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C H A P T E R  9

THE TRIAL

We were indeed first out on November 15, 1999.  The Judge agreed to let one media pool camera in the courtroom along with our own video camera.  The media camera, like the media itself, would come and go (they were nearly always absent, with the notable and sole exception of local anchorman Wendell Stacy who almost lost his job at that time over his insistence that he attend every day. – so important did he regard the case.  He was eventually fired and by August 2000 was preparing a wrongful dismissal action.)

            Jury selection began that morning in the small Division IV courtroom.  We discussed moving the case to a larger courtroom, but because of the Judge’s health needs, it was agreed that the trial would remain in his usual room.  The Judge disclosed to both sides that he had been a member of the group, which had carried Dr. King’s casket from the funeral home in Memphis after the assassination.  If, therefore, either side wanted him to withdraw, he said he would, we certainly had no reason to do so although the defense might have felt differently.  Defense attorney Garrison also had no objection.  The Judge stayed on the case.

            After almost despairing about finding an acceptable local counsel, I finally was able to obtain the services of Juliet Hill-Akines, a young black lawyer, who had been admitted to the Bar in 1994.  Before Juliet agreed, I discussed the possibility with a large number of local lawyers, all of whom turned down the opportunity – usually because they were advised that it would have a negative impact on their careers.  Rather than expressing such apprehensions, Juliet took this as a challenge and an honor to be representing the family of Martin Luther King Jr.  I admired her decision and was grateful for her independence and courage.

            Judge James Swearingen barred the media from the jury selection process.  Due to the sensitivity of the case, he was anxious to protect the identities of the individual jury members and, to the extent possible, ensure their privacy.  He would issue a further order barring any cameras from being pointed at the jury at any time during the trial and would even hold one spectator in contempt and impose a fine for violating the order.

            An attorney for The Memphis Commercial Appeal, promptly made a motion requesting the Judge to allow the media to be present during the jury selection process.  Relying upon the rules of court, which gave him discretion, the Judge denied the motion.  They appealed, and the Judge’s ruling was eventually overturned, but it was moot since we had selected the jury by the end of the first day.

Since there were five plaintiffs to one defendant, we had the right exercise many more exclusions.  We used them all since the jury pool – in excess of forty – contained a large number of people who were employed by law enforcement agencies and security firms.  After the voir dire, I consulted with Juliet in respect of each candidate.  Almost routinely, we agreed to exclude potential jurors from those areas of work.

At the end of that first day, a jury of eight men and four women, six of them black and six white, were chosen.  The trial would start at 10:00 AM the next morning, and after opening arguments, we would begin the plaintiff’s case with Coretta Scott King as our first witness.  On behalf of the plaintiffs, I had drawn together an intelligent, enthusiastic volunteer team.  Professor Phillip Melanson and the Reverend Mike Clark agreed to deal with all media queries since both sides had agreed that we would follow the English practice that counsel would not give media interviews during the trial.  The decision was taken to avoid the inevitable media spins and in an effort to let the evidence spear for itself.  Risako Kobayashi, my assistant, would co-ordinate the production of evidence and the synchronisation of materials and exhibits to witness testimony.  Attorney Ray Kohlman, from Massachusetts, was in charge of court logistics, special research, and last minute investigation.  My sons Sean and Liam, over from England, would respectively organize for the scheduled arrival and departure of the nearly 70 witnesses and film the proceedings. 

Security was handled by Cliff Dates (CDA Security), who organised security details for the members of the King family, who, in turns, were present in the courtroom throughout the trial.

The trial began on 16 November.  Opening arguments were finished by the lunch break, and that afternoon we called Coretta Scott King as our first witness.  Court TV was there to cover her testimony and provide the pool camera.  They would pull out and be absent for most of the trial, returning for celebrity witnesses but missing most of the material evidence as did the rest of the media.  In copycat fashion, as though programmed by the same puppeteer, local regional and national media were absent for most of the trial.

The plaintiff’s case was divided into nine areas of evidence:

·        The background to the assassination

·        The local conspiracy

·        The crime scene

·        The murder weapon

·        Raul

·        The broader conspiracy

·        The cover up – its scope and activities

·        The defendant’s prior admissions

·        Damages

Though many of the witnesses testified to facts with which the reader is already familiar since they emerged in the investigation, discussed earlier, I will summarise the details of the testimony because, of course, they achieve a new status as evidence given under oath in a court of law.

The Background

Mrs. King led off the group of witnesses, whose testimony provided evidence about the historical background and events leading up to the assassination.  They offered various perspectives and facts and described the official hostility to Dr. King’s vigorous opposition to the war in Vietnam and his commitment to lead a massive contingent of poor and alienated people to Washington, where they would take up a tent city residence in the Capitol and lobby the Congress for long overdue social legislation.  Dr. King’s support of the sanitation workers strike was described by Reverend James Lawson as was the eruption of violence in the march of March 28, which Dr. Coby Smith of the Invaders testified, appeared, to be the work of out of state provocateurs.

The role of the Invaders and their sudden departure from the Lorraine Motel was testified, to in detail, by Dr. Smith and Charles Cabbage.  Smith said that the Invaders decided to work with Dr. King in planning of the April march because they had been wrongly blamed for the violence, which had broken up the previous march.  He insisted that they had conducted their own investigation and became convinced that the disruption was caused by out of state provocateurs.  He said they had reached a basic agreement with SCLC and Dr. King, and in order to facilitate their participation in the planning process, the group had moved into two rooms in the Lorraine Motel.  Their rooms were also on the balcony level some doors south of Dr. King’s room, and he said that they had participated in various planning sessions and meetings with Dr. King following his arrival on April 3.

Cabbage described the Invaders’ sudden departure within 11 minutes of the shooting.  He said that a member of the Lorraine staff knocked on their door.  It must have been after 5:30 PM.  They were told that they had to leave because SCLC was no longer going to pay their bill.  This appeared strange because the bill for that evening’s lodging would have clearly been paid, or obligated to be paid, much earlier in the day.  Though it made no sense from any standpoint, he said they accepted the order, which he said they were told came from Reverend Jesse Jackson, and quickly packed up their things and began to leave around 10 minutes before 6:00 PM.  The timing of their departure was later confirmed by the testimony of MPD Captain Willie B Richmond (retired), who noted the event in his surveillance report developed from his observation post inside and at the rear of the fire station.  Captain Richmond also testified that around the same time, he observed Reverend Kyles knock on Dr. King’s door.  Richmond said Dr. King opened the door, spoke with him briefly, and then closed the door.  Kyles then walked some distance north on the balcony and stood at the railing.  This account, of course, contradicted the story of Kyles has told for nearly 32 years, in which he said he was in Dr. King’s room for about 30 - 45 minutes before the shooting.

