentiary on a bread truck before fleeing to Canada. The bullet was imprinted with six lands and six grooves and In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law, and it was first recognized three years later. Meanwhile, William Bradford Huie, gathering information for his book, One of the most intriguing aspects of the, John Wayne Gacy Confessed to Killing Dozens (December 22, 1978). He is a former Shelby County, Tennessee Criminal Court judge and a former arbiter of the arbitration-based reality court show Judge Joe Brown. Jerry began to follow my lead, and that became a source of friction among me, Laster and Westberg. Was James earl ray white? It endangers the premise of the place. In June 1977 Ray escaped from Brushy Mountain (Tennessee) Prison and remained at large for 54 hours before being recaptured in a massive manhunt. In 1977, New Times magazine suggested that Jerry Ray and "Raoul" were one and the same. Dexter and his family too believed that he did not commit the crime and urged the government to grant a new trial to Ray. This doesnt mean that Ray couldnt have received assistance. A consequence of Kings alleged involvement in those riots was that it caught the attention of some powerful politicians. "Somebody's gotta get him," Ray would say, his face drawn with tension, his fists clenched. A member of the Republican Party, White was first elected in District 12 in 2010, which then included Angelina, San Jacinto, Trinity, and Tyler counties.He left office on August 11, 2022. Therefore, ironically, the society that King intended to bear the cost for his civil disobedience was to be ablack society. Doesnt the controversy between Galileo and the Catholic Church prove this? Manhunt in the mountains: James Earl Ray and the Brushy Mountain Prison breakout of 1977, How The Tennessean covered Martin Luther King Jr.'s death in its pages, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. However, the assessment of King got even worse. people lost faith in the political system. The prison officials knew that Ray's escape, and involvement in the King assassination, would forever blemish their professional records as penologists. He was immediately extradited to USA. The box was picked up, and Ray successfully escaped on April 23, 1967. Indeed, a former agent from the FBIs field office in Atlanta said the bureaus tracking of King was second only to the way they went after Jimmy Hoffa. In 1975, a group of former FBI agents called on Congress to investigate this harrassment. You would also know who had just gotten a shipment of dope. He was transferred to the maximum security facility called Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville which had hospital facilities. The first time I saw James Earl Ray, he had just arrived at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Brown apparently raised his voice and interrupted a magistrate judge while representing a woman seeking child support in Shelby County Juvenile Court. Using their logic, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. should be attributed to a Democratic U.S. The ballistics tests proved to be inconclusive and Ray remained in prison. I've seen it happen again and again. James Earl Ray, an escaped American convict, is arrested in London, England, and charged with the assassination of African American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. On April 4,. He simply hounded you (not that Ray was a coward, or afraid to fight, but he wasn't the type to start the fight). The manhunt was the most expensive and biggest for the FBI (at that time). In the 1950s, Ray became notorious as a petty criminal, and by the end of the decade he was a failed pornographer who had served some jail time and successfully completed a prison escape. As with most cases, the answer is yes. King said he liked the idea. Each year, the third Monday in January is a celebration to commemoratethe life and accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr., the tireless civil rights activist who was gunned down in Memphis, TN, in 1968. I know they interviewed some inmates, but they did not interview the people most likely to know something (and also the most likely to tell them to go to hell). Warren Mass has served The New American since its launch in 1985 in several capacities, including marketing, editing, and writing. Each year, the third Monday in January is a celebration to commemorate the life and accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr., the tireless civil rights activist who was gunned down in Memphis, TN, in 1968. He was a fervent supporter of George Wallace, the Alabama governor who notoriously gave the 1963 "Segregation Now, Segregation Forever," and he was passionate about emigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to be a part of the white minority in power there at the time. Kershaw and Ray approached the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations and got approval for the conduct of ballistics tests. James Earl Ray was white. Even after Ray died in 1998 from complications caused by hepatitis C, the family continued to assert there was, as Coretta King said in 1999, overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.. The cartridge case (Q3) found in the Q2 rifle had been fired When Ray pled guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in prison, his role in the assassination was a matter of serious dispute. Weeks before Kennedy was killed an informant quoted an NSRP member saying it would happen, and providing details that coincide with what did happen in Dallas. Long before Ray was captured-before anyone could have known the details of what had happened in Memphis--the U.S. government had committed itself to the lone assassin theory; to such an extent, I was told later by white extremists in the South, that they were surprised by the government's failure to question even such notable racists as J.B. Stoner or leading figures in the Ku Klux Klan. For example, if you worked in the laundry you could charge people to starch and iron their clothes. Those of us who had been involved in escape attempts did not consider Ray a joke. Each day the prison's bakery would bake enough bread to feed not only the 2,300 men at Jeff City, but also the convicts housed at Church Farm and Renz Farm (two satellite honor farms, where most of the prison's food was grown and raised). The Ray brothers, however, are too unsophisticated to have pulled off the assassination of King, and Ray's subsequent escape to England. George M. Camp, head of the Missouri prison system, wrote to Cleaver, saying: My findings are that there is nothing whatsoever to substantiate any conclusion that James Earl Ray financed either his escape or his activities after his escape through any means while he was an inmate at the Missouri State Penitentiary. The verdict did convict Loyd Jowers and "other parties known and unknown" for their parts in the vast US government conspiracy to assassinate King. But they are unanimous on one key point: James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King.. Further information about this communist was found in the book, Its Very Simple: The True Story of Civil Rights, by the late author and speaker Alan Stang. Ray spent the rest of his life in prison and suffered with kidney and liver ailments in his last years. The Q2 rifle-had general class characteristics of six lands and He filmed local prostitutes during their work hours in pursuit of his cinematographic dream, but he eventually left Puerto Vallarta after being jilted by his girlfriend who, coincidentally, was also one of the prostitutes he filmed. While some speculate this was an attempt to hide his identity before killing King, others point to Ray's lack of care about disguising himself in other elements of the assassination plot. Rays father forged a check and hence had to shift his family to Ewing, Missouri to escape enforcement authorities. King family never believed that Ray was the actual murderer. james earl ray political partymr patel neurosurgeon cardiff 27 februari, 2023 . Charley McCracken, a friend from the St. Louis City Jail, pointed him out to me in H-Hall, where the newly arriving convicts at the maximum-security penitentiary were oriented. His prints were found all over the hotel room in Memphis where the shots that killed King were thought to have come from, and they covered the murder weapon -a Remington hunting rifle he purchased in Birmingham, AL. That investigation declassified scores of memos detailing the bureaus abusive behavior, but did not reveal any evidence that the FBI had formally plotted his death. Findings on Martin Luther King, Jr. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband..