![]() ![]() Ten years earlier he had pleaded guilty to a burglary charge in Chicago and spent three months in jail. “I was doing well enough to have bought another car - a black 1949 Lincoln - and thought I might have found a calling.”īy October, Ray and a friend were picked up by the police for robbing two grocery stores. 23, 1948, after receiving a sentence of three months in the stockade.īy February 1959, Ray was making a decent living in St. Ray received a discharge “under honorable conditions” on Dec. In March 1946, Ray enlisted in the Army for a three-year term after having quit school two years earlier at age 16. “In 1925, he’d been convicted of robbery and sent to Fort Madison Prison in Iowa, but he’d escaped a year later and didn’t want to call any attention to himself.” Ray’s father, George Ellis Ray, “had come to Alton to work in one of the factories and try to stay out of trouble,” the book says. Ray, born on March 10, 1928, in the small Mississippi River town of Alton, Ill., was one of seven children. ![]() King was shot? What was the real story behind Holloman’s removal of Ed Redditt from the security detail protecting King?”Īn even more basic question: Since there is no record of Ray’s ever belonging to any hate group such as the Ku Klux Klan, and since he describes himself as a basically non-political person without any strong views on subjects such as civil rights, what exactly did Ray have against King? What did he stand to gain by his death? Yet another interesting question posed not only by Ray but also by many who are skeptical of the lone gunman theory is, “What role did Memphis police and Fire Chief Frank Holloman - a 25-year veteran of the FBI - have in pulling that city’s only two black firemen away from a post near the Lorraine Motel the day before Dr. Although she had no previous record of mental illness, Grace Stephens was hastily tossed into a mental institution for 10 years. Stephens’ common-law wife, Grace Stephens, was a witness to the killing and was not drunk, but she insisted Ray was not the gunman. It is also interesting to note that Charles Stephens, the witness who said he saw Ray on the day of the assassination, was seen stone drunk by several witnesses on that same day and later admitted that he never even saw Ray. Ray does not deny that he bought the rifle, but he strongly denies he was the one who used it to kill King, or that he knowingly was a part of any attempt to kill him. Why has the federal government sealed all documents relating to the case until the year 2027? Why didn’t the FBI perform a ballistics test that could either confirm or deny whether the fatal shot was fired from the rifle that bore Ray’s fingerprints? Why has the government chosen to keep Ray behind bars for 23 years without allowing him to come to court if the case is so ironclad?Īs he says in his book: “Why, if official America is so firmly convinced that I pulled the trigger of the rifle that killed Martin Luther King, is there so much reluctance to allow me to have a trial and fully air the evidence? Instead of letting this cloud hang over the assassination, and over me, why not allow 12 citizens on a jury to decide, once and for all, whether I am guilty of killing Martin Luther King?” If the case were to make it to trial, Ray claims, Foreman promised to botch the job. What is more disturbing is the lengths to which the government, both at the federal level and in Tennessee, has gone to prevent Ray from receiving a jury trial.įor example, Ray says Foreman strongly pressured him not to push for a jury trial by using veiled threats of jail for his father and one of his brothers. Who Killed Martin Luther King? Ray’s recently published book, tells his side of the story in his own words and raises disturbing questions. To date, there has been no such investigation. ![]() But the reasons these men believe as they do raise important questions that should, at the very least, prompt a thorough investigation into King’s murder. In light of that, the support of several civil rights leaders is hardly enough reason to set Ray free. ![]() Oliver Stone’s movie JFK about the 1963 assassination of President John F. This, of course, is not the first time a conspiracy theory has been advanced to explain the murder of a high-profile personality. Edgar Hoover, who headed the FBI at the time, hated King and considered him dangerous to the country. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |