THE VERDICT AND THE MEDIA SILENCE
Who is to hear the sound
Vibrations of the falling tree
When no one is around
No ears to hear, no eyes to see
And who is to know how a jury ruled
Pronouncing justice long delayed
When a media establishment schooled
By their absence the truth waylaid.
For a period of about twelve hours, there was a window of factual coverage of the results. The verdict was reported, however irregularly, around the world. Mr. Garrison and I spoke to the media for the first time, and I participated in the family’s press conference on December 8 at the King Center. All four family members addressed the media, including Bernice, who spoke out for the first time. Her eloquence was moving. Here, at last, was a family who had finally had an enormous burden lifted from them. Each family member expressed this relief as well as their feeling of being vindicated for their struggle to bring out the truth. In response to the questions about what was next, so far as we were concerned that was up to others. The truth had emerged from the trial. A jury had effectively exonerated James Earl Ray and found that a conspiracy existed that included agents of the City of Memphis, the State of Tennessee, and the government of the United States. In fact, the judge had apportioned 70 percent of the liability on those official co-conspirators. We doubted that there would be any prosecutions—although even in the year 2000, some could be developed—and we also had little expectation that the attorney general’s report would embrace and reflect the truth that had been revealed by the trial.
The Aftermath
In a private, very emotional meeting, the family expressed their gratitude to me for the long-term effort I began in 1978. I commended their courage, for unlike the other prominent American families victimized by assassination, Dr. King’s family did not recede into the shadows and refuse to ask questions. Instead, they came forward, even though they were attacked and maligned and suffered financially as a result of their quest and courage.
The Spins
Within twenty-four hours, the mighty Wurlitzer of the powerful private and public interests involved was in full volume. Analytical pieces suddenly appeared criticizing the judge, the defense counsel, and the jury. The trial was diminished in importance, and journalists blandly asserted that nothing had changed. To counter the inevitable spins, the closing arguments and the summary of the plaintiffs’ case went up on the website of the King Center (thekingcenter.org), and arrangements were made to put the entire transcript on the site.
A leading publicist of the government’s position and the official line, Gerald Posner, was everywhere at once. On one television show after another and with a nationally syndicated op piece, he insisted that the King family had been duped and that the trial was a farce. I was able to publish a strong rebuttal of his banal generalizations only in the Washington Post. The New York Times allowed me two hundred words to respond to a one-thousand-word piece by a former US attorney general.
What was ludicrous about all of the criticism was that none of the critics had attended the trial or heard the evidence. Of all the media professionals commenting on the case, only Wendell Stacey, the local Memphis anchorman, at the risk of his job, attended court every day. At the end, he repeatedly said he was totally convinced that the jury was right and that he had never been so ashamed of his profession.
Though the lockstep media conformity was expected by all of us, it was nevertheless sad to see it at work again. In the end, the predictable performance of the media had been heralded by the testimony of William Schapp as he laid out the practice of government manipulation and use of the media for propaganda purposes. The King assassination and the search for the truth were a national security matter, and as such the mass and reputable fringe media would be effectively controlled in all aspects of coverage.
Post Trial New Evidence
After the trial, Mrs. Clark’s alibi for her husband Earl began to fall apart. Two critical aspects of her story were more closely examined. Our post-trial research on the availability of walkie-talkies for MPD officers in 1968 confirmed that there were no walkie-talkies (as we know them) in use at that time. There was, however, a much bulkier unit, which was issued to a limited number of officers, and Lieutenant Clark could have had such a unit. It has alternatively been described as being the size of two bricks standing side by side or a lunch box. Former police officer and private investigator Jim Kellum told me that that unit might well have been referred to as “walkie-talkie.” We had to clear up the point if at all possible.
I asked Reverend Jim Douglas, an Alabama minister who sat through the entire trial taking copious notes, if he would mind going to Memphis and having a non-threatening word with Mrs. Clark now that the trial was over. He agreed, and on a weekend in February 2000 he visited with her in her home. She confirmed that the “walkie-talkie” her husband had that had been sitting on their dining room table was a little larger than a television remote control. No such unit of that size was in use at the time by the MPD.
