Orders to Kill

by William F Pepper Esq

  Davis had earlier in the 1960s acted as a paid informant for the Secret Service, in counterfeiting matters, and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). He said he assisted the Birmingham police in their investigation of the bombing of the 16th Avenue Church in which four children died, and they fed him information on various matters which interested him, some of which he would pass on to his federal agency contacts.

  Davis maintained that the DEA files showed that one Frank Liberto was part of a major international drug trafficking operation associated with the Luigi Greco family in Montreal and that his operation spread from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Memphis, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, with family contacts in Detroit and Toronto. He said that Liberto was based primarily in New Orleans and had a home on Lake Ponchartrain outside of New Orleans.

  Davis said that he had gone to Memphis in 1977–78 at his own expense to investigate the King assassination as part of some informal arrangement with the HSCA. In Memphis he met a Liberto flunky he knew only as Ed. He first saw Ed coming out of Frank’s [Frank Liberto’s] liquor store at 327 South Main Street. Ed outlined the gunrunning and drug operations of Frank Liberto. He said that guns were smuggled into Latin America over the border near Corpus Christi, Texas, in exchange for cocaine and marijuana. Ed also said that Liberto ran a number of gambling operations in various sections of Memphis.

  Ed then took Morris Davis to the Liberto business where Ezell Smith worked. He told Davis that around 7:30 p.m. on March 30 James delivered to those premises the rifle he had purchased earlier that day. It was kept there until the morning of April 4, when it was fired once and the cartridge left in the gun. Its sole purpose was to be a throwdown gun for the cover-up of the killing.

  I stiffened. Once again, the same building was being raised. The photograph of that building and its handwritten note flashed in my mind. Had Davis been the source of that photocopy? Subsequently, he was to say that he was not, although there was some similarity in the handwriting. (As mentioned earlier, the building was the one in the photograph which turned out to be the same one also allegedly referred to by Ezell Smith and of course owned by a relative of produce man Frank Liberto.)

  Davis said that he confirmed at the Memphis land records office that most of the buildings in the 300 to 400 block of South Main Street—including the Merchant’s Lounge, the liquor store and the Green Beetle—were owned by Frank Liberto, although a number were in his father’s name. His father, according to Davis, was also Frank Liberto (Frank H.), who lived on the Memphis-Arlington Road in a large estate purchased in 1974. Davis knew nothing more about the father. I knew that the person at this address was auto dealer Frank Liberto, who in 1992 was in his eighties. There was no way this Liberto could have been the father of the Frank Liberto who owned the liquor store and the Green Beetle, who in 1992 was dead but would have also been around eighty years old.

  Ed said that a person named Jim Bo Stewart handled business for Liberto when he was away. He also confirmed that James was a patsy/decoy and that they meant to kill him after the job was completed. Ed claimed at one point to have been sent inside the prison by Frank Liberto on an arranged drug charge to kill James in 1969.

  Davis then went on to say that some details that HSCA investigator Al Hack gave him began to corroborate what he himself had observed in March 1968 as well as what he had learned from Ed and his own DEA sources. Hack told him that he had obtained two phone numbers called by James before he left Puerto Vallarta for Los Angeles, which numbers appeared to be related to the Liberto family.

  Davis said that after taking in all of his information, the HSCA buried his story and canceled his testimony on the day before it was scheduled.

  There was no way that we could use any of Morris’s information without obtaining specific corroboration. Even if the judge would have allowed his testimony, it would have been irresponsible to put this man on the stand. Davis understood and offered his full assistance in seeking corroboration. He suggested that I speak with Robert Long and Oscar Kent, each of whom knew about some aspect of the story. Davis also agreed to let me have his entire set of files on the case.

  I couldn’t locate Robert Long, and though Oscar Kent was still in the area I wasn’t able to catch up with him at this time. I set about attempting to see what could be corroborated.

