The Many Versions of Ray’s Truth

The family of Martin Luther King Jr. wants a new trial for James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Dr. King. The rationale is that Ray, now a 68-year-old convict dying of cirrhosis of the liver, may at last be willing to tell the whole truth about what really happened 30 years ago.

Over the years there has been a flood of books and articles challenging the official verdict that Ray was the lone gunman. How could Ray, a petty hoodlum who was on the lam after escaping from Missouri State Prison, have tracked King to Memphis? How could Ray have known to be ready with his rifle when King stepped out on the motel balcony at 6 p.m.? How could Ray have then escaped from Memphis, traveled to Canada, obtained a false passport, and then made his way to Europe where he was finally arrested two months after the assassination?

Conspiracy buffs believe that Ray must have been aided by the FBI or some other powerful force in the government that wanted to have King murdered because of his opposition to the Vietnam War and his alleged involvement with Communists. Fueling the suspicion of conspiracy is that Ray never had a formal trial at which witnesses could be cross-examined and evidence debated. Instead, he was sentenced to a 99-year term after a plea bargain arrangement.

So, by all means, have James Earl Ray take the stand to testify. But we should be prepared for Ray to lie and spin stories, just as he has in the decades since the assassination. Ray has given three principal versions of what happened in Memphis April 4, 1968.

In his signed plea bargain confession, he admitted watching the motel from the second floor bathroom of the boarding house until King emerged onto the balcony, and then pulling the trigger. There is no mention of any conspiracy or any assistance.

Ray gave a different version of his story to his lawyer, Arthur Hanes Sr. Ray said a man named Raoul directed him to purchase a rifle and rent the room in the boarding house, without telling him the real purpose. Ray said he was parked outside the boarding house at the time of the shooting and that Raoul was inside. Ray said he heard a shot and Raoul came running out of the boarding house holding the rifle. Raoul jumped in the back seat of Ray’s white Ford Mustang and covered himself up with a sheet while Ray drove away.

The third version is the one Ray told the House Select Committee on Assassination in 1978 and repeated in his 1992 book “Who Killed Martin Luther King.” This time, he said he left Raoul in the boarding house and went to a gas station to have a tire repaired. Returning, he saw the street by the rooming house blocked by police and heard on the radio that King had been shot. Hearing that police were looking for a white man driving a white Mustang, he sped away and never saw Raoul again.

Why did Ray change his story? He has said that he signed the confession under pressure. He said he invented the story of Raoul covering himself with a white sheet as a teasing reference to the Ku Klux Klan. He now defends the gas station alibi as the truth, but skeptics say he latched on to it because of a dubious account that appeared some years after the event that Ray was seen at a Memphis gas station at the time of the shooting.

Ray’s interrogators at the 1978 House investigation probed the inconsistencies in his testimony. Why, he was asked, did he not inform the lawyer who was preparing his trial defense that he had been at a gas station? Ray blithely replied that he intended to tell about the gas station once he was put on the witness stand. “You were going to spring this on your attorney at the trial?” asked an astonished congressman. “Yes, that’s correct,” Ray replied. The HSCA final report pointed out how improbable this was, noting that “If the gas station story were true and [his lawyer] had been told of it, he could have found witnesses to corroborate it and support Ray’s testimony. By withholding his story, Ray guaranteed that his testimony, which was subject to impeachment because of his prior criminal record, would stand alone without independent corroboration.”

Perhaps now, as he approaches death, the wily Ray will finally tell the truth. But the problem is this: How will we know?