In her deposition taken on April 23, 1999, over seven months prior to the date she testified at trial, Mrs. Clark repeated her trial testimony and stated that on the afternoon of April 4, 1968, she arrived home from work at about 4:15 p.m., and her husband arrived a short time later—perhaps around 4:30 p.m. She said he laid down to take a nap on the living room sofa and asked her to monitor the police “walkie-talkie,” which was on the dining room table. She said he was not asleep for very long, perhaps thirty or forty minutes, when the word came over the radio that Dr. King had been shot. She woke him instantly, and he told her to go and get his uniform from the cleaners (they used Dent Cleaners on Bond Street, which gave MPD officers a discount) while he took a bath. She said that she drove the fifteen to twenty minutes to the cleaners from her home on Barron, picked up the uniform and returned home, the whole trip taking about half an hour. Her husband then left in the MPD car in which he had driven home. She said he would not have been home for more than an hour and a half.
Toward the end of this deposition Mrs. Clark stated that she could not be 100 percent certain that she woke up her husband as a result of hearing about the assassination or because she heard him being called back to work.
The obvious problem posed by Mrs. Clark’s statements at the deposition is that if one sticks to her time frame, she would have had to have heard the news of the assassination being broadcast over the “walkie-talkie” sometime between 5:00 and 5:15 p.m., an hour or so before it actually occurred.
Prior to testifying at trial, Mrs. Clark asked for and was given a copy of her deposition to review. Therefore, she could have become aware of this one-hour discrepancy. Her initial story would have had the assassination taking place around 5:15 p.m. rather than 6:01 p.m. This clearly would not do, so, in her testimony at trial, she changed the time.
She extended her husband’s arrival to about one hour after she came in at 4:15 p.m., and she lengthened the nap to a full forty-five or fifty minutes. She could not, however, change the time when she said she awakened Lieutenant Clark because that was determined by the known time of the assassination, and when it came over the air—between 6:05 and 6:10 p.m. Thus, she could not alter the time when she left the house for the cleaners, which must have been between 6:10 and 6:20 p.m., depending upon her state of readiness.
Given the time it would have taken her to drive to the cleaners—fifteen to twenty minutes—she would have arrived at the earliest around 6:30 p.m. to pick up Lieutenant Clark’s uniform. When speaking with Jim Douglas, she confirmed that she did arrive at the cleaners around 6:30 p.m. After the trial, I had an opportunity to speak with D. V. Manning, a long-time friend of Mr. Dent, the owner of the cleaning establishment, who eventually bought the business from his old friend. Mr. Manning said that the cleaners usually closed no later than 6:00 p.m. Then, I spoke with staff who were on duty on April 4 only to learn that, in fact, they went home at 4:00 p.m. that day.
Next I spoke with Mr. Dent’s daughter, Ms. Tillie Folk, who remembered her father calling right after the assassination and telling them not to go anywhere because of the riots that were certain to occur. This call was, of course, shortly after 6:00 p.m. She said that her father usually had dinner with the family at 6:30 p.m. That night was no exception. Since the shop was about fifteen to twenty minutes from his house, Mr. Dent was sitting down having dinner by 6:30 p.m. According to Mrs. Clark’s story, she would have arrived at the cleaners sometime between 6:20 and 6:30 p.m. Dent Cleaners would have been closed when she arrived, and she would not have been able to get the clean uniforms for her husband. Mrs. Clark’s story is untenable.
Eventually I located and spoke with Tom Dent, Ms. Folk’s brother, who was also in Memphis on the day of the assassination. He said that earlier in the day his father was in and out, but that afternoon, he was in the dry cleaning section in the back of the shop. Tom Dent said that he knew Lieutenant Earl Clark, and in fact the MPD officer was in the shop during the afternoon of April 4 for about twenty minutes. Tom Dent said that Earl Clark came in sometime between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m. and went into the back to have a word with his father. He said that his father, who was a hunter, sometimes provided bullets to Clark and other officers. Apparently, the elder Mr. Dent knew a man who loaded bullets for them. The inventory included 30.06 cartridges. He said hello to Clark as the officer entered and went in the back to see his father. Clark was definitely not there to pick up his dry cleaning. He remembers him leaving sometime after 5:00 p.m. and believes he drove off in a white private car. He was wearing a gray uniform shirt and trousers.
