Chasing King's Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassin
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At 6:07 p.m., Tactical Unit 10 broke in with urgent news: “I have the weapon in front of 424 and the subject ran south on Main Street.”
Then the dispatcher broke the news that Canipe had reported: “… the subject responsible for the shooting is running south on Main Street. [Tact. 10] has the weapon at 424 Main, and the subject ran south from that location.” Several police cars headed to the scene.
6:07 p.m. dispatch broadcast instructions: “Not to touch the weapon. The weapon is not to be touched.” It was vital to preserve any fingerprints of the shooter. Careless handling might smear the prints and ruin the evidence. “Repeating … the subject ran south on Main … any physical description of the subject?”
Tact. 10: “All we know is he is a young white male, well dressed, dark colored suit …” The rest was inaudible.
6:08 p.m. “He’s a young white male, well dressed, a young white male well dressed, ran south from 424 South Main.”
At 6:10 p.m., nine minutes since the shooting, Tactical Unit 10 reported another important clue: “It’s also believed that this subject left in a late model white Mustang, going north on Main.”
Dispatch repeated the information at once: “Information that subject may be in a late model white Mustang, a late model white Mustang, north on Main Street. A white Mustang … a young white male, well dressed, possibly in a late model white Mustang, went north on Main.” Dispatch repeated the information two minutes later.
Ten minutes after the shooting, an ambulance pulled into the Lorraine Motel parking lot.
In 1968, ambulances were more primitive than they are today, being little more than station wagons that transported sick or injured people. They carried no medical equipment and no paramedics rode aboard them to begin lifesaving treatment at the scene. Indeed, in those days, many ambulances did double duty as hearses. Martin Luther King would have to wait until he got to the hospital to receive proper medical treatment.
While King was sped ahead to the hospital, Ray continued his escape. By 6:10 p.m., dispatch announced that King was en route: “Ambulance on the way.”
Car 315 interjected: “Patrolman Wolfe is in the fire department ambulance with him.”
Dispatch: “Okay, the fire department ambulance has cleared the scene … all tactical units are to pull into the area, all tactical units are to pull into the area.”
At 6:13 p.m., Detective R. R. Davis and Lieutenant T. H. Smith arrived at the Lorraine parking lot and tried to interview eyewitnesses who had congregated in the courtyard below King’s balcony. Several people refused to make a statement.
James Bevel from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was angry and would not speak to the investigators. Detectives Davis and Smith got little help: “Some of these people walked away from us … we attempted to interview others, but they either had no comment, or indicated that they were angry or grief stricken and did not feel up to talking.”
Many more of King’s associates were also uncooperative. That was understandable. Civil rights activists had suffered years of police harassment. In many cases, racist sheriffs had stood by or even participated in violence against blacks. It was natural for King’s comrades to be suspicious of law enforcement. Ben Branch said he did not want to talk. “He seemed,” according to the policemen, “to be in a very angry mood, and was very hostile towards the investigating officers.” They tried a second time. Branch walked away again. On their third attempt to interview him, Branch told them he was standing in the parking lot directly beneath King, who was on the balcony. He heard a shot, and King fell. Branch did not know where the shot came from and saw no one fleeing the immediate area. “He did state that he saw several police officers across Mulberry Street, behind the bushes, and it looked kind of funny to him that they could have gotten up there so fast.” Branch implied that the police must have had something to do with the assassination.
Reverand Billy Kyles said he had just come out of room 306 with King and was talking to him on the balcony. He said he parted with King and was walking along the balcony toward the stairway, when he heard a shot, turned, and saw that Dr. King had fallen.
Jesse Jackson was standing in the courtyard when it happened. He was looking up at King and did not see where the shot came from. He, too, said that he could not understand how the police got there so fast.
The ambulance ride took just four minutes. At 6:14 p.m. it arrived at the hospital—only thirteen minutes after the shooting. The treatment report described King’s appearance when he was wheeled into emergency room number 1: “The patient [was] totally unconscious and flat on his back … There was a large gaping wound in the root of the neck which was not actively bleeding at the time of his initial arrival. There was much blood on his clothes, neck, and shoulder.”
A doctor grabbed a stethoscope and detected a palpable heartbeat and radial pulse. Somehow, King was still alive. The doctor ordered two cutdowns immediately. It was a procedure to insert tubes into two veins, in order to give King necessary fluids, and to infuse blood into him under pressure, to replace what he had lost. A surgeon performed a tracheotomy and inserted a breathing tube into the throat, which provided essential oxygen. King’s heartbeat was weak, so the doctors tried to resuscitate it by injecting it with adrenaline and performing closed-chest cardiac massage.
These surgeons tried desperately to save Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life. They discovered that on his right side, the bullet had severed his jugular vein and had shredded an artery, which protruded from the wound. One of his lungs was filling with blood. Surgeons clamped the blood vessels and inserted a chest tube to drain blood from King’s right chest and re-inflate his lung. The tube immediately drained 1,000 cc of blood from his chest. That’s over four cups, or about 20 percent, of his body’s fluid. The doctors also discovered that the bullet had damaged part of his spine; they detected a serious loss of spinal fluid. The pupils of King’s eyes were now fixed and massively dilated; they showed no reaction to light.
