![]() ![]() Although he has aired his versions of events on shows such as “60 Minutes” and “Geraldo,” he has never been effectively grilled in a courtroom setting. ![]() Times reporter Earl Caldwell, who never previously testified about his observations of a coverall-wearing man in the vacant lot, though he offered them in several articles at the time.Įqually interesting is the testimony from Ray. King, as well as the testimony from several credible sources observing an individual in the vacant lot at the time of the shooting, were all issues raised during the 1978 investigation.īut it’s interesting to hear under examination the testimony of former N.Y. The failure of ballistics evidence to link Ray’s rifle to the shot that killed Dr. (These accusations have been steadfastly denied by those close to the investigation.) These highlighted errors seem to provide slivers of reasonable doubt, as does the introduction of evidence supporting governmental intervention. House Committee on the assassination, but unlike that forum, here they are cross-examined Pepper is a skilled fact-elicitor who gets many of those testifying to admit deficiencies in either their investigations or observations. Many of the witnesses duplicate their testimony given before the 1978 U.S. “Guilt” purports to answer the questions: Was Ray a patsy, duped and framed by the government, and did the fatal shot come from a vacant lot adjacent to Ray’s hotel rather than the second-floor bathroom window, as alleged? Dave Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of King, said that. ![]() “We were living in the period of assassinations,” Young said.Ĭonspiracies have long gripped the American imagination, from JFK’s assassination in 1963 to Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster’s suicide in 1993 to Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich’s slaying in 2016. Kennedy and Malcolm X and just months before the slaying of Robert F. “I would not accept the fact that James Earl Ray pulled the trigger, and that’s all that matters,” said Young, who noted that King’s death came after the killings of John F. ambassador and Atlanta mayor who was at the Lorraine Motel with King when he was shot there, agrees. King should be made available for history’s sake.”Īndrew Young, the former U.N. “I don’t know what happened, but the truth of what happened to Dr. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a 78-year-old civil rights icon. “I think there was a major conspiracy to remove Doctor King from the American scene,” said Rep. And their view of the case is shared by other respected black leaders. King’s two other surviving children, Dexter, 57, and Martin III, 60, fully agree that Ray was innocent. No vast sums of money were awarded (the Kings sought only $100), and Ray was not exonerated. Ray was set up to take the blame.”īut nothing changed afterward. “There is abundant evidence,” Coretta King said after the verdict, “of a major, high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband.” The jury found the mafia and various government agencies “were deeply involved in the assassination. The full transcript of the trial remains posted on the King Center’s website. Her family filed a civil suit in 1999 to force more information into the public eye, and a Memphis jury ruled that the local, state and federal governments were liable for King’s death. Until her own death in 2006, Coretta Scott King, who endured the FBI’s campaign to discredit her husband, was open in her belief that a conspiracy led to the assassination. “It pains my heart,” said Bernice King, 55, the youngest of Martin Luther King’s four children and the executive director of the King Center in Atlanta, “that James Earl Ray had to spend his life in prison paying for things he didn’t do.” Edgar Hoover - laid the groundwork for their belief that he was the target of a plot. But they are unanimous on one key point: James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King.įor the King family and others in the civil rights movement, the FBI’s obsession with King in the years leading up to his slaying in Memphis on Appervasive surveillance, a malicious disinformation campaign and open denunciations by FBI director J. was shot dead by an assassin at age 39, his children have worked tirelessly to preserve his legacy, sometimes with sharply different views on how best to do that. In the five decades since Martin Luther King Jr. ![]()
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