Tom Dent said that he left the shop at 5:50 p.m. that evening and went home. He said it was his father’s practice to lock the doors every evening at 6:00 p.m. He continued serving anyone already in the store but let no one else in. That evening, he said, his father followed him home—it was about a fifteen- to twenty-minute drive—and arrived home around 6:40 p.m.
Why would Rebecca Clark and presumably her husband Earl have had to concoct the false alibi story if Earl Clark was not deeply involved in the assassination of Dr. King? If Judge Swearingen had remained on the bench, we would have sought a hearing on the charge of perjury. With him in retirement, this seemed futile, though we resolved to depose Mrs. Clark one more time.
This deposition took place in Memphis on April 27, 2002. The previous day, I attended Mrs. King’s seventy-fifth birthday celebration, which took place on board the Henry C. Grady paddlewheel boat on the lake in Stone Mountain Natural Park, and then went on to Memphis that evening. I thoroughly enjoyed spending several hours with the entire family and was especially pleased to meet Martin’s fiancée Andrea. I also appreciated spending time with Bernice, the youngest daughter. I had not had the opportunity before, never wanting to intrude on her privacy since I knew how deeply she had been affected by the loss of her father when she was three years old. Bernice, a preacher and a lawyer, is without peer when it comes to preaching. Her passion, clarity, and power ever remind me of her father. We agreed to keep in touch.
In Memphis I impulsively drove to the Ridgeway Inn, where the television trial jury had been housed and where Wayne Chastain and I would frequently go to respond to our thirst. I sat at our usual table and thought of the past and the long struggle for some time, and then I left to begin to prepare for Mrs. Clark’s deposition.
The deposition began around 10:00 a.m. in Daniel Dillinger and Dominski’s newly merged offices at 100 North Main Street in Memphis. Brian Dominski was the court reporter and the deposition was videographed. I led Mrs. Clark through the story. She had told us that her blood pressure had climbed to horrific levels after she received my subpoena. She also said that she had spoken with US Assistant Attorney Barry Kowalski, calling him at the Department of Justice after she received the subpoena. I explained to her that we were obligated to schedule this deposition because of new information. She stuck to her story except that she denied having told Reverend Jim Douglas that the police walkie-talkie was the size of a television remote control. She described it as being larger and square. Somehow she had become aware that instruments of the current remote-control size were not available in 1968.
When confronted with the affidavit of Thomas Dent, the son of the owner of the dry cleaners where she stated she had gone on the afternoon of April 4, she seemed shocked. I informed her, as noted above, that Mr. Dent, whom I located on the island of Guam, where he is married and teaches school, categorically stated that he was working in the dry cleaners on the day of the assassination and that he had not seen her at any time. He said he never recalled her picking up her husband’s dry cleaning but that Lieutenant Clark—whom he knew—always came in himself.
Mr. Dent also confirmed that his father always closed the shop promptly at 6:00 p.m. and that they ate together every evening around 6:30 p.m. On the evening of April 4, 1968, he recalled that his father got home between 6:30 and 6:40 p.m. It was a twenty-minute drive and Mr. Dent stated that he left about ten minutes before closing.
Thus, it was clearly apparent that Mrs. Clark’s story would not hold up. Even if Mr. Dent was wrong about seeing her husband in the shop around 5:00 p.m., she could not have reached the cleaners while it was open. She admitted that the drive from her home to the cleaners was about fifteen to twenty minutes. Mrs. Clark had no explanation for the discrepancy. She simply stonewalled, saying her husband would have no reason to send her if the store was closed. Nevertheless, she continued to insist that he came home and took a nap; she woke him up before going to the cleaners.
A. Yes, sir. I woke him up, and that’s when he said, “You have got to get over to the cleaners before they close to get my uniforms.” Because he came home specifically to take a bath and get some clean uniforms because they had been gone for so many days.
