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1:44

Hi, Ellen. How are you? Hi,

1:46

Robbie. How are you? I'm good.

1:49

Good to see her beautiful

1:50

face. I am so super excited about

1:52

today's show. I know. I am excited

1:54

on so many levels, not only because

1:56

of our guests, but because of

1:58

this case that I thought I

2:00

knew everything

2:01

about, you know, everybody does. But then you realized

2:03

how little you actually learn about this stuff, because

2:05

you know what we get? We get, like, little blips during,

2:07

like, black history month in social studies class.

2:10

Growing up. And speaking of which,

2:12

this case and the next one we're gonna do, both

2:14

of them are dedicated to the fact that in February

2:16

is Black History

2:17

Month, and that's why we wanted to focus

2:19

on these stories that you think

2:22

God. You think you know what happened and it's

2:24

like, oh, Oh, no. Nothing

2:26

we think we know is real, but we'll get into what

2:28

we're talking about

2:28

today. But first, I wanna welcome our guest. I'm so

2:31

excited.

2:32

I am so excited. I wanna

2:34

welcome to the show doctor Marsha

2:37

Chatelain. Hi,

2:37

Marsha. Hi, Rabia. Hi,

2:39

Ellen. This is the greatest dream of my life.

2:44

So Marsha, you don't get out about

2:46

you. She didn't do much of anything. She's just a

2:48

pulitzer prize winner. I mean, she's a

2:50

scholar speaker. She teachers

2:52

at Georgetown University. She's the

2:54

author of franchise of Golden Arches

2:57

in Black America. Not only she wouldn't

2:59

appeal it, sir, by the way, during COVID, when everybody

3:01

else was just like getting fat and sweats. She got

3:03

the twenty twenty two James Beard Foundation

3:05

Book Award for Writing, the twenty twenty one Hagley

3:07

Prize in Business History, and the twenty twenty

3:09

one organization of American historian's

3:11

Lawrence w Levine Award.

3:14

And she was named one of The New York Times Credit

3:17

Salazzi top books of the year and Smithsonian

3:20

top books of twenty twenty. And

3:22

as a fellow author, I just

3:24

feel like shit reading that list, Marcia.

3:26

I want you to

3:27

know. I just wanna say

3:29

I don't wanna say you light up a room.

3:31

I'm not gonna say you've But

3:35

your smile is truly

3:37

electric. Wow. So she's she's

3:39

giving all your accolades and I'm just

3:41

gonna

3:41

say, you don't light up a room, but that

3:44

smile. Well, I want people to focus on

3:46

my looks, and I can't find

3:48

people anymore. And

3:50

can I tell you, I am very honored

3:52

to have been praised for my work? And

3:55

during that whole time, I have been

3:57

able to stay up with all my true crime. And

3:59

I think the thing that I'm proud of is I got

4:01

to work with Robbie for a little bit on

4:03

undisclosed, and that was something And, yeah, and

4:05

I didn't even get to mention that. I mean,

4:07

like, it's hard to decide what is the best

4:09

part about Marsha here, but one of the I

4:11

would say, listen, is the fact that she is a

4:13

truly obsessed true crime fan. I mean,

4:15

you know, we started interacting on online

4:18

after she's following undisclosed. And

4:20

I'm like, oh, this This woman is legit,

4:22

man. She's like a scholar and everything in historian,

4:24

so you worked with us on the season for Freddie

4:27

Gray.

4:27

Right? And keep the Freddie Gray. It

4:29

was pretty great. And and I did

4:31

the round table discussion you had

4:33

with John Kreger on on

4:35

Joey's case, which, I mean, amazing

4:38

things happen at the end of that. And that

4:40

they personally appreciate very

4:42

much about what you and Susan

4:44

and Colin did. And what you're trying to do is,

4:46

like, True Crime could be this gross

4:48

disgusting place where people all go at the

4:50

suffering of others, or it

4:52

can be a place where people learn about

4:54

how messed up the system is -- Mhmm. --

4:56

how we think about who's a good victim and

4:58

who's a bad victim in changing that.

5:00

And I love it because there's

5:02

so much history behind it. I think that

5:04

if people know the history, they're better prepared

5:06

to be compassionate and thoughtful about what

5:08

we consider crime and what we consider

5:10

punishment. Yeah. And I also think

5:12

then it makes you more a discerning

5:14

consumer to a crime because when you

5:16

get to a certain level sophistication and

5:18

understanding and information in it, you're, like, Okay.

5:20

No. This is all really sensationalist crap.

5:22

You're like me. You are a fan also

5:24

of Ellen's show, a two from obsessed and

5:26

obsessed with disappeared. Like, we are we are

5:28

fans of the obsessed network too. I

5:30

will say it got me through some of the

5:33

toughest

5:33

times. I was going through we're

5:35

going through a really hard situation with

5:37

family member and grief and just being

5:39

able to laugh consistently at

5:41

least once a week was the best. And

5:43

then when I became a new mom, I was,

5:45

like, up during weird hours and

5:48

I wouldn't have, like, one earpiece

5:50

listening to it. But, like,

5:52

I'm waiting for my son to, like, wake up

5:54

and need to be fed because it's, like, it

5:56

stimulates your brain. It's it's life.

5:58

But what I think it is, it's just so thoughtful.

6:01

And that's what I love hearing people just

6:03

be thoughtful about what they consume

6:04

and, you know, what they fee. Wow. That

6:07

means so much to me. Thank you so

6:09

much. I forget that there are

6:11

smart people out there that also

6:13

listen to. I

6:15

once said, I was like, I said something

6:17

about a a rocket scientist

6:19

one. So I was like, maybe there's one out A

6:21

rocket scientist Amazing. Amazing.

6:24

Yes. No. No. You make content You never

6:26

do make content that intellectuals

6:28

like to listen

6:29

to. And I I hope this is

6:31

part of that content too. I know you've

6:33

been listening. Right? Well, I was ready for her

6:35

PhD because when you're like and then I

6:37

called this year of sausage and this.

6:40

This is I was, like, you have historian

6:42

instincts because, like, sometimes people how do you

6:44

know that? It's, like, I went to a local library

6:46

and I called the archivists and I was

6:47

like, so what do you want there? It's a good

6:50

job. I will always make a call

6:52

whether or not they take my call is

6:54

another thing, but I was like, listen, I got

6:56

unlimited minutes. I'm gonna use them.

6:58

I'm gonna call some folks up

7:00

in here. I also love that you guys sort

7:02

of connected on

7:02

Twitter. We're in real life friends. Marsha's

7:05

had meals

7:05

at my home and she actually you moderated

7:08

my my book talk in in Baltimore,

7:10

this just passed Twitter.

7:11

Well, Twitter

7:12

is either accessible for, like, white supremacists

7:14

than the worst people ever. Mhmm. It was

7:16

a kind of white thing. And that's the people with

7:18

like minded interest. That's what I

7:20

mean. It can be for every ugly

7:22

bit that we see on the Internet. You

7:24

get to connect with people that you otherwise

7:27

wouldn't and you form

7:29

these really special interesting

7:32

bonds and then finding each

7:34

other and becoming friends and colleagues and working.

7:36

That's I think that's brilliant. Every time

7:38

I hear a story like that, it knocks

7:40

every troll off of its pedestal in

7:42

my

7:42

mind. So I love it. It's worth it. I've made incredible

7:45

relationships and friendships over Twitter,

7:47

and that's why I'm still hanging on for dear life,

7:49

and I I will until the ship goes down.

7:52

Alright. So, Marshall, we sold off the show

7:54

introducing our guests with just a couple of questions for

7:56

our guests. I'm gonna ask a question then Ellyn, and

7:58

then we we have kind of the same question.

8:00

The third question is also the same, but why

8:02

each you know, what's your interest in this particular

8:04

case? So Ellen, do you wanna start off with your

8:06

question with these three things?

8:08

Yes. What is your

8:11

guilty pleasure? I

8:14

love a good housewives franchise. Oh my

8:16

god. And I don't she

8:18

actually I've committed to most cities

8:21

There were a few cities that were like a little too

8:23

painful, but I am enjoying

8:25

the Miami Renaissance on peacock.

8:27

It's fantastic. New

8:29

York gave me abdominal cramping this

8:31

last season, but I will step in.

8:35

I think it's fascinating because

8:37

It's such a weird place because it's supposed to

8:39

be women being superficial, but they all have

8:41

businesses and they're all trying to make lots of money

8:43

on this fantasy. A house

8:45

wide, which they rarely are.

8:47

But what I think is also interesting is

8:49

that you can chart like how the

8:51

economy is doing, what people are

8:53

talking about, watching housewives like

8:55

original housewives orange

8:57

county. They were all at the epicenter of

8:59

the mortgage meltdown and then -- Mhmm. -- they're

9:01

not as rich as you think they are. It's interesting

9:03

for a place like New York where someone lives

9:05

in a million dollar apartment. It's like two

9:08

hundred square feet. Yeah.

9:10

And then you love it, like, the suburban ones in New

9:12

Jersey and everyone lives in a castle. So

9:14

I just love, like, all of the things that it says

9:16

about culture. I I

9:18

will It's rare that I will not watch a

9:20

health wise

9:21

franchise. It has to be real. Alright. So then I

9:23

have a follow-up because we're we're

9:25

kindred spirits. And we're about to be best

9:27

friends and maybe we're gonna get matching

9:29

tattoos. Top

9:32

three housewives for entertainment

9:34

value. Oh. Not good people or

9:37

anything, but top three entertaining

9:39

housewives. I

9:39

mean, Nimi Lee's kind of created the

9:41

forum. Yeah. I mean yeah.

9:43

I mean, that's what I know.

9:45

I know. Okay? I don't know a lot about that.

9:47

I'm just I'm just this housewife in

9:49

Atlanta too. I am on Broadway.

9:52

I have a TV show on Fox, like,

9:54

she was that right balance of

9:56

actually natural talent, and she's

9:58

so funny. And she's so funny. She's so

10:00

funny. Like, ninety percent of the memes on

10:02

Black Twitter. I said what I

10:04

said. That is an

10:06

easy thing to do. She is amazing,

10:08

and she will always be the queen of

10:10

the genre. I think that

10:12

you have to give respect to Bethany

10:14

Frankel for very similar ways. You

10:16

know, when she started, she's like,

10:18

paying rent. And he's like,

10:20

yeah, at Costco trying to sell

10:22

her wares. And she built an

10:24

empire out of exposure, which everyone says they're

10:26

gonna do or wants to do. But very few

10:28

people have the talent to actually do

10:30

it. So -- Yep. -- I'm very bored with

10:32

that. I have a lot of respect for her.

10:34

And then the third spot,

10:36

I want I wanna give it to the

10:38

Richard's sisters, Kim

10:40

and Kyle and Kathy, and I'll tell you

10:42

why. Interesting. Because

10:44

their stuff is so deeply enmeshed

10:47

and, like, psychological and,

10:49

like, family systems therapy for

10:51

years. Like, what what's your day? What's

10:53

your day? They're a Beverly Hills -- Beverly

10:55

Hills. -- and it's, like, on one hand, they love this fabulous

10:57

life that you can't relate to, but their

10:59

family conflict levels

11:01

of drama. Get us all in the gut.

11:03

It's every family, the

11:05

sisters, the power struggles,

11:07

the, like, grief issues, I

11:09

I'm married to a psychologist, and I sometimes

11:12

I'm like, look at listen about this thing

11:14

that happened on housewives, and he's like, oh, that's

11:16

a dynamic. Yes.

11:19

Yeah. You're so right.

11:21

And the child star. The The

11:23

whole child

11:24

star stuff. Probably,

11:25

you need to join us. Join

11:29

us, Rabia. Raviya.

11:31

How's it going to do? I usually have about

11:33

an afternoon, kidding. I have about an hour a

11:35

day to watch TV usually, like tops,

11:38

maybe hour and a half. And I always end up, like,

11:40

what's the latest true crime documentary?

