In 1977 and ’78, the House Select Committee on Assassinations officially reviewed not only the JFK assassination by Martin Luther King’s death five years later as well. Their conclusion: while finding no evidence of government conspiracy or involvement, they suspected one or more persons colluded in some fashion with James Earl Ray in the hit on King, providing plans or resources or means to a getaway.
Thus when numerous authors explored King’s demise with a healthy skepticism, and a civil trial even expressly found for the King family and awarded damages for the acts of a supposed conspirator, the case for criminal activity above and beyond Ray stood on respectable ground, far above the vague ravings of tin-foil hat theorists.
From CBS in 1999:
“MLK’s Family Feels Vindicated
The widow of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. says she feels vindicated by a jury’s finding in December 1999 that her husband was the victim of a conspiracy, not a lone assassin, and says it is the duty of the Justice Department to look at the information presented in the Memphis case.
“I think that if people will look at the evidence that we have, it’s conclusive and I think the Justice Department has a responsibility to do what it feels is the right thing to do, the just thing to do,” Coretta Scott King, told CBS Early Show Anchor Bryant Gumbel a day after the trial.
The jury of six blacks and six whites deliberated only about three hours before returning the verdict in a civil lawsuit brought by the King family, reports CBS News Correspondent Jennifer Jones. They had sued Lloyd Jowers, a 73-year-old retired Memphis businessman who claimed six years ago that he paid someone other than James Earl Ray to kill King.
The Kings were awarded $100 in damages, but they weren’t after money. What they wanted was a verdict that would lend support to their call for a new investigation of the killing.”
CBS, 1999
(A $100 award for the loss of a life is it’s own anomaly, almost a joke, as we’ll discuss.)
Again, CBS:
“Ray confessed to the murder in 1969 but recanted and spent the rest of his life trying to get a trial. He died from liver disease last year.
Ray’s guilty plea was upheld eight times by state and federal courts. A U.S. House committee concluded in 1978 that Ray was the killer but he may have had help before or after the assassination. The comittee did not find any government involvement in the murder.
William Pepper with his friend Martin Luther King
“The jury also heard a great deal of evidence which exonerated James Earl Ray,” (Plaintiff’s Attorney) William Pepper said Thursday. “That should be made clear because there are spins coming out indicating that James was part of this conspiracy. That’s not what the jury found or heard. They heard strong evidence that James was an unknowing patsy.”
Jowers owned a small restaurant, Jim’s Grill, across the street from the Lorraine Motel, where King was killed. On the day of the murder, Ray, a prison escapee from Missouri, rented a room under an assumed name in a rooming house above Jim’s Grill.
In 1993, Jowers said on ABC-TV that he hired King’s killer as a favor to an underworld figure who was a friend. He did not identify the purported killer, but said it wasn’t Ray.
Jowers, who has never repeated the claim, was sick for much of the trial and did not testify.
Lewis Garrison, Jowers’ lawyer, told jurors they could reasonably conclude King was the victim of a conspiracy but said his client’s role was minor at best.
He said it was hard to believe that “the owner of a greasy spoon and an escaped convict” could have pulled off King’s assassination.”
Cbsnews.com,, December 8, 1999
Assassination Conspiracy Trial
After four weeks of testimony and over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on December 8, 1999 after about an hour of deliberations that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. In a press statement held the following day in Atlanta, Mrs. Coretta Scott King welcomed the verdict, saying , “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court’s unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution. Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law… My husband once said, “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” To-day, almost 32 years after my husband and the father of my four children was assassinated, I feel that the jury’s verdict clearly affirms this principle. With this faith, we can begin the 21st century and the new millennium with a new spirit of hope and healing.”
From thekingcenter.org
But does the verdict in the civil trial really add up to much? Skeptics of that trial emphasize that the key “witness,” Lloyd Jowers, was not really a witness in this proceeding at all, pleading ill health and never showing up to say a single word. The assertion he made that he hired a hit-man to get King, at the behest of underworld connections, was never repeated under oath. Doubters point out that with the common phenomenon of false confessions, and the possible financial motivation related to the sensational claims, any Jowers-based conclusion of conspiracy should be taken with many grains of salt. The U.S. Department of Justice, for what it’s worth, gave no credibility to the narrative put forward by Jowers and others.