At one point, Cabbage said when they were being asked to leave, he observed the Reverend Jesse Jackson standing on the ground near the swimming pool, which was opposite the balcony rooms occupied by Dr. King and the Invaders.  He said that Reverend Jackson kept glancing impatiently at his watch.  (It must be said, however, that the group was running late for their scheduled dinner at Reverend Kyles’s home.)

It is more difficult to understand why Jackson would have caused them to be summarily evicted (if he indeed did so) at that hour so near the time of the killing.  Reverend Jackson has reportedly stated subseqnetly that he didn’t even remember that the Invaders were staying at the Lorraine.

Cabbage never understood it.  In his testimony, he also confirmed that the Invaders occupying the Lorraine rooms were quite heavily armed as was their usual custom because of the hostility of the MPD.

The Local Conspiracy

The involvement of produce dealer Frank Liberto in setting up the local conspiracy was conclusively established by a string of witnesses.

For the first time in the 22 years that I have known him, John McFerren took the stand and testified under oath about hearing, within an hour and a quarter of the killing, Liberto screaming into the telephone to “Shoot the son of a bitch on the balcony,” subsequently telling the caller to go to New Orleans to collect money from his brother.  John, courageous and forthright, began his testimony by telling the jury about the long history of his family’s ascent from slavery and his civil rights activity and harassment in Fayette County, one of Tennessee’s most racist areas.  As he described the events that took place within an hour and a quarter of the assassination, he repeated the same story under oath that he first put before the FBI/MPD team who interviewed him for hours at the Peabody Hotel on the Sunday evening following the crime.  The federal and local officials dismissed his account in 1968 as did the Congressional Committee 10 years later.  This time it would be different.  A jury of 12 of John McFerren’s fellow citizens listened attentively.  Members of my team observing said the jury was clearly moved.

The role of Frank Liberto was further confirmed by the testimony of Nathan Whitlock and his mother LaVada Addison who provided details about the admissions Liberto made to them separately in 1978, leaving them in no doubt that he had organised the Memphis hit on Dr. King, that there would be no security, the police were co-operating, and that a patsy was in place.  In subsequent testimony, Dexter King and Ambassador Young testified that in their separate interviews with Loyd Jowers, he had told them that sometime in March after Dr. King’s first speech on behalf of the sanitation workers on March 18,  he was approached by Liberto, to whom he said he owed a “big favour.”  He basically confirmed the story he had on the Prime Time live program without any mention of Frank Holt being involved.  Liberto told him that he would be given $100,000 in a vegetable delivery box and that he was to turn this money over to a man named Raul who would visit him sometime afterward.  He told Dexter and Andy (and me, for as noted earlier, I attended the session with Dexter) that Liberto had told him no police would be around and that they had a patsy.  In fact, he said, it all happened in exactly that way.  Planning sessions for the assassination were held in his grill involving lieutenant John Barger (whom he had known from his own early days on the police force) Marrell McCollough, a black undercover officer introduced to him by Barger, as his new partner, MPD sharpshooter lieutenant Earl Clark (who was a hunting companion of Jowers), a senior MPD inspector, and finally, a fifth officer who he did not know.  He said he remembered that there were five because he had to pull up a chair to the four-seater booth.  Jowers said that if James was at all involved, he was an unknowing patsy.

Hence, Jowers also confirmed the involvement of Frank Liberto.  Along with the testimonial evidence of McFerren, Whitlock, and Addision and the deceased Art Baldwin’s earlier disclosures, Frank Liberto’s primary role in the assassination appeared to be clear.

A steady succession of witnesses provided details of the removal of all police from the area of the crime, the failure to put the usual security unit in place as well as the removal of other individuals, whose presence in the crime scene area constituted a security risk to the assassination mission.

Fireman Floyd Newsom and Norvell Wallace, the only two black firemen at Fire Station No. 2, testified that less than 24 hours before the assassination, they were ordered not to report to their regular Fire Station No. 2 post on the periphery of the Lorraine Motel but to stations in other parts of the city.  Newsom and Wallace said that their transfers left their base station short handed while they were surplus to requirements at the stations where they were sent.  The transfers made no sense, and they were given no satisfactory explanation.  Newsom said eventually one of his superiors told him that the police department had requested his transfer.

Detective Ed Redditt, a community relations officer assigned to intelligence duty as Willie Richmond’s partner on the surveillance detail at the rear of the fire station, testified that he was picked up by Lieutenant Eli Arkin, about an hour before the assassination and taken, first, to Central Police Headquarters, where he was ordered, by Director Frank Holloman, to go home because of an alleged threat on his life.  His protests were ignored.  As he sat, parked with Arkin in front of his house, the news of the assassination came over the car radio.  He never again heard about the alleged threat, which apparently was a mistake of some sort.  He never received a satisfactory explanation, but it was clear that his primary community relations police duties had caused him to become closely involved with the community, not MPD intelligence.  It was understandable that he would not be trusted to be allowed to stay in the crime scene area if dirty work was a foot.

Memphis Police Department homicide detective Captain Jerry Williams (retired) testified that on Dr. King’s previous visits to Memphis, he had been given the responsibility of organising and co-ordinating a security unit of all black homicide detectives who would provide protection for Dr. King while he was in the city.  They would ordinarily remain with him throughout his visit even securing the hotel – usually the Rivermont or the Admiral Benbow – where he stayed.  Captain Williams testified that on Dr. King’s last, and fatal, visit to Memphis, however, he was not asked to form that security unit.  It was not in place.  He always wondered why but never received a satisfactory explanation.  At one point, he was told that Dr. King’s group did not want them around.  There was no indication, of any kind, from any SCLC source that this was true.  In fact, Reverend Lawson remembered being impressed with the group on a previous visit and their verbal promise to him that as long as they were in place, no harm would come to Dr. King.

On April 3 and 4, 1968, they were not in place.

Testifying out of order, because he had been hospitalised, Invader Big John Smith said that though there was a small police presence at the motel, earlier on the afternoon of April 4, he noticed that it had completely disappeared within a half-hour of the assassination.

University of Massachusetts Professor Phillip Melanson took the stand to testify about the removal of the emergency forces TACT 10 Unit from the Lorraine Motel on April 4.  Only, he and I had previously separately interviewed inspector Sam Evans, who was in charge of those units, and since I could not readily testify, Phil took the stand.  He said that Evans admitted pulling back the TACT 10 Unit, which had been based at the Lorraine Motel, to the periphery of the fire station.  Evans claimed that the decision was taken pursuant to a request from someone in Dr. King’s group.  When pressed as to who actually made the request, he said that it was Reverend Kyles.  The fact, that Kyles had nothing to do with SCLC and no authority to request any such thing, seemed to have eluded Evans.