Q. Ms. Clark, if the—if these—if these were not available at the time, if they in fact were not standard-issue or special-issue walkie-talkie communications to Memphis Central police Headquarters—if this was not possible, these were not available, what are we to believe?
(Deposition of Rebecca Clark, April, 27, 2001, op. cit., 1663)
She appeared to be entirely unbelievable. Aware of this, she repeated the offer she made to Jim Douglas that she was willing to take a lie-detector test if we would make the result public. She also named a number of policemen who were close to her husband, including one who handled snakes. It occurred to us at this point that there are very good reasons why lie-detector tests are not admissible in court. Technology now has likely developed to the point where, with state-of-the-art, government-provided, technical, chemical, or hypnotic assistance, she would likely be able to defeat the purpose of such a test. Her requests that the results be made public were in line with such a tactic.
Our position in respect of a perjury prosecution remained unchanged. Little could be gained and the judge might well refer the matter to the Shelby County district attorney, and we knew what disposition would result.
We believed that the purpose had been served. Mrs. Clark had been confronted with the truth and the alibi she provided for her husband had been shown to be a tissue of lies. She was genuinely surprised when I told her that although I believed that Lieutenant Clark was deeply involved in the assassination, new information received in 2001 was leading me to conclude that he had not pulled the trigger.
Tom Dent’s recollection that Earl Clark was wearing a gray uniform late in the afternoon of April 4, indeed within an hour and a half of the killing, conflicts with Jowers’s statement that he remembers seeing him in a white shirt and blue trousers in late morning. It should also be noted that Jowers had contended that the man who gave him the still-smoking rifle—who he thought was Clark but was not absolutely certain—was also wearing a white shirt.
This could very well mean that someone other than Clark handed over the gun to Jowers, and Clark went down over the wall. Once again, I reflected on the possibility that the shooter could have been the fifth and only unnamed person attending the planning sessions at Jim’s Grill.
One woman told me about a friend of hers who was in the army in 1968, based just outside of Washington, and whose military responsibility concerned logistics, troop transportation, and movements. The informant, who provided her full name and details, told me that her friend revealed to her that on the morning of April 4, 1968, his unit was ordered to be ready to transport a considerable number of soldiers into the capitol that evening. When Dr. King was killed, they were, in fact, at the ready and moved quickly into Washington in anticipation of turbulence. Afterward, the friend realized that on the morning of April 4, the army was aware that Dr. King was going to be assassinated and had decided to order preparedness for the inevitable riots. I asked the lady to ask her friend if he would talk with me. He refused. He did not wish to disrupt his present job or to court any possible notoriety.
What We Then Knew
So, up to this point in our story, with all that has gone before the trial, and the information received in the aftermath of the trial, I believe it useful to summarize what we then knew.
Martin Luther King Jr. stayed around the motel all day. There were various sessions with the Invaders and others without them. Dr. King went down to his brother AD’s room, 201, at one point in the late afternoon, and they called and spoke to their mother. He went back up to his room between 5:40 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. to prepare for the meal at Reverend Kyles’s house. At one point he asked Ralph to call Mrs. Kyles to inquire what they would be eating. Around 5:45 or 5:50 p.m., Andy Young emerged from his room and put his coat on as Bevel and Orange were tussling; Jesse Jackson was out of his room, 305, and down in the parking area, for a time standing near the swimming pool, occasionally glancing at his watch. Reverend Kyles was going around from room to room for a while, even (for some reason) entering 307, which had been abandoned by Dorothy Cotton, Dr. King’s assistant, about an hour and a half earlier. Eventually, after having a quick word with Dr. King at the door of room 306, he walked to the north end of the balcony and waited.
Elsewhere at the motel, New York Times reporter Caldwell was in his room, 215, at the lower level. Dorothy Cotton had gone to the airport earlier in the afternoon, leaving her room, 307. The Invaders milled about, but some were talking in their two rooms, 315 and 316. As the afternoon drew to a close, the Justice Department’s Community Relations Specialist James Laue was in the area. An NBC reporter, Jean Smith, also decided to leave earlier that afternoon, and another unknown black guest with a considerable amount of luggage was preparing to leave. He put in a call to Yellow Cab and asked for a driver to take him to the airport.