Nonetheless, a duly seated jury found for the King family, the plaintiffs in the case, finding that responsibility for MLK’s death not only reached beyond James Earl Ray but may have only involved him as stooge and patsy. That seemingly explosive verdict was surprisingly little covered by U.S. mainstream media, leading to further suspicion that, at every level, the fix was in. But did the case simply amount to the family engineering a proceeding to hear what they wanted to hear? Opinions differ. The respected search site Snopes.com opined that there was much less there than meets the eye in that civil proceeding, and responded to “conspiracy theorists” by concluding:
“The one thing the conspiracy rumor correctly states is a 1999 civil trial reached a verdict that cited the existence of a conspiracy to assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. What it neglects to mention is the relative worth of such a judgment: The verdict in question was civil rather than criminal, the sole named defendant was someone who stood to gain both publicity and money from repeating his claims, and the King family’s motivation in bringing the suit was to validate their long-held suspicions a larger conspiracy was at play in the death of the civil rights leader. Given the minor sum of money awarded, a jury would have little incentive to not find in favor of an account supported by both sides of a flawed case.”
Snopes.com
“we examined the trial evidence relating to these far-ranging conspiracy claims. We found that it was both contradictory and based on uncorroborated secondhand and thirdhand hearsay accounts. Nor did we find any credible, concrete facts to substantiate any of the conspiracy allegations. Because there was no reliable evidence presented at trial relating to a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King involving either Jowers, the government, African American ministers, or anyone else, and because we know of no information to support such allegations, we find no justification for further investigation.
To explain our conclusion, we have summarized the trial evidence relating the purported conspiracies and analyzed that evidence in view of the results of our investigation and other relevant information that was not presented in King v. Jowers.
The DOJ authors give critical examples of what they consider merely wispy smoke, leading to no fire:
Most of the witnesses and writings offered to support the various government-directed conspiracy claims relied exclusively on secondhand and thirdhand hearsay and speculation. Additionally, none of these allegations were ever linked together. Rather, the hearsay evidence alleged that various government agencies participated in assorted assassination plots that are actually contradictory.
One allegation came from an acquaintance of Jowers who testified regarding a double hearsay account of an alleged conversation in a barbershop in which a supposed FBI agent remarked that the CIA was responsible for the assassination. Unrelated to this allegation, other hearsay evidence presented a different conspiracy, one to silence Ray after he pled guilty. One of Ray’s former attorneys related a double hearsay account from two deceased inmates suggesting that, ten years after the assassination, Ray was the target of a government-directed murder contract. A former government official further testified that he heard an unconfirmed rumor that FBI snipers were dispatched when Ray escaped from prison.”
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(Again, from the official DOJ Website:)
“James Smith, formerly a Memphis police officer, testified that he understood that Dr. King was under government surveillance during the sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis in March 1968, two weeks before the assassination. Smith reported that he observed a van filled with radio equipment outside the Rivermont Hotel where Dr. King was staying. Smith said that he heard from unidentified sources that the occupants of the van were federal agents conducting electronic surveillance.
Eli Arkin, a former Memphis police intelligence officer, answered questions about the presence of military personnel in Memphis. Arkin testified, consistent with what he previously related to us, that in March or April 1968, Army intelligence agents worked in his office while he was gathering information about the sanitation strike. According to Arkin, the agents never explained what they were doing and merely observed and took notes.
Finally, Carthel Weeden, then the captain of Fire Station No. 2 across from the Lorraine, testified that on the morning of the assassination, two men who identified themselves as Army personnel said they wanted to conduct photographic surveillance. He reported that he showed them to the fire station’s roof. When we spoke to him after the trial, Weeden advised that, while he was sure he took military personnel to the roof, it was possible that he did so on a day before — not on the day of — the assassination. He also told us that he did not know how long the men remained on the roof.”
