the very next day ray bought a used car and headed for canada. suddenly, he had enough money to buy a tailor-made suit and take a week s vacation at a resort. but he returned to his cheap room along the montreal waterfront trying to find a way to ship out to white-ruled areas of africa. ray s own words from 40 years ago. my reason for frequenting the waterfront was to see if i could get some drunken seaman s papers or get a job on the ship. ray put his account of his travels down in writing for the late author william bradford huey who would provide the money for his legal fees. i thought the way to find out what ray knew was to make a deal with him. in august of 1967 at the neptune tavern in montreal, ray said he met a mysterious man he knew only as raoul. the man ray would blame for everything that followed. i think the first time i contacted raoul was the second
in birmingham ray answered a newspaper ad and bought a car much like this. the car i finally bought, a 1966 mustang, had about 18,000 miles on it and was in good condition. it cost $1995. the only thing i didn t like was the color. it was white. in this fbi interview, the seller said ray paid him in cash, mostly 20s. he paid that guy $2,000 in 20s, that would be a lot of money. there s another dot connected to the bank of alton. reporter: detective john light thinks that money came from the robbery. if so, enough to keep ray on the run for another year. $30,000 back in 1967 was a lot of money. but james earl ray claims the money came from the mysterious raoul. never a last name. he just called that name raoul. that s the only name they called him. ray got an alabama driver s license under his alias, eric starvo galt.
time i frequented the bar with the pilot wheels in the window. he started the conversation. altogether, i would say i talked to him seven or eight times. as ray told it, raoul paid him to smuggle something, he never knew what, across the border in detroit. 100 square blocks are now under siege. he came back into the country only a few weeks after detroit erupted in a firestorm of rioting. at least 40 killed after a black confrontation with white police. america s second deadly urban riot in the summer of 67. ray drove on to chicago for a reunion with his brother, jerry. that s when he told me, he said, from now on i ll be known as eric s. galt. eric galt. ray never told him why or how he got the name. instead, the fugitive who had fled the country only a month earlier rode the train south to a largely segregated alabama.