Buddy had meanwhile called his dispatcher and described what he had seen including the man coming down over the wall running to the MPD traffic car.
Under some pressure from his passenger to get to the airport, he drove away out the Butler Street exit. At the airport, after dropping off his passenger, he told fellow cab driver Louie Ward what he had seen. He then repeated the story to MPD officers who showed up to interview him. He was also interviewed that evening at Yellow Cab Company by officers and was to give a statement in the morning. He never made it. Louie Ward was told sometime later that his body was thrown out of a car on Route 55. Though it was rumored that the body was found the next morning, no record of the death exists.
Right after the shot, Earl Caldwell rushed outside and saw a figure in the bushes. Solomon Jones turned and also saw a person come down over the wall running away. He jumped inside his limousine, backed it up, and tried to give chase, driving back and forth trying to get out of the parking lot. Caldwell saw Jones trying to get out, and being blocked.
Memphis Press-Scimitar reporter Wayne Chastain was on the scene within minutes and was one of a group gathered at the end of the driveway who heard Solomon tell about seeing a man come down from the wall after the shot.
The army photographers (elsewhere referred to as Reynolds and Norton) were operating two cameras that afternoon. At the time of the shot, one was trained on the balcony and the other spanned the parking lot up into the bushes and caught the shooter as he was lowering his rifle and Jowers running back toward the rooming house. They finished those shots and left the same way they came up, down the iron ladder on the north side of the fire station. The films were developed and handed to Colonel Downie. Realizing what they had, however, a set was quietly kept by Norton. The team on the roof of the Illinois central railroad building (elsewhere referred to as Warren and Murphy) were shocked at what they heard and saw. Initially, they believed that the other team must have jumped the gun and fired. They broke radio silence and asked for instructions. There was a period of silence, and then they were ordered to disengage. They packed up, went down from the roof the same way they came up, by the stairs, and then headed west across the railroad tracks to the river, where they took a boat upstream to an appointed spot. They sank the boat and got into a car that was waiting to take them back to Camp Shelby.
MPD policemen saturated the area in force within minutes of the shooting. They advanced, wearing white uniform shirts and blue trousers. It can be presumed that all of the other units of the task force wrapped up their activity after the shooting, and withdrew from the area. There continued to be a military intelligence, FBI, and MPD presence at the hospital and in the city as turbulence was expected.
Then, within about eight minutes after the shot, police barricades were set across the Butler and Huling intersections with Mulberry. At various times throughout the day, Bell South Telephone repairman Hasel Huckaby noticed a man hanging around Huling. He apparently had gone into the building adjoining the rooming house and was seen by Olivia Catling running from the alleyway on to Huling, jumping into a Chevrolet car, and driving away at high speed. She noticed that he turned left on Mulberry and went north, passing right in front of her and her children standing on the corner. He also passed directly in front of the unconcerned MPD officers manning the barricade. Soon after, a fireman standing on the sidewalk next to the wall, who may have been walking along Mulberry at the time of the shooting, yelled to a police officer nearby that the shot came from the bushes.
James Earl Ray first heard the sirens as he waited to be helped at the service station. Feeling uneasy and impatient as it became obvious that he was not going to be waited on anytime soon, he began to drive back to South Main Street where he intended to leave the car for Raul. As he reached the area, he found it swarming with police and was diverted away. He didn’t need any encouragement to leave. He was an escaped convict and being around police made him nervous. He headed south through Mississippi toward Atlanta. On the way, he heard on his car or some other radio when he stopped that Dr. King had been shot and they were looking for a white man in a white Mustang.
Inspector N. E. Zachary raced from headquarters to the crime area and took control of the bundle which, with other evidence, was turned over to the FBI for prompt transportation to their laboratory. The FBI moved in quickly and in force and effectively began to monitor the investigation. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was rushed to St Joseph’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead within the hour.
PART VII
Chapter 18
A COURAGEOUS WITNESS COMES FORWARD
Courage
Meek and mild, conscience of steel
Sent us to reveal the truth
Society’s sickness he sought to heal
In waning years beyond his youth
The story he told let us know
The assassin’s acts that fateful day including practice down below
Until the time he went away
He saw the hate and felt the dread and feared the worst
A rifle range was full of lead
He wept and knew his day was cursed.
It emerged that, far from closing the door on the case, the evidence submitted at the 1999 trial was as a prelude to one unfolding truth. During subsequent years, the scope of the conspiracy became staggeringly clear and the facts revealed put flesh on the residual bones of the assassination.
The first “truth breakthrough” came from the deposition of Lenny Curtis, taken four years after the trial. Out of concern for his safety, I would have to keep his observations and statement under wraps until his death in 2013.
It is fair to say that the identity of the shooter of Dr. King was finally confirmed, to my satisfaction, by Lenny Curtis on April 6, 2003. However, as noted, it would be more than eleven years later before I would be able to have a substantive conversation with this individual.
