Chasing King's Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassin

by James L. Swanson

  It was getting close to 6:00 p.m. King was hungry, and he was looking forward to enjoying a fine, home-cooked Southern soul food dinner at the home of his friend Billy Kyles, a local Memphis minister. King savored home-cooked meals of his favorite dishes prepared to order, relaxing with friends, telling stories, and laughing. In public settings—at rallies, protests, and speeches—Martin Luther King, Jr., put on a somber, serious face and spoke with the intensity of an Old Testament prophet. On public occasions, he had few opportunities to show his sense of humor. Major events exhausted him and could almost drain the life force out of him. Off duty, surrounded by friends around whom he could relax and be himself, Martin loved to laugh.

  King was like Abraham Lincoln. Before his presidency, Lincoln rode the Eighth Judicial Circuit in Illinois, traveling from town to town, trying legal cases by day. But at night, he enjoyed himself with a close circle of fellow lawyers and judges. Martin Luther King traveled the civil rights circuit. And he, like Lincoln, enjoyed the camaraderie of the road.

  Tonight, King was off the clock, without obligations or speeches to deliver. He could relax after the triumph of last night’s “Mountaintop” speech, which would become as famous as his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. And he wanted to celebrate today’s courtroom victory. He was eager to enjoy a fine meal prepared by Billy Kyles’s wife. King speculated if she had prepared his favorite dishes. He was impatient, so he asked Ralph Abernathy to find out.

  “Call her up and ask what she’s serving.”

  Ralph laughed and asked, “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  Abernathy called and recited the mouthwatering menu: roast beef, asparagus, cauliflower—and candied yams, pigs’ feet, and chitlins. After hearing that, King was very eager to leave for dinner.

  Later, at 5:50 p.m., three police cars pulled into the driveway of the firehouse a block from the Lorraine Motel. The ten men from Tactical Unit 10—a mixed force of Memphis policemen and sheriffs—were on a break. It was common for policemen to hang out at local fire stations when they wanted to relax. They got out of their vehicles and walked inside.

  In the Lorraine Motel parking lot, several members of King’s group were already hanging out, waiting for Doc to come down. In a few minutes they would pile into their cars and drive to dinner. King emerged from his room. From his perch on the balcony, he looked down at the parking lot and bantered with his friends who were milling around below him. They could all leave for dinner as soon as he and Ralph Abernathy were ready to go.

  King spotted Ben Branch, his friend and a popular bandleader, and asked him to sing him a tune later that evening. “I want him to play my favorite song, ‘Precious Lord, Take My Hand,’” King said. “Sing it for me real pretty,” he told Branch.

  King then turned around and walked back into his room. He asked Abernathy: “You ready to go?”

  “Let me put my cologne on,” Ralph said.

  “Okay,” said King, “I’ll wait on the balcony.”

  King stepped outside.

  James Earl Ray watched him through his binoculars.

  Ray had been prepared to wait several days for an opportunity like this. He was lucky. He had only had to wait a few hours.

  Martin Luther King was on the balcony, out in the open. He was not surrounded by bodyguards or aides. He was alone. And he was standing still.

  James Earl Ray made an instantaneous decision.

  “Now,” a voice inside him commanded, “do it right now.” Adrenaline coursed through him. He put the binoculars down and reached for his rifle.

  Ray had to get to the bathroom fast. If he waited too long, King might start walking along the balcony and descend the staircase to the parking lot.

  Ray stuffed his belongings into his zippered nylon suitcase, not wanting to leave any evidence behind. He got almost all of his possessions, but overlooked the carrying strap for his new binoculars, which was left on the floor.

  Ray wrapped a blanket around the cardboard box containing his rifle. Carrying the bag and the rifle, he stepped into the hall, dashed to the bathroom, and locked the door. No one saw him. Ray stepped into the tub and peered out the window. King was still there.

  One of the residents of the rooming house wanted to use the bathroom. He walked to the door and tried to open it. It was locked. He knocked. No one answered. Another resident told him that the new guy was in there.