It would be hard to imagine, on that April 4, a more complete stripping away of not only the available security personnel from Dr. King but also a more thorough removal of individuals who were not deemed completely trustworthy or controllable.  And it was all set in motion twenty four hours before the assassination.

Stories had always been around about Dr. King’s room having been changed.  Former New York City police detective Leon Cohen testified that early in the morning on the day, following the assassination, he learned from Walter Bailey, the manager of the Lorraine Motel, that Dr. King was meant to be in a secluded more secure courtyard room, but that on the evening prior to his arrival, someone from SCLC’s office in Atlanta called to instruct that Dr. King be given a balcony room overlooking the swimming pool.  Cohen, who moved to Memphis and worked as a private investigator after retiring from the New York City Police Department, testified that Bailey maintained that he tried to talk the person who Bailey said was a man who he knew out of this decision, but the caller was adamant.  Dr. King was moved.

At time of the trial, Taxi driver James Millner had known Loyd Jowers for over twenty five years.  He testified that, in fact, in the early to mid 1970’s, Jowers had basically told him the same story that he revealed in 1993 about how he became involved with the assassination, how it was planned and carried out, and who (Lieutenant Earl Clark) pulled the trigger.

Another driver – J. J. Isabel – testified that on the occasion of St. Patrick’s day 1979 or 1980 – he and Jowers drove two chartered busses to Cleveland taking a Memphis group to a bowling tournament.  They shared an hotel room, and after a meal and some drinking on the first evening, when they returned to their room, Isabel said he asked Jowers, “Loyd, did you drop the hammer on Martin Luther King?”  He said that Jowers kind of hesitated for a moment or two and then replied, “You may think that you know what I did, but I know what I did, but I will never tell it in court.”

The value of Millner and Isabel’s separate testimony is, of course, that like Whitlock/Addision and McFerren, they provide corroboration at least of a local conspiracy, as well as aspects of Jowers’ story, long before his involvement become an issue.

One of Jowers’s former waitresses Bobbi Balfour testified that on the day of the killing, Jowers told her not to carry food up to a tenant in the rooming house, Grace Walden Stephens, who was ill.  She said that it had always been her regular practice with Loyd’s approval to bring food up to Charlie Stephens’ common law wife during her illness, but on that day, Loyd explicitly told her to stay away from the second floor.

Finally, Olivia Catling, who lived and still lives, on Mulberry Street, midway between Huling and Vance about 200 yards from the Lorraine, testified that she was at home preparing dinner for her family when she heard the shot.  She knew that Dr. King was staying at the Lorraine Motel, and she feared the worst.  As quickly as she could, she collected her young children and ran out of her house down Mulberry Street toward the Lorraine.  By the time she reached the Northwest corner of Huling and Mulberry (see Fig. #   ), the police had already barricaded Mulberry Street with a police car, so she and the children had to stand on the corner.  She testified that shortly after she arrived on the corner, she saw a white man running from an alley, half way up Huling, which ran to a building connected with the rooming house.  He arrived at a car parked on the south side of Huling and facing east, got in, and drove quickly away turning left on to Mulberry and going right past her as well as the MPD officers opposite her who were manning the barricade.  She was surprised that the police paid no attention to him and did not try to prevent him from leaving the area.

Shortly afterward, she testified that she saw a fireman – who she believed must have walked down from the fire station – standing near the wall below the brushes, yelling at the police on the street that the shot came from a clump of bushes apparently just above the area where he was standing.  She said that the police ignored him.

Olivia Catling testified that she had never been interviewed by any law enforcement officials.  She said that there was no house to house investigation.  Though she has lived so close to the scene of the crime for 32 years since the assassination, no one had knocked on her door until I did so in November of 1999.  She seemed relieved to finally get it off her chest.  She said that she had been so burdened all of these years because she knew that an innocent man was in prison.  When I met her, of course, James had died, but at least this wiry, clear, and tough-minded Memphian could take satisfaction that at last her story would be heard.

Memphis Police Department homicide detective Captain Tommy Smith (retired) testified that very soon after the assassination, he interviewed rooming house tenant Charles Quitman Stephens, the state’s chief witness against James Earl Ray, and found him intoxicated and hardly able to stand up.  It must be remembered that it was on the strength of Stephens’s affidavit of identification that James was extradited from England.  In actual fact, Captain Smith said he was not in condition to identify anyone.

The state had always maintained that after firing from the bathroom window, James stopped in his room to pick up his bundle of belongings and fled carrying the rifle and the bundle, eventually exiting the front door of the rooming house, dropping the bundle in the doorway of Guy Canipe’s shop.  Then, so the official story goes James got into a white Mustang parked just slightly south of Canipe’s store and drove away.  Stephens was supposed to have caught a glimpse of the profile of the fleeing man.

Charles Hurley testified that while waiting to pick up his wife from work, he parked behind that white Mustang about an hour and a quarter before the shooting.  He said that a man was sitting in it and was still there when they drove away.  Most importantly, however, he again confirmed, though now under oath, that the white Mustang parked just south of Canipe’s store, in which James is supposed to have driven away, had Arkansas license plates.  ( white background, red letters ) James’s Mustang, of course, had Alabama ( red background white number ) plates.

We read into the record and introduced into evidence FBI 302 statements taken from two witnesses who left Jim’s Grill about 20 minutes before the killing.  Ray Hendrix and Bill Reed said that late on the afternoon of April 4, they walked north on South Main Street after having looked at the white Mustang parked directly in front of Jim’s Grill.  The car interested them so they took particular note of it.  They both confirmed, in separate statements, that as they were about to cross Vance – two blocks north of Jim’s Grill – the Mustang turned the corner directly in front of them.  The male driver was alone.  This would have been about 5:45 PM.  This statement was suppressed at the time and never turned over to the defence or revealed to the guilty plea jury a year later.

The Crime Scene

Olivia Catling was the latest observer to give evidence about the bushes behind the rooming house being the place, from where the fatal shot was fired.  There was abundant, current, and historical eyewitness testimony, which clearly established this fact and which was introduced into evidence..

Solomon Jones, Dr. King’s driver in Memphis, told a number of people at the scene shortly after the shooting, Wayne Chastain being one, that he saw a figure in the bushes come down over the wall.  The Reverend James Orange could not appear due to a death in his family, but his sworn statement was read into the record.  He said that as turned around from a crouching position in the Lorraine parking area, immediately after the shot, he saw what he thought was smoke (we have since learned that although it had the appearance of smoke, it would have been sonic dust rising from the bushes caused by the firing of the high powered rifle in the heavily vegetated area.)  He said no law enforcement or investigative person had ever taken a statement from him.

