using a two-point laser, he marked the center of the bullet hole and then followed the bullet s path. it showed that the shooter was firing from a standing position. clearly few people shoot holding the gun up over their head, and if you realize their body was interposed between that, we only have a few feet to deal with. so it can t be a standing man, for example. it could be a collapsed man or a person nearly down on the floor. next, ballistics experts examined the bullet fragment found on the floor of the camper and discovered what was called soft damage. it deforms in a different way than it would if it hit wood, concrete, drywall, metal, and it slows down. the longer the path through a victim or tissue or a tissue simulant, the more life is lost. to find out whose tissue was in the camper, they sent the sample for dna testing, but they didn t have the body to compare
overruled. and judge brown ruled in 1997 that they could retest the weapon. ballistics experts fired ray s weapon 18 times to see if they could get a match. the results were inconclusive. but farris says one of those experts privately told him something else. it was said to me that while no conclusions could be made, if they were pressed for a conclusion, they would err on the side of it not being the gun. ray never got a new trial. william pepper turned to the king family one last time. they filed a civil case against lloyd jowers and other unknown co-conspirators. all the evidence from the beginning to the end how martin king was killed and why he was killed and who coordinated the killing came out under oath. in less than an hour, the jury ruled that lloyd jowers, not james earl ray, was involved in the murder. a verdict embraced by all those
blessing, pepper pushed for a new trial. make your statement, mr. ray. we re listening. ray, from day one, regretted his guilty plea, as he explained to the parole board in 1997. everyone wanted the guilty plea except me. for years, a number of dr. king s closest aides and friends had voiced doubts about the case both then i think the government rushed to judgment. i ve always felt that james earl ray didn t act alone. and now. i don t think james earl ray acted. you don t think he pulled the trigger? i don t think he was anywhere near. william pepper first met james earl ray in 1978 when he went to visit him in prison. pepper came away from that meeting certain of one thing. it was pretty clear that he was not the shooter. had there not been a guilty plea, there might have been two huge holes in the prosecutor s case. first, ballistics experts could
with a swing he could be deadly at a distance. and there is plenty of modern research to explain why. i had a conversation with this ballistics experts who had done the math and pointed out that the projectile, the rock from david s slink was moving at about would have hit goliath with the speed of a .45 caliber handgun. how do you find an israeli ballistics expert who had done this study? there was a paper about seven years ago how did you hear about international ballistics conference? if you re as much of a nerd as i am, this is the kind of stuff you get interested in. this is what you do? this is what i do. what he does made him hugely popular and very wealthy. his new book, david and
and there is plenty of modern research to explain why. i had a conversation with this ballistics experts who had done the math and pointed out that the projectile, the rock from david slain was moving at about would have hit ga lie yit with the speed of a .45 caliber handgun. how do you find an israeli boll li ballistics expert who had done this study? there was a paper about seven years ago how did you hear about international ballistics conference? if you re as much of a nerd as i am, this is the kind of stuff you get interested in. this is what you do? this is what i do. what he does made him hugely popular and very wealthy. his new book, david and gollath