Orders to Kill

by William F Pepper Esq

  One of them told me that Hoover used to receive daily army intelligence reports on Dr. King’s activities in 1967–1968. I had discovered a document in the attorney general’s file showing that MPD intelligence officer Captain Jewell Ray had met after the killing with a Colonel Bray, who was identified as being with army intelligence. At the time, I put it down to the plan, as Captain Ray had claimed, to move the Tennessee National Guard into Memphis to control any possible riots arising from the planned march. Now I began to believe that the army may have played a wider role.

  It was curious, I thought at the time, that Hoover would have needed to receive reports from army intelligence surveillance when he appeared to have his own FBI operation in place (the surveillance activity at the Rivermont described by Jim Smith).

  I TRIED TO CHECK OUT THE POSSIBLE INVOLVEMENT of an elusive character named J. C. Hardin. According to an FBI memo, in March 1968 while James was living at the St. Francis Hotel in Los Angeles a person named J. C. Hardin, who had spoken with the manager, Alan Thompson, had inquired about James. I learned that produce man Frank C. Liberto’s mother’s maiden name was Hardin. The fact that a Hardin had married into the Liberto family may have no bearing on the King case, of course, but I thought it should be checked out. Attorney Jim Lesar who was James’s lawyer in the mid-1970s, was familiar with an interview of a former Tampa-based FBI agent, John Hartingh, who was alleged to have remarked, upon being asked about J. C. Hardin, that he was an asset of the bureau. I asked James about this matter, and he denied any knowledge of J. C. Hardin or anyone else inquiring after him at the hotel during this time. The Hardin name would come up later in our investigation in another context.

  Another stranger allegedly visited James in Toronto (giving him an envelope) shortly before James flew to England. For a very long time there had been publicity and rumors about this visit by a so-called “fat man.” I finally learned the identity and address of the visitor, Robert McDoulton, from files in the attorney general’s office. When I called McDoulton and introduced myself, he was abrupt and, I thought, fearful, saying he didn’t want to talk about the incident. Then he hung up.

  AS 1992 WAS DRAWING TO A CLOSE, former Seabrook employee Frances Thompson was located and agreed to testify as to what she observed on the afternoon of April 4. She seemed convinced that she had seen a man sitting in a Mustang parked on South Main Street opposite the Seabrook offices where she was employed. One of my investigators seemed convinced that the man was James Earl Ray.

  Former FBI agent Bill Turner agreed to testify from personal experience about the extensive use of electronic surveillance and “black bag jobs” (illegal break-ins) by specially trained units of the bureau. Turner had been an agent for about ten years but became appalled at the way Hoover ran the bureau and sought a congressional investigation. Consequently he was forced out of the FBI.

  So, then, by the end of December, Betty Spates for the first time had directly implicated her former boss and lover, Loyd Jowers, in the murder, admitting that after hearing what sounded like a shot she saw him run into the kitchen from the brush area carrying a rifle.

  Her sister Bobbi had confirmed in part, telling of being driven to work the next morning by Jowers, who admitted finding a rifle out back. The new information seemed to fit with cab driver McCraw’s earlier revelation about being shown a gun under the counter of the grill by Jowers on the morning after the killing. Bobbi had pointed to some sinister activity going on upstairs on the day of the killing, recalling that Jowers put the second floor off limits. Further, S. O. Blackburn’s information had revealed that Jowers’s other cafe had been a gambling den frequented by, among others, two Frank Libertos and another member of the Liberto family. Also surfacing (from HSCA files retained by Walter Fauntroy) was the surveillance by army intelligence on Dr. King in collaboration with Hoover.

  Finally, Bill Sartor’s death had been confirmed to be a homicide. It became apparent that early on, though without hard factual evidence, he was on the trail of a Marcello/Liberto connection in the murder of Dr. King.

  22

  The Trial Approaches: January 1993

  AS THE NEW YEAR began we were just twenty-four days from the trial. I came again to Memphis and wouldn’t return to England until the jury reached a verdict. For James and me the trial was the culmination of years of waiting and work, and I believed it could result in rewriting the history of one of the republic’s most tragic periods.