Memphis Police Department dog officer J. B. Hodges testified that he arrived on the scene within minutes after the shooting.  With the aid of a metal barrel to stand on, he climbed up over the wall and entered the brush area.  He described the bushes as being very thick from the edge of the wall for some distance toward the back of Jim’s Grill and the rooming house.  He said he had to fight his way through the formidable thicket, but that eventually he arrived at a clearing and went to the alleyway, which ran between the two wings of the rooming house.  No too far into the alley, he said (that he found a pair of footprints heading in the direction of the rooming house.  At the end of the alley, there was a door leading to the basement, which ran underneath the entire building.  It had rained the night before, and the ground cover was wet, but there was no growth in the alley, and the mud revealed an apparently freshly made large footprints – sized 13 –      13 ½.  Hodges guarded his discovery until a cast was made.  Those footprints has never been identified or explained.

As a part of their testimonies related to their questioning of Loyd Jowers, Dexter King and Andrew Young separately recounted how he admitted taking the rifle from the assassin whom he said had in fact fired from the bushes.  An earlier deposition of Jowers’ former waitress/lover Betty Spates was read into the record, in which she claimed having seen him carrying a rifle, running from the bushes in through the back door of his kitchen.  In this last instance, the defense raised the question of her credibility noting that she had altered her story when questioned by official investigators.  As noted elsewhere, this was true, but she advised me that it was the result of their harassment.  The last statement, she gave to me under oath, was consistent with what she originally told me in 1992.  (Television trial producer Jack Saltman, recently confirmed to me that Spates had independently told him the same story also in 1992.)  She had indeed seen Loyd, white as a sheet, with muddy knees, running from the bushes with the rifle.  For years, she believed that he did it, having tried back in 1969 to get the story out.  She had no idea that he had taken the gun from the actual shooter.

Former New York Times reporter Earl Caldwell could not break prior engagements in order to testify, but the defense agreed to allow in a video of his testimony at the television trial on the condition that the cross-examination conducted by former U.S. Attorney Hickman Ewing was also played.  We agreed, and the jury saw and heard Caldwell testify that he was sent to Memphis by the Times on April 3 with the instructions from national editor Claude Sitton to “... nail Dr. King.”  He said he was in his ground floor motel room when he heard the shot, which he said, sounded like a bomb blast.  In his shorts, he said he ran outside of his room and began to stare at the bushes, from where he instinctively thought the shot must have come.  He is certain that he saw an individual crouching in the bushes, which he said, were quite thick and tall.  He vividly described the person’s posture even in cross-examination coming down from the stand to demonstrate how the person was squatting and rising.

Probably, the most powerful single piece of evidence (although the cumulative weight is overwhelming), that the assassin fired from the bushes, was provided by the testimony of Louie Ward, who recounted the story of fellow driver who he always knew as “Buddy” but came incorrectly to believe was Paul Butler, who, when in the process of picking up a passenger at the Lorraine just before 6:00 PM, happened to see, immediately after the shot, a man come down over the wall, run north on Mulberry Street, and get into a Memphis Police Department traffic car, which had been parked at the corner of Mulberry and Huling and which then speeded away.  Louie Ward testified that he later learned that the taxi driver had been killed that night, allegedly having been thrown out of a speeding car on Route 55, the other side of the Memphis Arkansas Bridge.  He heard that the body was found the next morning.  Attorney Raymond Kohlman, to whom I had assigned the research task, testified that the 1967 Memphis Polk Telephone Directory showed Paul and Betty Butler living at 2639        (Apt  # P1) Central Avenue, Memphis.  His employment was listed as a taxi driver for the Yellow Cab Company, and his wife was a manager of a local Gridiron restaurant.  In the 1968 directory, Betty Butler was listed at the “widow of Paul.”  Attorney Kohlman went on to state that there appeared to be no record of a death certificate for Paul Butler.  Subsequent to the trial, we would learn that “Buddy” was not Paul Butler but another driver who regularly made the airport runs in Car 58.

Ernestine Campbell, who a minute or two before the shooting had driven up Butler, took a right turn on to Mulberry, and then stopped in front of the Lorraine driving way very shortly after Dr. King had been shot, told me, for the first time, (as I pressed her to remember everything she saw.) that as she started to pull away, on her right – the passenger side – mirror she saw the back of a Yellow taxi cab in the Lorraine driveway.  I believed that in that fleeting glimpse, she had seen taxi cab 58, Buddy’s car.  We urgently tried to get her to testify, and whilst at first she was willing, eventually she ran from the idea, even frustrating our efforts to serve her with a subpoena. 

The Murder Weapon

Independent testimony established that the rifle in evidence was not the murder weapon.

Criminal Court Judge Joe Brown took the stand under subpoena to share his particular knowledge of the rifle evidence.  I qualified Judge Brown as a ballistics expert for the purpose of his testimony about the weapon, and as he moved through his testimony, his expertise was never in doubt.  He began by telling the jury that the scope on the rifle had never been sighted, in which meant that one could not fire it accurately when lining up a target through the scope.  We introduced an April 5, 1968 FBI report, which stated that the rifle, on the day after the killing, had failed an accuracy test – firing 3 ½ inches to the left and 4 inches below the target.  In addition, he said that the metallurgical composition of the death slug lead was different from the composition of the other bullets found in the evidence bundle in front of Canipes while the composition of each of the other bullets matched.  He had no doubt the rifle in evidence was not the murder weapon.

In a startling development, Bill Hamblin, deceased taxi driver McCraw’s house mate/roommate for 15 years, took the stand and testified that for those 15 years, spanning the 1970’s and early 1980’s, McCraw had consistently told him (but only when he was intoxicated) that on the morning after the shooting (April 5) Jowers not only showed him the rifle that killed Martin Luther King but told him to get rid of it.  McCraw said that he drove on to the Memphis Arkansas Bridge (Route 55) and threw it off.  In his deposition taken years earlier, McCraw had only gone so far as to say that Jowers had shown him the actual murder weapon on the morning after the killing.  If we are to believe that testimony and there is no reason for Hamblin to lie, then the actual murder weapon of Dr. King has been enmired in the silt of the Mississippi river for 32 years.  Hamblin testified that McCraw would never discuss the subject when he was sober and that when he did talk about it, the details were always the same.

Hamblin also testified that on one occasion when he and McCraw were renting rooms in a house on Peabody, owned by an FBI agent, named Purdy, he told the FBI landlord that he should talk to McCraw sometime because he had information about the killing of Dr. King.  Promptly, after that conversation, he said, they were given their eviction notices, and during the 30-day grace period, the MPD harassed them on a number of occasions.