(Then, a section of the DOJ report that supposedly addresses the nitty-gritty of a government sponsored hit–once again second and third hand memories from assorted characters. Here they reference a deposition:)
The deposition provides details as to how the murder was allegedly accomplished. It states that on April 4, 1968, the deponent and others flew to Memphis from a secret airstrip owned by Marcello. Upon arrival, a woman from Belize, South America, now deceased, drove them to downtown Memphis and dropped off Raoul near Mulberry Street. Raoul then went into a building and left a bag outside. Afterwards, Raoul drove to New Orleans, picked up Ray in Atlanta, and flew with him to Canada. The deposition also alleges that after “the actual shooting of King took place [from] behind * * * a brushy little wall,” the woman from Belize “c[a]me around and pick[ed] up the shooter” in a Chevrolet Corvair. The shooter, along with the deponent, flew back to the Mafia airstrip and, while passing over the Mississippi River, threw the rifle into the river.
While the “John Doe” deposition presented the most detailed evidence alleging a government-directed conspiracy, no live witness testimony or documentary or physical evidence corroborated any part of its allegations. Conveniently, Doe remained unidentified for “security reasons” and virtually all of his alleged co-conspirators are supposedly dead. Moreover, many of Doe’s claims are contradicted by otherwise established facts. For example, none of the many witnesses at the Lorraine, nor the police who immediately responded, saw a woman drive by and pick up the shooter, and Ray never claimed that he flew to Canada with Raoul. Thus, this far-fetched, anonymous story has no indicia of reliability and is not credible. “
(Finally, regarding supposed military complicity:)
“The King v. Jowers trial included evidence relating allegations of United States military involvement in the assassination. Although no evidence specifically alleged that military personnel killed Dr. King, hearsay accounts and speculation suggested that military personnel were somehow connected to the assassination and actually witnessed it.
Dr. (William) Pepper introduced redacted copies of notes purporting to document interviews with unidentified military sources who claimed to have observed the assassination.(78) One set of notes records allegations by an unidentified source, claiming that he was one of two soldiers with the 902d Military Intelligence Group who was on the rooftop of Fire Station No. 2 conducting surveillance of Dr. King at the time of the assassination. This source reported that he observed and his partner photographed the assassination and “a white man with a rifle” on the ground leaving the scene. According to the notes, the source offered to approach his partner to attempt to obtain the alleged photographs for $2,000.
Another set of notes purported to document the allegations of a different unnamed source that he was one of two guardsmen with an Alabama National Guard unit, the 20th Special Forces Group (SFG), who was watching Dr. King and Ambassador Young from another rooftop near the Lorraine and observed the assassination. That source also claimed that his team coordinated with the Memphis police and someone he assumed to be with the CIA.
In a 1993 newspaper article from the Memphis Commercial Appeal, which was also introduced, reporter Stephen Tompkins asserts, without citing sources for the specific claims, that in the late 1960s, the 20th SFG conducted military intelligence surveillance of Dr. King and others from the civil rights movement. The article further provides that, on the day before the assassination, the 111th Military Intelligence Group (MIG) “shadowed [Dr. King’s] movements and monitored radio traffic from a sedan crammed with electronic equipment” and that “[e]ight Green Berets from an ‘Operation Detachment Alpha 184 Team’ were also in Memphis carrying out an unknown mission.”
Douglas Valentine, who authored a book about CIA intelligence operations during the Vietnam war, presented hearsay testimony from another unidentified source. He related that while writing his book, he learned that a single unnamed source allegedly involved in the military’s anti-war surveillance “heard a rumor” that the 111th MIG was conducting surveillance of Dr. King in Memphis on April 4, 1968, and took photographs of the assassination. Valentine advised us after the trial that he could not recall the identity of the person who told him the rumor but thought it was a former military enlisted man.
Another writer, Jack Terrell, who claimed to have worked with a CIA-directed group supplying arms and military software to the Contra rebels in Honduras in the 1980s, offered a hearsay opinion of a deceased source. Terrell testified that in the 1970s, as a private businessman, one of his employees, J.D. Hill, now deceased, claimed to have been with the 20th SFG in the 1960s. According to Terrell, Hill, who was a “strange person” with a drinking problem, expressed the “view” that in 1968 he had been trained specifically to participate in a military sniper mission to assassinate Dr. King that was canceled without explanation.”
Department of Justice