  We opened an office on the lower floor of James E. “Jeb” Blount III’s law offices, a few blocks from the court. I insisted on having a 6'×4' security safe moved in to house our most sensitive files. We would also have the offices swept for the presence of any electronic surveillance devices.

  I finally interviewed former MPD detective Edward Redditt, now a schoolteacher in Somerville, Tennessee. He told me that in early 1968 he had been on regular assignment as a community relations officer on the Memphis police force. During the time of the sanitation workers’ strike he had been seconded to the intelligence bureau, reporting directly to Lt. E. H. Arkin. Arkin was in day-to-day operational control and was also the designated liaison officer to the FBI and its local office intelligence specialist, William Lawrence.

  Redditt was assigned the task of conducting surveillance on the striking sanitation workers. When Dr. King and his party returned to Memphis, he was ordered to take up a surveillance post along with black patrolman Willie B. Richmond, who was a regular member of the MPD intelligence bureau, in the locker room at the rear of fire station 2, on the corner of Butler and South Main streets. From this vantage point they could see the Lorraine Motel through a peephole in a paper put over the glass of a rear locked door. There were small windows as well near the ceiling on that back wall, but to see through them one had to lie on top of the lockers. As we have seen, this is what fireman Charles Stone was doing at the time of the shooting.

  Thus the two-man team of Redditt and Richmond was on duty on April 3 and April 4, keeping an eye on the movements of Dr. King’s party and the Invaders in and around the motel. On April 4 Richmond arrived late—probably between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. Redditt was on duty, however, covering for his partner, whom he didn’t really know or trust. He has since come to believe that Richmond was primarily assigned by Arkin to keep an eye on him.

  Redditt told a familiar story: sometime after 4:00 p.m. on the afternoon of April 4, Arkin appeared at the fire station and told Redditt to follow him to headquarters. Redditt went along and was led into a large conference room where he said he saw assembled twenty or more people, many of whom he didn’t recognize. Some of them were in military uniforms. MPD director Holloman told Redditt that a contract had been put out on his life and that security was going to be arranged for him and his family. Holloman said that a secret service agent had flown in from Washington to tell them of this threat. Redditt’s first reaction was disbelief. He had been threatened from time to time by community activists who thought he had sold out, but hostility came with the turf. It never occurred to him that either he or his family would be in such danger as to require protection. When Redditt protested, Holloman ordered him home. He was officially off duty, and there would be no further discussion.

  Arkin drove him home. They arrived in front of his house shortly before 6:00 p.m. and while still sitting in the car a report of the assassination came over the radio. Redditt was told to remain off work until further notice. Three days later he was called back and not a word was mentioned about the threat on his life. It seemed to disappear as quickly as it came. At various times he asked about it, only to be told that it had all been a mistake; the report had confused him with another black officer in another city. To this day he regards the incident as a mystery, and he considers the timing of his removal as sinister.

  The HSCA report disclosed that the man identified as the Washington “secret service” agent wasn’t a secret service agent at all. He was Phillip Manuel, the chief investigator for Arkansas senator John McClella
n’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Manuel’s role has never been satisfactorily explained. He has admitted to being in Memphis on the day of the assassination, but has never been able to provide a reason. Director Holloman’s recollections over the years have been similarly unrevealing.

  The HSCA reviewed an internal MPD memorandum establishing that Arkin had in fact received conclusive information on April 4 that there was no threat on Detective Redditt’s life. If there was any relevant threat at all it was against another black police officer in another city. The HSCA noted that “… this information was being received by Arkin as Holloman was holding his meeting with Redditt.”11

  The committee took the issue no further.

