Killing King
Page 31
.thekingcenter.org/sites/default/files/KING%20FAMILY%20TRIAL%20TRANSCRIPT.pdf. One can simply do a CTRL+F for the words objection or I object on this transcript and see that time and time again, Jowers’s defense attorney, Lewis Garrison, turns down the opportunity to object. The only major objections come from Tennessee’s Assistant Attorney General at the time, Michael Myers, who was opposing Pepper’s efforts to question a state undercover drug investigator. Myers was not defending or representing Jowers in any way.
30.Sharon Rufo et al., Plaintiffs, vs. Orenthal James Simpson, et al., Defendants, Case No. SC 031947, Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles, available online at simpson.walraven.org/oct23-96.html. Again, by searching just this one day of civil trial testimony in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against O. J. Simpson by the family of murder victim Ronald Goldman, one can see over two dozen objections just during opening statements!
31.Martin Hay, “William F. Pepper, The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.” (review), Kennedys and King, August 1, 2016, accessed August 15, 2017, kennedysandking.com/martin-luther-
king-reviews/pepper-william-f-the-plot-to-kill-king-the-truth-behind-the-assassination-of-martin-luther-king-jr.
32.Bill Curry, “Ray’s Escape Raises a Question: Why Was It So Easy?” Washington Post, June 13, 1977, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/06/13
/rays-escape-raises-a-question-why-was-it-so-easy/4eebd5c2-b751-4765-af1b-2a48ac69d139.
33.Jerry Mitchell, “Ex-wife: James Earl Ray ‘Didn’t Do Anything for Free,’” Journey to Justice (blog), Clarion-Ledger, April 1, 2010, blogs.clarionledger.com
/jmitchell/2010/04/01/ex-wife-james-earl-ray-didnt-do-anything-for-free.
34.FBI, “FBI Miami Field Office Urgent Teletype from Miami to Director, Jackson, Memphis” (August 2, 1968), Memphis 44-1987.
35.FBI, “FBI Miami Field Office Urgent Teletype from Miami to Director, Jackson, Memphis,” section 68 (August 6, 1968), FBI Central Headquarters File MURKIN 44-58861-5021, available online at the Mary Ferrell Foundation, www
.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult
&absPageId=1131536.
36.FBI, “King Assassination FBI Central Headquarters File” (August 14, 1968), MURKIN 44-38261-5051.
37.J. B. Stoner, letter to Fred Hockett (May 23, 1962), available online at the Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College, jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/M%20Disk/Milteer%20J%20A/Item%2003.pdf.
38.FBI, “Airtel from SAC Miami to FBI Director re: BAPBOMB, Sidney Crockett Barnes a.k.a. Racial Matters” (March 12, 1964), FBI file.
Chapter 14: aftermath
1.18 USC §241, available online at the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/241.shtml. Indeed, when the FBI was gearing up for a possible federal prosecution of “Eric Galt”—before they had made the James Earl Ray connection—they prepared an indictment using this section of the federal code. Obviously, the case was never tried on a federal level, only locally in Memphis, Tennessee.
2.Waldron and Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, 571.
3.Department of Justice/Civil Rights Division Referrals; Affidavits, June 1968, available online at Mary Ferrell Foundation, accessed September 15, 2010, www
.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult
&absPageId=106673. See affidavit of John Webster DeShazo, a gun store regular who interacted with Ray.
4.Our work with another individual, Jason Kull, using reverse phone and public records searches, places the phone within five to ten minutes’ driving distance from the gun store.
5.Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), 662.
6.House Select Committee on Assassinations, MLK Report Volume 13, H.R. Rep., section C: Personal relations between the Department and the Bureau, 1979, at 174–75, available online at the Mary Farrell Foundation, accessed December 11, 2010, www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=search
Result&absPageId=1004327.
7.House Select Committee on Assassinations, Summary of Findings and Recommendations, 1979, at 381–82, available online at the National Archives, accessed December 11, 2010, www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report
/part-2c.html.
8.Ibid., 377–78.
