History Made Every Day™

A Murder Conspiracy? Who Killed Martin Luther King?

"The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot to death by an assassin late today as he stood on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee."

That's how correspondent Dan Rather broke the news of Martin Luther King's assassination during a CBS News special report on the evening of April 4, 1968.

Nobody, not even the police, knew who had pulled the trigger for days. And the question of who killed King is still debated to this day.

King's presence in Memphis could be traced back to January 31, 1968, when 22 black sanitation workers were sent home without pay (unlike white workers) due to inclement weather.

With a long history of grievances, 1,300 African-American sanitation workers went out on strike in protest on February 12. When the city refused to negotiate, King and other civil rights leaders were asked to visit Memphis in support.

King, organizing his massive 'Poor People's Campaign,' managed to fit in a quick visit in Memphis. On March 18, he spoke to over 15,000 people at Mason Temple.

Ten days later, King returned to Memphis to lead a march in support of the striking workers. Unfortunately, a few of the protesters got rowdy and smashed the windows of a storefront. Others took up sticks and broke windows and looted stores. One person was killed, 62 others injured.

As the strike dragged on, King returned to Memphis a third time on the stormy night of April 3. King arrived late at Mason Temple, where 2,000 people were waiting to hear him speak. He had been delayed due to a bomb threat against his plane, a threat he referred to as he closed what would be his final speech.

"And then I got to Memphis," King said. "And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?"

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

The next day, King stepped out onto the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis to depart for dinner with local minister Billy Kyles. Suddenly, at 6:01 p.m., shots rang out. King was hit in the right check by a .30-06 caliber rifle bullet, which traveled through his neck and severed his spinal cord before resting in his shoulder blade.

Within 15 minutes, King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital with an oxygen mask on. Doctors performed emergency surgery, but his wound was too serious. King was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. He was 39 years old.

Police quickly determined the shots had come from a bathroom window at 418 ½ South Main. The FBI used fingerprints to identify James Earl Ray, an escapee from Missouri State Penitentiary, as the suspect on April 19. Ray was captured June 8, 1968, at London's Heathrow Airport while trying to flee the United Kingdom on a false Canadian passport.

Ray was extradited and returned to Memphis on July 19. On the advice of his attorney, Percy Foreman, Ray plead guilty plea to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to a 99-year-prison term on March 10, 1969.

End of story? Hardly.
Ray recanted his confession just three days later, opening the conspiracy flood-gates for decades to come.

Ray claimed he had been framed by a shadowy figure with the alias Raoul. Ray said he met Raoul in Montreal three months after escaping from prison in April 1967 and that Raoul gave him money for a car and rifle. Ray said that although he did not "personally shoot King, "he may have been "partially responsible without knowing it."

Other stories of conspiracy popped up over the years. In 1993, Lloyd Jowers, whose bar, Jim's Grill, opened onto the dense bushes across from the Lorraine Motel back in 68, made a startling claim. He said Mafia-connected produce dealer Frank Liberto had offered him $100,000 to hire a hit man to murder King. Jowers, who said he was told there'd be a decoy in the plot and that the police "wouldn't be there that night," said the killer he hired was not Ray.

The King family sued Jowers for wrongful death. In December 1999, a civil court jury in Memphis concluded that Jowers and unidentified people and government agencies had conspired to assassinate King.

The conspiracy theories didn't stop there. Ray's last lawyer, William Pepper, claimed in his 1995 book Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King that Ray was set up by the U.S. government, who had hired a Mafia hit man to kill King. A team of Green Beret snipers allegedly lurked nearby as back up, should the Mafia hit man miss. Pepper claimed the plot also included the Central Intelligence Agency, the Memphis police, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and Army intelligence.

And in 1998, retired FBI agent Donald Wilson resurrected Ray's "Raoul" story. Wilson claimed he had found pieces of paper in Ray's abandoned car after the shooting that had the name "Raul" written on them.

The papers also implicated several people who had allegedly been connected with the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Wilson said he took the evidence home and stored it in his refrigerator but that an unidentified person who later worked in the White House subsequently stole the papers.

Still another conspiracy theory that surfaced over the years claimed ministers associated with Dr. King were involved in the killing.

Finally, King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and other members of the King family asked President Clinton appoint a national fact-finding commission. Their request for a full reopening of the case was rejected, but in August 1998, Attorney General Janet Reno ordered prosecutors in the Justice Department's civil rights division to conduct an inquiry.

The 18-month investigation was headed by one of the government's top civil rights prosecutors, Barry Kowalski, who had prosecuted California police officers who beat the black motorist Rodney King.

In June 2000, the Justice Department inquiry determined that there was no credible evidence that King was killed by conspirators who aided or framed Ray and that the assassination warranted no further investigation.

''We find no credible information to support allegations of a conspiracy to kill Dr. King involving Jowers, Raoul, the Mafia, Memphis police officers, figures involved in the Kennedy assassination, federal agents, U.S. military personnel or African-American ministers close to Dr. King," said Kowalski.

Point by point, the report shot down every conspiracy theory, including Ray's reference to Raoul.

''The weight of the evidence establishes that Raoul is merely Ray's creation,'' the report concluded.

The inquiry also found no physical evidence to corroborate Jowers' account, that he had "contradicted himself on virtually every key point" in many retellings. It also determined the 1999 Memphis civil trial had relied on a ''substantial amount of hearsay evidence.''

The report also found that Wilson refused to relinquish any documents and cut off communication with the Justice Department once he was offered immunity from prosecution. Investigators found nothing to support Wilson's documents, noting that Ray himself had never said he remembered them.

Still, King's family challenged the Justice Department's conclusion, asserting that a conspiracy to kill King involved ''agents of the governments in the City of Memphis, the State of Tennessee and the United States of America.''

''We do not believe that, in such a politically sensitive matter, the government is capable of investigating itself,'' a family statement said.