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ORDERS TO KILL -- THE TRUTH BEHIND THE MURDER OF MARTIN LUTHER KING |
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Chapter 22: The Trial Approaches: January 1993 AS THE NEW YEAR YEAR began we were just twenty-four days from the trial. I came again to Memphis and wouldn't return to England until the jury reached a verdict. For James and me the trial was the culmination of years of waiting and work, and I believed it could result in rewriting the history of one of the republic's most tragic periods. We opened an office on the lower floor of James E. "Jeb" Blount III's law offices, a few blocks from the court. I insisted on having a 6'x4' security safe moved in to house our most sensitive files. We would also have the offices swept for the presence of any electronic surveillance devices. I finally interviewed former MPD detective Edward Redditt, now a schoolteacher in Somerville, Tennessee. He told me that in early 1968 he had been on regular assignment as a community relations officer on the Memphis police force. During the time of the sanitation workers' strike he had been seconded to the intelligence bureau, reporting directly to Lt. E. H. Arkin. Arkin was in day-to-day operational control and was also the designated liaison officer to the FBI and its local office intelligence specialist, William Lawrence. Redditt was assigned the task of conducting surveillance on the striking sanitation workers. When Dr. King and his party returned to Memphis, he was ordered to take up a surveillance post along with black patrolman Willie B. Richmond, who was a regular member of the MPD intelligence bureau, in the locker room at the rear of fire station 2, on the corner of Butler and South Main streets. From this vantage point they could see the Lorraine Motel through a peephole in a paper put over the glass of a rear locked door. There were small windows as well near the ceiling on that back wall, but to see through them one had to lie on top of the lockers. As we have seen, this is what fireman Charles Stone was doing at the time of the shooting. Thus the two-man team of Redditt and Richmond was on duty on April 3 and April 4, keeping an eye on the movements of Dr. King's party and the Invaders in and around the motel. On April 4 Richmond arrived late-probably between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. Redditt was on duty, however, covering for his partner, whom he didn't really know or trust. He has since come to believe that Richmond was primarily assigned by Arkin to keep an eye on him. Redditt told a familiar story: sometime after 4:00 p.m. on the afternoon of April 4, Arkin appeared at the fire station and told Redditt to follow him to headquarters. Redditt went along and was led into a large conference room where he said he saw assembled twenty or more people, many of whom he didn't recognize. Some of them were in military uniforms. MPD director Holloman told Redditt that a contract had been put out on his life and that security was going to be arranged for him and his family. Holloman said that a secret service agent had flown in from Washington to tell them of this threat. Redditt's first reaction was disbelief. He had been threatened from time to time by community activists who thought he had sold out, but hostility came with the turf. It never occurred to him that either he or his family would be in such danger as to require protection. When Redditt protested, Holloman ordered him home. He was officially off duty, and there would be no further discussion. Arkin drove him home. They arrived in front of his house shortly before 6:00 p.m. and while still sitting in the car a report of the assassination came over the radio. Redditt was told to remain off work until further notice. Three days later he was called back and not a word was mentioned about the threat on his life. It seemed to disappear as quickly as it came. At various times he asked about it, only to be told that it had all been a mistake; the report had confused him with another black officer in another city. To this day he regards the incident as a mystery, and he considers the timing of his removal as sinister. The HSCA report disclosed that the man identified as the Washington "secret service" agent wasn't a secret service agent at all. He was Phillip Manuel, the chief investigator for Arkansas senator John McClellan's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Manuel's role has never been satisfactorily explained. He has admitted to being in Memphis on the day of the assassination, but has never been able to provide a reason. Director Holloman's recollections over the years have been similarly unrevealing. The HSCA reviewed an internal MPD memorandum establishing that Arkin had in fact received conclusive information on April 4 that there was no threat on Detective Redditt's life. If there was any relevant threat at all it was against another black police officer in another city. The HSCA noted that "... this information was being received by Arkin as Holloman was holding his meeting with Redditt." [11] The committee took the issue no further. Redditt brought up an even stranger event. Sometime in the mid-1970s, prior to the HSCA investigation, he was asked to go over to the Federal Building in Memphis where he was shown a photograph by a person who he believes was a Justice Department official. (The Justice Department conducted an investigation of the FBI's investigation of the case during that period.) The photograph was of a bundle lying on the comer of Ruling and Mulberry streets. The bundle was being watched over or guarded by a uniformed Memphis police officer holding a shotgun whom Redditt identified with certainty as Louis MacKay, the same black patrolman who had been assigned to