Art Hanes and his son, Art Hanes Jr., were criminal defense lawyers. One day, “the Hanes duo received a letter from a man saying he was impressed with their work… and asked if they would represent him in a murder case for a murder he didn’t commit. The two men agreed, and flew to London to meet (unbeknownst to them), James Earl Ray.”- al.com. 4/4/18.
“Ray had traveled to Europe with a fake passport that claimed his last name was Sneyd. He was wanted in King’s assassination, and had been on the run since the day of the shooting. He was already a fugitive, having escaped from a Missouri prison the year before King’s slaying.”- al.com. 4/4/18.
“At the time, lawyers couldn’t speak privately with their clients in London, so the Hanes team wasn’t sure exactly who this “mystery man” was. When Ray was brought back to Memphis in the middle of the night, he was housed in a “cell within a cell” in the Shelby County, Tenn. courthouse.”
”Hanes and his father, a former FBI agent, went to see Ray for the first time in the United States. Because of security concerns, Hanes Sr. understood from his federal training, he decided to talk to his client in the most secure location available….the shower. …the first thing my dad said to James Earl Ray was: “Who are you? And that was the first time we knew that he was James Earl Ray”, Hanes Jr. said. -al.com.4/4/18.
“They listened to Ray’s story and hired an investigator to check out his claims. One thing they knew for sure, the government wasn’t looking for another suspect.”…”We were morally convinced that he (Ray) was going to be acquitted,” Hanes Jr. said. The State was bound to the theory that Ray, acting alone, killed Dr. King. The evidence, we thought, totally belied that”, Hanes Jr. said. -al.com. 4/4/18.
“After forming their trial strategy and investigating every aspect of the case, the Hanes team was ready for the courtroom.” Two days later, “when they got to the jail, there was a note waiting for them.” It said: “Thank you for all you’ve done, but I’ve decided to change lawyers”…Both the elder and younger Hanes were devastated.”- al.com. 4/4/18.
“Another lawyer, Percy Forman, came to see Ray. He stayed the night and convinced Ray to change lawyers and hire him”…”The trial did not proceed. Thursday of that week, Ray was calling us, writing us, saying: “Fellas, I’ve Lm made the worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life. All this guy wants me to do is plead guilty”, Hanes Jr.said. “Ray weighed his options of having an unprepared lawyer go to trial, or enter a guilty plea and immediately renounce it. He went with the latter.”- al.com.4/4/18.
“On March 10, 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison…three days later, Ray recanted his plea and requested a new trial in two letters to Judge Battle. The judge did not act upon these letters, and was found dead at his desk of a “heart attack” three weeks later, literally with Ray’s appeal under his body.”-maryferrell.org.
The “official story” : “The scenario released by Memphis police and the FBI and later used by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was that in late March of 1968, James Earl Ray purchased a Remington 30.06 rifle from the Aeromarine Supply Store in Birmingham and traveled with it to Memphis in a white mustang. Here he checked into Bessie Brewer’s boarding house…on the afternoon of April 4th. Directly behind it was the Lorraine Motel…”-rense.com. 1/12/2002.
“At 6:00 pm, MLK stepped out of room 306,” and was standing on the balcony…He was gunned down only a minute later by a single shot from the rear bathroom window across the street.” Then, “Ray allegedly ran out of the bathroom and down the hall to his room. Here he stuffed the rifle back into its box and included it with a bundle containing his clothes, binoculars, ammunition, a beer can with his fingerprints, and…a portable radio with his inmate number from the Missouri State Penitentiary engraved in the back side.” …”He ran down the stairs and out onto the street where he then dumped the bundle in the doorway of Canipe’s Amusement Company next door to the rooming house. He then zoomed away in…a white mustang. He stayed a few days in Atlanta before moving on to Canada.”-rense.com. 1/12/2002.
Art Hanes “doesn’t deny that the bag with the rifle and radio were Ray’s; however he doesn’t think Ray put them there…Hanes even identified a witness who worked in the building, and said they saw the bag thrown out a window about 5-10 minutes before the fatal shot was fired.”- al.com.4/4/18. Meanwhile, “not one witness saw the actual firing of the shot or claimed it had come from the window. Most believed it had come from the bushes on the slope, fifty feet closer.”- rense.com. 1/12/2002.
Ray’s story: “Ray tells of his prison escape via a bread truck in April of 1967.” He made his way to Canada. “In July, 1967, he met a man he knew only as “Raoul”. Raoul got James involved “with importing some kind of contraband. James said he never knew if this was guns, drugs or what, as he never actually I participated in anything more than trial runs. Raoul always seemed to remain in the “planning” stages of a smuggling operation….Ray had a contact phone number in the area code of 504, where he phoned his contact, “Raoul”, many times over the months prior to the murder. However, when he tried to dial this New Orleans number on the day after the assassination, it was already disconnected.” -rense.com. 1/12/2002.
“Through Raoul, James was kept supplied with money to go to Mexico to wait for instructions and to Los Angeles to see a plastic surgeon for a “nose job”, effectuating a change in his appearance. He never worked at a job in any of this time frame prior to the assassination and was obviously under the financial control of Raoul. James was traveling in a 1966 pale yellow mustang (not white), purchased with $2,000. supplied by Raoul.” On March 29, 1968, “James said that Raoul was making plans for them to drive to Miami, but these plans abruptly changed”…and now they were going to Memphis.”…”It was on or about this date that MLK had cancelled a planned speaking engagement in Miami in order to fly to Memphis and tend to the problems with the garbage strike. It now seems Raoul had this information before anyone else.”-rense.com. 1/12/2002.