  Ray pointed the rifle out the window and rested it on the sill to steady it. Its weight made a slight memory mark on the wood. He aimed toward the balcony. He pressed the butt of the stock firmly against his right shoulder. He wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the grip. He inserted his index finger inside the trigger guard. He peered into the telescopic scope and adjusted the rifle until he found what he was looking for: the face of Dr. Martin Luther King.

  He would have one chance.

  Ray set the crosshairs over King’s head.

  He had aimed the 7-power Redfield telescopic sight at 6.5, which shrank the actual distance of 207.17 feet (just over the width of a football field) until it appeared to the shooter’s eye to be just less than 32 feet. The telescopic sight made Ray into a better marksman than he actually was. King looked so close that Ray could almost see the pores in his skin.

  It was 6:01 p.m., Central Standard Time. At the firehouse, Patrolman W. B. Richmond kept his binoculars trained on the balcony. He told a fireman, George Loenneke, who was standing a few feet from him: “Dr. King is fixing to leave his hotel room.” Loenneke said he had not seen King in two years and asked Richmond if he could take a look. The fireman peered through the peephole and saw King lean against the balcony.

  In room 306, Ralph Abernathy faced the bathroom mirror and reached for a bottle of cologne. After he splashed some on, he would be ready to step outside, and he and Martin would walk along the balcony, go downstairs, and drive off to dinner.

  James Earl Ray kept his right eye glued to the scope, and he kept King’s face at the center of his field of vision.

  From the firehouse, George Loenneke saw Dr. King turn slowly to his left, look down, and speak to people in the parking lot.

  Ray kept King in his sights and squeezed the Gamemaster’s trigger. The firing pin snapped forward and struck the rear of the chambered round.

  The rifle responded with a loud crack and recoiled against Ray’s right shoulder.

  The barrel spit out a bullet at a speed of 2,670 feet per second, faster than the speed of sound or the echo of the shot.

  A third of a second after Ray fired, the bullet struck King in the face, from above and from his right. It penetrated his right cheek, smashed through his jaw, and entered his neck. Then it angled down into the spinal column, passing through and damaging several vertebrae, severing his spine. Then the bullet took another weird, angled turn and came to rest in his left shoulder.

  The force of the bullet lifted him up, pushing him backward and off his feet. It was as though an invisible heavyweight boxer had delivered a knockout punch to his opponent, and sent him sprawling onto the canvas. King landed on his back, faceup.

  Then, a fraction of a second later, a violent, supersonic explosion disturbed the air.

  Ralph Abernathy heard it through the open doorway to room 306: “I had sprinkled some Aramis cologne on my hands and was lifting them to my face when I heard a loud crack, and my hands jerked reflexively.”

  Abernathy thought that it sounded like the backfire of a car. But he had a bad feeling. The noise was louder and crisper than a misfiring automobile engine: “There was just enough difference to chill my heart.”

  At the firehouse, Patrolman Barney Wright from Tactical Unit 10 was relaxing in the lounge, sitting near a big picture window and reading a newspaper. He heard the plate-glass window rattle. Only a vibration or loud noise could do that. He looked up.

  In the firehouse locker room, George Loenneke saw what had just happened. He turned to Patrolman Richmond and yelled: “Dr. King has been shot!�
�� Then he ran to where the fire engines were parked and shouted the news. He burst into the lunchroom, where the other visiting policemen from Tactical Unit 10 were taking their break. They rushed out the door and ran toward the Lorraine Motel.

  Ralph Abernathy reacted to the sound. “I wheeled, looked out the door, and saw only Martin’s feet. He was down on the concrete balcony.”

  Abernathy ran outside and discovered his friend lying flat on his back, his legs tangled: “I bolted out the door and found him there, faceup, sprawled and unmoving.”

  He dropped to his knees and held King close: “I knelt down, gathered him in my arms, and began patting him on his left cheek … I could see that the bullet had entered his right cheek.”

  The two men gazed into each other’s eyes: “I looked down at Martin’s face. His eyes wobbled, then for an instant focused on me.”

