Читать книгу The Investigation of the Murder of Martin Luther King - Various Authors - Страница 12

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On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. arrived in Memphis, Tennessee, to march in support of a labor strike organized by Memphis sanitation workers. Because a demonstration the month before erupted in violence, Dr. King, according to his associates, returned determined to lead a non-violent protest.

Dr. King and several associates checked into the Lorraine Motel on Mulberry Street, a motel in Memphis patronized primarily by African Americans. Dr. King's room, 306, was on the second floor, faced Mulberry Street, and had a door that opened onto a balcony directly above the motel's parking lot. The motel still exists but is now a museum.

Across from the motel on Mulberry Street arethe backyard areas of buildings that front on South Main Street. South Main and Mulberry Streets run parallel to one another. Fire Station No. 2 faces South Main Street and is on the corner between South Main and Mulberry Streets.91

At the time of the shooting, a fenced-in parking area was adjacent to the fire station on South Main Street, followed by Canipe's, a record store, and Jim's Grill, a tavern. Directly above Jim's Grill, on the second floor, was a rooming house. The backdoor to Jim's Grill opened to backyards, which overlooked Mulberry Street and the Lorraine Motel.

The buildings on South Main Street, as well as their backyards, are elevated and higher than Mulberry Street. A retaining wall, approximately eight feet high, extends from the street to the ground level of the backyards on Mulberry Street opposite the Lorraine Motel. At the time of the assassination, overgrown bushes and small trees bordered the backyards and the adjacent parking lot.

Loyd Jowers, who is white, owned and operated Jim's Grill, a tavern that served a racially-mixed group of customers and specialized in lunch and after-work beer drinking. After 4:00 p.m., Jowers generally worked alone or with one other person.

Sometime before 4:00 p.m. on April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray parked his white Mustang on South Main Street and, under an assumed name, rented a room in the second floor rooming house directly above the grill. That room and the communal bathroom at the end of the hall both had windows overlooking Dr. King's motel room at the Lorraine. Shortly after renting the room, Ray purchased binoculars from a nearby store and then returned to the rooming house.

Just before 6:00 p.m., Dr. King was outside on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in front of his room. At about 6:01 p.m., while conversing with associates in the parking lot below, he was shot and fatally wounded by a single bullet fired from a 30.06 rifle. The shot came from the direction of the rear of the buildings on South Main Street across from the Lorraine.

Within minutes of the assassination, police found a "bundle" on the sidewalk in front of Canipe's record store. It contained a 30.06 rifle with a spent cartridge casing in its chamber, an attached scope, unfired 30.06 ammunition, and items belonging to James Earl Ray. Ray's fingerprints were on the rifle and scope.

Firearms testing could not positively determine whether the fatal shot was or was not fired from the rifle recovered in front of Canipe's. The markings on the bullet removed from Dr. King's body, however, match the general rifling characteristics of the discarded 30.06 rifle. General rifling characteristics are the consistent features inside the barrel of all rifles of the same model.

At the time of the shooting, a tactical team of twelve Memphis police officers and county deputies were in and around Fire Station No. 2. Another Memphis police officer was also at the rear of the station to conduct surveillance of Dr. King and his party. After Dr. King was shot, officers from the tactical team raced to the Lorraine and South Main Street. Other police officers quickly joined in searching the area around the Lorraine, as well as the buildings on South Main and their backyards.

Minutes after the shooting, a deputy sheriff entered Jim's Grill. Inside, Jowers was behind the counter and there were nearly a dozen customers. Law enforcement officers spoke with Jowers that evening and several times over the next few days.

Sometime after the assassination, Ray left Memphis and drove to Atlanta where he abandoned his Mustang the next day. Several days later, the FBI impounded and searched the Mustang. At the time, Donald Wilson was a newspecial agent in the FBI Atlanta field office.

After abandoning the Mustang, Ray fled to Canada, where he had traveled the previous year after his escape from prison. Following a massive search, law enforcement officers arrested Ray in London, England, two months after the assassination.

In March 1969, Ray pled guilty to murdering Dr. King. When he entered his plea, he stipulated to various facts, including that he: (1) purchased the 30.06 rifle; (2) parked his Mustang just south of Canipe's [between Canipe's and Fire Station No. 2]; (3) shot Dr. King from the second floor bathroom of the rooming house; (4) ran from the rooming house to his Mustang and dropped the rifle and other items in the "bundle" in front of Canipe's; and (5) left the scene in his Mustang. Thereafter, he was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Three days after pleading guilty, and for the next 30 years until his death in April 1998, Ray repeatedly attempted to withdraw his plea and obtain a trial. Ray continually filed motions and separate lawsuits in both state and federal court. He claimed that his plea was involuntary, that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel, that he was imprisoned in violation of his constitutional rights, and that various persons had conspired against him. In 1994, Ray filed the last of his several state petitions for post-conviction relief, Ray v. Dutton. He sought to obtain a new trial based upon his claim that the 30.06 rifle, which the police discovered on South Main Street, was not the murder weapon. Additional firearms identification testing conducted pursuant to this claim was inconclusive. The petition was still pending in April 1998, when Ray died in prison.

In addition to Ray's post-conviction relief efforts, Dr. Pepper filed a false imprisonment civil suit in state court in 1994, claiming that Jowers and others conspired to kill Dr. King and frame Ray. That lawsuit, Ray v. Jowers, was dismissed in 1997.

After pleading guilty, Ray persistently maintained that he was innocent and not at the rooming house when the fatal shot was fired and that Raoul orchestrated the assassination plot, framing him. He nonetheless failed to provide a coherent, consistent description of his own activities with Raoul prior to the assassination or offer any affirmative evidence to corroborate his contentions.

Over the years, parties other than Ray have filed additional lawsuits related to the assassination. Most recently, after Ray's death in 1998, King family members, represented by Dr. Pepper, filed a civil complaint in Tennessee state court charging Loyd Jowers with participating in a conspiracy that resulted in the wrongful death of Dr. King. The evidence presented in the jury trial of that lawsuit is discussed in Section VII below.

The tomb of Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King