“En route they spent the first night in Birmingham. After checking into a motel, Raoul gave James a wad of money and sent him to the Aeromarine Supply Store to purchase a “deer rifle for your brother-in-law.” …”Having little knowledge of weaponry, James bought what he thought was appropriate and returned with a .243 caliber Winchester. Raoul immediately decided he didn’t like it and sent James back to the store the next morning to exchange it for another with a “larger bore.” The salesman told James, “Tell your brother-in-law that this gun will bring down any deer in Alabama.” …”But he agreed to exchange it for the higher priced Remington 30.06.”-rense.com. 1/12/2002.
“After his incarceration, James was always certain that the real purpose of this instructed return to the gun store was simply another part of the “set-up” to make sure that the salesman would not forget him.” -rense.com. 1/12/2002.
Art Hanes Jr., James first lawyer, argued “the gun used to kill King wasn’t the Remington found at the scene. The caliper matched, but there were no distinct markings to guarantee the bullet that killed King and the bullets from Ray’s gun were fired from the same weapon…”I have held the bullet that killed Dr. King in my hand,” Hanes said. He said even to the naked eye, the markings do not match.”-al.com. 4/4/18.
“In Memphis on April 4 th, the afternoon of the murder, Raoul had suggested that James go to a movie, but James declined. After several tries at getting rid of James for awhile, Raoul finally sent him on an errand only minutes before King was shot.”…”James said that he was going to get the worn tires changed on the mustang but that the man at the tire store was too busy and could not get to it that day. When James returned to the flophouse/ Lorraine Motel location, it was surrounded by police cars with flashing lights and he decided it would be prudent to leave the area, as it certainly was not a place for an escaped con to be hanging around.” …”It was while James was driving south on U.S. Highway 61 into Mississippi that James heard the news on the radio that MLK had been shot.”-rense.com. 1/12/2002.
“Loyd Jowers, the owner of Jim’s Grill located on the ground floor of the building which contained the rooming house, confessed to involvement in the King assassination on ABC Prime Time Live in 1993. Jowers said that a Mafia- associated Memphis produce dealer named Frank Liberto gave him $100,000. to hire a hitman to kill King. Jowers said he stored the actual assassination rifle in his restaurant, retrieving it from the real killer.”- maryferrell.org. Jowers said other people involved in this conspiracy included Memphis police officers… and the infamous Raoul.”-history.com. 4/4/18.
As a result, “Ray’s attorney, William Pepper pursued their allegation and the King family sued Jowers in a wrongful death lawsuit. This resulted in a civil trial in 1999. At the end of that trial, the judge read the jury’s verdict. “In answer to the question did Loyd Jowers participate in a conspiracy to do harm to Dr. Martin Luther King, your answer is yes. Do you also find that others, including government agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes. And the total amount of damages you find for the plaintiffs entitled to is one hundred dollars. Is that your verdict? “ The jury replied, “yes.” …”Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the King civil trial…is that this event received almost no coverage in the U.S. media.”-maryferrell.org.
Getting back to the televised confession by Jowers, Jowers claimed the real gunman was a rogue Memphis Police Department lieutenant acting on his instructions…
“Adding to the intrigue was Pepper’s stated belief that Green Beret snipers from a top secret unit known as Alpha 184 had been after Dr. King. They had actually had him in their rifle sights, it was claimed, but before they could pull the trigger, another unknown gunman had fired the fatal bullet.”- independent.co.uk. 4/4/18.
“A former Missouri County Deputy, Jim Green, revealed his assigned role in the conspiracy, the name of the actual triggerman, and the long suspected involvement of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI..FBI documentation papers show that the FBI had been constantly tracking James Earl Ray and had knowledge of his whereabouts during most of the year he was an escaped convict….The FBI was instrumental in Ray’s “escape” from the Missouri State Penitentiary in April of 1967 for the sole purpose of setting him up as a “patsy” when the time came.”- rense.com. 1/12/2002.
Lyndon Bursten, a researcher on this case, said: “the contacts and methods utilized in the murder of Dr. King bear the signature of the CIA, including the probable use of MK-ultra mind control techniques.”-rense.com. 1/12/2002.
Jim Green’s assignment “was to kill James Earl Ray.” On the night of April 3rd, Green says, Paul (the infamous Raoul), met him and Green’s friend, Butch Collier, in their room. Paul said, “there’s $5,000. in that package for you and five more when the job is done, once James Earl Ray is killed on the fourth.” …Jim and Butch stalked Ray and Jim’s instructions were to shoot James Earl Ray after 5 o’clock, and only in the event that John Talley, a Memphis Police Detective, failed. But Ray was elusive that day. At 6:01, a shot was fired. “Butch Collier had just killed MLK with one shot from the bushes on the slope across from the Lorraine Motel”…”Ramon George Sneyd” soon acquired his passport and made his way to Europe, never knowing how close he came to being murdered on the run, ironically by the same faction that had murdered MLK and pinned the crime on Ray.” -rense.com. 1/12/2002.
Conclusion: As a result of the civil trial in 1999, Dr. Martin Luther King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, stated: “I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been served in their deliberations. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, State and Federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband.”-history.com. 4/4/18.
“During the 1950 and 1960’s, the FBI surveilled and harassed King, his family, and his associates. The Bureau wiretapped his phone and monitored his movements…In one instance, the FBI sent him a tape that allegedly contained audio of him having an affair. With it came a letter threatening King with public exposure if he didn’t kill himself, and claiming that the sender had evidence of other affairs. …A former agent from the FBI’s field office in Atlanta said the Bureau’s tracking of King was second “only to the way they went after Jimmy Hoffa.”- history.com. 4/4/18.
“King’s son Dexter Scott King visited Ray in prison to draw attention to the family’s push to appeal his case. Even after Ray died in 1998…the family continued to assert there was, as Coretta King said in 1999, “overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.”-history.com. 4/4/18. / Done