Frank Liberto remained at his Scott Street market produce warehouse during the afternoon. Late in the afternoon, between 4:45 and 5:00 p.m., he took two telephone calls, one right after another, apparently from Earl Clark, who may have made them from the rear of Dent Cleaners. These were the phone calls overheard by John McFerren as he completed his shopping for the day at LL&L, Liberto’s warehouse.
We now know that it was not possible that Earl Clark went home that afternoon for any extended period, if at all, despite the desperate and perhaps understandable attempts of his former wife to shield herself and her family from the stigma surrounding the possibility of her husband’s involvement in the assassination. We now know what he actually did on the afternoon of April 4.
It is likely that he left a rifle up in room 5-B of the rooming house with Raul. The rooming house registration book had disappeared, making it impossible to see if there were any other rooms let out during that week. When, at the television trial, I questioned the MPD officer (Glyn King) who inspected it shortly after the assassination about why he had not taken it into evidence, he simply said he did not know. Clark and/or the fifth person who, in all likelihood, was also an MPD sharpshooter descended the back staircase, and one of them was fleetingly seen going down the stairs by Grace Walden Stephens who was lying on her bed looking through the opening in the door. Clark and his colleague probably entered the brush behind the rooming house no later than 5:45 p.m., making their way far forward to a previously chosen spot on the north side of the lot, some feet back from the wall. They were eventually joined by Loyd Jowers shortly after getting settled. They knelt on the ground still soggy from the previous night’s downpour and watched and waited.
James was out of the rooming house most of the afternoon, having been told by Raul that he expected some gun dealers to arrive late in the afternoon, and he wanted to see them by himself. After returning with the binoculars, James left, went outside, and ate a hamburger. He walked around for a while and then went to the Chisca Hotel for some ice cream. He came back in around 5:00 p.m. or a little earlier, and Raul told him to go to a movie but to leave the car since he would need it later. James went downstairs, walked around, and sat in the car for a while. He eventually decided to have the flat spare tire repaired just in case Raul had any problem. (That morning, he had changed the right rear tire, which was getting flat, putting on the spare.) Raul remained in the rooming house, monitoring events. He may have intended to drive James’s Mustang away before the shooting, ditch it somewhere, leaving the car registered to Eric Galt to be found by the police, thus completing the circumstantial evidentiary case against James Earl Ray. It would eventually emerge that, as Harvey Lowmeyer, James had purchased a rifle (not the murder weapon), which would be thrown down near the scene. As John Willard, he rented room 5-B in the rooming house and later bought a pair of binoculars. Finally, the car, a white Mustang (seen leaving the scene soon after the shooting), when found would be registered in the name of Eric S. Galt, the identity used for the last nine months by escaped prisoner James Earl Ray, whose prints on the thrown-down rifle would reveal his true identity.
In the end, the process was somewhat delayed, and Raul probably had to leave on foot since James drove off to try and get the spare tire repaired—in the process almost hitting Ray Hendrix and William Reed as they walked from Jim’s Grill to the Clark Hotel as he turned right on to Vance Avenue in search of a service station.
An unnoticed MPD traffic car pulled up and stopped at the intersection with Mulberry, having been directed into position either by Raul or Clark, once Clark and the fifth man were set and the time appeared near.
Everything was ready. All eyes were on the Lorraine Motel, where shortly after 5:40 p.m., Dr. King had returned to his room and began to get ready to go to dinner, chatting all the time with his friend David (as Abernathy was called by those close to him).
A few doors away, between 5:45 p.m. and 5:50 p.m., a housekeeper knocked on the door of one of the Invaders’ room and advised them that SCLC was no longer paying for their room, and they would have to leave. In response to the question about who actually gave this order, she said it had been Reverend Jackson. Charles Cabbage looked over her shoulder and saw Jesse Jackson standing by the swimming pool, glancing at his watch.