  As for the gambling dens Davis described, S. O. Blackburn, a former MPD officer who had been assigned to investigate illegal gambling operations, later confirmed that there was a good deal of it going on during the time. At least two of the Frank Libertos (produce man and liquor man) and another member of the Liberto family were involved, and one of the gambling dens frequented was the Check Off (formerly the Tremont Cafe) which had been owned at the time by Loyd Jowers.

  Ken Herman said that former Birmingham detective Rich Gianetti remembered Davis as a person who sold information and whose accounts were truthful. Gianetti also remembered a Frank Liberto who said he was from New Orleans and who visited the Gulas Lounge and spent money liberally. He said he was a good dresser and his description roughly matched the one Davis gave. When I later spoke with Gianetti, however, he said he only vaguely remembered the name of Frank Liberto.

  Davis had maintained that HSCA counsel and staff had visited him at various times and he had provided the names and dates of these visits. Since these men were federal employees, there would be a public record of their expense requests and payments. An analysis of the General Services Administration (GSA) disbursement records for special and select committees obtained by D. C. investigator Kevin Walsh basically confirmed Davis’s recollections and notes. It was obvious that the HSCA had devoted a considerable amount of time to Morris Davis. The principal HSCA investigator assigned to Davis was Al Hack. Subsequently I spoke to Hack, who admitted that Davis had appeared to have credibility as an informant for other federal agencies and that he did trade in information but try as they might, they could not confirm Davis’s allegations. Hack’s partner in the investigation was an Atlanta policeman named Rosie Walker who had since died. I suspected his files on the case might help us and asked our Atlanta private investigator to try to obtain them.

  Aside from the Liberto allegations, some of which would be corroborated, Davis’s statements about Abernathy, Shuttlesworth, and a range of other people and events, were, for one reason or another, not believable. Whether this was the result of honest mistakes, deliberate fabrication or official disinformation was not clear. Davis stood by his story and said that he recorded a number of his conversations with HSCA staff which would substantiate his claims. I could not listen to them because the equipment required had long ago ceased to be manufactured, though Davis’s lawyer undertook to try to find a compatible machine.

  THE EVIDENCE WE HAD UNEARTHED up until now tied together and strengthened evidence discovered earlier. Some startling contradictions to the official case had developed. There could no longer be any doubt that the chief prosecution witness had been drunk and unable to observe anything. Also it was clear that Chastain’s earlier information about there being a change of Dr. King’s room at the Lorraine was correct. Somehow he had been mysteriously moved from a secluded, ground-level courtyard room to a highly exposed balcony room. Lorraine employee Olivia Hayes recalled this and then Leon Cohen confirmed it, recounting his conversation at the time with Walter Bailey, the owner of the Lorraine.

  As a result of the observations of Solomon Jones, James Orange, and Earl Caldwell, it now appeared conclusive that the fatal shot was fired from the brush area and not from the bathroom. We had seen evidence of the fresh footprints found in that brush area, which as Kay Black and James Orange alleged fourteen years earlier, was cut down and cleared early the morning after the killing, possibly along with an inconveniently placed tree branch.

  A number of suspicious events were confirmed. The only two black firemen had been taken off their posts the night before the killing. These reassignments—considered along with the removal of black detective Ed Redditt from his s
urveillance post and the failure of the MPD to form the usual security squad of black detectives for Dr. King—were ominous. The emergency TACT units were also pulled back, with TACT 10 being moved from the Lorraine to the fire station. Finally, on Butler and Huling streets bordering the Lorraine, there were apparently surveillance details of some federal agency that afternoon.

  In addition, for the first time evidence had been uncovered that the CB hoax broadcast, which drew police attention to the northeastern side of the city, had been transmitted from downtown near the scene of the killing.

  Former FBI agent Arthur Murtagh personally confirmed a range of harassment and surveillance activity by the bureau against Dr. King, and MPD special services/intelligence bureau officer Jim Smith confirmed that Dr. King’s usual suite at the Rivermont was under electronic surveillance by federal agents.