At the time of the assassination, Bill Hamblin was working in Memphis barbershop – the Cherokee barbershop and his boss was Vernon Jones.  Mr. Jones just happened to have as a client the same FBI agent Purdy who some years later would become Hamblin’s and McCraw’s landlord.  The agent had apparently been having his hair cut by Mr. Jones for upwards of 10 years, and so they had a long-standing relationship.  Hamblin testified that the agent came in for a haircut within two weeks after the killing, and after he had finished, as the agent was about to leave, Hamblin’s boss pulled him aside and within earshot asked him who killed King.  Hamblin said he did not hear the soft-spoken reply, but he asked his boss about the answer and was told “he said the C.I.A. ordered it done.

Birmingham, Alabama Probate Court Judge Arthur Hanes Jr., who, along with his father, was James Earl Ray’s first lawyer, testified that in his preparation for trial, that they had no doubt would result in James Earl Ray’s acquittal, he had interviewed Guy Canipe in the doorway of whose store the bundle of evidence including the evidence rifle was dropped.  He said that Canipe told him in no uncertain terms that the rifle was dropped about 10 minutes before the shot was fired so it obviously could not have been the murder weapon.  Judge Hanes testified that Canipe was prepared to testify for the defense at the trial.

Washington D.C. Attorney, James Lesar, who specializes in Freedom of Information Act legal actions, testified that in one such application, he obtained an FBI report concerning tests that they had conducted on the bathroom window sill or, more specifically, on a dent in the window sill which they suspected might haven been caused by the assassin resting or pressing the barrel on the old wooden sill.  Though a prosecutor had alleged to the contrary before the guilty plea jury on March 10, 1969, we introduced into evidence the actual report issued by the laboratory in April, 1968.  It stated that it would not be possible to tie the dent in the windowsill to the rifle in evidence.

In their testimonies, Dexter King and Andy Young said that the defendant himself had made it clear that the murder weapon was not the rifle in evidence, but the one he took from the shooter.  Jowers also told them that he had tried to flush the spent shell down his toilet, but it stopped it up, and he had to remove it.  The Mississippi River became its final resting place as well.

We explored the possibility of recovering the rifle form the river but gave up the idea when we learned that a train locomotive, tanks, barges, and cars had been lost in the enormous deep silt bottom, which was stirred continually by a strong current.  It was frustrating to have to accept that even though we knew the location of the murder weapon, we would not be able to recover it.  This disappointment, however, was alleviated by the realization that we had demonstrated through clear and convincing evidence that the rifle purchased by James, as instructed, was not the murder weapon.

Raul

Memphis private investigator John Billings provided the background information of how a photograph of the man we had come to know as Raul was obtained.  Ironically he said, a Memphis Police Department officer, who had been assigned to the District Attorney General’s task force, had obtained the Immigration and Naturalization Service photograph and turned it over to them in an effort to convince them that he was willing to cooperate and work with them in the search for the truth.  Eventually, they learned that nothing could have been further from his true intentions, but, in the short run at least, it gave them the photograph taken in 1961 when he emigrated to the United States from Portugal.  Billing’s colleague Ken Herman organized a spread of six photographs for exhibiting to witnesses.  Billings testified that, in his presence, when he placed the spread in front of him, James Earl Ray readily identified the man in the spread (who we knew to be Raul) as being the person who had controlled his movements and given him money and who he had come to know as Raul.  As mentioned earlier, James had seen the same photograph in 1978 and, at that time, identified it (with some media coverage), so this was not a surprising revelation.

Glenda Grabow had earlier, consistently identified the man in the photograph as the person, who she had known in Houston from 1963 onward and who, in or around 1974, in a fit of rage implicated himself in the assassination of Dr. King just before he raped her.

At the time of the trial, Glenda had injured ribs in an automobile accident and was suffering from internal bleeding preventing her from testifying.  Husband Roy testified instead and confirmed that he had been present when she gave her earlier affidavit statements.  Thus, the jury had access to Glenda’s story including the details about her relationship with Percy Foreman, his admission that James Earl Ray, though innocent, had to be sacrificed and the fact that Foreman knew – or so he said – Raul.

After Roy confirmed its authenticity, I introduced into evidence a telephone bill for their home telephone which showed on April 20, 1996, a six minute telephone call to Raul’s home telephone number.  Under questioning, Roy stated that Glenda would not have stayed on the phone for six minutes with this person unless he was known to her.  It is hard to imagine anyone keeping a conversation going with a complete stranger for that period of time.

Glenda had some time previously provided me with notes of her conversation with Raul, written, however, after the conversation.  Whilst I believe them to be an accurate account of the conversation, I did not think that in Glenda’s absence, we should attempt to enter them into evidence.  It is useful however to see them in the context of Raul’s denials about even knowing Glenda.  The conversation went as follows:

QUOTE

Glenda: Raul

Raul:                 Yes

Glenda: This is Glenda Grabow

Raul:                 Olinda

Glenda: Yes.  I was just calling to tell you I was supposed to come to New York.

Raul:                 Where you at?

Glenda:            Houston

Raul:                 Houston?

Glenda: When I come to New York, I will call you.

Raul:                 When?

Glenda: I still don’t know yet when.  You sell wine now?

Raul:                 Ya.

Glenda: Do you still deal in guns?

Raul:                 Ya, I still deal in lots of guns.

Glenda: You do?

Raul:                 Ya.

Glenda: Have you heard from Jack Valenti Lately?

Raul:                 No, not for long time.  Why you want to know?  Why you call me?

Glenda: I will try and talk to you when I get there.

Raul:                 OK.  O ya.

Glenda: I heard your daughter was getting married?

Raul:                 Ya, she get married.  How many you have now?

Glenda: I just have the two girls and they are grown now.  Time flies. 

Well I will call back later.  When is the best time to call?

Raul:                 My wife get here, or (leave here) at 6:00

Glenda: OK, I will call you when I get there.

Raul:                 OK

Glenda: Bye.

UNQUOTE

Glenda’s brother, Royce Wilburn, an electrical contractor from Nashville, Tennessee, who had not discussed the case or his testimony with his sister, testified that the man, he knew as “Dago” and whose photograph he picked out of the spread, did indeed hang out, off and on, at a gas station near their home in Houston.  He confirmed that his sister and he used to see and talk with the man because the gas station, where he hung out, was between their home and school.

British merchant seaman Sid Carthew, in a telephone deposition described how he had met Raul – whom he had under oath previously identified from the spread of photographs – late in the summer of 1967, in the Neptune Bar on West Commissioners Street in the Montreal docks area.  At that time, he said Raul appeared to be with another person who may well have been James Earl Ray.  Carthew said at one point Raul came over and introduced himself (as Raul).  Sid, who was identified with the British nationalists, said that the Neptune was a regular haunt of his and his mates when they came ashore following days at sea on the voyage from Liverpool.  Someone in the bar must have told Raul about his politics because eventually the conversation came around to the question of whether Sid might want to buy some guns.  Sid said he expressed interest, and they began to negotiate.  Raul said that their guns were new army (US) issue, and the price reflected the money that had to be paid to a sergeant who was organizing the supply.  (To my mind, this matched Warren’s earlier account of guns being taken from Camp Shelby or other military installations, trucked to New Orleans, and delivered to Carlos Marcello who organized the sales, with, according to Glenda Grabow, deliveries from Houston.)       