guard the evidence found in front of Canipe's until homicide chief Zachary took charge of it and carried it away. A well-circulated photograph shows officer MacKay, shotgun at the ready, in front of Canipe's. I had never heard even a rumor about this extraordinary incident. At the end of our session Redditt agreed to testify about both experiences. Louis MacKay was still an active MPD officer in 1993. Re- viewing the events of that April 4 evening, he was positive that he guarded the bundle only on South Main Street by Canipe's and nowhere else. He has no explanation for the photograph described by Redditt. That photograph has never been seen again. The obvious question is whether the photograph of Louis MacKay at Canipe's doorway and possibly the bundle itself could have been superimposed on a photograph of the corner at Huling and Mulberry. But for what purpose? Could this have been an alternate "official" escape route? *** BETTY SPATES'S SISTER Alda finally spoke to me, adding new ele- ments to Betty's story. She said that after the killing, Jowers fired Bobbi, Rosie Lee, and Rosetta. Contrary to what Betty and Bobbi had said, however, Alda contended (though I didn't believe her) that she had herself only begun work at the grill seven months after the event. Working with her at the time were Big Lena (the head cook) and Joy. She said that Betty used to come around and try to "supervise" things, taking advantage of her relationship with Jowers. Alda recalled finding money in a suitcase in an old stove and telling Betty about it. Betty told Jowers and Jowers quickly fired both Lena and Alda. Alda recalled Jowers getting a phone call, going away and returning with the suitcase. She also recalled that Jowers told her not to go out the back door into the rear yard area. She added that Betty had a gun with a scope on it back in the 1970s and sometimes kept it under her bed. Alda couldn't recall any wedding at the Oakview house and had never heard about Jowers buying it. She believed that she and Bobbi had purchased the house by themselves. Finally, Alda told us that Coy Love, a black street-artist, saw a man run across South Main Street just after the killing, continue up the alleyway by Seabrook, and then take off a hooded sweatshirt and throw it into a dumpster. To his later amazement, she said, Coy saw that the man was black. Solomon Jones's story about seeing a man in the bushes with a hood or something around his head came to mind. In a statement to the MPD, Jones said he saw a man heading back toward the rooming house. This could explain the footprints in the alley as being left by someone heading in to Jim's Grill and to South Main Street. In his statement given to the media on the evening of the shooting, he said he saw a man come down over the wall and onto or near the Lorraine property, only to drift away. We continued to look for Jones without success. I was concerned that some of Alda's recollections seemed to contradict parts of Betty's statement, although it appeared that Alda was trying to distance herself from the events of April 4. Betty hadn't mentioned having a rifle, and we also wondered if either Betty or Alda was confused about the time when Jowers placed money in the stove -- or whether there could have been two lots of stashed bills. Lastly, we didn't know what to make of Betty's uncorroborated insistence that a wedding took place. At the risk of offending Betty, Kenny, local black investigator Cliff Dates, and I went to the Shelby County Jail to talk to her son, John Spates. He had been incarcerated there since October on what appeared to be a frivolous complaint by an acquaintance of his. Spates confirmed Akins's attempt to shoot him, his brother, and his mother back in 1983 but said he didn't understand why-one moment Akins seemed to be their friend and the next he seemed determined to kill all three of them. His mother had obviously been reluctant to tell any of them about what she saw, afraid that it would also put their lives in danger. I felt more confident about Betty's story after talking with her son. They seemed to be mutually protective, and I believed that, whatever the reason, Akins was likely to have made an attempt on John's life. We were still confused about when Jowers's cash appeared, as well as about the possible significance of the second-hand Coy Love story and were concerned about whether or not Betty was in possession of a rifle after the killing. We would eventually learn that Coy Love had died and we were unable to locate any surviving family he had. Betty soon learned about our visit with john and was upset. It was clear that she had tried to shelter John from the underlying reason for the murder attempt in 1983. She believed that if he didn't know what she saw around 6:00 p.m. on April 4, 1968, he would be safe. She didn't recall ever having a rifle, and insisted that she had seen the cash in the stove prior to the killing. Meanwhile, Ken Herman had located Bessie Brewer, the manager of the rooming house at 422-1/2 South Main at the time of the shooting, and we set out to see her. Apparently her husband Frank had died and she now lived alone. Herman reported that according to her daughter, Bessie had been told by the FBI back in 1968 not to talk to anyone, and she had followed those instructions to this day. When Herman introduced us she announced that she was not the Bessie Brewer that we wanted, but that she and her late husband had frequently been confused with the other Bessie and Frank, who were black. As we chipped away at that transparent story, I showed her a photograph of the area of the rooming house and detected a clear sense of recognition in her eyes; but she wouldn't relent. Bessie wasn't talking. *** A NUMBER OF LOOSE ENDS began to come together. James Orange confirmed that