9.House Select Committee on Assassinations, Summary of Findings and Recommendations, 1979, at 451, available online at the National Archives, accessed December 11, 2010, www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report
/part-2e.html.
10.House Select Committee on Assassinations, Summary of Findings and Recommendations, 1979, at 377–78, available online at the National Archives, accessed December 11, 2010, www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report
/part-2c.html.
11.Ibid., 382. Ray initially stalled on executing the waiver for Arthur Hanes as well but relented. He never waived this protection for Stoner, however.
12.Ibid., 402. This claim came from Sapp and not from Somersett. Sapp correctly reported that Somersett had heard other rumors, notably a threat by union officials against King owing to King’s connection to labor union strikes (e.g. what he was doing in Memphis). Having looked at the available documentation from Somersett to the Miami PD, we agree with the HSCA that it is unlikely he told this story to law enforcement before the assassination. Lieutenant Sapp likely just misremembered a story Somersett reported later. Again, it is important to note that Somersett was an informant who simply reported everything he heard, regardless of whether the source for the information was exaggerating or lying or telling the truth.
13.Christensen, “King Assassination.”
14.Ibid.. See the latter for the redacted names.
15.FBI File No. 62-117290: section 10, at 16, available online at Mary Ferrell Foundation, accessed September 15, 2010, www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive
/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=146430&relPageId=14. The HSCA requested all relevant material on Tarrants (and others) in January 1978. The FBI, in their FOIA response to us, said they had routinely destroyed the relevant file, Mobile Field Office File 157-758, in 1977.
16.Jerry Mitchell, “Murder of Martin Luther King Jr.; Did Klan Have a role?” Clarion-Ledger, December 30, 2007. 39. FBI, “SA Ronald Johnson and SA Lester Amann Interviews with Sidney C. Barnes” (September 30, 1968), Jackson Field Office File 157-51. 40. FBI, “Sidney Crockette Barnes,” summary file, at 13 (November 30, 1971).
17.FBI, “SA Ronald Johnson and SA Lester Amann interviews with Sidney C. Barnes” (September 30, 1968), Jackson Field Office File 157-51.
18.FBI, “Sidney Crockette Barnes” (November 30, 1971), summary file, at 13. File obtained by the authors via FOIA.
19.House Select Committee on Assassinations, Summary of Findings and Recommendations, 1979, at 377, available online at the National Archives, accessed December 11, 2010, www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report
/part-2c.html.
20.Ibid., 378. One wonders if the sources on Barnes and the source on the White Knights are one and the same. There is an example of at least one person who had connections to all the relevant parties (e.g., Barnes, Carden, and the White Knights).
21.FBI, “Information concerning individuals who were formerly associated with the WKKKKOM, Jones Co., Miss.” (November 15, 1970), Jackson Report of SA Samuel Jennings, serial 809, at 31–32.
22.Mitchell, “Murder of Martin Luther King Jr.”
23.Bruce Hoffman, Holy Terror: The Implications of Terrorism Motivated by a Religious Imperative (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1993), www.public
good.org/reports/holywar3.htm.
24.Ibid.
25.Stanley Nelson, Devil’s
Walking: Klan Murders Along the Mississippi in the 1960s (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2016), 67.
26.Bruce Hoffman, Holy Terror.
27.Ibid.
28.Taylor Branch, Canaan’s Edge, 486.
About the Authors
stuart wexler has long been considered one of the top investigative researchers on domestic terrorism and radical religious activities. His books include The Awful Grace of God and America’s Secret Jihad. His groundbreaking work on forensics and historical crimes has been featured on NBC News and in The Boston Globe, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, USA Today, and The Clarion-Ledger. He now lives and teaches in New Jersey, where he won the prestigious James Madison Teaching Fellowship in 2010.
larry hancock is considered one of the top investigative researchers on the areas of intelligence and national security. He is the author of six books, including Shadow Warfare and Surprise Attack. Hancock’s books have received endorsements and praise from former House Select Committee on Investigations staff members and the former Joint Historian for the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency. He lives in Oklahoma.