Did the FBI Kill Martin Luther King?

this video is brought to you by surfsharkvpn keeping you safe and private online more about them in just a bit Hello everybody welcome back to another episode of decoding the un9 this is a long one did Kevin I don't know how many pages this is but the scrolling never seems to end so sit back relax I mean unless you're driving or whatever in that case don't relax too much pay attention uh because I realize this is a podcast as well off to people on like Twitter like hey Simon listen to you like while I drive hours lots of truckers reach out to me interestingly enough being like yeah I drive a truck across the country and I listen to your show constantly I have no idea how you make so much stuff and I'm like you're very welcome um so yeah yeah I mean relax just a little bit ease into it because today we're covering did the FBI kill Martin Luther King Jr not really anything relaxing about that is that it's a pretty big allegedly should be thrown in there like if we say that they did which I don't know if they did I mean it's all a legend isn't it definitely alleged well let's find out Kevin thank you for writing it if you're new the form of the shows I've never read this before brand new script from Kevin I don't really know anything about this yeah I don't know man this I feel is one of those things Americans might be like something you know nothing and I'm like yeah but this is your history isn't it I know my British history sort of not really I mean bits of it but that's the history I learned because in case you couldn't tell I'm British so let's just jump in foreign dear listener to venture once more into the breach and examine the world of outrageous sound and conspiracy theories it it does sound outrageous right you're saying the FBI killed Martin Luther King is there a difference this is how ignorant I am of this I'm not sure if there's a difference between Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King Jr I get the feeling that you know Martin Luther King the Civil Rights activist and stuff um and I know he is that but even that I'm like careful Simon what if he's not that what if it's a different dude what if you're confusing him with some other dude like That's how little I know about this but I get the feeling that this is the main dude right because if it was just like his son or whatever then uh I don't know he did his son do so I know nothing I'm sorry I'll let Kevin tell the bloody story daddy chill what the hell is even that but it doesn't sound insane because we know like CIA especially back in the day got up to all sorts of Bonkers because no one was keeping an eye on them researching the assassinations of John F Kennedy already rocked my world as I discovered that there is a preponderance of evidence indicating that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone but I assumed that was an outlier most of the famous American conspiracy theories took place decades before I was born that makes sense because most of America took place decades or even centuries before I was born good observation right there the problem with that is unless someone is motivated to research a particular topic they all kind of get lumped together the moon landing the JFK assassination alien spacecraft area 51. these conspiracies were taught to us as footnotes if at all why would they be taught to you I mean we don't teach conspiracy theories in school that's the point of school they teach you facts it's not like you go into physics and they're like okay well today class what we're going to do is we're going to teach you about how the Earth is flat and also possibly rounds although you do do that America with the Bible shown you in some States they're like yeah what we're gonna do is we're gonna teach you that Jesus was uh immaculately conceived and the Earth is like six thousand why have I turned Australian I don't know but look alongside Evolution they teach us creationism which is just bizarre because it's like yeah yeah sure teach one in religious class and one in science class because one is science and one is religion it's not that complicated it's an American why'd you have to be like like this these weren't complex historical events worthy of Greater understanding they were outlandish conspiracies to be used as punch lines in pop culture to be fair in the vast majority of cases that's an accurate assessment we really did land on the moon and extraterrestrials have never been to Nevada besides with decades to uncover these conspiracies before I would have even learned about them that obviously everyone would have known the truth already right even if the full conspiracy had yet to be uncovered if there was any Merit to these ideas then of course those details would have been in the history books but there of course was nothing there except that JFK one right whereas like that that main narrative it's just like there's obviously more going on do I know what it is absolutely not but is there more oh my God like look how much random like bits of evidence and stuff and look how it just doesn't add up together it's like there's definitely something there don't know what it is and that's what Kevin and I discovered together and I had like inklings of that before and Kevin was like no no this isn't real and I was like I don't know Kevin I feel like I feel like this is the The Conspiracy Theory which is like the some truth to that and then me and Kevin ended the episode together being like Oh that's one of my favorite decoding the unknowns ever because instead of it just being like yeah yeah there's not ghosts and Aliens aren't real um is it was like oh my God okay this conspiracy Theory's real why perhaps this was just the result of the American public schooling or maybe it's because I grew up near Boston a city for viewing a 1965 law to desegregate schools as a friendly suggestion rather than a legally binding mandate either way in school I was taught that King was a civil rights leader nailed it who was assassinated by James Earl Ray and escaped convict an unhinged racist who wanted to stop the Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King Jr day has been a Federal holiday since the year after I was born and yet that's pretty much all I was ever taught about him isn't this I know it's I was going to say isn't this an important part of American History I feel like the Civil Rights man that's a pretty big deal in in American history it was just my outsider's perspective but uh then I'm sure there's like tons of in British history that is like super important that just never came up in school because school is like not that long and it's like you can only study and things like I don't think I ever really studied the first or the second world war but my entire gcses which is like that I think it's between 14 and 15 around those ages or 14 to 16 like two years of school we studied like for ages the period between the wars and don't get me wrong it's super fascinating but it was weird like not studying the two Wars that was the last major thing I remember studying super interesting the period between the wars though it sounds really boring but it's like that some wild went on never was it mentioned that King was standing in the room when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and that he had moved on to larger goals in an i-67 report said the staff of the Southern Christian leadership conference a Civil Rights group of which he was President King stated to quote we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of Human Rights an era oh where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society we've been in a reform movement but after Selma and the Voting Rights bill we moved into a new era which must be the era of Revolution we must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of Economic and political power this means a revolution of values and other things we must now