he had seen smoke rising from the bushes right after the shot and then noticed the disappearance of those bushes the next morning. He would provide a statement, since a previously scheduled trip to South Africa made it impossible for him to testify in person at the trial. James's former attorney Jack Kershaw confirmed Jerry Ray's story about the offer made to him by William Bradford Huie in a meeting in Nashville. On offer was: $220,000 as well as pardons from Missouri and Tennessee in exchange for James's admissions that he was the killer. Jack told me that he took the offer to James who dismissed it out of hand. (Later, as we have seen, Huie came back again with the offer but would go through Jerry.) Kershaw believed that the two other men present at the meeting might well have been federal agents. He had no doubt that Huie was acting as an intermediary for the federal government since he reasoned that only the government could arrange the pardons and the protection. I recalled that Huie had previously developed a close working relationship with the FBI. Former Louisville policeman Clifton Baird agreed to try to set out the details of the 1965 conspiracy to kill Dr. King in Louisville, although he was concerned that severely impaired speech caused by two strokes could detract from his credibility as a witness. Ultimately I was forced to abandon hope of even obtaining a statement from him. His wife said he was too unwell to consider the matter. *** ON JANUARY 10 came the revelation from former MPD homicide detective Barry Neal Linville. Linville and his partner, J. D. Hamby, were present along with Lt. Tommy Smith at the city morgue on the evening of the murder. He and Hamby watched Shelby County coroner Dr. Jerry Francisco extract the death slug in one piece and hand it over to them for tagging as evidence and delivery to the FBI laboratory in Washington, D.C. Dr. Francisco also took photographs of the bullet, which he turned over to homicide inspector Zachary and to the FBI. Though of poor quality, there is a photograph taken by Francisco at the time of the removal of the slug from Dr. King's body in the HSCA volumes. There are no such photographs in the attorney general's file, having mysteriously disappeared. When I showed the now retired Barry Linville a photograph of the three bullet fragments presently under the control of the clerk of the criminal court, which are identified as Q-64, the FBI marking for the death slug (see photograph #15), Linville was incredulous. "That's not the bullet I saw taken from the body," he said. "The slug I saw was in one piece and in very good condition." The only visible defect, he maintained, was that the exposed lead in the nose of the bullet was flattened. On a scale of one to ten he rated the slug as a nine. I was impressed with Linville's forthrightness and certainty. Here was an experienced homicide officer who had seen thousands of evidence bullets, and he was amazed at the changes that had somehow occurred to the death slug he saw being removed from Dr. King's body. He could offer no explanation for this alteration of a vital piece of evidence. Neither could he explain why during the past twenty-five years no one had contacted him as one of the original MPD homicide investigators about what he saw and knew. Barry Linville readily agreed to take the stand. *** I FINALLY CAUGHT UP WITH MAYNARD STILES, who in 1968 was the deputy director of the Memphis City Public Works Department, and conclusively learned that early on Friday morning, April 5, a two-man team was sent out to cut and clean up the entire backyard at 422-1/2 South Main Street. Stiles told me that the predawn request came from the police department, and that he immediately assigned the task to Dutch Goodman and Willie Crawford. Dutch Goodman had since died, but Willie Crawford was still working for the Public Works Department. According to Ken Herman he confirmed that he and Goodman did the cleanup under police supervision. Having learned about the footprints near the edge of the alleyway between the two wings of the rooming house and that three patrolmen had been in the area, I had been trying to locate the only one who was still alive, former MPD officer Joe "J. B." Hodges. We finally found him. He said that a short time after the killing, he climbed on top of some drums at the base of the wall under the bushes and entered the backyard of the rooming house from the Mulberry Street side to join TACT 10 member patrolman Torrence N. Landers, who was already there. Hodges remembered having considerable difficulty in getting through the thick mulberry bushes. Hodges told me that, contrary to earlier reports, he and not Landers had discovered the very large footprints in the mud just inside the alleyway. They appeared to him to be freshly made. He secured that area until a plaster cast was made of the prints, which turned out to be very large-one foot was 13-1/2" and the other 14" long. Hodges agreed to testify. Keep in mind that it had rained heavily the night before the killing, and in his statement Torrence Landers had said that the ground was wet. It appeared that the heavy rain had washed mud inside the entrance of the alleyway. Here was yet another clear indication of the presence of a person in that area behind the rooming house. Along with the previous observations of Caldwell, Jones, Orange, and Ross (all of which had somehow eluded official investigators for twenty-five years), the significance of the brush area as the likely scene of the shooting was again enhanced. *** My INTERVIEWS WITH THE INVADERS turned up a few notable observations. Charles "Izzy" Harrington was one of the Invaders occupying rooms 315 and 316 farther along the balcony from Dr. King's room 306 on April 3 and 4. On April 3, he stayed around the motel