11:42

Or, like, I'm always, like, attracted

11:44

to that Usually, if I'm traveling and I'm in

11:46

a hotel or something for some reason, that's

11:48

when I pick up that kind of I'll start

11:50

watching that kind of stuff or But my

11:52

question kind of was connected to this

11:54

question, actually. So my question is,

11:56

given that you are such a big fan of housewives and

11:58

I think in reality, a lot of different kinds of

12:00

reality TV. If you could be

12:02

part of a reality TV

12:04

show, like, what would

12:06

your fantasy reality TV series

12:08

be in which

12:08

Dr. Marsha is part of

12:10

it. What would it be about? It

12:12

would be so the lowest ratings

12:15

ever. It's like my husband, by

12:17

me, athleisure from Costco, It's

12:20

us taking a thousand pictures of her son

12:22

a day. It's me, you know

12:24

what it? It's me staying up too late looking at

12:26

reels of people making salmon bowls. I'm

12:28

like, what is my life? But if I run a

12:30

reality show, I think it would so

12:33

it would

12:33

be, like, what it's like, to

12:36

be in an archive doing history stuff.

12:38

Like,

12:38

the the sexy part of that. Because, you know,

12:40

there's a sexy part of the movie. Sure

12:42

about that. Okay. It's

12:45

problematic. So, like, you know, in lifetime

12:47

when the lady finds out her husband was

12:49

actually like a serial killer. She goes to the

12:51

microfilm in the library, So

12:53

that's kind of my life, but with

12:55

historical

12:55

facts. So a

12:57

bravo is not gonna be calling me anytime

12:59

soon, but I was wondering for now. Now. Now? Now?

13:01

The universe. Listen, it's now in the

13:03

universe. We're gonna manifest

13:04

this. There's a professor in real household

13:07

housewives of Potomac, and I am obsessed

13:09

with how she interacts with her students. I

13:11

said two months, I was like, could you imagine if

13:13

I was on a housewife? And she's like, more people

13:15

would come to

13:15

class. And she goes to my mom.

13:19

She

13:19

wasn't wrong. Oh my

13:22

god. That was hilarious. And so the

13:24

third question is we ask all of our

13:26

guests, what is your relationship

13:28

to true crime, your day to day

13:30

relationship, or how do you consume it in your

13:32

life? So I think I'm part of the true

13:34

crime generation because I grew up in the

13:35

eighties. So everything on TV was True Crime

13:38

because you had to be scared all

13:40

the time. So the stories of

13:42

kidnappings, I kinda grew up with the

13:44

TV movie of the week. Where it's sometimes

13:46

about domestic violence. And and so,

13:48

like, I grew up watching Dateline with

13:50

my mom. And -- Mhmm. -- it

13:52

wasn't considered inappropriate for a ten

13:54

year old. To be immersed

13:56

in, like, major cases. And

13:58

I also grew up with the o j case,

14:00

like, live on TV. So I

14:02

think that I'm very familiar with the

14:04

conventions of True Crime, and I think

14:06

that for me, it is something that I

14:08

consume, but I always try to

14:10

be as skeptical of its

14:12

aims as possible. So I listen to

14:14

a lot of the podcasts. I watch the

14:16

shows. I read the

14:17

newsletters. I am on the blogs. Tastefully, I'll

14:20

go to Reddit. But I You know, it's a

14:21

very

14:21

casual interest. Just like -- Oh, yeah. Yeah.

14:24

--

14:24

stabbles in it. Wait. Did did you guys

14:26

use to watch America's most watched?

14:28

Hell, yes.

14:29

Gotta be. And then on some mysteries, the reality

14:32

is I'm really so scary. That

14:34

music, that music will never not

14:36

make my like, the hair on my body

14:38

stand up. I can't even

14:40

yeah. I

14:41

mean, like,

14:41

oh my god. That is a quick thing. Yeah. Yeah.

14:44

Yeah. tell them the

14:46

case that Marsha chose. You know, I'm

14:48

glad you chose an obscure

14:49

case, though. We

14:49

totally heard of that. Because we've gotten a lot of

14:52

high profile case So I'm glad we're getting one

14:54

that not a lot of people know about.

14:56

So everyone really

14:56

tune in. Yeah. No.

14:59

Actually, you're gonna learn a lot today. I'm

15:01

I'm pretty I don't know. I feel like Marsha might teach us

15:03

a lot because she is the historian here,

15:05

but let me let me just tell our listeners we're gonna be

15:07

talking today about the assassination of the

15:09

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18:11

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18:13

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18:19

slash solve the case.

18:21

And, Marshall,

18:23

when we first talked about you coming

18:25

onto the show to cover this, you were,

18:27

like, in immediately and you're, like, I

18:29

got theories, and I so can you tell me a little

18:31

bit about, like, interest in the case?

18:33

Is this something like you've really done a deep dive

18:35

in? Is this something like you've researched a

18:38

historian? Or is it just like me

18:40

and kinda like, you

18:40

know, you learned what you learned in in a little bit of social

18:43

studies. So, you know, growing up Martin

18:45

Luther King to your holiday was

18:47

the big

18:50

holiday in many ways because it didn't get

18:52

adopted as a federal holiday till nineteen eighty

18:54

three. And even when we were kids,

18:56

every state didn't observe it and it was

18:58

still a little controversial and it wasn't

19:00

until maybe like the nineties

19:02

where doctor King was

19:04

considered this beloved hero even though

19:06

he was totally reviled and totally targeted in its

19:08

time that kids started to learn only

19:10

positive things about River King Junior.

19:12

Mhmm. And as a historian, I'm

19:14

always really fast nated by,

19:16

like, in the moment day to day what

19:19

his life must have been like. Mhmm.

19:21

And, you know, as I I'm writing

19:23

a series of books right

19:24

now, about King's life

19:27

and his legacy and its impact.

19:29

What? I

19:29

did not do that. Oh my god. I did not

19:32

do that. I signed I signed this three

19:34

book deal, Robbie. Like, my goal is, like,

19:36

maybe nine month old. And I was,

19:38

like, you could totally do this with a

19:39

kid. Right? And I'm just, like, you go. All people

19:41

you

19:41

can. Yes. Some ways that I

19:44

can. But, you know, like,

19:46

a lot of the

19:48

story of Martin Luther King Junior that we tell

19:50

today is about specific

19:52

moments in his life. And it's either the Marchok

19:54

Washington and the I have a dream speech, and

19:56

then maybe the last speech he gave the day before he

19:58

was assessed and he did. But

20:00

I think What people need to understand is just

20:02

how risky his life was,

20:04

his family's life, and everyone

20:06

who was around him. Like, this

20:08

beautiful person who believed in so

20:10

much good for the world had

20:12

to use his faith to conquer fear

20:15

because everyone and everything

20:17

around him could have turned on him.

20:19

And the other thing that I think is important to

20:21

note is that the death of civil rights

20:23

workers and leaders was a commonplace thing. If

20:25

you talk to people who are so alive

20:27

today, they lost so many people who are

20:29

close to them. In unsolved cases

20:32

in these, like, suspicious murders. And

20:35

so, you know, the assassination of

20:36

King, I think, is just one of

20:39

many ways of understanding just

20:43

how threatened the

20:45

society was by people who were speaking out against

20:47

racial injustice. It was an

20:49

incredibly dangerous work to do. I mean,

20:51

for folks doing civil rights work. Doctor

20:53

King was obviously the major

20:55

iconic figure and leader of

20:57

the movement for, what, a couple of decades.

20:59

But, I mean, even folks who are just doing,

21:01

like, voter registration. Right? Like,

21:03

volunteers doing, like, things like that,

21:05

working in and, you know, ended up

21:07

murdered. It was it was just a very dangerous

21:09

work for him to do, and I think his life was

21:11

under threat for a very long time. And and people

21:13

don't know, but we're gonna talk about this there was

21:15

an attempted assassination on his life

21:17

before he was

21:17

killed. Mhmm. If there is a mystery, a kind of

21:19

a core mystery to solve here that we're we're

21:22

gonna really kinda try to dig into

21:24

is whether or not the person who was convicted of

21:26

the crime and served a life

21:27

sentence, James Earl

21:30

Ray was actually responsible

21:32

for murdering Martin Luther King or

21:34

not. And to that extent, we're gonna start off by

21:36

doing our little crash

21:36

course, Ellen and I, about five, six

21:39

minutes to set the stage for our listeners,

21:41

and then we're gonna get into the

21:42

meat potatoes. Yep.

21:43

Alright? Let's do it. Let's do

21:44

it. Assassination on his life before

21:47

he was killed. Mhmm. If there is a mystery a

21:49

kind of a core mystery to solve here that we're

21:52

we're gonna really kind of try to dig into is

21:54

whether or not the person who was convicted

21:56

of the crime and served a

21:58

life

21:58

sentence, James Earl Ray,

22:00

was actually responsible for murdering

22:03

Martin Luther King or not. And to that

22:05

extent, we're gonna start off by doing our little crash

22:07

course, Ellen and I, about five,

22:09

six minutes to set the stage for our listeners, and then we're

22:11

gonna get into the meat potatoes.

22:12

Yeah. Alright? Let's do

22:13

it. Let's do it. Like anybody I would

22:15

like to live. A

22:19

long life longevity has

22:22

its place, but

22:24

I'm not concerned about that now.

22:27

I just wanna do God's will.

22:31

And he has allowed

22:33

me to go up to the mountain. And

22:35

I've looked over

22:37

and I've seen the

22:41

promised land. I may

22:43

not get there with you. Oh,

22:45

and I want you to know the night.

22:47

And we have the

22:50

people will get to the promised

22:53

land. So

22:59

I'm happy tonight. I'm not

23:01

worried about anything. I'm not

23:03

fearing any

23:03

man. None eyes. I've

23:06

seen the Lourid in the coming

23:08

of the law. Many of

23:10

you have likely heard this very

23:12

famous and resounding speech by the Reverend

23:14

Doctor Martin Luther King, which went down in

23:16

history as the I've been to the mountaintop

23:19

speech. What many of you may not

23:21

know about it is that it was

23:23

the last speech that doctor delivered the

23:25

evening before he was assassinated, which

23:27

makes the speech even more startling given

23:29

what seems to be a strong premonition

23:31

doctor King had that days

23:33

were numbered. Now, in most cases, we'd start

23:35

by telling you about the victim, but in this case, that's

23:37

hardly warranted. Everyone knows

23:39

who doctor Martin Luther King

23:41

was, not everyone knows why

23:43

or how he was murdered. As the leading

23:45

black civil rights activist and leader in

23:47

the nineteen fifties and sixties,

23:50

Doctor King had no dearth of

23:52

enemies. Bounties were put on his head

23:54

by racist businessmen and

23:56

politicians the feds were watching his

23:58

every move, and many white

24:00

Americans viewed him as public enemy

24:02

number one. His life was

24:04

under constant threat, and

24:06

the first assassination attempt on his life happened a

24:09

decade before he was actually killed.

24:11

On September twentieth, nineteen fifty

24:14

eight, King was at a book

24:16

signing at Bloomstein's department store in

24:18

Harlem. Promoting his book strides

24:20

towards freedom, which told the story of

24:22

Rosa Parks' arrest and the subsequent and

24:24

boycott. At three thirty PM, as

24:26

he autographed a copy of his book,

24:28

Isola Curry, a mentally

24:30

unstable woman, stabbed him in

24:32

the chest with a letter

24:34

opener. When radiographs were taken in the

24:36

emergency room, they showed that the letter

24:38

opener had gone through his sternum. The

24:40

physicians left the blade in place until it was

24:42

taken out during a thoracotomy that

24:44

evening, and the letter opener was removed

24:46

without complication. He stayed in the hospital

24:48

for nearly two weeks where his course

24:50

was complicated by an episode of

24:52

pneumonia, but otherwise, he

24:54

recovered fully from the attack. Ten

24:56

years later, Doctor King arrived in Memphis to show

24:58

solidarity with striking sanitation

25:00

workers. The workers were striking for

25:03

better wages, working conditions and

25:05

union recognition. A number of

25:07

sanitation workers have been killed on the job and

25:09

black workers were paid much less than their

25:11

white counterparts. But Memphis mayor

25:13

Henry Loeb refused to give in.

25:15

Doctor King responded to the workers call for

25:17

national support, and on March twenty eight,

25:19

nineteen sixty eight, he joined a march with

25:21

strikers. Many carrying the well

25:23

known signs am a man. In

25:25

response to the march, the police were ordered

25:27

to open tear gas fire and

25:29

baton attacks and the national guard was called

25:31

in. Four thousand armed troops were

25:33

ordered into the city and also eight

25:35

thousand guardsmen were on

25:37

standby alert These are some of the brutal images that

25:39

many of us have seen in documentaries about the

25:41

movement and in social studies and history

25:43

classes. Doctor King left the city

25:45

after this march and then he returned to Memphis

25:47

on April third the same day he gave

25:49

his last speech at the Mason

25:50

Church. Doctor King hadn't arrived

25:52

to give that speech though he

25:54

had to for yet another march with the

25:56

striking workers for the following Monday.

