he had a rain coat on, as it was raining out. as ray told it, raoul wanted to show the rifle ray bought in birmingham to foreign buyers in an apparent gun-running deal. he told me to rent a room because we could be in memphis for three or four days. then i gave him the name i had used indirectly before, willard, and one that i wouldn t forget. there were tornado warnings that night, it was thundering and lightning and raining. while james earl ray sat in his motel, king was preparing to speak to the striking sanitation workers. there was some shutters in the back of the church, and they were banging because of the storm. and every time they would bang, he would do that. they would bang, and he would do that. he was nervous. yes, very much so. he thought he was going to die soon. he knew he was. always said, i ll never live to be 40. he was 39.
the police department, that was the only occasion i can remember where we had a sniper. murders committed by complete strangers are incredibly hard to solve, unless the killer makes his own mistakes. not only did that rifle have ray s fingerprint on it and no one else s, this empty shell casing was in the gun. one shot had been fired. ray s fingerprint was also found on the binoculars he bought, on these beer cans in the same bundle. even that day s newspaper which told readers where king was staying. this was a radio that he had when he was in the penitentiary. this, too, was left in the doorway beneath the boardinghouse. his prison number, i believe, is scratched on here. ray s hair would link him to the bedspread. then there was this in the bundle. so this laundry tag from his shorts yes. was traced back to him? exactly, exactly. james earl ray would eventually admit almost everything, except killing king.
not match this bullet, which killed dr. king, with the rifle ray bought. the bullet was badly mangled upon impact and the markings made by the rifle barrel when the gun was fired fell short of scientific certainty. second, two men living in the boardinghouse could not identify the man they saw running from the bathroom after the sound of the shot. he held a hand to his face. the government s case places the shooter in the bathroom. but police had one witness at the time who did see someone else. solomon jones, king s driver that day, says he saw a man with a white hood over his head in the bushes across the street from the lorraine hotel. the next day something strange happened at the crime scene. the bushes you see here were cut back. i questioned the guy who was the head of the public works department, who ordered you to cut down the bush? he said, i was ordered immediately to get a team down there to work with the police first thing the next morning to clean that whole place up.
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 not match this bullet, which killed dr. king, with the rifle ray bought. the bullet was badly mangled upon impact and the markings made by the rifle barrel when the gun was fired fell short of scientific certainty. second, two men living in the
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 not match this bullet, which killed dr. king, with the rifle ray bought. the bullet was badly mangled upon impact and the markings made by the rifle barrel when the gun was fired fell short of