  The negotiations broke down, and the deal fell apart according to Sid over the quantity.  They were discussing the purchase of 9MM pistols.  Sid said he would take four.  Raul asked him how he was going to get them home.  Sid, thinking about four pistols, said he would put them in his pockets or in a carrier bag.  Raul, thinking of four boxes, suddenly realized that this was not the deal he thought it was and exploded in disappointment.  From that day to this, Sid remembers those details and Raul’s face.

Former UK Thames television producer, Jack Saltman, who had produced the 1993 Thames/HBO television trial of James Earl Ray, took the stand to testify that after the trial, when convinced that an egregious injustice had been done, he continued some investigating efforts on his own.  He particularly focused on Raul.  At one point, he took the spread of photographs to Raul’s front door.  The jury heard the tape-recorded exchange between Saltman and Raul’s daughter who was on the other side of the door.  They heard her admit that the photograph was indeed of her father.  Her words were effectively that “… anyone could get that picture of my father.”  It was a startling admission for now Raul’s own daughter had joined the ranks of all of the others, who had confirmed that the critical photographic evidence was indeed her father.

Both Dexter King and Ambassador Young testified that the defendant Loyd Jowers had unhesitatingly identified the photograph as being that of the man who appeared in his grill to pick up the Liberto cash and leave the murder weapon a “package” for the actual assassin.

Barbara Reis was very uncomfortable on the stand.  Reporters do not like to have to testify in court.  She is the primary US correspondent of Publico the largest newspaper in Portugal, and because Raul was Portuguese, her paper was interested in the story.  She was covering the trial and in attendance in court almost every day for the first two weeks.  Some time earlier, however, she had gone to Raul’s home and spoke with a member of his family ( who we agreed not to identify ) and that was why we believed that we had no choice but to issue a subpoena for her testimony.  She was outraged, but I believed that her evidence was too valuable not to be put in front of the jury.  So under oath, she reluctantly recounted what she had been told during the course of that interview.

She said that she was informed that though these allegations had greatly disrupted their lives and were terrible, nevertheless the family took great comfort from the fact that they were being protected and advised by government agents who had visited their home on three occasions and who were monitoring their telephones.  The government was helping them through those difficult days.

The fact that government was helping a retired automobile worker in such a fashion was not lost on the members of the jury.  We could see them thinking – what is this all about?  Everyone knows full well that the government does not become involved in such fashion on behalf of ordinary citizens.  There clearly was something special about this person; some very good reason for the government to extend itself to such an extent.  Ordinary private citizens are obviously not afforded these services.  It is our contention, of course, that he was and will continue to be protected for services rendered to the national security interests of the state.

Don Wilson’s resolve hardened, and he refused to testify at the trial, but his evidence was too important not to be placed before the jury. Early on, Don had told Dexter King about the events and given him copies of two of the pieces of paper he took away from James’s abandoned Mustang.  Dexter was, therefore, in a position to identify the materials, the originals of which had been with the Justice Department going through a process of authentication for several months.  In the course of his testimony, Dexter recounted how Don Wilson originally explained how/when he opened the slightly a jar passenger door of James’s car, an envelope fell on the ground, and he instinctively put his foot on it, bent over, picked it up, and put it in his pocket.  The young agent was initially afraid that he had screwed up material criminal evidence by allowing it to become separated from the automobile possibly connected with a crime.  Later, when he had an opportunity to consider the materials, he decided to hold on to them in part, no doubt, because he was in a difficult, if not impossible, position, for not having turned them in straight away and also because he genuinely came to believe that the notes would be buried if he turned them over to his superiors at the Atlanta Field Office.  So he retained them – for nearly 30 years, until he decided to come forward in an effort to support the King family and James Earl Ray.

The material – see Figs. #   and                  , did in fact contain the name Raul as well as a list of what appeared to be a list of payments to be made.  When shown a true copy of the torn page from a Dallas telephone directory with handwriting at the top, in his testimony, Dexter King identified the name Raul as he did for a second time on the payoff list.

There was also written at the top of the telephone directory page (which contained the listings of the family of H. L. Hunt) the letter “R” preceding a telephone number.  As discussed earlier, when I learned that the phone number belonged to the Vegas Club owed by Jack Ruby pointing to a connection between Raul and Ruby, I went to Dallas to find and interview some of Jack Ruby’s strippers as well as Madeleine Brown – Lyndon Johnson’s mistress of 21 years.  I saw Beverly Oliver, Chari Angel, and Madeleine Brown separately.  In each instance, I placed the photographic spread in front of them and each time without hesitation, Raul was identified as a person seen in the company of Jack Ruby in 1963, usually at the Carousel, Ruby’s other Dallas Club.  Beverly Oliver said that on one occasion, she remembered Raul giving Ruby $20,000 in a Piggley Wiggley grocery store bag.

Glenda Grabow’s story about the connection between Raul and Ruby had, in my view, been corroborated, but I eventually decided against introducing evidence this connection and the link to the Kennedy assassination.  I did not want to run the risk of taking the jury down that road.  It was, after all, surplusage to our main case, and there was always the possibility that the jury would refuse to accept the connection with the Kennedy assassination, and then begin to question the primary pillars of our evidence.  I had Madeleine, Beverly, and Chari lined up to travel to Memphis and then did not call them.  It was a temptation, which had to be resisted, but it was not easy because I believed these courageous women.  Madelein Brown for example is very credible, and some aspect of her recollections of her life and genuine love for Johnson were compelling.  The fact, that she gave birth to his only son I have seen and obtained a copy of Johnson’s commitment (through has local lawyer Jerome Ragsdale) to provide support for his son Steven which continued even after the President’s death).  That she was able to provide such detail about their relationship, was impressive.  Of particular note was her recollection of the events of Thursday evening November 21, 1963 – the night before the assassination.  She said she attended a social gathering at Clint Murchison’s home.  Ostensibly, it was an event to honor J. Edgar Hoover who was a close friend of Murchison, H. L. Hunt and the other Texas oil giants.  The guest list included John McCloy, Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, Richard Nixon, George Brown, of the Brown and Root Construction company, R. L. Thornton, President of the Mercantile Bank, and Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell, brother of General Charles Cabell, former Deputy Director of the CIA who was fired by President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs.

Madeleine told me that near the end of the party, Johnson made an appearance and the group quickly went into Murchison’s study behind closed doors.  After a while, the meeting broke up, Johnson anxious and red faced came up, embraced her, and with a quiet grating sound, whispered a message, she would never forget, in her ear.  “After tomorrow, those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again – that’s no threat, that’s a promise.  She was stunned, but the next day she realized what he meant.