  Redditt brought up an even stranger event. Sometime in the mid-1970s, prior to the HSCA investigation, he was asked to go over to the Federal Building in Memphis where he was shown a photograph by a person who he believes was a Justice Department official. (The Justice Department conducted an investigation of the FBI’s investigation of the case during that period.) The photograph was of a bundle lying on the corner of Huling and Mulberry streets. The bundle was being watched over or guarded by a uniformed Memphis police officer holding a shotgun whom Redditt identified with certainty as Louis MacKay, the same black patrolman who had been assigned to guard the evidence found in front of Canipe’s until homicide chief Zachary took charge of it and carried it away. A well-circulated photograph shows officer MacKay, shotgun at the ready, in front of Canipe’s.

  I had never heard even a rumor about this extraordinary incident. At the end of our session Redditt agreed to testify about both experiences.

  Louis MacKay was still an active MPD officer in 1993. Reviewing the events of that April 4 evening, he was positive that he guarded the bundle only on South Main Street by Canipe’s and nowhere else. He has no explanation for the photograph described by Redditt. That photograph has never been seen again.

  The obvious question is whether the photograph of Louis MacKay at Canipe’s doorway and possibly the bundle itself could have been superimposed on a photograph of the corner at Huling and Mulberry. But for what purpose? Could this have been an alternate “official” escape route?

  BETTY SPATES’S SISTER Alda finally spoke to me, adding new elements to Betty’s story. She said that after the killing, Jowers fired Bobbi, Rosie Lee, and Rosetta. Contrary to what Betty and Bobbi had said, however, Alda contended (though I didn’t believe her) that she had herself only begun work at the grill seven months after the event. Working with her at the time were Big Lena (the head cook) and Joy. She said that Betty used to come around and try to “supervise” things, taking advantage of her relationship with Jowers.

  Alda recalled finding money in a suitcase in an old stove and telling Betty about it. Betty told Jowers and Jowers quickly fired both Lena and Alda. Alda recalled Jowers getting a phone call, going away and returning with the suitcase. She also recalled that Jowers told her not to go out the back door into the rear yard area. She added that Betty had a gun with a scope on it back in the 1970s and sometimes kept it under her bed. Alda couldn’t recall any wedding at the Oakview house and had never heard about Jowers buying it. She believed that she and Bobbi had purchased the house by themselves.

  Finally, Alda told us that Coy Love, a black street-artist, saw a man run across South Main Street just after the killing, continue up the alleyway by Seabrook, and then take off a hooded sweatshirt and throw it into a dumpster. To his later amazement, she said, Coy saw that the man was black.

  Solomon Jones’s story about seeing a man in the bushes with a hood or something around his head came to mind. In a statement to the MPD, Jones said he saw a man heading back toward the rooming house. This could explain the footprints in the alley as being left by someone heading into Jim’s Grill and to South Main Street. In his statement given to the media on the evening of the shooting, he said he saw a man come down over the wall and onto or near the Lorraine property, only to drift away. We continued to look for Jones without success.

  I was concerned that some of Alda’s recollections seemed to contradict parts of Betty’s statement, although it appeared that Alda was trying to distance herself from the events of April 4. Betty hadn’t mentioned having a rifle, and we also wondered if either Betty or Alda was confused about the time when Jowers placed money in the stove—or whether there could have been two lots of stashed bills. Lastly, we didn’t know what to make of Betty’s uncorroborated insistence that a wedding took place.

  At the risk of offending Betty, Kenny, local black investigator Cliff Dates, and I went to the Shelby County Jail to talk to her son, John Spates. He had been incarcerated there since October on what appeared to be a frivolous complaint by an acquaintance of his. Spates confirmed Akins’s attempt to shoot him, his brother, and his mother back in 1983 but said he didn’t understand why—one moment Akins seemed to be their friend and the next he seemed determined to kill all three of them. His mother had obviously been reluctant to tell any of them about what she saw, afraid that it would also put their lives in danger. I felt more confident about Betty’s story after talking with her son. They seemed to be mutually protective, and I believed that, whatever the reason, Akins was likely to have made an attempt on John’s life. We were still confused about when Jowers’s cash appeared, as well as about the possible significance of the second-hand Coy Love story and were concerned about whether or not Betty was in possession of a rifle after the killing. We would eventually learn that Coy Love had died and we were unable to locate any surviving family he had.