Annoyed, but puzzled more than anything else, the group quickly packed up their things, including their weapons, and in disgust began to move out. Surely, their bill for that night had to have been paid. The daily check out time did not go beyond noon, and here it was nearly 6:00 p.m. So, if the bill was already paid, why were they being evicted? It made no sense, but if, for some reason, SCLC had decided on the spur of the moment that they didn’t want their help, then that would be their loss.
As the Invaders were moving out, heading toward the south stairway, Reverend Kyles approached room 306 and knocked on the door. Dr. King opened it. Kyles pressed him to leave, saying that they were running late. Dr. King would have told him that they were almost ready. He closed the door, and Kyles walked away back near the position where he had been standing. He put his hands on the railing and waited. About this time, Raul left the rooming house, going down the front stairs and out onto South Main Street. He must have been furious when he discovered that James’s Mustang was gone, but he probably began to walk north toward the city center.
A couple of minutes later, Dr. King came out onto the balcony by himself, leaving the door to the room somewhat open since Ralph Abernathy had delayed for a moment, saying that he had forgotten to put on aftershave lotion. Dr. King stood alone at the railing in front of the room waiting for his friend David and began to chat with the people down in the parking lot. Chauffeur Solomon Jones got the engine running, Bevel and Orange ended their horseplay, Marrell McCollough moved toward the north stairway. Andy Young had by now put on his coat (as he did so he was being observed by the sniper team on the roof of the Illinois Central railroad building) and Yellow Cab no. 58 driven by Buddy pulled into the driveway at just about or a little before 6:00 p.m. to pick up his passenger who was impatiently waiting off to the side and who immediately brought his luggage to the rear of the cab so that it could be put into the trunk. At this moment, Ernestine Campbell, the owner of the Trumpet Hotel, had begun to drive home, proceeding west on Butler toward Mulberry with her windows closed. As she passed the motel driveway opening on Butler, she glanced to the right, and through the passenger side window, she saw Dr. King standing on the balcony. When she reached Mulberry, she stopped briefly and turned right heading north.
As cabbie Buddy was helping to load the luggage, he stopped to look at the bushes across the road because some type of movement caught his eye. His passenger immediately redirected his attention to Dr. King standing on the balcony. The shooter took careful aim from a low position slightly above his target, with Jowers kneeling not far away off to the side and just behind him. It was a head shot he was looking for, and for him it was a piece of cake. He had the full target less than 200 feet away. As he squeezed the trigger, Dr. King must have moved slightly. The shot rang out, striking Dr. King in the lower face and jaw, proceeding downward nicking the spine, and coming to rest just under the skin beneath the left shoulder blade.
The shooter handed the gun to Jowers, who raced back in through the rear door of his Grill. He was inside within twenty seconds after the shot, being confronted inside the door by Betty Spates. He would placate her, eject the shell, and throw it into the toilet, where it refused to flush.
He then wrapped the weapon in a tablecloth, put it under his apron, and slipped into the cafe behind the counter. He accomplished this within a minute after the shot was fired. The customers were still talking, drinking, and playing shuffleboard. He quickly and discreetly placed the rifle on the shelf under the counter and went over to taxi driver Harold Parker and asked if he had heard the noise. Then he went back behind the counter, where he remained until sheriff’s deputy Vernon Dollahite burst open the door and ordered him to lock the place up and keep everyone inside. Jowers then rushed from behind the counter to lock the door.
Clark, meanwhile, had raced down over the wall to the ground and headed north on Mulberry to the intersection at Huling where he entered the MPD traffic car, which began to move west, picking him up on the north end corner, and driving away at a fast clip.
The shooter also instantly ran in the other direction, entered the alleyway between the buildings, and eventually went down into the cellars. Immediately after the shot, Marrell McCollough raced up the stairs, running past Reverend Kyles to reach the prone body of Dr. King to check him for life signs. As others began to gather, he responded to a question and said that the shot came from the building across the street. Jesse Jackson also began to climb up the north stairway, hesitating on the first step to take out or put something into a bag he was carrying. (The reason for, or purpose of, the bag, as well as where it came from, has never been clear.) As this was happening, Ernestine Campbell had stopped in front of the driveway and observed him. The Reverend Jackson looked up and was startled when he saw her and then turned to climb the stairs. Ernestine waited for a short while and then began to pull away while glancing at the side view mirror, in which she saw taillights and the back of Buddy’s yellow cab.