25:59

But the day after his historic speech,

26:01

on Thursday, April fourth nineteen

26:04

sixty eight, doctor King was shot

26:06

at 601 PM as he stood on the

26:08

balcony outside his room at the

26:10

Lorraine Motel. Moments earlier, he had been

26:12

talking and joking with his chauffeur

26:14

and others in the parking lot below when

26:16

a single shot rang out and

26:18

struck him in the right jaw.

26:20

Friends and colleagues rushed to a system as he

26:22

lay on the balcony, and the iconic image

26:24

that emerged from that moment was

26:27

a photograph. Of three men pointing in

26:29

the same direction off to the

26:31

right where the bullet came from as

26:33

one man leaned over doctor king.

26:35

At 603, was radioed to police

26:38

headquarters. And by six fifteen PM, doctor

26:40

King had reached the hospital where

26:42

doctors determined he was still alive.

26:44

But unconscious and breathing irregularly.

26:47

Doctor King had a large

26:49

right face and neck

26:50

wound, but was not actually bleeding excessively

26:53

from the wound like owing it to hypovolemic shock.

26:55

As a medical team worked to save

26:57

doctor King, the owner of Calep's

27:00

amusement company, called the police at 608

27:02

PM to report seeing a

27:04

white man run down the alley next to his

27:06

shop, drop a bundle,

27:08

and roar away in a white Ford

27:10

Mustang. The very first

27:12

police to batch at six ten PM described the shooter as a

27:14

young white male, well dressed,

27:16

believed in a late model Ford Mustang

27:18

going north from the scene of the

27:20

shooting. Now, the scene of the shooting is

27:22

very important to understand. The balcony

27:24

that doctor King stood on looked out

27:26

onto the front parking lot of

27:28

the Lorraine

27:29

Motel. Passed the parking lot, there was

27:31

a street, and then a retaining wall that had

27:33

a lot of brush and trees growing in front

27:35

and behind

27:36

it. The backside of a row

27:38

of buildings stood elevated behind

27:40

that retaining wall. And it was from one of

27:42

those back windows, the police believed that

27:44

doctor King had been shot. Specifically from

27:46

the back window of the Bessie Brewer's

27:49

roominghouse, which was

27:51

adjacent to the Calip's amusement company,

27:53

but they were separated by a narrow

27:55

alley. Very quickly, the police

27:57

decided the assassin shot doctor King from

27:59

an open bathroom window in the

28:01

back of the roominghouse then gathered his stuff

28:03

in a bundle, ran down the stairs of

28:05

the roominghouse, and passed Colip's amusement

28:08

company where he dropped the

28:09

bundle, gotten to a white Mustang, and took

28:11

off. In the meantime,

28:12

back at Saint Joseph's Hospital, doctors

28:14

have failed to save doctor King's

28:16

life. He was pronounced dead at 705

28:20

PM. By that evening, riots had broken out

28:22

across the US in protest of doctor

28:24

King's assassination, and the bundle

28:26

was turned over to the FBI. The

28:28

bundle contained a thirty caliber Remington game

28:30

master slide action rifle stuffed

28:32

into a box that was too small

28:35

for it. A scope, a couple

28:37

of cans of beer, a map, some

28:39

bobby pins, clothing, and

28:41

binoculars. Nearly all the items

28:43

had the fingerprints of the same man

28:45

on them. James Earl Rae. Rae was a

28:47

criminal with the history of robberies and

28:49

burglaries who had in fact escaped

28:51

prison the previous year and was on

28:53

the run when he apparently committed

28:55

this crime. For the nine months

28:57

before the assassination, Ray had

28:59

used the alias Eric Gault.

29:01

One of the many aliases he used to move

29:03

around and through both US

29:05

and Canada, but he had checked into the

29:07

roominghouse under the name John Willard.

29:10

A nationwide manhunt was launched involving thirty

29:12

five hundred law enforcement personnel.

29:14

The investigation began with

29:16

the FBI tracing the gun

29:19

to where it was bought, and they determined it was bought by

29:21

a man named Harvey Lomier.

29:23

So at first, they thought the

29:25

killing was a conspiracy involving

29:28

three men. Harvey Lomier,

29:30

John Willard, and Eric Gall,

29:32

not realizing that all three

29:34

men were in fact the same

29:35

person. James Earl Ray. Immediately

29:38

after the shooting, Ray left

29:40

Memphis and headed to Atlanta Chatelain he

29:42

ditched the white Mustang took a

29:44

bus to Detroit and then crossed into

29:46

Canada in a cab. From there, he attempted to get

29:48

a Canadian passport so he could flee to the

29:50

segregated white supremacist country

29:52

of Rhodesia. He eventually got a passport

29:54

and flew to London instead hoping to

29:57

eventually make it to Rhodesia. Rae ended

29:59

up trying to rob a jewelry store because his

30:01

money was running out, but he left and be handed. Then a

30:03

week later, he robbed a bank but only got away

30:05

with ninety five pounds. It wasn't much,

30:07

but he now had enough to try and buy

30:09

an airplane ticket heading out

30:11

of the country. On June eighth, nineteen

30:14

sixty eight, as he attempted to do so at the

30:16

Heathrow Airport, he was spotted

30:18

with two passports arrested

30:20

and soon extradited back to the

30:22

US. In November of that year, as he

30:24

is awaiting trial, Ray gives an interview

30:26

to Look Magazine in which he

30:29

alleges for the first time that a man

30:31

named Raul was responsible for the

30:33

assassination and that he was

30:35

just the getaway driver. But four

30:37

months Chatelain March of the following

30:39

year, Rae pleads guilty to the

30:41

assassination of doctor King in exchange

30:43

for the death sentence being taken off

30:45

the table. Rather he gets a ninety

30:47

nine year prison sentence. Three

30:49

days later, Rae recants

30:51

his confession, and for the rest of his life,

30:53

he maintained his innocence until

30:55

April twenty third nineteen ninety

30:57

eight, the day he died. Tell

30:58

us what happened, Marsha Goh. So

31:03

this one is so hard because

31:05

every theory no

31:07

matter how far fetched could be

31:09

true. Mhmm. It is one of these cases where

31:11

it's like the most possible

31:13

theory is out of hand

31:15

because of what we know in

31:18

cases that don't involve Dr. King.

31:20

Right? So In the early

31:22

nineteen seventies, activists broke

31:24

into an FBI office in

31:26

media Pennsylvania, and we discovered that

31:28

Jayedra Hoover was calling for the

31:30

killing of black political

31:32

leaders. And that's how we know that an

31:34

informant helped give

31:36

information to kill Fred

31:38

Hampton Clark in Chicago in nineteen sixty

31:40

nine. So if you say, okay, the

31:43

FBI wanted this to happen, it's like,

31:45

okay,

31:45

Jed, girl, Hoover could have done it.

31:47

Right? Now, if you think about the fact that Memphis

31:50

was going through a sanitation worker

31:52

strike and

31:53

you said that you you have a theory about

31:56

why this city. This is what I wanna hear about. Is this what I'm talking about

31:58

now? So joining me down the rabbit hole is

32:00

my research assistant, Emily Norweg.

32:02

Hi, Emily. Thank you. I was

32:04

like, Emily, I need a

32:06

list of everywhere Dr. King traveled between April

32:08

four sixty seven and April four sixty eight,

32:10

and I wanted to try to see a pattern.

32:13

Of the places that he was on the schedule to

32:15

go to. And Memphis does not

32:17

appear on his official schedule until

32:19

it does, right, until the sanitation

32:22

workers strike. Mhmm. And so okay. If

32:24

there was a kind of

32:26

long standing plot to kill king,

32:28

which there could have been several, I

32:30

was trying to think, what were the other cities that would

32:32

not have been a sight of his assassination?

32:35

Now, New York City, where he

32:37

will establish, an African American

32:39

woman -- Mhmm. -- in, obviously, a case

32:41

of someone who's going through a

32:43

mental health episode. Right. he

32:45

was in Harlem where there's Harlem hospital,

32:47

there's a lot of black doctors,

32:49

there is a network of

32:52

police officers -- I see what's -- and

32:54

firefighters who will make sure that Dr. King

32:56

stays alive. What's interesting about

32:59

Memphis? Is that some people claim that

33:01

the day he was assassinated, black

33:03

police officers, the handful of black police

33:05

officers who were in Memphis were

33:08

not assigned protect him. Yes.

33:10

And I yes. I'm I'm were

33:12

moved from the duty by the fire station that was

33:14

near the Lorraine Motel. So

33:17

if there was a place for this to

33:19

happen, would it be in a place where

33:21

there was a sense that Dr.

33:23

King of course had a lot of supporters in the

33:25

African American community but would there

33:27

be a network of first

33:27

responders, of black first responders -- My

33:30

goodness. -- who

33:30

would go to great lengths to protect him?

33:33

Maybe not. But I'm

33:35

wondering if there is a connection between

33:38

organized labor, organized

33:40

crime, and why the sanitation

33:42

workers' strike was

33:45

the kind of pivot point for the

33:47

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37:11

Well, you

37:13

know, Ellen is Italian, so she knows

37:16

all about We just make it look like an

37:18

accident. That's that's rule number

37:20

one. If I don't have immediate What a robot

37:22

taught her? That's my

37:24

grandma. When you talk

37:26

about same thing with Malcolm X,

37:28

you know, that trifecta of how

37:30

it happened

37:32

between the FBI, the NYPD, and the nation of Islam.

37:34

There is also the trifecta when

37:36

you compare the two of the

37:39

BI, the mafia, and of course

37:41

white supremacists that wanted him dead

37:43

very publicly because he said he got

37:45

thirty to forty death threats

37:48

a day.

37:49

Well, I mean, here's the thing. So if

37:51

you look at the King Family, they're even

37:53

they're like, life. The bombings

37:56

at his house Yes. That's a high Like,

37:58

a robust boy cop. Yep. There were two. Were there two or was or there were two

38:00

bottoms. And then one of

38:02

the things that I highly recommend

38:05

to everyone in life, but especially if you're listening to this

38:08

podcast, go on YouTube and

38:10

listen to the entirety of that last

38:12

speech. Mhmm. It's about forty four

38:14

minutes and we often

38:16

fixate on this last part because it feels so

38:18

prophetic and it's so poignant. Right?

38:20

He's like predicting that he will

38:22

not make it. He will he

38:24

will die. But what he's talking

38:26

about in the speech are all the attempts on

38:28

his life. He talks about the stabbing

38:30

and recovering from it and all of these

38:32

letters he gets of support He also talks

38:34

about the plane ride to

38:36

Memphis. And how the pilot says we

38:38

had to sweep the plane because we have

38:40

doctor King on and there were threats. So he is

38:42

talking about, like, literally the threats that are

38:44

happening, like, moments before

38:46

he shows up on that stage. But when

38:48

trying to help people understand is that everyone has to kind of feel

38:51

the pain of the moment and being in solidarity with the

38:53

sanitation workers. But all of that

38:55

is to say that How

38:57

is it that he is able to thwart a

39:00

comps on his life for the period

39:02

of time where he is a public figure for

39:04

fourteen years? Mhmm. And then James

39:06

Earl Wray who was not

39:08

the thermal mastermind necessary

39:10

to this. Then this guy is the one who pulls it

39:12

off. Yeah. The person who is more likely to do it

39:14

is the one who stabbed him at close

39:15

range. Right? That was my first instinct. As

39:17

soon as I started researching him, like,

39:20

this guy, this petty criminal, who by the

39:22

way, has zero criminal

39:25

offenses involving, like, by actual violence. You know what I mean? And

39:27

like guns and or any It's all

39:30

robberies and burglaries. This is not a

39:32

sophisticated criminal that we're talking

39:34

about. Although, he does manage to

39:36

escape and then, like, bounce around two different

39:38

countries. The bunch of aliases, and we're gonna talk about maybe

39:40

how he got to do

39:40

that. But here's the thing. There is some evidence against James

39:43

World. Right? We got to talk about that

39:45

too. There

39:45

is a theory, though, about how he got out of prison.

39:47

I mean, it's totally not rooted in fact.

