Feds Say James Earl Ray Acted Alone

Rejecting a series of conspiracy allegations, an 18-month Justice Department investigation found no credible evidence that anyone but James Earl Ray killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. It recommended no further investigation.

The new investigation rejected allegations that arose in recent years from former Memphis bar owner Loyd Jowers, former FBI agent Donald Wilson and earlier from Ray himself that a mysterious Raoul or others, including federal agents, police or black ministers, participated in a plot to kill King in 1968.

The investigation was headed by one of the department's leading civil rights prosecutors, Barry Kowalski.

Like four earlier investigations, the new Justice inquiry "found no reliable evidence that Dr. King was killed by conspirators who framed James Earl Ray."

"Nor have any of the conspiracy theories advanced in the last 30 years, including the Jowers and the Wilson allegations, survived critical examination," Justice's 138-page report concluded.

Although Ray pleaded guilty in 1969 to killing King and was sentenced to 99 years in prison, he claimed three days later -- and until his death in prison in 1998 -- that a mysterious figure named Raoul, later Raul, had framed him.

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But the new report said, "We found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King or to confirm that Raoul or anyone else implicated by Jowers or suggested by the Wilson papers participated in the assassination."

Prodded in part by the King family's own embrace of some of these theories, Attorney General Janet Reno ordered the new probe Aug. 26, 1998, even though the assassination had previously been studied by two Justice Department investigations, a U.S. House committee and the Shelby County, Tenn., district attorney's office.

Last December, a civil court jury in Memphis ruled in favor of the King family, which had sued Jowers for wrongful death. That jury concluded that Jowers and "others, including government agencies" conspired to assassinate King.

The new Justice Department probe rejected those findings as well, although King's son Dexter had said after the verdict: "We know what happened. This is the period at the end of the sentence."

The Justice investigators found that:

• "Neither the Jowers nor the Wilson allegations are substantiated or credible."

• "The allegations relating to Raoul's participation in the assassination, which originated with James Earl Ray, have no merit."

• "There is no reliable evidence to support the allegations presented in King vs. Jowers of a government-directed conspiracy involving the Mafia and Dr. King's associates.

• "We found insufficient evidentiary leads remaining after 30 years to justify further investigation" of suggestions by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979 and the Shelby County district attorney in 1998 that Ray's surviving brothers may have conspired with him.

"We recommend no further federal investigation ... unless and until reliable substantiating facts are presented," the Justice investigators concluded.

In 1993, Jowers, who owned a tavern across the street from the motel room where King was shot, said a produce dealer involved with the Mafia gave him $100,000 to hire an assassin and assured him that Memphis police would not be around. Jowers, who died last month, claimed someone whose name sounded like Raoul gave him a gun and the assassin fired from behind Jowers' bar, not from a rooming house window above it where Ray had stayed.

Justice investigators said Jowers told this story only once under oath and later repudiated that version. In many retellings, "He has contradicted himself on virtually every key point," the report said. "There is no corroborating physical evidence. ... (But) there is evidence to contradict important elements of Jowers' allegations," including the fact that investigators found no footprints in the muddy ground behind the bar after the shooting.

In 1998, ex-FBI agent Wilson said he had been concealing evidence in the case for 30 years. Wilson claimed to have found papers in Ray's abandoned Mustang in Atlanta that suggested a conspiracy. Before refusing to cooperate with the Justice inquiry and spurning an offer of immunity, Wilson turned over a portion of a page torn from a 1963 Dallas telephone directory and a piece of paper with handwritten names and numbers. Both papers had the name "Raul" written on them.

The Justice investigators said "Wilson had given materially inconsistent accounts." He later claimed to have found but did not produce three other documents, including one with the FBI's Atlanta telephone number. Wilson "gave contradictory stories about ... whether and which documents were allegedly later stolen from him," the report said.

Justice investigators found no substantiation and "significant, independent evidence to contradict key aspects of his accounts." Photos showed that the Mustang door was closed and locked, not open as Wilson claimed. Ray himself declined to confirm the papers were his. And investigators found no evidence to corroborate that Wilson was present when the car was found.

The report said the Memphis civil trial last year "featured a substantial amount of hearsay evidence purporting to support the existence of various far-reaching, government-directed conspiracies to kill Dr. King." The trial testimony described "secondhand and thirdhand accounts of unrelated and, in some cases, contradictory conspiracy claims."

"No eyewitness testimony or tangible evidence directly supported any of the conflicting allegations," the report said. The Justice investigators reinterviewed some witnesses after the trial and concluded: "None of the conspiracy claims are credible. No evidence corroborated the various allegations and other information contradicted them," although that was not introduced at trial.