The initial awareness came from the deposition of Lenny B. Curtis, who worked for Memphis Police Department. Lenny had been working there since 1965.
In 2003, I was directed towards Lenny Curtis, a custodian at the MPD rifle range, by a friendly Memphis man to whom he had told his story. An initial conversation led to a formal deposition (a complete transcript of which is annexed here in Appendix F). Mr. Curtis was understandably nervous because he was one of only a couple of employees at the firing range, outside of the connected insiders, who would have seen what happened on the day of the assassination.
In the offices of the Alpha Court Reporting Company, under oath, he laid out the critical events that took place around him at the firing range on that day.
Lenny appeared for his deposition in the presence of Loyd Jowers’s former lawyer, Lewis Garrison. Dr. King’s first son, Martin III; Randy Wade, a friend of Lenny’s who introduced him to me; videographer Bob Guthridge; court reporter, Brian Dominski; and I were also present.
I believed it to be important and appropriate that a member of the King family be present so that the rest of the family could have a first-hand accounting of the observations of this vital witness.
It was agreed that the information provided, and the holding of the deposition itself and Lenny’s identity, would not be revealed, and that I would possess the only video and transcript of the deposition. We were very concerned that even at this late date, if Lenny’s evidence was known, his life would be in danger since there were still interests and forces, not to mention the assassin himself, who were determined to suppress the truth.
Beyond protecting guilty parties, many of whom were dead, by reason of the collaboration of governmental agencies and officials, the issue of credibility was a major concern.
Lenny Curtis, “Lenny,” was on duty as one of three custodians on that day. About four or five months prior to April 4, he said he heard (referring to Dr. King) a particular MPD officer assigned to the range say in the lounge that somebody was going to “… blow his motherfucking brains out.”
On April 3,
the day before the assassination, he noticed that the same officer, who he identified, Frank Strausser, was in the basement where the gun range was located, firing a rifle all day. The particular rifle had been brought in by a fireman four or five days before April 4 and laid on a long table. At one point the fireman said to Lenny, “How would you like that scoundrel, that baby there?” When Lenny said it was a rifle like any other, he replied, “No, this is a special one; that baby is special.” Lenny remembered that on the day of the assassination, the same officer had the gun with him and was practicing firing at all day.
Mr. Garrison: All right, sir. Before April the 4th of 1968, you knew or you knew of an officer there whose name was Earl Clark. Am I correct, sir?
Mr. Curtis: Captain Clark, yes sir.
Mr. Garrison: And also there was an officer named Frank Strausser. Is that right, Sir?
Mr. Curtis: He was a patrolman.
Mr. Garrison: A patrolman. Now, Mr. Curtis, just tell us before April the 4th some things you had heard from both of those sources about Dr. King’s presence here in Memphis.
Mr. Curtis: All right. I heard Mr. Strausser say that somebody was going to blow his—
Mr. Wade: Say the word.
Mr. Curtis: Blow his motherfucking brains out.
Mr. Garrison: How long was that before April the 4th, would you say?
Mr. Curtis: That was about four or five months I believe.
Mr. Garrison: Okay. Was there some time before April 4th where Dr. King was on television and Mr. Strausser made the—
Mr. Curtis: He made similar—the same statement. We had set two TVs in what we call the lounge, the lounge area, and they had reserve police officers, which was rookie policemen, you know, you could tell. So they was in uniform waiting on a stand by and they were listening looking at TV, and Mr. Strausser came in and stood up and stopped in the lounge while the TV was on and he made the statement that, oh, he’ll get his fucking brains blowed out. He went on down into the area where the gun range was down in the basement. That is what first gave me—I started thinking, because we was in an area where he couldn’t see us. We was warming our food for lunch. We was in the kitchen in the cook area of the lounge. He couldn’t see us. So I told James not to say anything. So we just stood, you know, quietly. He went down into the gun range; we came out of the lounge and went down into the fire operation floor of the Fire Department. We talked about it. I told James, I said, I don’t feel good about that, because he was shooting that gun all that day.
Mr. Garrison: The day before?
Mr. Curtis: Yes.
Mr. Garrison: This Officer Struasser is a very large individual, a very big man?
Mr. Curtis: He lifted weights all the time. He was real built like macho.
Mr. Garrison: Now, on the date—let me ask you this. Before April the 4th, had you heard them—had they brought in a rifle that you had seen and they said this is a special gun?
Mr. Curtis: It was a rifle that Mr. Young. Mr. Roy Young—
Mr. Garrison: A fireman.
Mr. Curtis: He laid it on the counter. We had a long table where we—like I said, where we would pass out garments to do exercise. So he laid it out on the table. He said—he always would say crazy things. Lenny, how would you like that scoundrel, that baby there, I said, it is a rifle like the rest of the rifles. He said no, this is a special one, that baby is special.
Mr. Wade: How did the rifle look?
Mr. Curtis: It looked like a regular hunting gun with the sight, with the thing, a scope on it.
Mr. Garrison: It had a scope on it?