  Abernathy tried to comfort him: “Martin. It’s all right. Don’t worry. This is Ralph. This is Ralph.” He wanted his best friend to know that he would not die alone.

  Abernathy saw that his friend could not speak: “His eyes grew calm and he moved his lips. I was certain he understood and was trying to say something. Then, in the next instant, I saw the understanding drain from his eyes and leave them absolutely empty.” Martin Luther King, Jr., was dying. Abernathy saw the blood: “I looked more carefully at the wound and noticed the glistening blood and a flash of white bone.”

  Through his powerful telescopic sight, James Earl Ray must have seen the impact of the bullet and watched King fall. Ray withdrew the barrel from the window, stepped out of the tub, laid the rifle in the cardboard box, and wrapped the box in the blanket.

  It was time to escape.

  Ray opened the bathroom door and peered down the hallway. The coast was clear. He tucked the box under his arm, grabbed his little suitcase, and started walking. He did not want to leave the rifle behind. It would be a prized clue for the police. The rifle was stamped with a one-of-a-kind serial number. The manufacturer could trace it back to Aeromarine, the store that had sold it to the assassin. Yes, Ray had used a false name to buy it. But that would not prevent store employees from giving a physical description of him. And he had been to Aeromarine twice. Those visits had made an impression on the staff and on at least one customer, who had engaged him in conversation. Maybe this time, someone would remember too much about Ray.

  Also, Ray might have left a careless fingerprint on the rifle or the cardboard box. He had been fingerprinted many times during his criminal career, and those were on file with various law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. Any prints he left behind now could be matched against existing police records. Eventually, they would reveal his true identity. It was better to take the risk of being seen carrying the murder weapon out of the rooming house than to leave it behind for the police.

  Down in the parking lot of the Lorraine, it was a wild scene, with everyone shouting at once: “Dr. King has been shot!” “They killed him!” Several people even ducked behind cars for cover. Some of the men from Tactical Unit 10 made it from the firehouse to the Lorraine so fast that some of King’s people thought they were under police attack. Others ran to the motel and rushed up the stairs to help Dr. King. He was still alive, but blood flowed from the wound, creating a widening puddle. One man pressed white cotton bath towels to his face, but they failed to stanch the bleeding.

  There was so much blood.

  James Earl Ray hoped to escape the rooming house without being seen by any of the other tenants. Several of them must have heard the shot, but had any of them opened their doors and come into the hallway to investigate? Ray would not find out until he opened the bathroom door and walked the length of the hallway. Several boarders had heard the rifle. Charlie Stephens opened his door as Ray hurried by and caught a glimpse of the assassin from behind. He did not see his face. Another one of the residents, Willie Anschutz, was already in the hall. Ray spotted him, looked down, and averted his eyes. He kept walking. Ray raised one of his hands and tried to cover his face.

  “That sounded like a shot!” Anschutz said as Ray walked right by him.

  “It was,” Ray said as he rushed past.

  Ray quickly approached the staircase landing and descended the nineteen steps. When he got to the first floor, he reached for the door that led to the sidewalk. Were the police already waiting outside, ready to capture him as he fled the building? There was only one way to find out. Ray opened the door. His eyes raced up and down South Main Street.

  Ray looked south, to the left, at his white Mustang. It was parked only sixty feet away. He had to get to that car. It was urgent that he put as much distance between himself and the Lorraine Motel as he could. And then, he had to put as much distance as he could between himself and the city of Memphis.

  At the Lorraine, everyone—motel guests, employees, policemen, King’s people—ran in the direction of the wounded victim. In the confusion, no one thought to fan out toward the nearby buildings that overlooked the Lorraine Motel parking lot and balconies. While stunned witnesses were still trying to figure out what had just happened, James Earl Ray left his rooming house.

  However, once on South Main Street, just as Ray was about go to his car, toting his rifle under his arm, he noticed something that stopped him in his tracks. Two police cars and a police station wagon were parked in front of the firehouse at the end of the street. These were the cars of Tactical Unit 10. They spooked him. He didn’t see any cops walking around on foot, but he thought that maybe they were in the cars.