  Betty soon learned about our visit with John and was upset. It was clear that she had tried to shelter John from the underlying reason for the murder attempt in 1983. She believed that if he didn’t know what she saw around 6:00 p.m. on April 4, 1968, he would be safe. She didn’t recall ever having a rifle, and insisted that she had seen the cash in the stove prior to the killing.

  Meanwhile, Ken Herman had located Bessie Brewer, the manager of the rooming house at 422 ½ South Main at the time of the shooting, and we set out to see her. Apparently her husband Frank had died and she now lived alone. Herman reported that according to her daughter, Bessie had been told by the FBI back in 1968 not to talk to anyone, and she had followed those instructions to this day.

  When Herman introduced us she announced that she was not the Bessie Brewer that we wanted, but that she and her late husband had frequently been confused with the other Bessie and Frank, who were black. As we chipped away at that transparent story, I showed her a photograph of the area of the rooming house and detected a clear sense of recognition in her eyes; but she wouldn’t relent. Bessie wasn’t talking.

  A NUMBER OF LOOSE ENDS began to come together. James Orange confirmed that he had seen smoke rising from the bushes right after the shot and then noticed the disappearance of those bushes the next morning. He would provide a statement, since a previously scheduled trip to South Africa made it impossible for him to testify in person at the trial.

  James’s former attorney Jack Kershaw confirmed Jerry Ray’s story about the offer made to him by William Bradford Huie in a meeting in Nashville. On offer was: $220,000 as well as pardons from Missouri and Tennessee in exchange for James’s admissions that he was the killer. Jack told me that he took the offer to James who dismissed it out of hand. (Later, as we have seen, Huie came back again with the offer but would go through Jerry.) Kershaw believed that the two other men present at the meeting might well have been federal agents. He had no doubt that Huie was acting as an intermediary for the federal government since he reasoned that only the government could arrange the pardons and the protection. I recalled that Huie had previously developed a close working relationship with the FBI.

  Former Louisville policeman Clifton Baird agreed to try to set out the details of the 1965 conspiracy to kill Dr. King in Louisville, although he was concerned that severely impaired speech caused by two strokes could detract from his credibility as a witness. Ultimately I was
forced to abandon hope of even obtaining a statement from him. His wife said he was too unwell to consider the matter.

  ON JANUARY 10 came the revelation from former MPD homicide detective Barry Neal Linville. Linville and his partner, J. D. Hamby, were present along with Lt. Tommy Smith at the city morgue on the evening of the murder. He and Hamby watched Shelby County coroner Dr. Jerry Francisco extract the death slug in one piece and hand it over to them for tagging as evidence and delivery to the FBI laboratory in Washington, D.C. Dr. Francisco also took photographs of the bullet, which he turned over to homicide inspector Zachary and to the FBI. Though of poor quality, there is a photograph taken by Francisco at the time of the removal of the slug from Dr. King’s body in the HSCA volumes. There are no such photographs in the attorney general’s file, having mysteriously disappeared.

  When I showed the now retired Barry Linville a photograph of the three bullet fragments presently under the control of the clerk of the criminal court, which are identified as Q-64, the FBI marking for the death slug (see photograph #15), Linville was incredulous. “That’s not the bullet I saw taken from the body,” he said. “The slug I saw was in one piece and in very good condition.” The only visible defect, he maintained, was that the exposed lead in the nose of the bullet was flattened. On a scale of one to ten he rated the slug as a nine. I was impressed with Linville’s forthrightness and certainty. Here was an experienced homicide officer who had seen thousands of evidence bullets, and he was amazed at the changes that had somehow occurred to the death slug he saw being removed from Dr. King’s body. He could offer no explanation for this alteration of a vital piece of evidence. Neither could he explain why during the past twenty-five years no one had contacted him as one of the original MPD homicide investigators about what he saw and knew.