Killing King

by Stuart Wexler

reverend wesley albert swift: Once an active leader in a KKK group, Swift, a Californian, formed the Church of Jesus Christ Christian in 1946. Under his interpretation of the Christian scripture, Armageddon would come from a race war that would “cleanse” the world of Jews and other minorities. Tapes of Swift’s sermons were sent across North America through a mailing list and his message was amplified through a network of traveling ministers. (Source: FBI field office.)

  samuel holloway bowers jr.: The Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi, Bowers was heavily influenced by the racist message of Wesley Swift. Under Bowers’s leadership, the White Knights were the most violent Klan group in America in the 1960s according to the FBI. (Source: The Mississippi department of Archives and History)

  sidney crockett barnes: An extremist who left Florida for Alabama in the 1960s, Barnes was one of Wesley Swift’s most devoted followers. He helped spread the Christian Identity message and the vision of an End Times race war to a number of individuals in the Southeast, including a young Tommy Tarrants, who become a terrorist for Sam Bowers. Files show that Barnes plotted to kill Martin Luther King in 1963 and 1964. (Source: Jackson field office)

  j. b. stoner: A leader and cofounder for the racist National States Rights Party, Stoner would run on the NSRP ticket as their vice presidential candidate in 1964. Alongside Connie Lynch, a minister for Wesley Swift, Stoner inflamed audiences across the country with his message of white supremacy. He was one of James Earl Ray’s attorneys.

  thomas albert tarrants iii: This mug shot of Tommy Tarrants was taken after his arrest, in 1967, for possession of an illegal firearm. Tarrants was arrested with Sam Bowers after their vehicle was pulled over for reckless driving in Mississippi. Responsible for several acts of violence in Mississippi, Tarrants was not connected to these crimes until May of 1968. Yet he was inexplicably investigated in connection with the King murder within days of the act. Tarrants rejected the Swift message in favor of traditional Christianity in the 1970s and is now an evangelical minister. (Source: Jackson field office)

  donald sparks: Sparks was a home burglar and a contract killer in a criminal network that would later be popularly known as the Dixie Mafia. FBI records indicate that the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi approached Sparks with a bounty contract on Martin Luther King Jr.’s life in 1964. A member of Sparks’s criminal gang would later be connected with a bounty offer, from the same group, in 1967. (Donald Sparks’s 1967 FBI Most Wanted Photo. Source: FBI)

  Bessie Brewer’s rooming house the day after King’s murder. It shows extensive brush still present, contradicting the claims by some that the area was cleared immediately after King’s murder. Some argue that an assassin may have fired from within the brush rather than from the building itself; others assert that the brush was too thick and thus not an ideal shooting location. (Source: Shelby County Registry of Deeds)

  This photo shows the rear side of Bessie Brewer’s rooming house Canipe Amusement Company. The accused assassin, James Earl Ray, allegedly dropped a bundle of incriminating items, including the murder weapon, in the alcove outside Canipe. Some argue he was afraid he would confront police officers with the material in hand. (Source: Shelby County Registry of Deeds)

  The rear of Bessie Brewer’s rooming house, the side facing the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was staying. Accused assassin James Earl Ray allegedly fired the shot that killed King from the second floor. (Source: Shelby County Registry of Deeds)

  The bathroom on the second floor of Bessie Brewer’s rooming house. This is where law enforcement and prosecutors believe accused assassin James Earl Ray fired the shot that killed King. (Source: Shelby County Registry of Deeds)

  The view of the Lorraine Motel from the opening in the second-floor bathroom window at the rear of Bessie Brewer’s rooming house. A shooter would have had a clear view of King from this vantage point. The markings indicate the location of King’s body (C) and his room (B). (Source: Shelby County Registry of Deeds)

  View of the rear of Bessie Brewer’s rooming house from the second floor of the Lorraine Motel across the street. (Source: Shelby County Registry of Deeds)

  The green blanket that contained several key pieces of allegedly incriminating evidence, including a rifle and binoculars, found in the alcove in front of Canipe Amusement Company. The material in this bundle would, over time, lead the FBI to James Earl Ray. Ray would claim that someone else planted the material to frame him. (Source: Shelby County Registry of Deeds)