39:50

I mean, I'm guessing

39:52

it's because if he was part of a conspiracy

39:54

is because they were like, it began by letting the guy get

39:55

out. Yeah. Right? Like, that is that is

39:58

what

39:58

that is what a lot of the research said is

40:02

that he as he got out, he

40:04

escaped in like a delivery

40:05

box. He folded his body up and origami

40:07

ed himself into a

40:09

delivery box. Books

40:10

to be due. Yeah. I was like, I

40:11

don't think you're running away with certus ole, my friend.

40:14

So I wanna go through some of the more compelling

40:16

evidence against right now. And again, to our

40:18

listeners, listen.

40:20

No, we cannot pack everything into this, including, by the way, there's a

40:22

whole conversation on a potential mafia connection

40:24

to this, which we are tabling

40:26

for our Patreon conversation because

40:30

we have to, like I think we have to talk about this stuff that I I

40:32

went to priorities, basically. So but let let's talk

40:34

about this. I wanna I wanna talk a little bit about the evidence

40:36

that I thought was the most compelling against

40:40

Ray. And some of it's a stretch

40:42

to even call it evidence. Like, for example, this very

40:44

first point that I have, which is that Rae's brother,

40:46

Randy Tavern in St. Louis,

40:49

where there was apparently an

40:51

actual poster posted for a fifth with

40:53

a bounty of fifty thousand dollars for

40:56

anyone killing Martin Luther King. Okay.

40:58

So and and for the people who

41:00

believe, meaning the authority, it's a state in

41:02

this case, it's like no Rae

41:04

was the sole you know, he

41:06

was a sole mastermind, her

41:08

everything. It's because he was actually

41:10

motivated by this fifty

41:12

k

41:12

reward. That's the theory. Do you know how much fifty thousand

41:14

dollars was in the nineteen sixties?

41:16

It's a lot of money. Well,

41:19

the equivalent now is four

41:22

hundred and twenty eight thousand one hundred

41:24

and seventy five dollars. My first instinct

41:26

when I heard that was it was a

41:28

a parody, like a joke.

41:30

I don't think that's money. That's a lot I'm saying that's, like,

41:33

where is it coming from?

41:34

Yeah.

41:34

But I Exactly, like,

41:37

It feels a meme or some kind of

41:40

a joke. Like, some it's

41:42

almost half a million

41:44

dollars.

41:44

Yeah. Let's say it was real.

41:46

For instance, we know that in nineteen fifty seven, when

41:48

the students who integrated Little Rock

41:51

Central High School after they successfully did that, at the

41:53

end of that, like during that year, the KKK

41:56

said that they would give a person ten

41:58

thousand dollars if they killed one of these

42:00

nine kids. My

42:02

god. So This practice. I'm saying, like,

42:04

this is the price is

42:07

not uncommon. Mhmm.

42:10

Now the assets, the cash to do this,

42:12

there's I think I'm with you, Ellen. Like, there's

42:14

a lot of questions that work comes from, but

42:18

this idea that that kind of money could come

42:20

from a criminal syndicate

42:22

or the federal government --

42:24

Right. -- that doesn't seem outside the

42:27

But apparently,

42:28

this was a this this particular posting

42:30

in the in his the brothers tavern

42:32

was like a couple of racist businessmen

42:35

pull their money together and we're offering this. So this is

42:38

the

42:38

thing. Right? Like, you know,

42:42

king's disruption in, for

42:44

instance, the Montgomery Bus boycott was,

42:46

like, a serious economic problem.

42:48

Right? Mhmm. Black people not riding

42:50

a for almost a year is a serious economic problem. And

42:52

so, you know, there is

42:53

money, there is the

42:56

the kind financial stakes

42:58

of a lot of this, I think sometimes we only

43:00

think about segregation in terms of like the

43:02

moral dilemma, which it really is. But

43:04

there are some real money issues that were at

43:06

the center of what King was doing, and

43:08

especially in the last year of his

43:10

life as he trying to mount

43:13

the poor people's I wonder if

43:15

there was a real anxiety

43:17

about what if

43:19

this labor struggle and Memphis? What if it's

43:21

gonna be replicated everywhere? They aren't even

43:23

strikes, you

43:24

know, throughout American history, but what does

43:26

it mean for king to be at the head of

43:29

have more strikes. And you know what else

43:31

he was trying to do? He had finally sort of

43:33

speaking out against the Vietnam war

43:35

too.

43:35

And that believe, and this is Dr. William Pepper will get into him later, that

43:38

this was all orchestrated by the government.

43:40

In his theory, is that it was

43:42

specifically because of the threat that, like,

43:44

you know, the whole military

43:46

complex was facing by King

43:48

repeatedly opposing this war. This is

43:50

another theory. Is that he wanted to do this because he

43:52

was a race he was trying to go to Rhodesia, which known

43:54

by president Zimbabwe. But at the

43:56

time, it was segregated,

43:59

run by white and he thought he would be, like, celebrated there,

44:01

so he's trying to get there. But, you know, at the same time, he

44:03

was bopping around Orange County in LA, and this is during

44:06

the time when he

44:08

had escaped. He was doing all kinds

44:10

of work. He was taking bartending classes. He was taking dancing lessons. He wasn't, like,

44:12

taking shooting. You know what I mean? He didn't seem

44:14

like he was training for an assassination.

44:18

Yeah. I mean, I don't know what he's

44:20

up to, but and then there's the bundle. The the this bundle. Okay. The bundle

44:22

had the the rifle. Okay. It had a pair

44:24

of binoculars. It had a scope.

44:27

It had a newspaper story, I think from that morning

44:29

that said that Martin Luther King was staying at

44:31

the Lorraine. And all these things

44:34

had his fingerprints on it. So that's kind

44:36

of compelling. Ellyn it also had,

44:38

like, bobby pins and beer cans. And they

44:40

were, like, wrapped in this, like, blue blanket or

44:42

something, and they just dropped

44:43

there. But if he

44:45

had just shot

44:46

And with one single bullet, by the way, with one single

44:49

bullet from two hundred feet away, he was a

44:51

sharp shirt in the army, though,

44:54

So there's that. But he had been discharged many, many, many years

44:56

earlier. But if he just shot did Reverend

44:58

Doctor Martin Luther King, and he knows that

45:00

the entire city of, like, this

45:03

law enforcement is gonna send to send on him. The entire country's gonna be looking for him. That would mean

45:05

he'd have to run back to he had to,

45:07

like, try to pack that gun into a box

45:09

that didn't fit in. Grab

45:12

some beer cans and bobby pins and whatever else to get his hands. Grab

45:14

all the evidence that would that

45:16

could implicate him and then

45:19

drop it. he in his car and gets

45:21

away. And the thing in

45:23

in researching, the question I kept

45:25

coming back to, and I

45:27

feel like Robbie is gonna scream at me the minute I said

45:29

this, but why? Like, why would he do

45:32

it? Why? The money? The reward? That's

45:34

what the theory

45:35

is. Right? Where does the money gonna be delivered to

45:37

him? Because he's, like, robbing, you

45:39

know, sports in England to, like, make

45:41

it through,

45:41

like, what Right. There's no evidence he ever

45:43

got the reward. Right? There's no There's

45:45

no evidence that he was even in contact with any of those,

45:48

quote, businessmen, this bundle

45:50

with

45:51

this gun Ray said, yeah, I bought that gun. This is the thing. Ray

45:54

has never said that that was not I did not touch that

45:56

again. He said, I absolutely bought that

45:58

gun. I bought that gun and I

46:00

delivered it to Raul. And we're

46:02

gonna talk about Raul. I've delivered to this

46:04

guy who has been kind of like this

46:06

guy I've been working with for quite a while

46:08

now, not just here in the US, but like I've

46:10

known him since I was he was

46:12

almost a year on the lam, he was up in Canada in

46:14

Montreal too that I met him there

46:16

and that I was delivering

46:18

these things to him, and I didn't even know that they were gonna be connected to this I

46:20

didn't know that this was, like, all stuff that was connected

46:22

to the murder, or that doctor King was gonna be

46:24

killed. Mhmm. That's his story. But

46:26

here's the so he also

46:28

admits that he bought the binoculars and he bought him like two hours before the murder,

46:31

but he says, yeah, but I was told to

46:33

buy this stuff. His story

46:36

is that he was not even at the rooming house when the gas

46:38

station took place. He had taken his white

46:40

Mustang down a couple of blocks to

46:42

get something looked at the car, was

46:44

coming back

46:46

And suddenly, like, the police have barricaded everything, and he realized something

46:48

just went down. And he hears over

46:50

the radio. He hears that dispatch. They're looking

46:52

for a white guy in a Mustang.

46:55

Who just shot Dr. Martin Luther King and he just

46:57

speeds off. He just takes off. And

46:59

that's his story. He takes off and he

47:01

goes to Atlanta. Now, he

47:04

had a little place that he hung out in

47:06

Atlanta. And when the police got there, they

47:08

found a map that had four places

47:10

circled on it, and the map had his fingerprints

47:12

on it, of course. And those are all places where Dr. King stayed at some

47:14

point. So maybe evidence

47:16

that he'd been stalking

47:17

him. Here's the thing. I mean,

47:19

all of these things are, again, things that can be

47:21

planted. And then, I don't know if we wanna go into this now,

47:23

but in the nineteen ninety nine Civilrial

47:26

--

47:26

Mhmm. -- I'm talking about that. I

47:29

know And the King Family does not believe those James O'Ray, and

47:32

they have gone to incredible

47:34

lengths more so than I

47:36

think I

47:38

realized to try to figure out what is going on. And so,

47:40

Dexter King, Martin Luther King

47:42

Junior's son, has sat in

47:44

meetings with people who are like,

47:46

yeah, here's a real story. Here's

47:48

what's really happened. You know, I think there's

47:50

something kind of like just

47:52

heartbreaking about the idea

47:54

that, you know, you lose your a like,

47:56

decades ago. And you are so immersed not

47:58

only in their legacy, but just trying to find

48:00

out what happened. And for the

48:02

folks who are still around from his

48:05

time, James Lawson and Andrew Young, like his friends

48:07

are still trying to do this for him

48:09

too. Mhmm. And so, you know, that nineteen

48:11

ninety nine civil trial,

48:13

it's like in the clowns. It's

48:15

like the cast of characters who have

48:17

to appear -- Oh, yeah. -- and some of the people

48:19

who appear in the, you

48:22

know, house investigation of the assassination. It's like

48:24

all of it's believable and none of it's

48:26

believable because everyone

48:28

has put themselves at the center of this.

48:31

But James Rowrie is, like, nowhere to be found in Ellyn

48:33

a lot of these situations that

48:36

people are saying are

48:37

alternatives. Some people say he was

48:39

a patsy, but There are other theories that don't even recognize

48:41

him as a factor in this when families

48:44

have a lot of conviction over how something

48:46

went

48:46

down. We've done a couple of cases in which it

48:48

was clear that the family was

48:51

really wetted to a theory.

48:53

They wouldn't accept kind of the official stuff,

48:55

and it didn't kinda like seemed

48:57

to add up. But here, there's a like you said,

48:59

there's a lot of stuff there that especially

49:02

during the civil trial, I mean, which was incredible.

49:06

And I I think it's important to talk about also the difference between like a civil and criminal but

49:08

a criminal trial actually never took place here

49:10

because what happened was he took a plea

49:14

deal. And if a criminal trial had taken place, this the story

49:16

might have looked very, very different. And, you know,

49:18

he confessed. Right? But

49:20

he later said, he said,

49:22

listen, my lawyer was like, there's no way. There's

49:24

no way you're gonna win

49:25

this, and you're gonna basically be put to

49:27

death. So it's that versus

49:29

get, you know, like, take the plea deal. They had

49:31

threatened him with his they were

49:34

gonna bring his brother in as a co

49:36

conspirator. Right? And then -- Yes. And they said,

49:38

if you don't take this plea,

49:40

you're gonna die. And he

49:42

recanted days later. Was it two or three

49:44

days? Yeah. Three

49:46

days later. He fired

49:48

his lawyer and asked for a new

49:50

trial. And at that point, they

49:52

were like, no. You said you were gonna take the

49:54

deal and it was done.

