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Dr. King's Son Says Family Believes Ray Is Innocent

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NASHVILLE, March 27— In an extraordinary face-to-face meeting in 
a prison conference room, James Earl Ray told the youngest son 
of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today that he did not 
assassinate his father, and the son, Dexter Scott King, told Mr. 
Ray that the King family was convinced of his innocence.

As Mr. Ray seeks to clear his name before dying of liver 
disease, Mr. King's assertion reflects a remarkable evolution by 
the family of the slain civil rights leader.

For most of the nearly three decades since Dr. King was shot in 
Memphis on April 4, 1968, the King family has maintained a 
studied silence about the guilt of Mr. Ray, who confessed to the 
crime, then recanted after being sentenced to a 99-year prison 
term. But in the last two months, with Mr. Ray's health 
deteriorating rapidly, the King family has become his outspoken 
ally: first by telling reporters that there were legitimate 
evidentiary questions to explore, then by testifying in support 
of a new trial and finally by declaring today that Mr. Ray was 
innocent.

''I just want to ask you, for the record, did you kill my 
father?'' Mr. King, 36, asked Mr. Ray as the two men sat facing 
each other, a yard apart, in wooden armchairs.

Mr. Ray, 69, replied: ''No, no, I didn't, no. But like I say, 
sometimes these questions are difficult to answer, and you have 
to make a personal evaluation.''

Mr. King said: ''Well, as awkward as this may seem, I want you 
to know that I believe you and my family believes you, and we 
are going to do everything in our power to try and make sure 
that justice will prevail. And while it's at the 11th hour, I've 
always been a spiritual person and I believe in Providence.''

Aides to Mr. King said he had been trying to arrange the meeting 
with Mr. Ray -- the first between Mr. Ray and a member of the 
King family -- for several months. As president of the Martin 
Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, 
Mr. King has served in recent years as the principal spokesman 
for his mother, Coretta Scott King, and his three siblings.

Accompanied by William F. Pepper, Mr. Ray's lawyer, Mr. King 
arrived 15 minutes late for the meeting at the Lois M. DeBerry 
Special Needs Facility, a boxy state prison in Nashville for 
sick and disabled inmates. Shortly after Mr. King was ushered 
into the concrete-block conference room, Mr. Ray was guided into 
the room in a wheelchair.

The frail Mr. Ray, dressed in prison blues and cloth slippers, 
rose to greet the robust Mr. King, who wore a navy suit, a bold 
red tie and shiny black shoes. As they shook hands, Mr. King, 
who bears a striking resemblance to his father, said, ''Glad to 
meet you. Thank you for letting me come and impose on your 
time.''

Like heads of state at a White House photo op, the two men sat 
in facing chairs with their hands folded over their laps and 
with tiny microphones clipped to their jackets. After about 25 
minutes, the few reporters allowed to witness the scene were 
dismissed, and Mr. King and Mr. Ray spoke privately for 20 
minutes.

During the public part of the meeting, Mr. King did most of the 
talking. The conversation was awkward and stilted, with Mr. King 
filling the silences left by Mr. Ray and with Mr. Ray rambling 
far from the topic of his role in Dr. King's killing. His face 
etched with creases, Mr. Ray has been severely weakened by 
cirrhosis, and he complained to Mr. King that his stomach was 
distended.

''My stomach is kind of falling out, and I need minor surgery, 
but other than that we're just, you know, taking things day for 
day, I guess you could say,'' he said. ''And, of course, you've 
got your problems, too. You've had them for a long time now.''

It took Mr. King nearly 15 minutes to pose the question he had 
come to ask. He first told Mr. Ray that he considered their 
meeting ''a spiritual experience.''

''I guess in some strange way our destinies, that of my father 
and yourself, somehow got tied up together, and we still don't 
feel as a family that we have all of the questions answered,'' 
he told Mr. Ray.

Later he added, ''In a strange sort of way, we're both victims.''

At one point, Mr. Ray volunteered, ''I ain't had nothing to do 
with shooting your father.''

Since Dr. King's assassination on the balcony of the Lorraine 
Motel, most official inquiries, including a Congressional 
examination, that of the House Select Committee on 
Assassinations, have concluded that Mr. Ray probably fired the 
fatal shot. Mr. Ray's original confession still stands in the 
opinion of every judge who has heard him out.

A bank robber who had escaped from a Missouri prison at the time 
of the shooting, Mr. Ray had rented a room in a boarding house 
across the street from the motel. His fingerprints were found on 
a rifle that was dropped outside the house. After the shooting, 
he fled to Atlanta, Canada, Portugal and England before being 
arrested. He pleaded guilty in 1969.

But after his sentencing, Mr. Ray said he had pleaded guilty 
under pressure from his lawyers to avoid the death penalty. He 
has said since then that he had been framed ''as a patsy'' by a 
shadowy figure named Raoul. And Mr. Pepper, his lawyer for the 
last 19 years, has suggested a number of conspiracies that he 
outlined two years ago in a book.

Mr. Pepper has argued that modern tests would prove that Mr. 
Ray's rifle did not fire the bullet that killed Dr. King, an 
assertion questioned by some ballistics experts. Last month Mr. 
Pepper asked a judge in Memphis to order the new tests, 
believing that favorable results would force a new trial. The 
judge has referred the question to an appellate court, which has 
not ruled.

Without a ruling from the court and a liver transplant for Mr. 
Ray, Mr. Pepper said today, ''We're going to be stalled out of 
existence.''

At a news conference after the meeting today, Mr. King declined 
to say what evidence had convinced him of Mr. Ray's innocence. 
He also denied that his interaction with Mr. Ray was designed to 
generate interest in a movie deal that Mr. King and the agent 
for Dr. King's estate, Phillip Jones, have been negotiating with 
Oliver Stone, the film maker.

''I'm not Oliver Stone,'' he said. ''I'm not a conspiracy 
theorist.''

But Mr. King made it clear that he had been influenced by Mr. 
Pepper's theories, and he briefly mentioned the story of Lloyd 
Jowers. Mr. Jowers, a former Memphis tavern owner, said on 
national television in 1993 that he had a hired a man -- not Mr. 
Ray -- to kill Dr. King at the request of a grocer with reputed 
mob connections. His story has never been proved.

Asked who killed his father, Mr. King said, ''I don't know. 
Again that's why a trial, I think, is so necessary. I do think 
that attorney Pepper has some very compelling evidence that will 
lead in that direction. You know, I can't prove this. I'm a very 
instinctual person. My instincts tend to tell me when things are 
not right. I can't always put my finger on it but I can say 
this, that I have felt this sense of suppression, that there are 
those forces out there that don't want what has been in darkness 
to come to light.''

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/28/us/dr-king-s-son-says-family-
believes-ray-is-innocent.html
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Dr. King's Son Says Family Believes Ray Is Innocent "Ronny Koch" <rkoch@banmlkday.com> - 2025-01-23 14:51 +0100

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