  There were increasing indications that members of the Liberto family at least in Memphis and New Orleans, were implicated in the killing. For example, we learned that a rifle connected with the killing—perhaps the murder weapon—appeared to have been stored in the premises of a Liberto business only a few blocks from the Lorraine.

  Jim’s Grill owner Loyd Jowers, whose behavior had always seemed curious, seemed increasingly likely to have played a role. Not only was his involvement rumored locally, but a bailbondsman quoted one of Jowers’s waitresses as pointing the finger at her boss. Taxi driver McCraw had earlier claimed that Jowers showed him a rifle he had under the counter in the grill that he contended was the murder weapon.

  21

  Making A Case: December 1992

  ON DECEMBER 1, 1992, in St. Louis, Susan Wadsworth, a friend of FBI and HSCA informant Oliver Patterson, who had since died, confirmed her knowledge of his covert, dirty-tricks activities but refused to testify at the television trial for personal reasons. I also spoke with St. Louis television reporter John Auble who confirmed the incident, discussed earlier, where New York Times reporter Tony Marro was sent to a St. Louis hotel to interview Patterson and obtain derogatory information about Mark Lane. Auble, who had filmed the incident, was willing to testify and agreed to provide the footage.

  The next day in New York I talked with Bill Schaap of the Institute for Media Analysis. Schaap and his colleague Ellen Ray (no relation to James) had agreed to be our experts on the role and use of the media in this case. I asked them to analyze the media’s treatment of Dr. King during his last year, as well as that of James Earl Ray from the time of his identification to his conviction. I thought it was important to reveal that government manipulation of the media was part and parcel of the ongoing conspiracy. I intended to put Bill Schaap on the stand. He had an international reputation on the political use of the mass media and had testified as an expert in the Spycatcher case in Australia, where the British government had attempted to stop publication of former MI-5 agent Peter Wright’s book.

  FOR SOME TIME I’d been interested in finding out whether any foreign intelligence agencies had any information in their archives about the assassination of Dr. King. The previous summer I had traveled to Moscow to meet with ranking KGB officials who had come to treat long-held secrets as a commercial commodity and a source of income. Despite their willingness to search, it appeared that they knew little about the assassination.

  On December 4 I flew to Paris to meet with French lawyer (avocat) Marcel Sorrequere and Pierre Marion, the former head of SDECE—the French equivalent of the CIA. Sorrequere had been personal lawyer to French president Charles DeGualle as well as to SDECE superintendent Ducret, who in 1968 was head of SDECE and had since died. Marion insisted on intense secrecy. He agreed to tap his sources in French and Israeli intelligence. At one point he said to me, “You are in great danger.” I realized that he had already concluded that some part of the U.S. intelligence community had been involved in, if not responsible for, the assassination of King. Marion had no reason to overstate himself. Sometime afterward France went through a turbulent change of government. Marion’s inside sources became very nervous about discussing anything sensitive. His Israeli sources claimed to have no information.

  BACK IN MEMPHIS, after many tears and much soul searching, Betty Spates had finally agreed to tell all. In an interview with Ken Herman, she revealed that she had had an affair with Loyd Jowers which began when she first went to work at the grill in 1967 when she was about seventeen years old. She said she only “helped out” and couldn’t be formally employed in a place where beer was served because of her age. She also worked part-time across the street at the Seabrook Wallpaper Company. She said that she believed that on the day of the assassination she went to the grill around 5:30 a.m. to help Jowers prepare for the day. As was their custom, she thought that they went to the small storage room at the back of the kitchen, where Jowers kept a cot, and “fooled around.” Jowers would sometimes also use the room for a catnap in the afternoon. On other occasions he would go home during his break—usually around 2:30 p.m.—or go off to the Tremont Cafe on Calhoun, which he also owned.

  That afternoon Spates came over from Seabrook to Jim’s Grill several times. She knew that prostitutes had been working in the Huling/Mulberry area and was determined to keep an eye on Loyd. She said that he had been spending a lot of time in the backyard that week and she was worried that he might be two-timing her. Around 2:30 in the afternoon Jowers announced that he was closing up for a while and ordered everyone out, including her.