  A laundry receipt from the Piedmont Laundry in Atlanta, Georgia, for Eric Galt, James Earl Ray’s alias, dated April 1, 1968. This receipt, as well as the confirmation from the laundry’s owner, presented a dilemma for James Earl Ray and his attorneys. Hoping to avoid the incrimination charge that Ray was stalking King prior to the Memphis murder, Ray asserted that he went to Memphis before King even decided on a return date to lead another sanitation workers’ strike. This receipt was strong evidence that Ray first went to Atlanta, King’s hometown, and went to Memphis only after King announced his plans. (Source: House Select Committee)

  The contents, sans rifle, found wrapped in a green bundle outside of Canipe Amusement Company. Through diligent work, the FBI was able to trace several of these items to accused assassin James Earl Ray. (Source: National Archives)

  The Remington Gamemaster .30-06 rifle found in the bundle outside Canipe Amusement Company. Authorities claim this was the murder weapon, but ballistics tests were inconclusive. The rifle was traced to a gun shop in Birmingham, Alabama, and eventually to James Earl Ray. Ray bought a different weapon the day before but returned that gun for the Gamemaster. The store owner remembered Ray as claiming that he exchanged weapons on the advice of his brother-in-law. Ray claims this was a false reference to Raul. (Source: National Archives)

  James Earl Ray’s Wanted photo, issued by the FBI in their massive manhunt for the alleged King assassin. It was only by the third week of April 1968 that the FBI finally connected Ray to the numerous aliases he used in Memphis and elsewhere. (Source: Shelby County of Deeds)

  Both of these pictures were separately identified by James Earl Ray as being (or strongly resembling) the mysterious figure Raul, the man who Ray claims manipulated his movements and eventually helped frame him for killing King. The photo on the left is of an individual photographed in Dealey Plaza after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination; Ray said this person bore a “striking resemblance” to Raul. The photo on the right is a passport picture of an individual identified by Ray’s last attorney, William Pepper, as being Raul; Ray positively identified this person as Raul. The Justice Department, in their 2000 investigation, checked this individual’s whereabouts on the day of the King murder and determined he had a firm alibi. In either event, the readers may judge for themselves if Ray’s two pictures could possibly be of the same person. (Source: Justice Department)

  A schematic layout of the crime scene. (Source: National Archives)

  people

  dr. wesley swift: A militant extremist and Klan organizer who formed the Church of Jesus Christ Christian in 1946 in Lancaster, California, where he lived, Swift advocated a variation on Christianity that held that Jews were really the offspring of Satan, and that they manipulated other, non-white minorities, into a conspiracy against white Christians. Swift believed the world would be purified of Jews and minorities through a race war. His sermons on these matters, distributed through a network of newsletters and tape recordings, inspired militant white supremacists across the country, including Sam Bowers, J. B. Stoner, Sidney Barnes, Colonel William Potter Gale, and others.

  samuel holloway bowers: Bowers was the Imperial Wizard, or leader, of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi in the 1960s. Under Bowers’s leadership, the White Knights became, according to the FBI, the most violent Klan group in America. A devoted follower of Wesley Swift, Bowers was personally responsib
le for plotting the murders of the three civil rights workers in the Mississippi Burning case and for ordering the firebombing of the home of voting rights activist Vernon Dahmer in 1966, which resulted in Dahmer’s death. Bowers also plotted the murder of farmer Ben Chester White in hopes of luring Martin Luther King Jr. into an ambush if King came to protest the White killing. Congress investigated Bowers as a potential suspect in King’s murder, but investigators never interviewed him. Bowers was convicted for his role in the Mississippi Burning murders in 1967 and sentenced to ten years in prison; he was not convicted for the Dahmer murder until 1998, when he was sentenced to life in prison. He died in prison in 2006.

  jesse benjamin “j. b.” stoner: A Nazi aficionado, J. B. Stoner was one of the most active and outspoken white supremacists in America from the 1950s on through the 1970s. Stoner was the legal counsel for the supremacist group the National States Rights Party and one of its leading voices, running for office, including, in 1964, vice president, under its banner on a number of occasions. With his close associate Conrad “Connie” Lynch, a minister in Wesley Swift’s church, Stoner led counter-rallies against King’s marches and other similar protests. He was suspected of plotting numerous bombings across the Southeast against black and Jewish targets. He offered a contract on Martin Luther King Jr.’s life in 1958 and was investigated by Congress in the 1970s as a possible suspect in King’s murder. He was protected by attorney-client privilege, however, as he was one of convicted assassin James Earl Ray’s attorneys in 1968–69. Stoner also had connections to James Venable and Joseph Milteer; some of the leading members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi actively supported Stoner. Stoner was speaking to several White Knights on the evening of April 4, 1968, when MLK was killed.

  james venable: Venable was the longtime leader of the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (NKKKK), the second-largest KKK group in America in the 1960s, headquartered in Stone Mountain, Georgia, with subordinate groups across the country as far as California. Venable shared a law office with J. B. Stoner in Atlanta, Georgia. Venable was suspected of plotting to kill Martin Luther King Jr., with Stoner, in 1965. Venable also knew Joseph Milteer and employed Floyd “Buddy” Ayers.

  floyd “buddy” ayers: An associate of James Venable, Ayers was, according to one witness, the bagman for the King murder, supplying money from Atlanta to Mississippi in connection with a bounty offer on Dr. King. Ayers gained national attention when he infiltrated King’s funeral in 1968 and then later allegedly tried to kidnap King’s father.

  joseph milteer: A rabid white supremacist, Joseph Milteer was an active supporter of the National States Rights Party, a devoted follower of Wesley Swift, and the founder of his own independent (racist) political group, the Constitution Party. Independently wealthy, Milteer traveled the country as a salesman, often meeting with other white supremacists, such as James Venable. Milteer is famous for having been secretly caught on tape, two weeks before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, predicting the president would be shot with a high-powered rifle from a high-story building. On that same tape, he said that others were plotting to kill Martin Luther King Jr. Milteer was in Atlanta, Georgia, when James Earl Ray fled to that city after the murder of King. A confidential source of researcher Lamar Waldron says that Milteer secretly raised the money to kill King in 1968.

  colonel william potter gale: Gale was a chief aide to General Douglas MacArthur before returning to the United States and becoming one of the leading white supremacists in the country. He was a minister in the Church of Jesus Christ Christian and formed his own paramilitary group, the California Rangers. In the 1970s, Congress investigated Gale as a suspect in the King murder, connecting him specifically to a King murder plot involving Admiral John Crommelin, Noah Jefferson Carden, and Sidney Crockett Barnes.

  admiral john crommelin: A WWII naval hero before entering civilian life and becoming one of the major voices of white supremacy in the nation, Crommelin was a leading member of the National States Rights Party and ran on the party’s ticket for vice president of the United States of America in 1960. He was also a devoted follower of Wesley Swift. He helped indoctrinate Thomas Tarrants into Swift’s worldview. Congress also investigated him as a suspect in the King assassination in the late 1970s; he cooperated but denied he had any involvement.

  noah jefferson carden: A member of the White Citizens Council of Mobile, Alabama, a group that led “formal” opposition to the civil rights movement in that city, Carden was close to Sidney Barnes and also knew Thomas Tarrants. Congress investigated him as a suspect in the King assassination.

  sidney crockett barnes: A white supremacist from Florida who was forced to flee to Mobile, Alabama, in the early 1960s because he was “too hot” for authorities, Barnes would later become a minister in Wesley Swift’s church. He played tapes of Swift for anyone who would listen and helped indoctrinate many into Swift’s cause, including a young Thomas Tarrants and Kathy Ainsworth, who became terrorists for Sam Bowers. Files show that Barnes plotted to kill Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 and 1964. Congress investigated him as a suspect in the King assassination in the late 1970s; he openly refused to cooperate with the investigation. In 1968, he moved to Jackson, Mississippi, where he was closely associated with a number of men in the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi, including Danny Joe Hawkins.

  danny joe hawkins: A militant member of the White Knights of Mississippi, Hawkins’s entire family, especially his father, Joe Denver Hawkins, were known for their extreme hatred of blacks and Jews. Hawkins, along with Tommy Tarrants and Kathy Ainsworth, participated in a series of bombings from 1967 to 1968. On April 4, 1968, the day Rev. King died, Hawkins was arrested going the wrong way on a one-way street after attending J. B. Stoner’s rally in the White Knights stronghold of Meridian, Mississippi.

  kathy ainsworth: A young Mississippi schoolteacher who led a double life as one of the chief terrorists of the White Knights in 1967 and 1968, Ainsworth was raised by her white supremacist mother, Margaret Capomacchia, to hate Jews and blacks. She was very close to Sidney Crockett Barnes, who gave her away at her wedding. Ainsworth joined Danny Joe Hawkins and Tommy Tarrants in a string of attacks against black and Jewish targets in 1967 and 1968. In one of those attacks, in Meridian, Mississippi, in June 1968, she replaced Danny Joe Hawkins as Tarrants’s partner in crime, only to be shot and killed in a sting operation. Her mother would later relay supposed inside information related to the King murder and implicating Tommy Tarrants, to FBI informant Willie Somersett.

  thomas albert tarrants iii, a.k.a. “tommy” or “the man”: Tarrants was the self-described chief terrorist for the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi in 1967 and 1968. Only in his twenties at the time, Tarrants was already closely affiliated with a number of white supremacist leaders, notably John Crommelin and Sidney Barnes. Having engaged in “petty” acts of racism from his high school days in 1963–66, Tarrants moved to Laurel, Mississippi, in 1967 and convinced Sam Bowers to use him in violent bombing operations directed at black and Jewish targets. He joined forces with Kathy Ainsworth and Danny Joe Hawkins. His participation was unknown to the FBI until late May 1968. In the week prior to King’s murder, Tarrants went “underground” to launch a guerrilla campaign against the U.S. government. The reporter Jack Nelson includes references that suggest Tarrants may have been considering assassinating Rev. King, and he was a person of interest to the FBI in the immediate wake of King’s murder. Tarrants was wounded in the June 1968 sting operation that killed Ainsworth. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison but was released early after he made a conversion to mainstream Christianity. He is now an active evangelical minister who has renounced his past views and ways. He denies any involvement in the King murder, and the authors believe efforts were made to frame him for the crime.

  donald eugene sparks: A major criminal in the 1960s, Sparks was known for burglaries but was also a contract killer.
His exploits eventually earned him a place on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. He was part of a gang of traveling criminals known as the new James gang, after its informal leader, Jerry Ray James. The group was concentrated in Oklahoma and included his close associate Rubie Charles Jenkins, among others. Law enforcement would later consider the Jerry Ray James gang, and many others like it, a major criminal threat and label it the Dixie Mafia, even though these groups lacked the organization of the Sicilian Mafia and were not all concentrated in the Southeast. The so-called Dixie Mafia may have, however, been responsible for more killings than other organized crime groups in the 1970s. Separate reports say that the White Knights approached Sparks with an offer to kill Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964. A member of Sparks’s criminal gang would later be connected with a bounty offer, also from the White Knights, in 1967.

  leroy mcmanaman: Described by the FBI as a “big time criminal operator,” McManaman was a career miscreant who was known for organizing a string of home burglaries in Kansas and for running an interstate car-theft ring with Rubie Charles Jenkins. Jenkins said that McManaman, who spent considerable time in Oklahoma, was a part of a gang with Jenkins and Sparks. McManaman is alleged to have approached a fellow, soon-to-be-released inmate, Donald Nissen, with a $100,000 bounty offer on MLK’s life in 1967. Nissen reported that plot to the FBI, who superficially dismissed it.

  groups

  the church of jesus christ christian (cjcc): This is the ministry Wesley Swift formed in 1946 that preached an extreme and violent form of Christian Identity beliefs. These included the ideas that Jews were the offspring of Satan and that other minorities were subhuman. A major tenet for the church was the idea that a race war would purify the world, especially of Jews. This ideology continues to have a powerful influence over white supremacists and racist groups to this day.