At 6:16 p.m., dispatch radioed an order to keep reporters away from the Lorraine: “all newsmen to be withheld from the area.” And then Dispatch rebroadcast all available information about the suspect: “Repeating the information at this time, the weapon was dropped at 424 South Main, a well-dressed young white male, last seen running south from that location, may be in a late model white Mustang, north on Main.”
So many police cars were using their radios simultaneously that dispatch could not hear their reports: “Cut off some of the radios at the Lorraine, we’re getting too much feedback. Cut off some of the radios.”
Now Tactical Unit 10 could get through with additional, important details: “Subject had dark hair, possibly black, the suit was a very dark suit, also possibly black, and the subject was medium heavy build.” But this could have been a description of just about anyone.
At 6:20 p.m., car 150 reported on King’s status: “The hospital advised critical condition.”
At 6:34 p.m., car 421 reported a lead: “We’re stopping a white Mustang, north on Thomas from Firestone, with a white male in it.” “We’ve stopped that car, and he checks out okay.” “Was he able to furnish any information?” No. Just to be sure, they held the driver. “Transporting to headquarters.”
It was a false alarm. It was not James Earl Ray.
After several white Mustang sightings turned out to be erroneous, a hot tip went out over the radio that, for the next thirteen minutes, mesmerized every policeman who heard it.
At 6:35, dispatch announced breaking news: “160 has information from a complainant that a white male is east on Summer from Highland, a white male east on Summer from Highland in a white Mustang, in a white Mustang responsible for this shooting … subject is exceeding the speed limit.”
160: “This car is speeding over 65 miles per hour.”
Dispatch: “Advising that this car is speeding 75 miles per hour north on Mendenhall from Summer.”
The details got more incredible by the minute.
160: “This white Mustang is shooting at the blue Pontiac following him.”
Excited by the chase, the dispatcher made a mistake.
Dispatch: “Advising that the blue Pontiac is shooting at the white Mustang … the subject is firing at the white Mustang … the Mustang is a citizen’s band unit.”
160: “Correction on that, the Mustang is shooting at the Pontiac.”
Dispatch: “All cars correction, 160 is advising that the white Mustang, this is a white Mustang that is firing at the blue Pontiac, approaching the Millington Road that goes to the naval base.”
But this turned out to be a hoax. It started when an anonymous citizen reported that he had just spotted the white Mustang headed out of Memphis. The tipster claimed he had an amateur CB radio in his car, and that he was following the Mustang. He began to broadcast a play-by-play of the pursuit. The reports became more dramatic by the minute. According to the tipster, when the driver of the Mustang noticed that he was being followed, he sped away. The voice on the radio said he was now pursuing the suspect in a high-speed chase, so police dispatchers directed police cars to the coordinates that the voice on the radio gave them. Then, suddenly, the voice shouted over the radio that the Mustang had crashed and that the driver had opened fire on him with a pistol.
The broadcast should have aroused suspicion. First, the anonymous person who contacted the police by radio claimed that he saw three white males in the Mustang, while eyewitnesses at the crime scene had reported only one. Second, the tipster, who never identified himself, also said that he could not close the distance to the Mustang to read its license plate number because one of its occupants had opened fire on him and one of the gunshots had shattered his windshield. However, the police, desperate to catch King’s killer, were tricked by the faulty information.
In retrospect, it is clear that there was not enough time for the tipster to have driven the distances he was claiming. In addition, the radio signal was too strong and did not weaken as he drove farther away, suggesting that he was actually sitting still in one location rather than in a moving car. Police patrol cars that raced to intercept the Mustang and its pursuer failed to find those vehicles anywhere on the road along their alleged route. And finally, no other witnesses had called the police to report a high-speed chase and shots fired.
The radio broadcast was a fake. It had sent the Memphis police on a wild-goose chase from 6:35 to 6:49 p.m. In the critical minutes after James Earl Ray’s escape, the voice had diverted police manpower from setting up patrols and roadblocks that might have led to Ray’s capture. Detectives speculated that the assassin had a co-conspirator who timed the radio broadcast to throw them off the trail and help the killer escape Memphis. The broadcast accomplished that, but if Ray had an accomplice, it was not this person. Later, an investigation revealed that the perpetrator of this hoax was a malicious teenager who was playing what he thought was a funny prank. He had no connection to Ray or the assassination.
Back at the South Main Street rooming house, detectives searched Ray’s room. They found little evidence—a thirty-seven-inch black plastic carrying strap for the binoculars, a dark green pillow, and a few burned matches. In the bathroom, they looked in the bottom of the tub and saw several dirty smears, as though someone had been standing there in his shoes. On the wall they found a handprint, as though someone had steadied himself while stepping into the tub.
At the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital, additional surgeons had arrived to treat King. An electrocardiogram (EKG) showed no heart function. For fifty minutes the doctors continued cardiac massage and other resuscitation methods to try to restore King’s pulse and heart function.