  She went back to Seabrook and returned again around 5:00. Around 6:00 she noticed that Jowers had disappeared from the grill and she went to the kitchen to look for him. She was standing in the kitchen when she heard what sounded like a shot and then, within seconds, Jowers burst into the kitchen through the back door with a rifle. “What are you doing with the gun?” she asked. He said, “If I catch you with a nigger, I’ll kill you.” She was frightened. “Loyd, I ain’t doing nothing,” she said. He said softly, “I wouldn’t hurt you.”

  Jowers was pale, “real white,” and nervous. In front of her he broke the gun down into at least two pieces and then without a word held them close to his chest and walked briskly through the grill and out the front door. She watched through the front window as he turned right and walked the short distance to his brown and white station wagon parked north of the grill. She saw him open the hatch of the wagon and put the pieces of the gun inside. He then came back into the grill. The entire series of events—from the time he entered the kitchen until he put the pieces of the gun in the wagon and came back inside—took only seconds.

  Spates recalled that Jowers’s wife used to come to Memphis every Thursday to have her hair done; Spates assumed that she also did so on that day, and at the time she thought that was the reason for Jowers’s more than usual efforts to keep her out of the grill. He was always more cautious on Thursdays. Jowers’s wife owned the white Cadillac that was parked that day close to the fire hydrant, behind James’s Mustang, but Spates wasn’t certain whether his wife (who has since died) had parked it herself or whether Jowers had done so, as he claimed.

  She also remembered finding around this time a large sum of cash, “more money than I ever saw,” in an old suitcase in a disused stove in the kitchen.

  Spates was afraid of Jowers. Jowers told her that he’d kill her if she ever talked about what she had seen. Over the years she’d been visited at each new job by Jowers’s “heavy,” Willie Akins. She believed that this was Jowers’s way of telling her that he was keeping an eye on her. She also said that in 1969 he bought a house for her on Oakview to keep her quiet. It was put in her sisters’ names because she was underage.

  Betty Spates elaborated on her story when I interviewed her on December 16. She said she and her sisters Bobbi and Alda had begun to work at the grill in 1967. On the afternoon of April 4 she remembered waitresses Rosie Lee Dabney and Rosetta working in the morning but leaving around 3:30 p.m. She believed that Bobbi was there in the afternoon.

  She said that during the time she was having an a
ffair with Jowers he rented an apartment for her on Peabody. After the lease was up Jowers moved her upstairs to the rooming house for a while, and then in 1969 he bought the house on Oakview for her—or so he told her.

  Then in the spring of 1969 she recalled that two men came by to visit at the new Oakview house, one of whom was black. They said that if she and her sisters would tell all they knew, they would get money, new identities, and be moved away. Betty didn’t want to leave Memphis, so she refused. Since that time, she insisted no one had ever talked to her about this case other than in her discussions with Herman and me. Even on the night of the killing, when the police came in they told all the blacks in the grill, “You niggers don’t know anything, get in the back.” She said she and a number of the blacks went into the kitchen and were never interviewed.

  She also remembered going through a marriage ceremony arranged by Jowers which was conducted in the Oakview house in November 1969 (Jowers, who she said had begun to drink heavily in 1968, divorced his first wife around this time).

  One evening in January 1972 when Betty was working at the Arcade Restaurant she met a Mexican named Luis Ortiz, whom she took home with her. Jowers must have seen his car parked in front of the house; he came in, drew a gun, and took Ortiz away with him. Betty never saw Ortiz again and believed that Jowers killed him that night. His car remained there for some time.

  Betty said that Jowers eventually put out a contract on her life. She said Willie Akins was supposed to do the job but mistook her sister Bobbi for her and tried to get Bobbi to go out with him so he could better arrange the killing. When Akins did finally meet Betty, he realized his mistake. During a subsequent interview she provided details of what she said were two attempts by Akins to kill her by shooting at her on one occasion and again at her and her two sons in 1983. I resolved to learn more about Akins.