  Now he was afraid to carry the rifle to the Mustang. He made a spontaneous decision to abandon not only the weapon but also the suitcase in the recessed entry to the Canipe Amusement Company, next door to the rooming house. Ray got rid of the bag and the rifle—still wrapped in the box and the blanket—by tossing them against the door. From Canipe’s, less than sixty feet stood between Ray and his escape car.

  Canipe’s was closed for the evening, but the owner, who was working late inside, heard a thud at his front door. He caught a glimpse of Ray through the window and went to investigate. Canipe found the blanket-wrapped bundle and the bag at his doorstep. By the time he stepped outside, Ray was gone.

  But Canipe noticed a white Mustang pulling away from the curb fast.

  Less than five minutes after he had assassinated Martin Luther King, James Earl Ray had escaped the scene of the crime. He was gone even before the ambulance arrived, and before any policemen arrived on South Main Street to seal off the exits from the rooming house and the other buildings nearby.

  While King’s crumpled body still lay on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, Ray drove his white Mustang into the fast-approaching twilight and vanished into the night.

  With only a minute or two to spare, James Earl Ray had fled the scene before the first police report even hit the airwaves.

  After Patrolman Barney Wright had heard the firehouse window rattle, he ran outside to the retaining wall that stood between him and the Lorraine Motel. People at the Lorraine shouted across the parking lot that King had been shot. Wright ran back to one of the police cars parked in the firehouse driveway, while Patrolman E. E. Douglas jumped into the seat next to him and got on the radio.

  At 6:03 p.m., Tactical Unit 10, at the firehouse, radioed the news to a police dispatcher: “We have information that King was shot at the Lorraine.”

  Dispatch: “Repeat your information again, Tact. 10.”

  Tact. 10: “We have information that King was shot at the Lorraine.”

  The dispatcher alerted other police cars: “Tact. 9 and Tact. 8, pull into the Lorraine, report of a shooting … any cruisers on the air in the vicinity of the Lorraine, 406 Mulberry?”

  Tact. 18 replied: “We are close by, we are on that.”

  6:04 p.m. Dispatch: “Okay, Tact. 18, any other cars in the area?”

  Two other police cars called in to say that they were already arriving on the scene. The dispatcher, concerned that the call from Tactic
al Unit 10 might be a false alarm, radioed instructions to all cars converging on the scene.

  Dispatch: “All cars on the Lorraine Hotel call … all men are to remain in the cars until it has been verified.”

  Instantly, Tactical 10, the first unit to report the shooting, cut in at 6:04 p.m. to confirm the news: “He has been shot.”

  At 6:05 p.m., dispatch ordered all police cars in the area to converge on the scene: “All tact. units on the call, you are to form a ring around the Lorraine Hotel. You are to form a ring around the Lorraine Hotel. No one is to enter or leave. No traffic, no pedestrian traffic, is to enter or leave the area at the Lorraine Hotel. A ring is to be formed around the hotel as soon as possible.”

  Any policeman who heard that call might have assumed that King had been shot from close range by someone at the Lorraine. Within seconds, one police car after another got on the radio and raced there: “In the area.” “In area.” “On scene.” “On the scene.” “We’re in the loop, put us on that call.”

  At 6:06 p.m., dispatch gave more details: “We have information that the shot came from a brick building directly east—correction—directly west from Lorraine.”

  The report was a few minutes too late.

  The dispatcher added more details: “Tact. 10 has information that he was shot from a brick building directly across from the Lorraine … the circle is to include the building west of the Lorraine. The brick building from where the shot was fired … all units … seal this area off completely … seal off this area completely.”

  By now, James Earl Ray was already beyond the tight perimeter that the police were forming around the building.

  But the assassin had left behind a treasure trove of evidence. Mr. Canipe called out to a police detective who had just walked onto Main Street and showed him the bundle in his vestibule. The detective reported his find over the radio.