and thought he heard sounds and activity in the bushes on the other side of Mulberry Street behind the rooming house. I was interested in the recollection but didn't think it particularly significant because the night of April 3 had been a stormy one and the rustling of the bushes could have been caused by the wind. Izzy said that at about 5:45 or 5:50 p.m. on April 4, a maid knocked on his door and told him that the Invaders were going to have to leave the motel, because Dr. King's group was no longer going to pay their bill (previously, Invader Charles Ballard had also recalled this incident). When Izzy asked who had given her those instructions, she said Reverend (Jesse) Jackson. Izzy and the rest of the Invaders gathered up their things and left, some in Cabbage's blue Mustang, others on foot. This explained the sudden departure recorded in Patrolman Richmond's log, which was compiled from his surveillance post in the fire station across the street. Izzy recalled that they had only been off the motel property for about fifteen minutes when they heard the sirens and learned about the shooting. They ran back toward the motel only to find that roadblocks (Public Works Department wooden horses) were in place on Mulberry Street. He said it couldn't have been more than ten minutes after the shooting that they were put up. His opinion was that someone knew what was going to happen and had them ready. Calvin Taylor, another Invader, remembered the March 29 meeting with Dr. King with a feeling of awe. FBI agent Bill Lawrence, who was the Memphis field office's intelligence liaison with the MPD, had testified before the HSCA that the MPD knew everything that was said at that meeting because "they had someone there." Before I was able to confirm the electronic surveillance of Dr. King's suite, I assumed that he meant that one of those present was reporting to him. Even with the electronic surveillance I believed it likely that they had an informant at the meeting. The bugging of course provided an opportunity for them to check the accuracy of their source's report. Such checking was routine. One of my MPD sources confided to me that on occasion he was assigned to an army intelligence officer he only knew as Hamilton. On this detail, one of his assignments was to follow an informant named "Copperhead" so that the intelligence section could evaluate his reports and work. Copperhead is now a popular Democratic legislator. His adherents would likely say that he acted like many others who manipulated the system to their own ends. I heard allegations of this type of collaboration regularly leveled at many of the "established" civil rights leaders in Memphis. I indicated to Taylor that I knew the Invaders were infiltrated not only by the MPD through McCollough but also by the FBI, which had its own informant. Taylor became nervous and asked me if I knew who the person was. I said that I had a good idea but it wasn't my intent to follow it up. He seemed to relax, and the discussion continued. In 1968 he was a copy boy for the Commercial Appeal. His editor at the time told him that Bill Lawrence of the FBI had said he should watch his step because he was associating with the wrong people. He continued to associate with the Invaders and after the assassination he was made a full-fledged reporter. "Big John" Smith, a native Memphian, had returned to Memphis from the West Coast where he had joined the Black Panthers. He came back to work with the Invaders and assist in their local organizing efforts. During early 1968 he was under nearly constant surveillance -- physical (from the moment he left his home each day) and, he suspected, electronic as well. He said that on the afternoon of April 4 he arrived at the Lorraine to meet other Invaders at about 4:45. A number of MPD officers were there when he arrived. He particularly remembered seeing Caro Harris sitting in the lobby. At about 5:30 he came downstairs to the restaurant to have something to eat with his wife and friends. He remembered noting that at that time all the police had disappeared. A kind of stillness had descended over the motel. "It was eerie," he said. He agreed to testify. *** RUFUS BRADSHAW, the police officer who had relayed the hoax message to central dispatcher Billy Tucker on April 4, confirmed that he had been flagged down by passing motorist William Austein, who then proceeded to relay the CB transmission to him, which he passed on as he was given it. To protect himself, Bradshaw said he pulled a private citizen into the car so that if he ever needed an independent statement of the event he could produce it. He had guaranteed anonymity to this person unless the necessity arose. He had particularly hostile words for the FBI's treatment of Austein, which he couldn't understand and he believed was unwarranted. He agreed to testify. *** FORMER GOVERNOR RAY BLANTON confirmed J. J. Maloney's story about the massive FBI SWAT team which quickly appeared after James's escape in June 1977. He said that he was motivated to go to the prison immediately after the escape by a phone call from Louis Stokes, the HSCA chairman. Stokes told him that if he didn't get over to the prison, he was likely to lose his most famous prisoner and the HSCA was going to lose its star witness. Stokes's staff had learned that the FBI team was sent to Brushy Mountain with instructions to find James and not bring him back alive. Blanton said that because Stokes treated the FBI presence so seriously it was clear that there was no time to lose. He immediately took a helicopter from the capitol to the prison. He found it unprecedented that the FBI would come in uninvited and with such force on a state prison escape. Upon arriving he realized that Stokes had been right -- he too concluded that the bureau wanted James