King had been lucky once before. Ten years ago, when he had almost been stabbed through the heart, the doctors had been able to save his life. But nothing was working now. King was showing no response or any kind of vital signs. The life force had drained out of him.
Approximately one hour after the assassination, the doctors knew they could do no more.
It was over.
At 7:05 p.m., Central Standard Time, Dr. Jerome Barrasso pronounced Martin Luther King, Jr., dead. He was only thirty-nine years old.
However, Dr. King’s journey was not yet over. He would make two more trips tonight: first to the morgue, and then to a funeral home. At the morgue, Dr. Jerry Francisco, the Shelby County medical examiner, photographed the fatal bullet and the wounds that it inflicted. The autopsy recited the emotionless facts and numbers of death: King’s height and weight; the measure of his internal organs on a scientific scale; even the mass of his brain, which just a few hours ago had been the source of his courage, compassion, and conviction, all the qualities that made King the remarkable man he was. Then there was the list of King’s personal effects: “Shirt, Necktie, Suit Coat, Trousers, Pair of Socks, Undershorts, Undershirt, Pair of Shoes, three $20 bills,” and the contents of his pockets.
When the autopsy was finished, the same white car that had picked King up yesterday at the airport and chauffeured him around Memphis for the past two days now went to pick up his body. Ralph Abernathy accompanied his old friend’s body to a funeral home. The morticians would have a lot of work to do to conceal the gaping wound to King’s face, and Abernathy wanted to make sure they did it right.
Miles away, James Earl Ray drove on in the night, using dark side roads to avoid being spotted. As he approached the Tennessee state line, no police roadblocks barred his route, so he crossed into Mississippi. Ray must have listened to news flashes on his car radio, but the early, sketchy reports said only that Martin Luther King had been shot and wounded. Later reports gave more details, until at last Ray heard the news he had been waiting for.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was dead. And his killer was on the loose.
“Leaving Memphis I had to drive slow and be careful so as to not attract attention and get arrested for speeding. I drove south into Mississippi for a while, then turned east across Mississippi and Alabama, through Birmingham to Atlanta,” Ray said. “But nobody stopped me.”
For the time being, he was safe. He possessed certain advantages. No one knew the assassin’s name—the police had no idea of his true identity. He had used two different false names to buy the rifle and register at the South Main Street rooming house. He had left nothing behind in his room that bore his real name, and the police did not possess the license plate number of his car. No one in Memphis had any photographs of him. And Aeromarine, where he had bought the rifle, did not have surveillance cameras. At this moment, no one in the world was hunting for a man named James Earl Ray, or suspected that he had just murdered Dr. King. Ray needed to go into deep hiding before the authorities could discover who he was.
Ray was heading to a strange destination—Atlanta, King’s hometown. Somewhere during the eleven-hour drive between Memphis and his next stop, Ray tossed out of the window of the moving car the few possessions he had in the vehicle, mostly camera equipment. He planned to return to his Atlanta rooming house. He wanted to catch his breath, regroup, and then embark on the second stage of his escape. Ray’s journey had led him to seek refuge within a few miles of King’s grieving widow.
King’s entourage returned to the Lorraine Motel and gathered in room 306. Martin’s blood still stained the concrete walkway outside the door. To enter the room, his friends had to step over a pool of the dark liquid that was more than three feet long.
Inside, King’s friends and followers talked. They mourned. It was real. The unthinkable had finally happened. They always feared, as did King, that this day would come. King’s briefcase still lay open, as if he had just stepped out and expected to return. It contained his shaving kit, various personal items, and a copy of one of his books.
Upon the death of King, the mantle of leadership passed wordlessly to his friend, spiritual brother, and logical heir, Ralph Abernathy. No vote of King’s aides was needed and none
was taken. A news photographer who was present captured the melancholy scene of King’s men sitting around the room.
The photographer captured more gruesome images on the balcony. One depicts Theatrice Bailey, the motel owner’s brother, trying to sweep away a large puddle of blood with a bristle dust broom. Another shows him, knees bent, crouching low to the ground, using a painter’s spatula to scoop up coagulated blood and gore and deposit it in a clear glass jar. Later, the stained concrete had to be washed down with soap and water. But the jar and its contents, like a holy relic of a saint, were preserved. For years, the morbid souvenir languished on the back shelf of a home refrigerator.
In Washington, DC, the news reached President Lyndon Johnson at the White House. He was horrified. Yes, he and Martin Luther King had disagreed about the Vietnam War, and Johnson believed that King had betrayed him. But they had once been close and had embraced each other as partners in the civil rights cause. Immediately, LBJ canceled an out-of-town trip. He turned on the several television sets that he kept in the Oval Office to watch simultaneous news broadcasts on the three major networks. King’s brutal murder crushed LBJ. He knew what a disaster for America it would be. It turned out to be worse than he could have imagined.
As news of the assassination spread across the land on the night of April 4, no one knew what would happen next. When darkness fell across the American continent, the nation became a tinderbox. The murder of Dr. King unleashed a spasm of anger, resentment, vandalism, looting, arson, and gunfire, all of the things that Martin Luther King had tried for a decade to prevent. His murder caused an American upheaval.