Buddy had meanwhile called his dispatcher and described what he had seen including the man coming down over the wall running to the MPD traffic car.
Under some pressure from his passenger to get to the airport, he drove away out the Butler Street exit. At the airport, after dropping off his passenger, he told fellow cab driver Louie Ward what he had seen. He then repeated the story to MPD officers who showed up to interview him. He was also interviewed that evening at Yellow Cab Company by officers and was to give a statement in the morning. He never made it. Louie Ward was told sometime later that his body was thrown out of a car on Route 55. Though it was rumored that the body was found the next morning, no record of the death exists.
Right after the shot, Earl Caldwell rushed outside and saw a figure in the bushes. Solomon Jones turned and also saw a person come down over the wall running away. He jumped inside his limousine, backed it up, and tried to give chase, driving back and forth trying to get out of the parking lot. Caldwell saw Jones trying to get out, and being blocked.
Memphis Press-Scimitar reporter Wayne Chastain was on the scene within minutes and was one of a group gathered at the end of the driveway who heard Solomon tell about seeing a man come down from the wall after the shot.
The army photographers (elsewhere referred to as Reynolds and Norton) were operating two cameras that afternoon. At the time of the shot, one was trained on the balcony and the other spanned the parking lot up into the bushes and caught the shooter as he was lowering his rifle and Jowers running back toward the rooming house. They finished those shots and left the same way they came up, down the iron ladder on the north side of the fire station. The films were developed and handed to Colonel Downie. Realizing what they had, however, a set was quietly kept by Norton. The team on the roof of the Illinois central railroad building (elsewhere referred to as Warren and Murphy) were shocked at what they heard and saw. Initially, they believed that the other team must have jumped the gun and fired. They broke radio silence and asked for instructions. There was a period of silence, and then they were ordered to disengage. They packed up, went down from the roof the same way they came up, by the stairs, and then headed west across the railroad tracks to the river, where they took a boat upstream to an appointed spot. They sank the boat and got into a car that was waiting to take them back to Camp Shelby.
MPD policemen saturated the area in force within minutes of the shooting. They advanced, wearing white uniform shirts and blue trousers. It can be presumed that all of the other units of the task force wrapped up their activity after the shooting, and withdrew from the area. There continued to be a military intelligence, FBI, and MPD presence at the hospital and in the city as turbulence was expected.
Then, within about eight minutes after the shot, police barricades were set across the Butler and Huling intersections with Mulberry. At various times throughout the day, Bell South Telephone repairman Hasel Huckaby noticed a man hanging around Huling. He apparently had gone into the building adjoining the rooming house and was seen by Olivia Catling running from the alleyway on to Huling, jumping into a Chevrolet car, and driving away at high speed. She noticed that he turned left on Mulberry and went north, passing right in front of her and her children standing on the corner. He also passed directly in front of the unconcerned MPD officers manning the barricade. Soon after, a fireman standing on the sidewalk next to the wall, who may have been walking along Mulberry at the time of the shooting, yelled to a police officer nearby that the shot came from the bushes.
James Earl Ray first heard the sirens as he waited to be helped at the service station. Feeling uneasy and impatient as it became obvious that he was not going to be waited on anytime soon, he began to drive back to South Main Street where he intended to leave the car for Raul. As he reached the area, he found it swarming with police and was diverted away. He didn’t need any encouragement to leave. He was an escaped convict and being around police made him nervous. He headed south through Mississippi toward Atlanta. On the way, he heard on his car or some other radio when he stopped that Dr. King had been shot and they were looking for a white man in a white Mustang.
Inspector N. E. Zachary raced from headquarters to the crime area and took control of the bundle which, with other evidence, was turned over to the FBI for prompt transportation to their laboratory. The FBI moved in quickly and in force and effectively began to monitor the investigation. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was rushed to St Joseph’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead within the hour.