Judge Supports Tests on King Assassination Gun

Racing against death, James Earl Ray’s efforts to reopen an investigation into the murder of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. inched forward Thursday, helped along by testimony from the civil rights leader’s widow and son.

But while Ray’s attorney hailed a judge’s ruling that kept alive hopes the convicted assassin will be granted a trial, all concerned acknowledged the possibility that the gravely ill Ray will not live long enough to see a resolution to the case.

Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Joseph B. Brown ruled that enhanced technology may now make it possible to prove conclusively whether Ray’s gun fired the shot that killed King in April 1968. Rather than order tests, however, Brown said he will relay his finding of fact to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, which overruled a decision by Brown ordering tests on the rifle in 1994.

Brown told reporters after the hearing that he is sending the matter to the appellate court “out of an abundance of caution.”

But Ray’s brother, Jerry, told reporters after the hearing that Brown’s decision “was just like a death sentence. By the time it goes to the court of appeals . . . he’ll be dead.”

He later softened his assessment, indicating he was cautiously optimistic.

Ray, suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, will die in three to five months unless he receives a transplant, and will probably live no longer than a year with a transplant, his brother said.

Perhaps more noteworthy than the ruling itself was the spectacle of King’s widow and son testifying on behalf of the convicted assassin and chatting with Ray’s brother, a man whom authorities have speculated may have helped commit the murder.

Coretta Scott King, in her first public statement on the subject of whether Ray committed the crime, said the issue of culpability in the murder of her husband is of importance not only to her family but to the nation.

“We believe that the only way . . . new evidence can be appreciably evaluated is in a court of law. Without a trial the evidence will be the subject of unending speculation.”

Added Dexter King: “If this is such an open-and-shut case, why are we still being asked the question: ‘Do you believe Mr. Ray killed your father?’ ”

After hours of emotional discussions, the family only recently decided to take a public stand on the issue, she said. Previously they had remained quiet because the matter was painful and because they hoped others would be successful in reopening the investigation without direct involvement from the King family.

Shortly before the start of Thursday’s hearing, the King and Ray families met for the first time when Jerry Ray sat behind the Kings, tapped them on the shoulder and thanked them. Dexter King chatted amiably with him for several minutes.

William Pepper, Ray’s attorney, said he was optimistic that the appellate court would rule quickly and that the bullet taken from King’s body could be tested using a scanning electron microscope, a little-used device which was not available in 1968 and which experts say may have a better chance of proving whether the bullet was fired by the Remington 30.06 rifle police found near the murder scene.

Previous tests have all been inconclusive, and Ray’s defense team has never been allowed to test the rifle.

Pepper contends that the gun, which James Earl Ray admits buying, was a “throw-down gun,” planted by the real assassins to implicate Ray, whom Pepper calls “a hapless patsy.”

If tests can prove conclusively that the bullet came from a different gun, Pepper hopes to be allowed to put on evidence in a trial that he says will exonerate his client.

“I implore, indeed plead for people across the country to contact the Court of Appeals in Tennessee and ask the court to lift the stay so we can proceed with this process,” he said in a press conference after the ruling.

A 1978 investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations determined that Ray shot King, but could not rule out whether he had help. Ray confessed to killing King in 1969 but then immediately recanted, saying he had been coerced by his attorney. Since then he has maintained that he was manipulated and set up by a smuggler whom he knew only as Raul.

Pepper claims to have tracked down Raul, whom he says was a smuggler in the 1960s but now lives quietly in the Northeast as a retired importer. But authorities who investigated the murder have long speculated that Raul was a fantasy figure concocted to disguise the involvement of Jerry Ray or another Ray brother.

Jerry Ray scoffed at that notion. He also denied reports that he is an avid white supremacist, saying that in 1968 he considered King’s death a tragedy.

Then, referring to reports that former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had harassed King and once had agents send the civil rights leader a letter urging him to kill himself, Jerry Ray said of his brother: “He didn’t have a reason to kill him. He wasn’t sending King letters saying suicide is the only way out and putting stories in the paper about him or anything like that.”

Among the spectators in the packed courtroom Thursday was Glenda Grabow, who has given sworn statements to Pepper saying she knew the man Ray has identified as Raul when he was a gun smuggler and pornographer in Houston in the 1960s.

Grabow’s statements helped lead Pepper to a Portuguese businessman now living in the Northeast. Pepper has sued this man and a Memphis businessman on behalf of Ray, claiming that they were civilian members of a conspiracy to kill King that also included Army intelligence, the FBI, the Mafia and local law enforcement officials.

In urging the judge to reject Ray’s request, prosecutor John Campbell argued that the ballistics-examination technology in question is not new and is not universally accepted. Further, he argued that if Pepper and the King family want to reopen the investigation into who killed the civil rights leader, a trial for Ray is not the proper way to do it.

Asserting that Ray pleaded guilty in 1968 because the evidence against him was so overwhelming and he wanted to escape the death penalty, Campbell said: “We have a valid conviction that has been affirmed seven times in two different court systems. If other people were involved [in a conspiracy to kill King] then there are other ways of finding that out than by retrying Ray.”

Next week, Jerry Ray and Pepper will go on the syndicated “Montel Williams Show” to appeal for someone to donate a liver to keep Ray alive and for funds to help finance an operation.

On Friday, producers from the TV talk show will videotape a brief segment with James Earl Ray, who has been shuttling back and forth between the hospital and a prison near Nashville since Christmas.

Jerry Ray said friends also are circulating letters to prison systems in several states in an effort to get death row inmates to agree to donate a liver.