(Deposition of Lennie B. Curtis, April 6, 2003, 7–10)
He said that around 2:00 or 2:30 p.m. Mayor Loeb and a number of police officers came to the range in unprecedented numbers. They went into a thirty minute meeting in a separate room and were joined by this officer and Captain Earl Clark. He noticed the officer around 3:00 p.m., the time they usually left the shooting range, carrying what appeared to be the “special” rifle. He went out to the fireman’s red Chevrolet convertible, ruffled his hair, put the top down and lay the rifle on the backseat. Then he looked more like a fireman, white T-shirt, blue pants, and dark sunglasses.
Lenny said that he tried to call people (Reverend Smith and Vasco Smith) to let them know his suspicions about what he observed during the day—the “meeting” with Mayor Loeb—but he was unable to reach anyone and ran out of money. He said that the officer, who test fired the rifle from 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. that morning, had never previously practiced with such intensity. Curtis said the officer left that day at around 3:30 p.m. in the fireman’s convertible. Curtis quit for a time because of a conflict with the same fireman. Lieutenant Bullard got him to return some months later, arranging for him not to work with that fireman. He came back about six months later, sometime after the assassination. He said that at one point, after he returned to work, that police officer Strausser asked him to ride downtown with him to pick up some salary checks. He said, “I had never spoken to him before.” He said they left in Lieutenant Bullard’s car.
They made small talk but when they got to Poplar and North Parkway, instead of staying on Poplar and going straight into town, which would have been the most direct route, Strausser slowed down and said, “Lenny, I want to ask you a question. What do you think about that guy Ray killing King?”
Lenny said, “Oh, he did it. There is no doubt that he did it.”
Then Strausser asked him, “… are you still doing private detective work, still working with those FBIs?” Lenny was doing part-time work for a private detective agency. He had a job doing security work and occasionally some FBI agents would bring wanted posters to him. He actually helped them arrest one guy whom he recognized. He would also help by distributing them to stores around his community and a number of others were caught. Strausser seemed to know about the sideline. The last thing he said to him was, “Are you still helping the FBI?”
Lenny said, “Yeah, periodically.”
He then said, “Lenny, you be careful now.” The look he gave him was clearly threatening.
Lenny said that he subsequently became aware that strange things were happening around him. His gas was strangely turned on once when he was about to enter his house. He had lit a cigarette, but as he opened the door he smelled gas and quickly put out the cigarette. A strange Lincoln was occasionally parked across the street from his apartment house. He was frightened. One morning when the car was there, he got into his own car and quickly drove off, and the strange car pulled out and followed him. He managed to see the driver. It was Strausser.
At that time, new evidence in the case came up. He said that every time new evidence arose the officer would pop up. He tried to move to a new house without notice but the landlord of the new complex would report seeing a man in the back of his house. When Lenny checked the area, he found a “tree stand,” a V-shaped stand where you could rest a rifle. When he put a stick in it, it focused on his kitchen and bathroom windows. He moved again, without notice.
Going back to the firing range on the day of the killing, Lenny described the rifle as being brand-new. He said it was, “… a strange looking rifle, but it made a tremendous noise every time he was shooting down there…. He shot it all day. He spent time with it all the day.” On that day, he broke to take lunch with Clark, and when he returned he resumed firing. When he left at around 3:30 p.m., he put the top down on the convertible, took off his powder blue shirt, and threw it over the rifle in the backseat, leaving only his white T-shirt on. He ruffled his hair and put on a pair of sunglasses. When he left, Mayor Loeb, Holloman, and the other visiting police officers were still there. They had met in Lieutenant Bullard’s office.
After the assassination, he heard rumors from various MPD officers with whom he was friendly that this officer was the rifleman who killed Dr. King. Curtis said he was told after the assassination that the officer was asked to leave the MPD and he refused to quit. It appeared that they wanted him to go becau
se he was increasingly disobedient and a potential embarrassment with a growing number of civil rights complaints being lodged against him. The officer reportedly told the director, he would, “… blow his ass off—he’d shoot every one of them up there.”
Curtis confirmed that though involved with a Fire Department health/exercise program and seconded to the Rifle Range, the fireman was officially assigned to Fire Station No. 2, which was diagonally across Mulberry Street opposite the Lorraine Motel, so no one would be surprised to see his car parked in the fire station parking area. Presumably, this is where the officer drove and left the car. Curtis confirmed that Strausser was an expert marksman, and that he is fully convinced he was the assassin of Dr. King.
The courage of this humble working-class human stalwart has both inspired and compelled me, now eleven years later in 2014, to press on in honor of the enduring vitality of the human spirit and its quest for truth. Once again, we are humbled by the nobility of one who materially is among the least of us, but whose reigning presence and values, in spite of who we are, remind us who we could become.
Lenny Curtis died in November of 2013. I safeguarded his information and his deposition for all of these years, fearful that the assassin’s masters would kill him if they learned about his cooperation with me.
The Plot to Kill King Page 32