49:55

Yeah. It was done. The thing that I

49:57

think is also important to say is that, who

49:59

knows what was going on that came to a

50:01

rate? But obviously, there was some level

50:03

of desperation. There could have

50:06

been some levels of impairment in his

50:08

capacity to really understand what

50:10

was happening to him. And then there's a

50:12

lot of people on the take. And so if you

50:14

think about the criminal defense

50:16

attorneys who kind of swoop

50:18

in, in this case, and then one

50:20

advises him later to just,

50:22

like, oh, I was investigating, oh, sorry, I

50:24

can't. And then starting

50:26

in, like, nineteen sixty nine, the number

50:28

of people who want to do books and

50:30

movies. Mhmm. And who goes back to

50:32

James O'Ray, and who go back

50:34

to all of these people. And so

50:36

I think what's so hard about it is it's not just the kind of justice

50:38

issue. There's a level of

50:40

exploitation and maybe even toward the King

50:42

Rabia where people are like, well, I

50:44

will I will point you in

50:46

the right direction. Right. And so what

50:48

has emerged is just layers

50:50

and layers of

50:51

stories, theories,

50:54

and accusations that you don't quite know what to do with. There are

50:56

so many stories and theories and

50:58

accusations, but what I also found fascinating about

51:00

this case

51:02

is the amount of now

51:04

declassified documents. I mean, the

51:06

the words that Jay Edgar

51:08

Hoover put in writing about

51:11

how dangerous a smart black man

51:14

was and how dangerous

51:16

doctor King was. We have a bunch of those

51:18

source documents and put them in the Google

51:20

Drive, and I'll put them on Facebook,

51:22

but there is so much speculation, and then

51:24

there is absolutely so much

51:26

evidence that

51:28

would point to how much the FBI

51:30

understood. First of all, how brilliant

51:32

he was. I didn't realize that he

51:34

graduated from Morehouse

51:36

at nineteen. I mean, he wasn't

51:38

just a prolific He was

51:40

an actual genius. And

51:42

to Jay Edgar Hoover, which

51:44

again, you know, we learned so many

51:46

times, there is nothing more than white

51:49

men hated about doctor King

51:51

and feared him and despised him

51:53

because he was so

51:56

intelligent and and so again,

51:58

and obviously prolific. So

52:00

all of the speculation is

52:03

equal parts to all that evidence as

52:04

well. One of the things I wanted to say about,

52:07

you talked about all the stories that emerged. I

52:09

mean, there are some characters in here

52:11

that their stories didn't emerge for

52:13

years until after the assassination, but also

52:15

the stories changed a lot. One of those people

52:17

is a man named Jim Jowers, and he was

52:19

actually the owner of gym's grill.

52:22

And this is this is a little

52:24

grilled pub bar situation that was on the bottom

52:26

of the rooming house. Above it, what are

52:28

the the rooms that these people would

52:30

let out. And showers over the years changed. His his

52:32

statements got, like, just kinda crazy where it

52:34

it just seemed like he was part of, like, this big old

52:36

conspiracy. He knew this was gonna happen

52:38

for years. And again, this

52:40

is one big chunk of this case that we're actually

52:42

gonna say for the Patreon because this is too much to

52:44

go into now. But one thing I want to talk

52:46

about in terms of stories

52:48

is that Ray's story actually fundamentally never

52:50

changes. After the fact,

52:52

after he recast his confession, there are

52:54

so many interviews of James Earl right on video

52:57

we couldn't get permission to film an interview with a nun when

52:59

he was incarcerated, but James is

53:01

alright. Like they've interviewed after

53:03

interview. But fundamentally, history

53:05

has the same that this was my role.

53:07

I didn't know what was going on, and this is

53:09

guy Raul. So the thing about the

53:12

Raul story It's

53:14

interesting because if you've listened

53:16

to William Klevers MLK

53:18

tapes, it's maybe a ten

53:20

part podcast that goes into this.

53:22

Mhmm. And Browell is this,

53:24

you know, shadowy figure

53:26

who Ray was apparently doing favors

53:28

for. He was probably in some

53:30

type of, like,

53:32

criminal syndicate. And then it's like, no one knows who this guy is. And then woman

53:34

appears who happens to

53:37

be, like, new novel back

53:39

in the day

53:41

Right? Starts looking for the lawyer who was

53:43

on this case by

53:46

coincidence, and then some

53:48

investigators find this old man in

53:50

upstate New York. And they're like,

53:52

you're a role. And he's like, bro, I

53:54

was working in a car factory

53:56

in Detroit during this year. Like,

53:58

everything gets back to the possibility that they could verify who this was, and then

54:00

the person who they find is

54:02

not me --

54:02

Yeah. -- but maybe me. There's another potential

54:04

role, and and it works let's

54:07

hear some of the audio footage of his interview

54:09

that he gave from another prison. And like I

54:11

said, I'm just shocked at how these guys just hanging

54:13

out in prison and some crudes can go in there

54:15

back in the day, but they wouldn't do that now. So there was only

54:17

one piece of evidence we didn't talk about against Ray was

54:19

like there was one

54:22

soul witness. Who says, who

54:24

identified Ray as the man that he

54:26

saw running out

54:28

with this bundle and dropping it and

54:30

leaving. And this guy's name was

54:32

Charles Stevens, but Steven does not the best witness

54:34

here. He stayed in the

54:36

same boarding houses, Ray, and he

54:40

said that he had arrived by four PM and

54:43

that Stevens came in to

54:45

get drinks, but he

54:47

was already drunk. Yeah. And

54:50

and so he was like, okay, here's

54:52

a couple pints and leave.

54:54

And then showers the owner

54:56

called the cab and the cab driver thought

54:59

that he was also too

55:00

drunk. Yeah. So apparently, Stevens is like a

55:03

day drunk. He tried to get some

55:05

more alcohol at the bar run for. They're like, absolutely not, but here's some pints get out

55:07

of here. Then he calls a cab.

55:09

The cab driver gets

55:12

there, goes up to his room, sees that he's so drunk he can't get

55:14

out of bed. He's around six o'clock, goes back down the

55:16

stairs, gets in his cab, drives home, and this

55:18

is he actually gave a statement to the FBI.

55:21

And on the way back to head court or

55:23

the dispatch, he hears the news that Dr.

55:25

King's been shot. So this is literally

55:27

at the same time that Stevens is

55:29

alleging that he saw the shooter, but he was too drunk to get

55:31

out of bed at this time. The other thing

55:33

is this later, he is actually showing a

55:35

picture of James Albright and he's like, no, that's not

55:37

the man I

55:38

saw. Yeah. I think it was, like, thought it was just different. I can

55:40

see Oscar the grout chapter two margaritas.

55:42

Yeah. Oh, my god.

55:44

I hate this stuff

55:48

because Everyone is a witness to nothing. Mhmm. And everyone is

55:50

so easy to discredit, but everyone who's listening

55:52

to this. After you listen to the MLK,

55:55

speaks that I told you to, your other homework is to go

55:57

to Memphis and go to the Nashville Boulevard

55:59

to P. M. Because that's the Lorraine

56:02

Motel. And it has -- Yes. -- I

56:04

want you to go and they I mean, they have preserved

56:06

the room the way it was --

56:08

Right. -- on Doctor King was shot, but I want you to look

56:10

at the landscape. We are not talking

56:12

about skyscrapers.

56:14

We're talking about old school two story motels. Mhmm. Very

56:17

I mean, it seems like you

56:19

can see everything from every vantage

56:21

point. This is not like

56:24

Manhattan. And so the

56:25

the possibility that people could have

56:28

seen behind the the boarding house

56:30

or the grill ice I see that as a

56:32

possibility, but I do not

56:34

understand how how bad

56:36

these witness statements are. And if

56:38

it was a real conspiracy, wouldn't they

56:41

have worked harder to try to get more people to

56:43

cry. Like, I feel like it's alright. If they

56:45

have gone through all of this to, like,

56:47

do this, why was the back end

56:49

of this conspiracy so poorly orchestrated

56:51

traded. Do you know what I mean? What we're talking about is let's

56:53

say there was a conspiracy involving the

56:56

government or whoever, the

56:58

mafia whoever, And I'm using Yeah. You're right. They're using Rey as a

57:00

Patsy. They're using him as a fall guy.

57:02

They probably thought, this is

57:04

easy peasy. He he's the one

57:06

who checked into the hotel he checked into the

57:08

boarding room. He's he's he bought

57:10

the gun. He bought the binoculars. It

57:12

is like they've got him dead to right.

57:14

He's got the white must dang. He's got like,

57:16

you know what I mean? Like, it's because they've been

57:18

apparently grooming him and setting him up. It

57:20

seems for, like, over a year. I don't throw all of

57:22

us, like, an actually an one person

57:24

or, like, a bunch of different people. Mhmm. But here's my about Rae

57:26

gets out of prison apparently

57:28

in this cardboard box or whatever how

57:30

he escapes. And then he is traveling

57:34

he goes to Canada. Do you know how much a caustic like a fake ID? How is

57:36

this man traveling internationally? How

57:38

does he have the money to do

57:41

all this stuff? we there's, like, right

57:43

through petty robberies and

57:44

stuff, but I can't imagine that he would

57:46

have

57:47

a kind of risk. Yes. These

57:49

kinds of distances have the resources to do that

57:51

unless somebody was funding him. So I

57:53

wanna move on a little bit because we

57:55

talked a little bit about the disappearing

57:57

police, but I wanna get a little more into detail. I really took a dive

57:59

on this disappearing police. I could it was hard

58:01

for me to keep it

58:04

all straight. Bought that

58:06

Memphis detective Ed Reddit,

58:08

the one who actually testified

58:10

at the civil trial. Yeah.

58:12

He was the one who was

58:14

sent home that day. He was taken to

58:16

headquarters at, like, five PM.

58:20

And they

58:22

said that he was in

58:24

danger, that he was in imminent

58:26

danger, and that he needed to

58:28

go. And this

58:30

happened also with the invaders that were

58:32

meant to protect doctor

58:34

King as well. I see

58:36

Marsha.

58:37

The invaders.

58:38

My big question about this case is if this

58:40

was partially an inside job that

58:44

members of

58:46

King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference or his Circle

58:48

-- Yeah. -- where they

58:50

involved as well. And so the

58:52

invaders were a black radical group

58:56

that had a presence in Memphis and who had emerged during

58:58

the sanitation workers' drug, especially there

59:00

was this big question about could

59:03

there be a peaceful march? And the reason why King

59:05

came back was because the march that he had been

59:07

part of previously had turned a

59:09

little bit violent, their confrontations

59:11

with the police, And some people

59:13

say it wasn't the sanitation workers their supporters. It was these rabble rousers,

59:16

provocateurs. So the invaders

59:18

were being

59:21

infiltrated by a man named Merrill Mack

59:24

McCullough.

59:24

Oh. I could not stop

59:26

on this one.

59:27

Yeah. No, Dallas. Look at a picture

59:29

of doctor King.

59:30

That's him. He's leaning over his

59:33

station. He's leaning over the body and

59:35

he is on the balcony with his friends

59:37

like Andrew Young and so it's It

59:39

was later revealed that Matt McCullough was CIA,

59:41

he had ties to the feds, he had

59:43

infiltrated black radical

59:46

groups. What is his

59:49

relationship perhaps to this kind

59:51

of larger question? There's also a

59:53

story that under no uncertain

59:56

terms would Reverend King be at

59:58

the Lorraine

59:58

Motel? This is another thing --

1:00:00

Oh.

1:00:01

-- tell them more. Okay. Well, so

1:00:03

some people have said that He

1:00:05

had always stayed at hotels that did not

1:00:07

have that kind of hotel exit

1:00:09

entry that had indoor kind

1:00:11

of protection and the safety

1:00:13

detail could be next to him, which

1:00:15

makes perfect sense. Someone claims that there was an

1:00:18

editorial written in the Memphis

1:00:20

press that said,

1:00:22

why doesn't Dr. King stay at black owned places like Lorraine

1:00:24

Motel, kind of goding him. Like, why does

1:00:26

he stay in some of these white hotels? Now

1:00:28

some people say he did that

1:00:31

because he wanted to integrate the hotel, some people say that

1:00:33

some of these hotels were better for security, but

1:00:35

he had never stayed at the

1:00:37

hotel before and someone put him in that

1:00:39

motel allegedly from the Southern Christian leadership conference. And

1:00:42

then there is a theory that his room

1:00:44

was changed.

