FBI Discounts Alleged New King Evidence

A former FBI agent’s claim that he found evidence supporting James Earl Ray’s assertion of a frame-up in the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is a “total fabrication,” an FBI spokesman said Wednesday.

Former agent Donald Wilson said he discovered the evidence, two slips of paper, in Ray’s car six days after King was killed by a sniper here on April 4, 1968. Wilson said he did not tell anyone.

FBI records, however, show that Wilson was not among the five agents who searched the car.

“He is alleging something that as far as we’re concerned is a total fabrication,” FBI spokesman Frank Scafidi said from bureau headquarters in Washington.

A former agent who did search the car backed Scafidi’s statement.

Wilson made his claim Tuesday at a news conference with Ray’s attorney, William Pepper.

Pepper dismissed Scafidi’s comments as part of an FBI “disinformation campaign.” Wilson was not part of the search team, Pepper acknowledged, but had access to the vehicle before it was hauled to the FBI’s office in Atlanta and checked by agents.

Pepper said Wilson took two slips of paper from Ray’s car. Both had the name “Raul” on them, and one detailed “a laundry list of payments to other people and other entities,” Pepper said.

Ray has argued for 30 years that he was set up to take the blame for the murder by an underworld figure he knew only as Raul.

King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, said Tuesday that she wants an investigation into Wilson’s claim. “This is compelling evidence that further strengthens Mr. Ray’s appeal for the trial he never had,” she said.

Ray, now 70, pleaded guilty in 1969 but recanted three days later and has sought a trial since then. He is serving a 99-year sentence and has been in poor health because of liver disease.