dead. The governor was reluctant to testify, though, wanting to keep a low profile, since he had one remaining criminal count pending before an appellate court, which if reversed would completely overturn his conviction on charges of corruption. In my second meeting with Walter Fauntroy he said he was willing to testify for the defense at the trial. He said that in recent years he had reanalyzed some HSCA documentation and had become convinced that James was innocent. I was elated. He said he had concluded that much of the material had been withheld from the committee by its staff, who manipulated the HSCA's findings and report. He also confirmed governor Blanton's story, saying that it was he (Fauntroy) who first received the reports about the FBI's determination to kill James after his escape and that he caused Louis Stokes to alert the governor. I continued to press Fauntroy for information he said he had pertaining to the surveillance communications generated by army intelligence on Dr. King's activities. * * * THE TRIAL was now less than two weeks away. We had found Randy Rosenson, whose memory had clearly been affected by a long history of drug abuse. Rosenson stated that he was interviewed by the HSCA several times. He eventually recalled that on some of these occasions, he was represented by Knoxville attorney Gene Stanley. He agreed to allow Stanley to testify at the trial to provide evidence of the HSCA's apparent knowledge about the existence of Raul. Rosenson himself agreed to give an affidavit about these matters, since he couldn't travel to Memphis as he was in a daily outpatient methadone treatment program and running a business. Rosenson's and Stanley's recollection of the HSCA interviews in Knoxville, Atlanta, and elsewhere were confirmed by the General Services Administration (GSA) expenditure reports. Rosenson also recalled an American Indian who lived in Miami in 1968 and who had substantial contacts in Latin and South America, and was involved in drug smuggling and gun-running. Rosenson said that during this time he made frequent trips to Mexico with this person. Curiously enough, this individual owned a white Mustang. Rosenson also stated that prior to an HSCA interview in Richmond, he was visited by a big man who told him he should admit to having known James when asked. It would solve many problems. Rosenson said he refused. The man was introduced to him as a high-level Tennessee state official. In subsequent telephone conversations with investigator Jim Johnson, inmate Jules "Ricco" Kimbel stated that he too knew the American Indian referred to by Randy Rosenson, whom I will call Harry. He said Harry was associated with Carlos Marcello and was a very dangerous man. A criminal record check showed that this person's files had been "cleaned," indicating that he also had, or had previously, some relationship with one or another federal agency. Such associations are for life, and their existence and any resulting activity are usually jealously protected. The "sanitizing" of files is just one way of ensuring secrecy. The discovery was exciting, but it was clear that it would be long after the trial before we would be able to investigate in detail this person's role, if any, in the case. *** By JANUARY 16 I HAD prepared final affidavits for Jules "Ricco" Kimbel, Randy Rosenson, inmate Tim Kirk, and Marie Martin and Charlie Stein whom James had known in Los Angeles. Martin and Stein had previously been interviewed by investigator Jim Johnson. I thought statements from them might be necessary to rebut racist allegations contained in FBI 302 reports of their interviews which the prosecution might introduce. Martin, in particular, said that the FBI report of their interview with her, which she hadn't previously seen, was inaccurate and incomplete. She remembered James as being totally different from the media descriptions of him. She said that, far from being racist or violent, he danced with black women and played pool with black customers who "hung out" in the lounge of the St. Francis Hotel, where she tended bar. She never saw or heard of him displaying even a hint of violence. He was, on the contrary, quiet and somewhat shy. We wanted several witnesses to be hypnotized to determine whether they could remember anything further. The state of Tennessee allows the introduction of evidence given following memory enhancement through hypnosis if a prescribed process is scrupulously followed and the sessions videotaped. As required, Dr. Joseph Cassius, who had experience in conducting this kind of exercise, knew nothing about the significance of the questions we had prepared. Charles Hurley, who had picked up his wife at Seabrook Wallpaper on April 5, was among those hypnotized. Under hypnosis he remembered the first letter of the license plate on the Mustang parked in front of him, which he couldn't remember before being hypnotized but which was the same letter (A) he identified in his 1968 statement where he also identified the second letter as L. He now described for the first time that, as he pulled out from behind the white Mustang with a man sitting in it, he saw an old brown station wagon parked just north and on the same side of the street as Jim 's Grill. My assistant Jean and I looked at each other in amazement. It appeared that Charles Hurley had just substantiated the presence of Jowers's old brown station wagon in the approximate location where Betty Spates had said it was when she saw Jowers deposit a broken-down rifle in the trunk. Later, Hurley agreed to accompany us on a brief visit to the South Main Street area. Fully conscious, he noticed the alteration of the billboard area from the way it was. Ernestine and Hazel's cafe patron William Ross also underwent hypnosis. He recalled details with astonishing