1:00:46

That he was originally supposed to --

1:00:47

Yeah. -- in in more entry

1:00:50

room -- On a

1:00:50

lower level. Yeah. -- but but do you know

1:00:53

who is said to have moved

1:00:56

him? No. Are you gonna be that mad at me if I say Robbie? Because there's You

1:00:58

can say

1:00:58

it, but I will respond to this. Go ahead, Ellyn. Jesse

1:01:00

Jackson. Okay. I don't know what the it

1:01:02

is. I just I have found no

1:01:05

document that report something like that. But it was

1:01:08

said that the invaders also had

1:01:10

been ordered to leave. I asked

1:01:12

Robbie about this and she said I didn't find

1:01:14

any source

1:01:16

documents to back this up, but it was said that they the invaders were

1:01:18

ordered to leave by Jesse Jackson,

1:01:20

and they moved him from an inside

1:01:23

first floor room to an internal, not

1:01:26

inside, but more a little more

1:01:28

secure, not so open to the

1:01:30

second

1:01:30

floor. I mean, this might be

1:01:33

deep deep conspiracy stuff, but I did find

1:01:35

a lot of documentation that said that.

1:01:37

So this one is part of,

1:01:39

I think, one thing that has happened.

1:01:41

So Jesse Jackson was there at

1:01:43

the assassination. He was leading

1:01:46

Operation Broadbasket, which was the economic

1:01:48

justice arm of the SCLC.

1:01:50

And if he listened to that last

1:01:52

oration, he compliments Jesse Jackson for all his work on boycotting companies

1:01:54

that weren't gonna stand with those temptation

1:01:56

workers. There is a conflict

1:02:00

with Operation Red Basket and Jesse Jackson

1:02:02

years later. And then he

1:02:04

forms his own organization and

1:02:07

coops the idea of the rainbow coalition

1:02:09

and that becomes a Jesse Jackson we know of

1:02:11

the 1980s. There have been all sorts of

1:02:14

nasty things set about like

1:02:16

Jesse Jackson kind of using the assassination for his own fame

1:02:18

and platform that, you know, he smeared

1:02:20

blood on his shirt to make it seem like he was

1:02:22

more approximate.

1:02:24

Those things have always circulated about him. Mhmm. You

1:02:26

know, it's like these things where it's like, okay.

1:02:28

Is it people getting mad at him because

1:02:30

there was this break up? Or,

1:02:33

you know, are people also using other

1:02:35

things that we do know? For

1:02:37

instance, people like Meg McCullough and people

1:02:39

like Ernest Withers,

1:02:40

Right. Who

1:02:40

was a rights photographer who was very close to movement,

1:02:42

who was also working with the FBI. It's like,

1:02:44

trust no one, and this is so hard.

1:02:47

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference

1:02:49

was unequivocally had been infiltrated with there were

1:02:52

informants on every level in doctor

1:02:54

King's closed circles. His own

1:02:56

chauffeur apparently also was somebody

1:02:58

who worked as an informant from all the source materials that I read.

1:03:00

Apparently, the manager or a landlady,

1:03:02

whoever kind of, like, ran the motel and made the decision

1:03:04

of where to

1:03:06

put them. Got a phone call. And the phone call is

1:03:08

requested, but there's just no

1:03:10

verification. That's a rumor like so many other

1:03:11

rumors. I can't give it a lot of

1:03:14

wait. I

1:03:15

totally understand. That would mean

1:03:16

Jesse Jackson is in on the conspiracy to assassinate.

1:03:18

I just it's a stretch for me. No,

1:03:20

I am. There isn't the actual

1:03:23

evidence about about yeah. McCullough, I mean,

1:03:25

he absolutely was part of the

1:03:27

CIA. He was in

1:03:30

military police. He was hired by the military intelligence

1:03:32

group. We know that for a fact.

1:03:35

I do understand that Jesse Jackson's

1:03:38

stuff is a bit of a stretch, but it's all very interesting because

1:03:40

like any, if you've seen one

1:03:42

mafia movie, you've seen them all, there

1:03:44

has to be someone on the inside.

1:03:47

Let's just we go to the FBI did this,

1:03:50

the government did this. If

1:03:52

we're in that world, we have to

1:03:54

accept that someone was helping them from the

1:03:55

inside. And we know McCullough

1:03:57

for sure was? Well, the thing that is also just

1:04:00

like gut wrenching to think about.

1:04:02

So Lorraine Bailey, who was the

1:04:04

wife of the owner of the

1:04:06

Lorraine Motel, he had a

1:04:08

stroke and died the same

1:04:10

day that he was assassinated by the

1:04:12

hospital. So he had a

1:04:14

shot that he screams

1:04:16

in the motel. What have I done? What have

1:04:18

I done? Because I think she was in charge of the

1:04:20

room assignment. She has a stroke

1:04:22

and passes away. And

1:04:24

so if she was the one who took the

1:04:26

call, any kind of evidence that could

1:04:28

have emerged from her testimony was

1:04:30

also

1:04:30

gone. I mean, like --

1:04:32

Wow. -- they're elements like going. Why?

1:04:34

They're fantastic. Was it a

1:04:35

stroke or was it

1:04:38

a I'm sure there's other questions about that. Right. So, like, there's

1:04:40

this other layer to this where the

1:04:42

things that are not conspiracies that

1:04:44

are just like, tragedies

1:04:46

of the moment. Yeah. And, you

1:04:48

know, I think the other thing about it is,

1:04:50

like, if this was tied

1:04:52

to King's anti Vietnam

1:04:54

War stance, then this gets even more

1:04:57

complicated because part of

1:04:59

what happens that last year of his life

1:05:01

is he's making enemies out of everyone.

1:05:04

Mhmm. Like, the kind of report he had with Lyndon

1:05:06

Johnson after the civil rights act and the

1:05:08

voting rights act, that's, like, out the door with the

1:05:10

anti war stuff. It's also

1:05:12

alienating him from other African Americans in the civil rights movement had

1:05:14

really stood on their

1:05:17

military participation and who

1:05:20

were decorated World War II veterans.

1:05:22

And they're like, this is the Army

1:05:24

has often been our pathway to

1:05:26

a quality And then I mean, if we were to accept the theory and that this

1:05:28

was, like, some kind of government

1:05:29

conspiracy, we're actually not talking about FBI. We're talking

1:05:31

about CIA level. Like, that's,

1:05:34

like, where people are going with

1:05:35

us. That this was including, like, some I mean, there are even reports at that day. There

1:05:37

were, like, army personnel in in the

1:05:40

area and, like, army snipers coming

1:05:42

in and

1:05:44

I still wanna touch on two other instances of police disappearing. So

1:05:46

you have detective Reddit who specifically was told,

1:05:48

your life isn't a threat. You gotta go

1:05:52

home. When he goes home, as he's sitting in the car, he hears

1:05:54

that Dr. King's been shot. This threat

1:05:56

to his life was conveyed to

1:05:58

the local police through a memo

1:06:01

from the FBI. Okay? But

1:06:04

then it was followed up at four fifteen with the

1:06:06

memo saying, oops, we got it

1:06:08

wrong. Except after they

1:06:10

got the memo making the correction is when they

1:06:12

told him to go home. So and a

1:06:14

guy who got the memo is the one who actually

1:06:16

drove him home. Very weird. After Reddit testified,

1:06:18

then Memphis police department accountant Jerry

1:06:20

Williams testified. And he

1:06:22

said that It

1:06:24

was his responsibility to forming a a security unit of black officers

1:06:26

every time King came to Memphis. But

1:06:28

for the April third arrival, he

1:06:31

was literally asked not to form the

1:06:34

security unit. Like, he was actually told

1:06:36

not to do it. He was told that

1:06:38

someone in King's entourage had asked for

1:06:40

no security. Again, it's like who's that

1:06:42

shadowy figure the entourage?

1:06:44

Yes. Okay. Is Jessica

1:06:46

Jackson still

1:06:46

alive? Because we get sued. I can't

1:06:47

remember he is. And Also,

1:06:49

young Jesse Jackson was so hot.

1:06:52

A

1:06:53

snack. I

1:06:55

want that in.

1:06:58

Young

1:06:59

Jesse Jackson. Could get it. Oh, he

1:07:01

was handsome. Oh, man. But there's

1:07:03

so many rabbit holes -- Yeah.

1:07:05

-- also because the whole

1:07:08

FBI think we haven't even talked about

1:07:10

when they tried to go the Martin

1:07:12

Luther King as a communist route and they couldn't

1:07:14

find anything. They were like, oh, let's talk about him

1:07:16

being a philanthropy. And they tried

1:07:18

to smear his name that way by

1:07:20

saying he was a womanizer and he was having

1:07:22

affairs and he sent that

1:07:24

letter to die by seed. They wanted him

1:07:26

to die by suicide. It it's

1:07:28

so much. I did not learn that

1:07:30

in every February in school growing up in

1:07:31

Oakland, California. It's so interesting

1:07:34

the range of what people

1:07:36

had to do to get on the FBI radar and

1:07:38

it didn't take much. Trying to

1:07:40

register to vote, talking about, you know,

1:07:42

living, like, a basic

1:07:44

human being and

1:07:45

rights. You know, leading a civil rights

1:07:47

march, you could be part

1:07:49

of it. Being

1:07:49

smart, Albert Einstein was flagged by

1:07:52

the FBI. You know, being sophisticated

1:07:54

by Israel's problems. So King

1:07:56

was under surveillance for most of

1:07:58

his adult life. And his

1:08:00

extramural affairs was

1:08:02

one source of the ways that, you

1:08:04

know, Hoover tried to manipulate him. He

1:08:08

had people have found that he had relationships with white woman. There was a

1:08:10

white woman he was very much in love with and they did not

1:08:12

pursue their relationship. There are some

1:08:14

elements in

1:08:16

this kind of conspiracy around

1:08:18

his assassination, whether on the ground people who

1:08:20

are all vulnerable of

1:08:23

some type of exposure. Whether

1:08:26

they need immunity from criminal prosecution, whether

1:08:28

it's things that are involved

1:08:29

in, you know, their stories to

1:08:31

find something about everybody. Like, there's a way

1:08:33

to, like, turn our screws on.

1:08:35

But yeah. Yeah.

1:08:37

Yeah.

1:08:38

You know, the owner

1:08:40

of the grill that was had

1:08:43

the boarding house, the proprietor was

1:08:45

in a sexual relationship with a black waitress. Like, there's

1:08:47

all of this stuff that everyone has

1:08:51

to keep close. But everyone

1:08:53

has something and the question is, you know, what is so scary

1:08:55

or what is so high stakes

1:08:58

that people will participate in this?

1:09:02

And what are the kind of chess pieces

1:09:04

that the FBI can use against

1:09:06

people? But the king stuff is

1:09:09

deep and rich and, you know, his

1:09:11

friends, the Kennedy's, were watching him. Everyone was

1:09:13

watching him. And so what we have is

1:09:15

just this kind of fragmented pictures of

1:09:17

the different ways that they tried

1:09:19

to get him. But how is it that, you know, it's James

1:09:21

Earl Ray who's going to be the one that, you know, finally does it. I think I think on the

1:09:24

basis of

1:09:25

that, that's probably why

1:09:27

I just just skeptical. Well,

1:09:29

that's the thing is that the FBI had

1:09:31

the opportunity, the motive,

1:09:35

and the means and are highly sophisticated.

1:09:37

Yeah. So why are you pegging it on this petty

1:09:39

thief? It all

1:09:43

just seems very, very it circulates in my brain. I get I get confused

1:09:45

very easily also. I'm not as smart as

1:09:47

you

1:09:47

too. I'm I'm a very, very

1:09:50

low level lawyer. Not very low

1:09:52

level. She just she's an

1:09:54

apprentice right now. Yeah. So the earlier March had taken place not too long before, just

1:09:56

like a week before,

1:09:59

a lot of violence. There's

1:10:01

a lot of tension in the city. Anytime

1:10:03

King travels to a major city, I mean, like, it required a major police presence, including riot control.

1:10:05

And a Memphis police

1:10:07

officer was like, that

1:10:10

they would assign twenty men on the

1:10:12

block itself at a minimum. But this time, this particular time

1:10:14

during the congressional house hearing and there's a house assassinations committee

1:10:19

investigation about this assassination. This chief testified this

1:10:21

time that twenty man unit was

1:10:24

removed and that

1:10:26

he didn't even know who He chief

1:10:28

says, I don't know who authorized.

