Martin Luther King, the Real Jimmy Ray, and “Raoul”
by Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB
Do you recall the verse about the Purple Cow? I’ve updated it:
I never saw a terrorist,
I never hope to see one,
But if the Charlie thing was scripted,
There may not even be one.
How nice on this holiday of MLK, 2015, that everybody is getting the message about the tricks that have been played on us.
Please don’t forget a horrible trick that was played on James Earl Ray. Today’s deceptive Wikipedia entry reads as follows:
“Ray was convicted on March 10, 1969, after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Had he been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty.[3] He was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and tried unsuccessfully to gain a new trial. He died in prison of hepatitis C.”
That is utter crap. He did not enter the guilty plea for that reason; he was coerced into it by his ‘defense’ lawyer who was in fact working for the other side. A few days later Jimmy wrote to the judge about this. Then the judge was found dead. Poor judge, he must have been incorruptible. (How rare!)
It is also misleading to say that Ray died of Hepatitis. How did he get that disease? from being stabbed in the abdomen by many prisoners in the yard, known as shanking. He was almost 70 at the time. It occurred in 1998, perhaps when his brother’s efforts to set the record straight would have worked.
Or maybe Jimmy Ray had to be removed before he could answer questions about his handler “Raoul.” If you go to archive.org you will find the Congressional investigation of MLK’s death. I quote from it now (and also please see my article about brother Jerry Ray, linked at bottom of this page).
Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives (small excerpt):
Ray's rather abrupt involvement with recruiting activity on behalf of the American Independent Party in California, while not criminal in nature, strongly suggested association with others.9 Ray's life to this point had been, from all known indicators, apolitical. He was not a "joiner" or a "grassroots" volunteer. In addition, as a convicted felon and escaped convict, he could not expect to vote or to achieve a paid position in the California AlP.
His recruitment of three individuals (34) to register in support of Governor Wallace of Alabama and the AIP, therefore, stood in stark contrast to a prior life of political inactivity. Further, Charles Stein, one of the three individuals recruited by Ray, recalled that Ray appeared familiar with the AIP headquarters, as well as with the registering procedures, (35) thus suggesting additional campaign activity not disclosed during the investigation. Standing alone, Ray's AIP activity raised the definite possibility of association with individuals unidentified during earlier investigations.
Of similar interest was the evidence on Ray's abrupt trip to New Orleans in December 1967. Ray's partner on the trip was California resident Charles Stein.10 Stein was going to New Orleans to pick up his sister's children. The purpose of Ray's trip could not be determined, although the committee found it likely that Ray met secretly with another associate in New Orleans.
The secretive nature of that meeting was significant, if not sinister. Stein was certain when he testified before the committee in executive session (37) that Ray had his own reason for the cross-country drive. He recalled that Ray told him about a place where he was to meet an associate or associates, and he said that once or twice en route to New Orleans, Ray stopped to make a telephone call. Stein speculated that in one of the calls, Ray
.
10The committee devoted a significant portion of its investigative resources to Stein. It was ultimately satisfied that his association with Ray was unrelated to the assassination for four reasons: (1) pronounced personality differences between Ray and Stein; (2) evidence that they met only a day before the New Orleans trip; (3) Stein's emphatic and sworn denials of criminal involvement with Ray; and (4) extensive questioning of friends and relatives of Stein in New Orleans and Los Angeles.(36)
informed an associate of his arrival time. Further, Stein recounted how Ray told him, after they had been in New Orleans for part of a day, that he had seen Stein walking in the French Quarter with his son. Ray explained he had been drinking in a Canal Street bar at the time, and Stein figured Ray had been with someone or else he would have called to him.
Stein also testified that Ray was ready to return to California the day after they arrived in New Orleans. His testimony and the willingness of Ray, an escaped prisoner, to drive several thousand miles, risking a random vehicle check, were additional reliable indications that Ray's purpose in going to New Orleans was to attend one brief but important meeting.
The committee discovered sound indications that Ray was not alone, or at least not without someone to consult, when he purchased the murder weapon in Birmingham on March 29-30, 1968. First, the fact that he bought one rifle on the 29th, then exchanged it for another-- the murder weapon--on the 30th, indicated the possibility of advice from an associate.
In addition, Donald Wood, Jr., the clerk at Aeromarine Supply Co. where the rifle purchase and exchange took place, told the committee that while Ray was unaccompanied in his visits to the store, Ray said he had been advised by someone that the first rifle, a .243 caliber Remington, was not the one he wanted.(41) In an FBI interview days after the assassination, Wood recalled that Ray said he had been talking to his brother. (42)
Ray told the committee he got his advice on the rifle purchase from Raoul. (43) The committee's investigation, however, provided no concrete evidence of the existence of a Raoul.12
(Also see Tamara Carter's book Memoir of Injustice, Trine Day press, 2008)