precision. Ross described hearing the shot as he reached the Mulberry Street door of the Lorraine on foot. He ducked down and then turned to the left, enabling him to look westward toward the brush. He insisted that from this vantage point, only a few feet from the wall, he had no doubt that the shot came from the brush in the area just behind and on top of the wall. He also remembered seeing a "pale goldish-brown" Cadillac on the same side of the street. This would likely have been the goldish-brown Cadillac driven by Ernestine Campbell as she was going home. Ross learned from Walter Bailey sometime after the shooting about a phone call that had come through the switchboard for Dr. King's room just before 6:00 p.m. He recalled being told that the call or a message was relayed to the room by either Mrs. Bailey or someone relieving her. Under hypnosis, he was certain that the message for Dr. King was, "They're ready for him now," or words to that effect. Ross said someone called Catherine who apparently worked at the Lorraine in 1976 had also heard about the phone call from Walter Bailey and also from Walter's brother Theotis. I looked for her but was unable to find her. *** FOR THE FIRST TIME Ken Herman and I were able to inspect the cellar underneath Jim's Grill and the two businesses next door, including Canipe's. We confirmed that the door from the alleyway between the buildings opened into a ground-level landing. Off the landing, on the right, a door led into Jim's Grill. Straight ahead from the landing there was a flight of stairs that led to the cellar underneath the grill. We also discovered long- unused coal chutes in front of the cellars. These chutes opened onto the sidewalk in front of the buildings. Considering the failure of the police on the scene to properly inspect the cellar and the presence of the footprints heading toward the alleyway door, I thought that this layout could be significant. subsequently, we were to learn that in the real" of the grill -- in the kitchen -- there was a trapdoor, which also led to the cellar. It was a labyrinth. In 1968 there were three doors leading to the outside at the rear of the northern wing of the building where James's room 5-B was located -- one in the alleyway, one at the bottom of the rear rooming house stairs, and one leading directly from the grill itself through the storage room at the back of the kitchen. (See photograph #12) Although there is a question of whether it was blocked up in 1968, at one time there was another inside door on the north rear side of the kitchen, which opened to the foot of the rear stairway of the rooming house as well as to the back door at the foot of the rooming-house stairs. Only after this extensive examination could we appreciate the possible shooting locations and escape routes. The assassination had to have been well planned because it was undeniable that the MPD was there in force very quickly after the shot was fired. On one occasion, when I was exploring the dingy cellar of the rooming-house building, a caretaker told me that prosecutor Hickman Ewing too was interested in the backyard as the possible scene of the shooting. A chill shot through me. Was it possible that he was going to abandon the shot-from-the-bathroom scenario, which had always been a cornerstone of the state's case? To flush him out, I proposed to him that we save the court's time and stipulate that the shot didn't come from the bathroom. Ewing's response was unequivocal: "Ludicrous." Our concern was finally put to rest when he said he was going to introduce a photograph that allegedly showed footprints in the bathtub. We interviewed a former office manager for Jowers's cab company. Jowers was one of the founders of the Veterans Cab company.) Aside from his stories about various criminal activities of Jowers and Willie Akins in the early 1970s, he also said that Jowers's and Akins's involvement in the killing of Dr. King was widely rumored among the drivers. We obtained a photograph and rap sheet on Willie Akins. He was clearly a big man and a nasty piece of work, with a history of violence. Had we found the owner of the mysterious footprints found by J. B. Hodges in the alleyway? *** JOHN LIGHT AGREED TO TESTIFY. He had been a senior officer in the Alton Police Department in 1978 when the New York Times, the HSCA, and the FBI all tried to establish that James and Jerry Ray were responsible for the Alton, Illinois, bank robbery. He confirmed Lt. Walter Conrad's statement to me that neither the Times, the HSCA, nor the FBI had made any contact with them in an effort to check out the allegations. It was agreed that the prosecution was to receive Tim Kirk's statement in advance. On the day it was delivered, I drove with Ken Herman and an Invader intermediary, Abdul Yawee, to visit Doc Walker in another Tennessee prison. Walker had been one of the members of the black Akabulon group convicted of attempting to murder James in the Brushy Mountain prison library back in 1981. I needed to explore the possibility of another contract having been put out on James, either to intimidate or actually to eliminate him, as had occurred with Art Baldwin's offer to Tim Kirk in 1978. At the time of the Baldwin contract James was about to testify in public before the HSCA for the first time. I am certain there was considerable fear in some quarters about what he might say. In 1981, however, there was no indication that James had any intention or opportunity to come forward with any revelations. It had been characterized as racially motivated by a small, well-known group of black militants, determined to gain public attention. The result was that two of them, Partee and Doc Walker, each received an additional sentence of sixty- six years while one of their number, Ransom, received a considerably