1:10:30

Three twelve pentatical units were pulled

1:10:34

back five blocks. From the motel the morning of the murder. So and and the

1:10:36

officer who was in charge said that he was

1:10:39

again told by a member of

1:10:41

the Southern Christian

1:10:44

Leadership Conference to pull back the units. It feels like

1:10:46

there was somebody who who was maybe part of that close, like, you know, a circle of people

1:10:48

around King who kept

1:10:51

moving pieces around and

1:10:52

saying, he gotta move his room. We don't need the

1:10:54

units. He's impersonating

1:10:55

them. He's not gonna be impersonating them. Right? Yeah. I mean, this is

1:10:57

the

1:10:57

time where phone calls, like, we

1:10:59

don't have Zoom know

1:11:02

what you guys have caller ID. Anyone can

1:11:04

say, hey, I'm calling from, you know, the Atlanta

1:11:06

office. Can you do this? I just can't

1:11:08

imagine though you've got an officer in charge

1:11:10

of, like, making sure this national figure is protected with

1:11:13

three tactical

1:11:13

units, and they just got a phone call.

1:11:15

They're like, okay.

1:11:18

Okay.

1:11:19

We'll just remove because it

1:11:21

wasn't even about protecting the city

1:11:23

with the riot

1:11:25

control people. Like, they're there to protect the

1:11:27

city. The only thing I could say is, you know, doctor King thinks your presence, riles up the marchers, let's

1:11:32

try to, you know, slow down the police further.

1:11:34

That's the only thing that I could maybe hear them saying, but that didn't happen. But also, you're telling me

1:11:38

that

1:11:39

officer was like, can I get a name? Did not even get

1:11:41

the name or the person calling? Was this like, does somebody call me? I'd be like, can you give me a

1:11:44

name, please? I mean, like, when I call

1:11:46

customer service, I'm like, can I get a

1:11:48

name, please? A month.

1:11:50

Like, calling Wayfair, exactly. Yeah. But you got that

1:11:51

number. I went

1:11:52

pretty deep into

1:11:53

McCullough. That really, really peaked

1:11:56

my interest. And

1:11:59

he worked under the anti

1:12:01

civil rights by Frank

1:12:04

Holliman, and Frank

1:12:07

Halliman was besties with Jaeger

1:12:09

Hooper, and had worked a ton

1:12:11

with Jaeger Hooper. And he was

1:12:13

the

1:12:13

current police chief at the time

1:12:15

of the nation. You Right

1:12:17

is also an interesting who goes from the federal service to becoming a police

1:12:19

chief of a southern city. It it Yeah.

1:12:23

I mean, do people? I don't know. I'm sure our listeners will tell us

1:12:25

whether or not that happened. I feel like it could happen.

1:12:27

But yeah. But he served

1:12:30

first, he was in the field office seven years before that he wasn't like, he worked, like, directly,

1:12:32

I I think, in the national office. So

1:12:34

this guy was very deep in

1:12:35

FBI, and all of

1:12:37

a sudden, he's the chief of police of the Memphis Police

1:12:40

Department. Right. The other thing that I

1:12:42

wanna say about kind of, like, people

1:12:44

just taking phone calls and taking orders, Police

1:12:47

officers were very low paid wage workers in

1:12:49

Memphis at this time. And you would think

1:12:51

that that would make them a more

1:12:53

generous towards the sanitation workers, but

1:12:55

here we are. But this was also

1:12:58

not the kind of like purehearted public

1:13:00

servants tasked with

1:13:03

doing these things. These guys were susceptible to a

1:13:06

lot of corruption, a lot of very low level payoffs. So it is not outside of the

1:13:08

scope of possibility that, you

1:13:10

know, fifty dollars or hundred dollars

1:13:14

could lead a police officer to ask Joe

1:13:16

sessions, especially around someone like Martin's routine to hear.

1:13:18

It's not like they're, like, just look the other

1:13:20

way while I run past you. It's remove

1:13:23

thirty six officers. You are setting

1:13:25

yourself up

1:13:26

for, like, a major major accountability of

1:13:28

something goes wrong. Like, I don't

1:13:30

know. It's the same blueprint of Malcolm x. Yeah. Which we'll talk about next episode.

1:13:32

Yeah. You'll

1:13:33

just line it up

1:13:34

and it it's just kind

1:13:38

of the same. I

1:13:39

wanna talk about Raul, and James Raul Ray had made his way to Montreal. He escaped sixty seven. He

1:13:41

makes his way up to

1:13:43

Montreal at some point.

1:13:46

Two months after he's in Montreal, he

1:13:48

starts using a number of aliases.

1:13:51

Okay? Here's some freaky stuff. Four

1:13:53

of the names that he used were the names of actual people who all lived

1:13:55

within one point five radius

1:13:58

of each other in Rabia

1:14:02

Toronto suburb, they all looked similar

1:14:04

to Rae, but Eric Gault was the name that

1:14:06

Rae used for the nine months right for the

1:14:08

murder. Okay? And after the killing, you know,

1:14:11

authorities were like, we gotta get Eric Alt because Eric Alt has some involvement with this. In

1:14:16

real life, bought was a sharpshooter. Now, you're

1:14:18

telling me that Ray managed to, like, either was he, like, stalking that neighborhood, found four

1:14:20

guys look to

1:14:23

look like him, some, you know, figured out what their

1:14:25

names were and then managed to recreate their identity so he can get their paperwork. I mean, so

1:14:27

the question really is, how would he have created those

1:14:30

alias? I I don't know how to create

1:14:32

an alias. How

1:14:34

would he have created his aliases

1:14:36

from people that were actual real people and getting

1:14:38

documents,

1:14:38

like, with their actual credentials on them? So,

1:14:43

Gault apparently was his name when when

1:14:45

investigators, like, took a look. And I

1:14:47

don't mean, like, I don't mean, like,

1:14:49

official investigators. I mean, like, people who are, like, don't

1:14:51

believe the official story investigators afterwards were trying to figure

1:14:54

out, like, where could he have found

1:14:56

GOLT's name?

1:14:58

GOLT's name? Shows up in a secret defense contract because he did

1:15:00

the defense contract work for

1:15:02

Union Carbide in Toronto and who would

1:15:04

have access to that contract. Obviously, it would be people

1:15:07

who are working in that industry. Me. When

1:15:09

you when Ray was asked, where did you get the names? He's like, I

1:15:11

don't know. I don't remember who gave me the names. I

1:15:15

just got I just pulled them out of

1:15:17

my rear end. But he started using the name Golf in nineteen sixty seven

1:15:19

in Montreal, and it actually coincides with the

1:15:22

exact same time that he says he

1:15:24

met

1:15:25

this mysterious man named Raul in Montreal. Although he doesn't say Raul gave me the name, but it's like the same time. Do

1:15:27

you wanna play unsolved mysteries theme

1:15:30

right there? Yeah. No.

1:15:34

Okay. Just to be out, you know, and up. I mean, there's

1:15:37

there's just no way. Yeah. There's just no way.

1:15:39

So then there's a Canadian

1:15:41

reporter who's like, trying to figure out who could this role be.

1:15:43

He learned there's a guy named Jules Ricoh

1:15:46

Kimball who lived a few blocks away

1:15:49

from Rae in Montreal. Kim's girlfriend tells

1:15:51

a reporter that this guy Rico kept guns

1:15:53

and explosives in his car, made a lot of

1:15:55

calls from New Orleans, and that she

1:15:57

called him roll out. New Orleans

1:16:00

has a potential tied this case because there's a whole another rabbit hole we're

1:16:02

not going into with this the fat man and other things and these calls

1:16:06

to New Orleans to pick up, like, you know, money and mafia stuff,

1:16:08

like I said, for the Patreon.

1:16:10

But Kimball was apparently a suspect

1:16:12

in a bombing of

1:16:14

a left wing union leader he

1:16:16

had all kinds of histories and but he

1:16:18

was under surveillance because of this his suspected

1:16:22

involvement in the bombing.

1:16:25

But there was one week in July nineteen sixty seven that he couldn't be accounted

1:16:27

for. This this he had somebody actually surveying him. The guy couldn't find him for that one week,

1:16:29

and it was actually around the same time that Ray

1:16:31

was in Montreal.

1:16:35

So Kimbell years later was in fact interviewed, and we're

1:16:37

gonna listen to some of the

1:16:39

interview right now. My

1:16:41

name is Julius Ron

1:16:42

Kimbell. Twenty five years old. I'm doing a double life since

1:16:44

organized crime and racketeering and murder

1:16:46

in the world he lives. Work

1:16:49

for the government? CIA for

1:16:52

quite a few

1:16:53

years. I've worked on

1:16:55

different things and

1:16:56

who got planned. Be

1:16:58

a big invasion

1:16:59

to assassination

1:17:00

of president Kennedy. Can

1:17:02

you tell us the story

1:17:04

of how you got connected

1:17:07

to

1:17:07

Montreal? I had a contact there, and

1:17:08

I would would visit up

1:17:10

there. At that time, CIA

1:17:15

was working They had a I can't think of the name

1:17:17

of it right now, but it was pulled back,

1:17:19

you know, the free Canada, which was

1:17:21

the French we're trying to take

1:17:24

over

1:17:24

there. And I I went up

1:17:26

there. I started going up there with them and done I'd done a couple jobs

1:17:31

up there. Can you give me a clue as to what kind

1:17:32

of work you did up there for them?

1:17:34

I don't do murder

1:17:35

someone there. Yes.

1:17:39

In Canada. Were there political

1:17:41

things? Yes. I'm a political thing.

1:17:42

It was a, I think,

1:17:47

CIA front. See, CIA

1:17:47

bail back any money for going thinking

1:17:50

to put a man on the

1:17:52

inside. Kimbell

1:17:53

says

1:17:54

he was introduced to an FBI agent in New Orleans and put

1:17:56

on the payroll of the FBI to

1:17:58

undertake assignments. This agent took him

1:18:01

to meet Ray at Atlanta Airport fly him to

1:18:03

Canada. Now his story is that he met

1:18:05

a man called Raul. It sounds like that part

1:18:07

of Raul was you, and

1:18:09

they they called

1:18:12

me Rico. So would you say that at

1:18:14

least for the Canadian part

1:18:15

of Rae's story,

1:18:19

you were Raul. Yes.

1:18:20

Uh-huh. Yes. So

1:18:21

Marsha, this is Kimbell saying, yep, that was me.

1:18:24

I'm Raul. Okay,

1:18:27

in this audio. The audio comes

1:18:30

from a documentary John Edgington

1:18:32

documentary tree,

1:18:34

which was actually a very well sourced documentary. If you watch

1:18:37

it, you can find it on YouTube.

1:18:39

And my gosh, he's

1:18:40

like, he has managed

1:18:42

to interview a lot

1:18:44

of very close to the case and very

1:18:46

close to a lot of the investigation. So it's a very well sourced documentary. You can be brilliant

1:18:48

and a little dumb. Like,

1:18:50

you can be book smart but

1:18:54

also a little life smart. And you can be a street smart and a little book smart. I get that.

1:18:56

Array was discharged

1:18:59

from the army and

1:19:03

they called it due to ineptitude, which I kind of

1:19:05

filled in the blank might have been

1:19:07

mental illness or

1:19:10

or something like that. But, you know, he was, like, the oldest nine kids.

1:19:12

And I'm not saying you have to go

1:19:14

to school to be smart. But that whole

1:19:16

thing really requires a

1:19:18

level of kind of genius.

1:19:21

Which doesn't seem like that dude really possess.

1:19:23

And I watched a bun of each

1:19:25

of his interviews. He's

1:19:27

not anything but

1:19:31

Just It doesn't seem super bright. It

1:19:31

just didn't seem sophisticated like

1:19:33

that. You don't think gravel

1:19:36

was

1:19:37

a real name at all. No. I've got

1:19:39

some freedom of

1:19:39

information. Paper, nursing, as a

1:19:42

row, San Diego or something,

1:19:44

New Orleans supposed to

1:19:46

be a ham,

1:19:46

but I don't have the

1:19:48

FBI's material from

1:19:49

the FBI files, but I

1:19:51

don't have no

1:19:54

nothing substantial with that. This there's

1:19:56

no way that this one guy

1:19:58

could

1:19:58

even, like, tread that territory. I mean,

1:20:00

that I mean, the thing is is

1:20:02

when Ray escaped and he was popping

1:20:05

around the US, he didn't create all these aliases. I

1:20:07

imagine he didn't have the resources to create the aliases. But

1:20:09

when we get

1:20:12

to Montreal, and suddenly he's able to

1:20:14

do this. And what's interesting is, like, the at very end of that documentary that I mentioned,

1:20:16

there there's this,

1:20:19

like, this little text that says,

1:20:21

by the way, after we finished making the film, we learned

1:20:23

that there was a CIA asset in Montreal that specialized in creating fake identities, his

1:20:25

name was Raul Meury,

1:20:27

at the time. A

1:20:30

CIA asset at the time. Okay? Not, you

1:20:32

know, an asset, meaning an operative, not somebody who

1:20:35

actually worked directly for them. So, I mean

1:20:37

but what what again is weird is that

1:20:39

when Ray was shown a picture of

1:20:41

Kimbell who's

1:20:42

like, yep, I was Raul. I got all that shit for him. I fill him in and out. He was like, that

1:20:44

wasn't him. It's

1:20:47

like, goddamn it.