I decided not to take our case in this direction.  It was tactical decision but, if,  however, I am asked whether I believe that Raul and Ruby knew each other, were associates, and that the same forces were involved with both assassinations, I could only truthfully answer in the affirmative.

The Broader Conspiracy

We next turned to present the evidence that the conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King Jr. extended well beyond Memphis, Tennessee and, in fact, reached into the echelons of power in the nation’s capitol.

Former Memphis Police Intelligence Officer, Jim Smith took the stand under subpoena.  His testimony at the television trial resulted in him losing his security clearance, being put under surveillance, and eventually, being in fear for his life, leaving Memphis only to find that the FBI had permanently blocked him from ever again obtaining a position in law enforcement.  Now six years later, he returned to Memphis having been transferred there in another line of work when an opening arose.  He was uneasy and not willing to testify unless subpoenaed.  We served him.  He basically restated his earlier testimony that on March 18, 1968 he was assigned to assist a two men surveillance team parked in a van in the area of the Rivermont Hotel.  The van contained audio surveillance equipment and the two agents – he did not know which federal agency they were from.  I had earlier concluded that they were Army Security Agency Operatives and that they listened in on conversations and activities in the suite occupied by Martin King.  He did not, himself directly, participate in any of the surveillance but he observed it and understood what was going on.  Back in 1992, I had been able to obtain a detailed description of the location of the microphone placements in the suite.  It was so extensive that even if Dr. King went on to the balcony his conversation would be relayed to the tape recorders in the van below.  In addition to the covert (non eye to eye) surveillance activities of the ASA agents, the court heard testimony from defense witness Eli Arkin, the MPD intelligence officer – that the 111^th M.I.G. was on the scene conducting its own surveillance activities.  He said that some of them were based in his office.

Military historian Doug Valentine, whose book The Phoenix Program included a mention of a rumor that photographs of the assassination were taken by army photographers, arousing my interest, took the stand to testify about the military affiliation of the man who provided the Memphis Police with the false assassination threat against Detective Redditt, justifying his removal from the surveillance detail at the rear of the fire station.  Valentine said that when he interviewed the individual, Phillip Manuel, (who had been in Memphis on April 3 and 4, ostensibly pursuant to his position as a staff member of the McClellan committee) he learned that Manuel previously – and perhaps then as well – worked with the 902^nd MIG.  I had gradually come to believe that this little known unit coordinated the federal agency task force activity in Memphis and also liaised with the non military side of the operation.

Carthel Weeden, the former Fire Department Captain in charge of Fire Station number 2, testified in detail about how in the morning, of April 4, he was approached by two men in Civilian clothers who showed him army credentials and asked to be taken up to the roof of the fire station where they would be in a position to photograph people and activity in the area.  Though Carthel was not certain exactly how he carried them up to the roof, it must have been up the outside iron ladder which at the time was attached to the north side of the building near the side door and the fire hose tower.  He said that he observed them taking their photographic equipment out of their bag.  Carthel testified that he did not notice them again during that day and he just assumed that completed their various tasks.  Carthel also testified that he had never been interviewed any local, state, or federal law enforcement official.  The reason for this is obvious.  Had he been interviewed, it is quite likely that the investigators would have become aware of the soldiers on the roof.  They would then have the obligation to locate them and the photographs they took.  This, of course, would be the path that any serious investigation would have to take.  It would be anathema to those efforts which were only set up to conceal the truth for from all we understood as a result of meetings between Steve Tompkins and the photographers  the actual assassin was caught on film powering the rifle right after firing the fatal shot.

In his testimony, Professor Clay Carson read into the record portions of documents which I had provided to the King Papers Project, which he directs, at Stanford University.  One of the documents was a report from Steve Tompkins prepared for me after a meeting at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago with one of the photographers.  Amongst other details was the photographer’s confirmation that the assassin was caught on film and that it was not James Earl Ray.

Professor Carson, also read the responses to questions I had asked Steve Tompkins to raise with the Green Beret I had referred to as Warren.  The exchange, on the record went like this:

Direct Examination

By Dr. Pepper

Q.                Dr. Carson, good afternoon - - barely afternoon.  Thank you for joining us here.  You’re come some three thousand miles, and I know that time is precious in terms of your schedule, so I’d like to just move ahead.

            Would you please state your full name and address for the record.

A.                Clayborne Carson, Palo Alto, California.

Q.                And what is your profession?

A.                I’m a professor of history at Stanford.

Q.                And what do you - - what is your relationship to the works and life of Martin Luther King, Junior?

A.                I’m the editor of Martin Luther King’s papers, and I’m director of the Martin Luther King papers project at Stanford.

Q.                And how long have you been in that position?

A.            Fifteen years.

Q.        And have you published various works on Doctor King’s work and life?

A.        Yes, I have.  I’ve published, I think, edited or authored five - - I think five books on Martin Luther King.

Q.        All right.  And is the King papers project at Stanford University an ongoing project?

A.        Yes, it is.  It’s a long-term project to publish all of the historically significant papers of Martin Luther King.  It’s been going on for fifteen years.  It will probably go on as long as I go on.

Q.        And in your capacity and as part of that project at Stanford, do you have the process of collecting documents and materials of all sorts of natures related to Doctor King’s life, work and death even?

A.        Yes, sir.  The purpose of the paper is - - papers project is to assemble all of the historically significant papers from archives around the world.  We’ve contacted probably some two hundred or more archieves to make sure that we have all of the historically significant papers.  Obviously, the largest collections are those at the King Center in Atlanta and at Boston University.

Q.        Right.  And as a part of that responsibility, did you receive from me certain documents, certain reports with respect to the assassination of Martin Luther King?

A.            Yes, I did.

Q.        And it should be clear to the Court and Jury that you are not in any way involved in attesting to the accuracy or the validity of this informaion, but you are simply reporting on what it is that you have received; is that correct?

A.            That’s right.

Q.        So we’re asking you to do that in a professional capacity and in line with your role as editor and director of the King papers project.

With that background, Professor Carson, I’d like you to move, please, to the first set of responses in the documentation that I’ve provided to you and of the project that I addressed to a resource who was traveling and providing me with information.

The Court and Jury have become aware with how that process worked so we just need to go into a question and answer mode here.

On Page 2 of - - well, on Page 2 of the questions and whatever page of the response, I’d ask you to turn to Paragraph 2.1.4, and the question that was asked to be answered was: Was the operation, in re, our target, a one op, or were there other similar operations?  If others, any details possible.  Please, at least learn if they were domestic, foreign or both.

            What is the answer that you have?

A.        Answer:            Lots of other ops nationwide.  These are the ones I was at, summer of 1967 - - parentheses, June 12^th through 15^th, 1967 - - Tampa, Florida.  Two Alpha teams deployed during riots.  Detroit, summer, July 23^rd, riot.  Washington, October 1967, riot.  Chicago, just before Christmas, 1967, recon.  February 1968, Los Angeles.

Q.        Thank you.  Question 2.1.5:      When was the instant operation?  The instant operation is the Memphis operation against Martin Luther King.  When was the instant operation first raised with him, that is, the source.  A, where and by whom?  Answer.

A.        Answer:            Date unknown.  Place, Camp Shelby, Mississippi.  Briefed by Captain Name.  First, a recon-op - - not sure when killing King first mentioned.

Q.        What - - 2.1.6:             What were the first details of the operation scenario put to him?  A:       Was target named:

A.            Yes, King.  Another answer.

Q.            Yes.  Please continue.

A.            Young added later.

Q.            First answer, King.  Young added later.

            B:            What was site:

A.        Site not set.  Depended on our intel and recon.  We positioned at rooftop ascent across Lorraine motel about 1300 hours, 4 April.  Don’t know why or how intel came in.

At brief, 0430, reminded Doctor King was the leader of a movement to destroy American government and stop the war.  We were shown CR, close range photos, of King and Young.  Don’t know - - don’t remember anyone worrying about killing those sacks of shit.

One but - - buddy on Team 1, remember bragged about him, had him in center mass, parentheses, this is a sniper term meaning cross hairs and center of chest.  During that big March in Alabama, should have done it then.

Parentheses, Bill, I did some checking from my files.  There is a John Hill listed among the 20^th special forces teams that was deployed in Selma, Alabama in 1965 for the beginning of the march to Montgomery.

I interviewed two of the team members who were there, and they said a sniper team had King in their scope until he turned left and crossed the bridge.  This may be the same Hill on main team.  None of the other names match.

Another Name - - parentheses, that’s me - - asked about clothes.  We were dressed as working stiffs working on the docks.  Parentheses, I believe this means their cover was day laborers on President’s Island where the riverboat barge and the warehouses are located, end parentheses.

Equipment was stored in suitcases, moved along, came up in cars from Camp Shelby.  Only place I remember eating in Memphis was a Howard Johnson’s.

My spotter and I were met by a Name down near the train tracks where we were let out.  I remembered this guy because he looked a lot like a buddy - - parentheses, buddy of mine.  This guy got us to the building where we set up.  I always figured he was a spook.

From him, we got a detailed AO - - parentheses, area of operations map - - not the kind you’d buy in a gas station, pictures of cars the King group were driving, and the guy got us to the building where we set up.  I always figured he was a spook.

From him, we got a detailed AO - - parentheses, area of operations map - - not the kind you’d buy in a gas station, pictures of the cars the King group was driving and the Memphis police tact - - parentheses, tactical radio frequencies.  Maybe some other stuff, I just don’t remember.

Q,            C:            Any explanation of reason?

A.                Name gave none.

Q.        D:         Any indication of sanction by or involvement of others, one at federal, state or local levels?

A.        Everybody but my brother was there.  Spooks, the company - - parentheses, CIA - - Feebs - - parentheses, FBI - - police, you name it.

The only person I remember talking to besides CO, Name, was some guy who was the head of the city - - parentheses, Memphis tact parentheses - - tactical squad.  I think his first name was Sam.

Name put him on radio to describe to us what was in that hotel - - parentheses, Lorraine.  I do remember he saying friendlies would not be wearing ties.  Took that to mean that somebody inside the King group as informant.

Did meet in person one other guy.  Met him on sidewalk down couple blocks from our perch.  Directed by Name.  This guy identified himself with the police intelligence.  Said city was about to explode, and blacks would be murdering whites in the streets.

After a few minutes, I figured was asking me to sit tight and kill any rioters if things went to hell.  He seemed to know something about us and said had met with Name before this day.

Q.        E:         Was operation pure military, any involvement of FBI, state police, local sheriff’s, poster police, civilians, anyone in targets organization?

A.        Our part military.  Far as I know, we were coordinating with units at NAS.  This would be Millington Naval Air Station.

Q.        Okay.  Move over to the response to Question 3, please.  Was he aware of any support from inside Doctor King’s organization, SCLC, or inside the local Memphis groups working with Doctor King?  Details and names if possible.

A.        Scuttlebutt was 111^th - - parentheses, military intelligence group out of Fort McPherson - - had guy inside King’s group.

Q.        Moving to Number 7.  Did he actually see anything at the time of the shooting?  Where was he precisely?

A.        I thought Team 1 had fired early.  I guess I still think they may have.  After that day, I only saw Captain Name twice more, and both times, he refused to talk to me about what happened.

After the shot, I keyed - - parentheses, radioed - - CO to ask for instructions, and after a wait - - parentheses, I think this means Name told him to wait - - was told to exit building and make our way to pick-up point.

If this helps, I heard a lot of gunfire, and I think remembering - - I remember thinking it was an Army sniper shot.  It surprised me later when I heard some wacko civilian had done it.

Name described the shooting to me, and let me tell you this.  Whoever fired that shot was a professional.  Even from three hundred meters, there’s no way just anyone could make that shot.

Q.        Eight:    If the military unit did it, how does he explain the head shot, and their not waiting for the coordinated hits from the second target, A-Y, Andrew Young?

A.        When you have everybody’s hands in someone’s pants, it’s a cluster fuck.  That’s what happened in Nam - - what happened here.

Q.            What kind of weapons were they carrying?

A.        Standard forty-five caliber sidearms, M-16 sniper rifles and some K-bars - - parentheses, this is a military knife.  We also had some frags - - parentheses, fragmentation grenades - - and two or three laws, light anti-air - - anti tank weapon rockets.

Q.        Ten:      How did the two teams communicate with each other?  When was the last contact prior to the killing?

A.        By radio.  The shot was fired just after the TTR - - parentheses, top of the hour I guess this means, 1800, end parentheses - - sit rep - - parentheses, situation report.

Q.        Eleven: Set out details of their exiting Memphis, how - - where they went.

A.            Exit by foot to waiting boat.

Q.        Finishes the first section.  Now the second - - second series of questions and answers.  We’ll just move through these.  Number 1:         Where was Young?

A.        Best I remember, a bunch of them had been upstairs.  My spotter got Young when they all left.  He went downstairs.  He had come out of his room below and looked like to me was heading for the - - a car when the shot was fired.  We were must getting ready to do the sit rep.  He was definitely out of his room.

Q.        Second page, 2.15 and 2.16:    What was the nature of the training - - real purpose training?

A.        This was a recon, slash, surveillance mission to support major Army element at Millington and possible deployment of other heavy units, dash, one of the dozens in cities wi