smaller term. James had refused to testify against them, insisting that he couldn't identify any of his assailants. Until I spoke with Doc Walker, the incident made no sense at all. Walker admitted that he was moved next to James just before the assault. It was, he said, an administrative decision. (Recall that James's "protector," Don Wolverton, had been transferred to Nashville just before this event.) At the time of the attack James had been allowed to enter the library, even though it had somehow been stripped of security. Walker maintained that the attack took place behind a partition. He wasn't in that area but two of his friends, Partee and Ransom, were there, as were a couple of white prisoners who testified against them. The result of the attack on James was that their group was effectively destroyed -- they were split up and the leadership received long sentences. The assault enabled the prison authorities to deal harshly with a small group of black militants who were a constant source of unrest inside the walls of Brushy Mountain. Although it's true that James had some twenty-two knife wounds, not one was life-threatening. If they had really wanted to kill James, they could have done so easily. The role of the white prisoners, except as informants to provide evidence against the three blacks, wasn't clear. Neither was it understandable why one member of the group received only a fraction of the sentence that was meted out to Walker, who wasn't even directly present at the attack. BACK IN MEMPHIS, Ken Herman met me with a chilling story. The security officer hired by the HBO /Thames producers was Jim Nichols, an MPD officer Herman knew and trusted. Since the jury was arriving in Memphis on January 24 and being taken directly to their hotel-the Hilton-he did a routine check on the upcoming reservations. No one connected with the defense or the prosecution was to know where the jury was being housed. These arrangements were made by the producers with maximum secrecy. The Hilton was definitely not regarded as among Memphis's first-class hotels. The producers believed that its out-of-the-way location near the airport would best ensure the jury's sequestration. When Nichols examined the reservation list he realized that on the seventh floor, where the entire jury was to be housed, five rooms had been reserved for the same week in the name of William Sessions, the director of the FBI. Nichols was dumbfounded. When he commented on the illustrious guest, the hotel security officer was clearly proud. He said that an electronics team had come in from Washington earlier that week and had gone through every room on that floor in preparation for the visit by the director and his four agents. Never had I expected this. The potential for tampering with the jury or some of its members was considerable, and it was likely that at least their private conversations and possibly their formal deliberations would be monitored. Nichols had reported the FBI reservations to producer Salt- man, who canceled the Hilton reservations and put the jury elsewhere. Nichols had checked the schedule of the Memphis director of police and fire, Melvin Burgess, to see if there was any note or indication of the Sessions visit, since it would be unprecedented for the director of the FBI to come to a city and not notify the local police chief. Nichols said he found nothing indicating the visit during the week of January 24, nor did Burgess know anything about it. Saltman confirmed the story but asked me not to mention it until he had the opportunity to bring it up at our final pretrial meeting scheduled for Sunday, January 24. Nichols reported that the FBI reservations were canceled shortly after the jury was scheduled to stay at another hotel. *** BALLISTICS EXPERT CHUCK MORTON arrived from California to examine and photograph the death-slug fragments and the other evidence bullets found in the bundle left in Canipe's doorway. The latter, he agreed, had been subjected to neutron activation tests, indicated by the uniform slicing open of cartridge jackets and the removal of lead samples. Morton's initial reaction, refuting the FBI's story, was that there were enough individual stria or markings on the remains of the death slug for a determination to be made as to whether it came from the Remington Gamemaster 760 30.06 evidence rifle. (The FBI had stated in their report that: "the bullet, Q64, from the victim ... has been distorted due to mutilation and insufficient marks of value for identification remain on this bullet. Therefore, it was not possible to determine whether or not Q64 was fired from the Q2 rifle.") *** I FLEW TO NASHVILLE TO finally prepare James for his testimony. He was basically in good spirits, anticipating what would effectively be, at long last, his trial on the charge of the murder of Dr. King. I explained that one of our Memphis investigators, John Billings, would be at his side throughout the proceedings. James would have a direct communications link to the defense table via a one-way earpiece that my assistant Jean would wear throughout the trial, and would have direct two-way contact by portable telephone with me during the court breaks. While at the prison I also visited Tim Kirk and got his answers to the prosecution 's queries about his original affidavit. Since Kirk wouldn't be on the stand, this was the closest they would get to cross-examining him. The session was stressful. One of my aides, Ray Kohlman, accompanied me. Certain information prosecutor Ewing sought would have identified Kirk as its source and put him in serious danger inside the walls. We followed a tenuous line. At one question, concerning the killing of a Memphis club owner who was a rival of Art Baldwin, he blurted out, "This son of a bitch is trying to get me killed." I