1:20:50

You're so close. There's

1:20:52

the other part of this, and I mean, Robbie,

1:20:54

this is probably where you live. People just wanting

1:20:56

to, like, insert themselves in the

1:20:58

story. Like, oh, yeah, there's that too. I

1:21:00

mean, that is that's, like, you know,

1:21:02

people who, like, lie for attention on social media. Like, this

1:21:07

case is filled with people who are like, I'm bored today. I wanna align

1:21:09

myself with the, like, murder of, like, one

1:21:11

of the most important

1:21:14

civil rights leader of, you know, the twentieth century. That's where

1:21:16

I wanna live and but that's what it

1:21:18

seems like to me. Kim woke up in

1:21:21

that. But I

1:21:21

but look, we're do now, where's my money

1:21:24

or who's gonna play me in the movie? I think

1:21:26

we're, you know, we're bad to some of

1:21:27

that. That's interesting. Yeah. But do I

1:21:30

think there was a Raul? I actually do. I

1:21:32

do. I think there was somebody who was setting

1:21:34

all this up for

1:21:34

Ray. That's what I think. We did mention all those ways, the fingerprints,

1:21:37

the bundle that it could be

1:21:39

Ray. But there is one huge

1:21:42

conclusion that the House investigative committee came to and that was not the same weapon

1:21:44

that actually killed

1:21:47

Martin Luther King.

1:21:50

Well, hold on. What they said was, it could have been,

1:21:52

but we don't know. That's pretty much what they said. They're

1:21:54

like, we don't

1:21:55

They found it impossible to

1:21:58

conclusively say that, but there's so many ballistics

1:22:00

experts that weighed in that

1:22:02

said it was obviously you

1:22:05

can't say absolutely positively

1:22:06

know, but Well, look, a lot of ballistic stuff is junk science. Number one, like, we just

1:22:08

gotta put that out there. Because a

1:22:10

lot of this evidence around the right

1:22:14

and whether or not it was the actual rifle that killed doctor Martin with

1:22:16

the king came out during the civil trial. The

1:22:18

civil trial happened because the king family was

1:22:21

looking for any mechanism possible to bring more evidence to light.

1:22:23

They sued Jim Jowers who was the owner of

1:22:25

that bar and grill below

1:22:27

the rooming house because

1:22:30

he inserted himself into the story too and said he was

1:22:32

part of some conspiracy. They only they asked for a

1:22:34

hundred bucks that it wasn't about that.

1:22:37

What they wanted was to bring evidence, and they brought

1:22:39

tons and tons of evidence. One person who

1:22:41

testified is kinda crazy was a

1:22:43

judge, criminal court judge

1:22:45

named Joe Brown, he

1:22:48

had presided over two years of evidence concerning the

1:22:50

rifle. So he shows up this civil trial and he goes, it's my opinion

1:22:52

that this is

1:22:55

not the murder weapon. Sixty seven percent

1:22:57

of the bullets from my test did not match the Ray

1:22:59

rifle. Mhmm. And, also, he said the unfired bullets that were

1:23:01

found wrapped in that bundle

1:23:03

with that rifle. Were

1:23:06

metallurgically different from the bullet

1:23:08

taken from King's body. So it was the

1:23:11

Ellyn the ammunition was different,

1:23:13

and that judge said that the rifle

1:23:15

scope had not been

1:23:15

cited, so this weapon could not have hit the

1:23:18

broad side of a barn. So what I find

1:23:20

fascinating, so judge Joe Brown,

1:23:22

when he talks about his presiding over

1:23:24

this case. Well, James Albright. First of all, he's the same judge

1:23:27

show Brown who appears on daytime television in

1:23:29

the judge show

1:23:31

judge Joe Brown. Also my holy

1:23:33

moly. I didn't know that. I said it was you from, like, her is judge shows, like, people's court and

1:23:35

judge duty. So -- Yes. -- that's where

1:23:37

my that's where my legal training

1:23:40

comes from. But

1:23:42

one of the things he says when he talks about his participation is that the second involved

1:23:44

in the case, strange things

1:23:46

started to happen to him. Like

1:23:51

a home invasion, like someone being caught

1:23:53

planting cocaine in his

1:23:55

car at the

1:23:58

courthouse. And so The question of his removal

1:24:00

from the case in

1:24:02

nineteen ninety eight is

1:24:05

also tied to this kind of big, you

1:24:07

know, yarn about what exactly is happening

1:24:10

and what were the stakes

1:24:12

of trying to shut down

1:24:14

any kind of viable appeal for

1:24:16

Ray not because of James O'Ray,

1:24:18

but because of what could have been exposed in the trial. Mhmm. I mean, again,

1:24:23

the ballistic stuff I mean, a lot of it,

1:24:25

I don't know exactly like what kind of testing they did or not. But one thing we do know, and I thought

1:24:27

this was interesting, is that

1:24:30

the FBI actually didn't test

1:24:33

whether or not the weapon had been fired

1:24:35

that day. Right. They just didn't touch it. Number one. Number two, forensic pathologist, who do

1:24:37

the autopsy or the medical

1:24:39

exam, excuse me, on

1:24:42

Doctor King decided not to trace the

1:24:44

path of the bullet because he thought it would

1:24:46

damage the body more. He just made that

1:24:48

decision. And the bullet, by the way, had

1:24:51

gone into the jaw, through the throat, through the windpipe, a separate

1:24:53

spinal cord, and then lodged in the

1:24:55

scapula, like, that that shoulder blade

1:24:57

in the back. But if

1:24:59

they had actually

1:25:00

because, look, there were witnesses. Again, we haven't talked

1:25:02

about missteps of there there were at least three or four witnesses who said that they

1:25:04

saw

1:25:07

when the shot was fired, they saw smoke coming, not from that

1:25:09

window, but from, like, the

1:25:11

brush around

1:25:14

the retaining wall. And so the fear What happened to the

1:25:15

brush the next day? The very next

1:25:17

day, the brush was cleared up. Like,

1:25:20

whoever was in charge of

1:25:22

it got ordered saying, clear it all

1:25:23

up. It was all cut down. Cut down every next day.

1:25:25

Yeah. So and that is on record.

1:25:27

That's not like

1:25:29

a rumor. It is weird. So the trajectory of that bullet would have

1:25:31

been really different if it come from the ground

1:25:34

versus from that window of that boarding house,

1:25:37

but they didn't trace it. And so when you're looking at a case,

1:25:39

you gotta look at not only what evidence do they find,

1:25:41

but what evidence do they seem like they don't

1:25:43

wanna find? They didn't

1:25:45

wanna test to see if that gun had been fired that day, which by

1:25:48

the way, that's not junk science. You can

1:25:50

actually check that if a gun's been fired

1:25:52

recently. They didn't do

1:25:54

that, and they also like, well, we don't really care which way the boat came from

1:25:56

apparently. So the other thing that

1:25:58

the House Committee conclusively said was

1:26:02

a hundred percent chairman Louis Stokes in this documentary

1:26:04

says a hundred percent the feds were out

1:26:06

to destroy Martin Luther

1:26:07

King. We know that there was

1:26:09

a network of of informers

1:26:12

surrounding him And also, let's just look at

1:26:13

some of these last clips right now, and then I wanna discuss. During the course of our

1:26:16

investigation, we

1:26:19

revealed the fact that the mission of

1:26:21

the FBI was to destroy doctor

1:26:23

King. That is all documented in

1:26:25

the course of

1:26:27

our reports. And and we

1:26:30

did criticize him severely for the

1:26:32

illegal unconstitutional

1:26:36

way in which his civil

1:26:38

rights were valid. We concluded

1:26:41

that James

1:26:44

Earl Ray was, in fact,

1:26:46

the person who murdered doctor Martin Luther King,

1:26:52

probability there was

1:26:54

a conspiracy. However,

1:26:57

we were

1:27:00

unable to to name any conspirators. That

1:27:02

last clip is this, that

1:27:04

we conclude that

1:27:07

James Earl Ray shot and killed

1:27:09

Martin with the king, but it was probably a

1:27:11

conspiracy. What? I

1:27:15

know. No. Should you stop? They were

1:27:17

conspiracy with who? With

1:27:20

who? Whoo. I

1:27:22

don't

1:27:23

get it. you there? oh, here's something that I

1:27:25

think is amazing. First of all, this

1:27:27

is so weird. It's

1:27:29

like the federal government

1:27:32

is like sending itself to detention with these

1:27:34

like, like, if the FBI is involved, like -- Right. -- that has to be kind

1:27:36

of, you know, massage,

1:27:39

but, you know, this

1:27:41

this committee has a lot of kind

1:27:43

of like the first black congresspeople -- Mhmm. -- the

1:27:45

founders of the congressional chair black.

1:27:48

Mhmm. Yeah. You

1:27:50

know, when people like Luis Stokes were legends and they

1:27:52

aren't, like, extending a lot of political capital

1:27:54

to do this and they aren't,

1:27:57

like, doing this and it's kind of like they've run

1:27:59

to the line and they're

1:27:59

like, okay, this is where we kinda have

1:28:02

to stop. Mhmm. Or this is all the

1:28:04

evidence that we've

1:28:05

gotten. Yeah.

1:28:05

This is a tough one. Yeah. Because

1:28:07

they my final

1:28:11

thoughts is, like, it

1:28:13

is unacceptable to me that the

1:28:16

congressional inquiry stops at there was a

1:28:18

conspiracy. We're just not gonna look any

1:28:20

further. This reminds me

1:28:22

of, I swear to God, I've seen so many of these cases, including a nonsense case where it's like, well, here's some DNA stuff

1:28:25

that belong to

1:28:28

the victim. It's not your perk, but

1:28:30

we don't know who it is. We're just gonna stop there. You can't stop there. If you think there's a conspiracy, we I

1:28:33

mean, people who say

1:28:35

that James are already was

1:28:37

set up or also exact saying the exact same thing. But

1:28:39

who was who who do you think he was conspiring with? Is it like the mafia?

1:28:42

Was it the union

1:28:44

folks? Or was it I

1:28:46

mean, like, was it with these manufacturing industries? Was it

1:28:48

the CIA? Like, you got to fill in some like, there's

1:28:50

more there. It means your inquiry should not have

1:28:54

ended is what I'm trying to say and should be

1:28:56

reopened. Are we solving this case? What are we

1:28:58

doing? I'm not a big conspiracy theorist. I'm

1:29:00

putting bunny ears you can't see me, but You

1:29:02

can find anything on the Internet. You can hit Google

1:29:05

and say, I think my HVAC guy

1:29:07

is Elvis and you'll get a thousand

1:29:09

hits. You can find just about

1:29:11

anything. There's an article to back

1:29:13

up everything. But the thing is the idea of

1:29:15

a cover up doesn't really seem

1:29:19

that far fetched. That sounds like a

1:29:22

Hollywood movie. But when you put it all together and you put all this together, it really doesn't

1:29:25

sound that crazy

1:29:28

to me. Yeah.

1:29:29

I mean, Marsha set the scene at the top of the episode by saying, we have

1:29:31

conclusive evidence the FBI helped to, like, kill

1:29:34

lots of civil rights leaders. We

1:29:36

have concludes

1:29:39

of evidence to that. And so why would you why

1:29:41

would be beyond the imagination that that's the case

1:29:43

here? Yeah. My

1:29:46

final thought is this. Everyone go to Memphis, go see

1:29:48

the Lauren hotel, listen to Dr. King's speech.

1:29:50

And I just wanted to say, like,

1:29:52

I'm so glad we

1:29:55

had this conversation and For listeners who

1:29:57

this is new information for, there's just a world of

1:29:59

history that has true crime orientations that has

1:30:01

such an important implication for how

1:30:03

we live today. I

1:30:06

also wanted to mention the name of the two sanitation workers

1:30:08

who were killed -- Oh, yeah. --

1:30:10