explained to him that nothing would please Ewing more than his failure to provide this evidence. I continued to believe that his testimony about the contract offer on James's life, which was communicated to him by Baldwin in 1978 just before James's scheduled HSCA testimony, was a striking example of the ongoing cover-up of the existence of a conspiracy in this case. *** BACK IN MEMPHIS I was debriefed on the discovery meeting, which had been conducted by Jean in my absence, during the course of which each side had an opportunity to examine the documentary evidence of the other. I learned that in the prosecution's bundle of evidence was a photograph that showed a police car in the forecourt of the fire station, pulled right up to and facing the curb of South Main Street. The photograph had been taken after the assassination, and it was taken from the area of sidewalk near Canipe's. (See photograph #23) Its presence told us that the prosecution was considering introducing it as a true representation of Emmett Douglass's cruiser, which we had determined was parked way back by the north side door, out of the line of sight of anyone leaving the rooming house. The thought that the prosecution might infer that the photograph was taken shortly after the shooting was alarming. I had to wonder whether they really believed this evidence. ***
DURING THE LAST WEEK BEFORE THE TRIAL, we broadcast an appeal on a popular local radio talk show for anyone with any information about the case to come forward. It resulted in one new witness. Emmanuel White remembered attending the sanitation workers' march on March 28. He said that he and his family pushed toward the front of the line to get closer to Dr. King, wanting to touch him. Near the front of the line, White saw some young men between the marchers and the police begin to break store windows. The person who started the vandalism was white, but blacks quickly followed suit. He subsequently observed mass looting, with the stolen goods being loaded into cars and vans, with Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, and other out-of-state license plates. He had heard that a number of these people came from Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis. Emmanuel White was eager to testify. White's observations fitted in with comments of former senior Invader leader Dr. Coby Smith, who in an interview on January 9 had said that the Invaders leadership left participation in the march up to their members' discretion but deliberately stayed away themselves. They were fearful that disruption was going to take place and that they would be blamed. Afterward, the Invaders conducted their own investigation, which established the presence in the area that day of a number of cars with Illinois license plates and a number of youths who weren't known to any of the Invaders. When Smith told me this in 1992, I recalled the 1967 Labor Day weekend in Chicago, the NCNP convention, the Black Caucus, and the Blackstone Rangers' participation in the government-sponsored provocation. *** AS WE NEARED THE END OF OUR INVESTIGATION, we couldn't help being struck by the absence of any reference in the attorney general's files, including the MPD and FBI investigation reports, to certain issues, events, and persons of significance:
As THE INVESTIGATION ALMOST completely gave way to the trial itself, it was apparent that much was yet to be done. The four-month intensive investigative period had seemingly disappeared in an instant. Had we another three months and the necessary resources to follow through on the plethora of loose ends and newly generated leads, I believed that it might have been possible to pull off a "Perry Mason" courtroom performance, as a result of which James's innocence would be established. But at this point, only Betty Spates's testimony could provide this result. We tried every way to convince Betty and Bobbi to testify. Betty said she would come forward if Bobbi agreed. Bobbi was reluctant. We offered to have their faces blocked out or to provide a screen. They thought about it. Finally, Betty said she would testify if we blocked out her face. But I still sensed uncertainty. Jowers could not know that Betty was testifying. The plan was to bring Jowers and his wife up from the country and put them up at a hotel the night before. Betty would take the stand just before lunch and then leave the court. Jowers would be the first witness after lunch, being brought to the waiting room for defense witnesses and then straight into court. Jowers would be told that he would be testifying generally about the events of the day. He had been approached in a very nonthreatening way. Initially we had hoped that the prosecution could convince him to testify. They did indeed want him as a witness, knowing nothing about the real course of events, but when Hickman Ewing approached him, Ken Herman said that Jowers apparently told him to "go fuck himself." The jury, having already heard Betty's and possibly Bobbi's, and McCraw's testimony about Jowers's actions and involvement in the killing, would be primed for Jowers's testimony. I planned to end up treating Jowers as a hostile witness and to break him down, step by step. But it all depended on the participation of Betty and Bobbi. Even knowing that so much was left to be done, as we approached the trial I believed that we had advanced the defense case to a point it had never reached before. My concerns now were to hold on to witnesses, to expand that list by convincing others to testify, and to get the judge to allow various aspects of evidence before the jury. It wouldn't be long before I was informed that Jowers was insisting on having his lawyer present in the courtroom for the entirety of his testimony.
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