see that the evils of racism economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together you can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others the whole structure of American Life must be changed America is a hypocritical nation and we must put our own house in order Jesus Kevin when you're pulling quotes that are like 20 lines long no wonder this piece is it's gonna be like seven hours Kevin what are you doing to me I've got a Life to Live Kevin damn [Music] have you ever thought about how much of your personal information is out there on the internet can be pretty scary when you think about it but don't worry there's a great solution and that would be called surf shark VPN what's a surf shark VPN do well first it masks what you do online that means anyone trying to Snoop on you won't be able to see what you're doing or where you're doing it from and second it lets you travel the world with just one click with surf shark you can access websites and streaming services from different 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use promo code DTU for 83 off and it's three months for free thank you surf shark and now back to today's video there's more to life than various water life the work I'm just joking it was one thing Owen King was fighting to have a 95 year old amendment to the Constitution actually be enforced but he was in the process of transitioning into a much larger threat to the status quo of American society it was the sort of threat that those with money and power might have been motivated to eliminate far more motivated than a simple racist who probably didn't want to go back to the prison from which he had escaped by assassinating one of the most high-profile individuals in the country yeah it's also a great way to not go back to prison is to why you've escaped from prison assassinate someone that's gonna maybe you'll go to You're the only place you're going is worse prison or death but enough foreplay our story will begin with the official telling of the events of the assassination end with a 1999 chord verdict in which a jury found the King's assassination was the result of a conspiracy involving government agencies no they did was this a civil case or a criminal case because huge difference because civil cases balance of probabilities they say it was more likely that there were some shady going on than it was but criminal case means it's like they were absolutely certain which is like that's a much higher burden of proof I have I know nothing about this and if that's the case that's insane and somewhere along the way King will receive a letter from the FBI telling him so many words if you don't kill yourself we'll make you live to regret it oh I do know about that piece of the story where they try to oh my God phone calls a little longer than a few minutes later well I was nice it wasn't a delivery person it's actually just my wife and my kids ah my daughter's school is like super close to where I work and she always picks them up after lunch and she's always like I'll come back see you how come I see you she never does and today she came that was super nice and now they are gone and we continue walking in Memphis it All Began on February the 1st 1968 two months before the assassination took place Echo Cole and Robert Walker were sanitation workers for the City of Memphis Tennessee there were any tensions between sanitation workers and mayor Henry Loeb not only were the working conditions terrible and unsafe but the black sanitation workers were paid significantly less than their white counterparts performing the same job in one rather bladed incident severe weather forced all the workers to be sent home for the day the black employees only received two hours of pay for the day while the white ones received the full day's pay when was this 1968 this is not this is like less than 20 years before I was born which like blows my mind I remember I went to Atlanta and there was this video exhibition and it had all these um I'm pretty sure I've told this story before but had all these photos from like the not the Civil Rights era but like when people were fighting for civil rights right and they had like you knows uh water fountains and the bathrooms and they were like separate for black and white people and I was like wow these photos look like really good though did they like colorize these or like enhance them somehow and then it's like no no this was the 60s and it's like what the man my parents were like teenagers in the 60s I mean they do live in America but it's like still it's recent history it's crazy like the past was the worst the day of February the first was another day of terrible weather the rains were so severe that the streets were flooding and the sewers were overflowing at around 4 20 p.m a time that held no significance until 1971 so I don't want to hear any jokes about it echol and Robert decided to take refuge in the back of the garbage truck to avoid the rain and spark up sorry I know I said the Kevin said no jokes if you've somehow never seen a garbage truck in your life before and wondering why they didn't go sit in the front those seats were occupied by the driver and their co-worker these trucks normally have one or two people hanging off the back of the truck so they quickly Hop Off toss the trash bags in and hop back on so the truck can slowly move forward yes thank you Kevin we are all is there anyone here who's unfamiliar with how uh like uh what do we call them they're not trash they're um garbage bins garbage trucks garbage lorries garbage lorries bin lorries that's what we call them in Britain bin lorries garbage trucks is the American version there's a TV show for children called trash truck which my daughter really likes and we were walking to school this morning I take it to school in the morning my wife picks her up and because it's in the middle of the day I gotta work but like we'll take her to school every day anytime she sees that it could be a recycling truck it could be a bin truck whatever she'll be like trash truck yeah yeah yeah close close suddenly for no reason the trash trucks can pack to malfunctioned and began a compacting cycle what no oh my God what this process is supposed to only be started manually to prevent this exact sort of thing from happening but the truck seemed to have a mind of its own when the sound of the compactor's engine entered the track truck's cab the driver immediately stopped and jumped out of his seat run into the back to hit the emergency stop button it didn't help and the two young men were crushed to death oh my God that's crazy what the [ __ ] 10 I that is like nightmare way to go being crushed by a trash compactor [ __ ] me ten days after the tragic deaths of echol and Robert the union held a meeting and voted to go on strike demonic safer working conditions it took 10 days I'll be like I'm off this afternoon mate this is insane two of my friends got crushed in their truck I'm not working until you sort the trucks out the union held a meeting and voted to go on strike demanding safer working conditions better pay and some goddamn city-issued uniforms so they wouldn't have to go home to their families with their civilian clothes smelling like sewage considering two people had just died their wages were so low that many full-time sanitation workers qualified for welfare and food stamps and bus drivers wouldn't allow them to take public transportation because they smelled so bad these demands were extremely reasonable demands well beyond that would still be considered extremely reasonable the only problem with the Union attempted to make these demands was that the city didn't actually recognize the union that in the newly elected mayor Lowe had been the previous head of the sanitation department where it was responsible for creating many of the conditions they were now complaining about the union had expected the city to take immediate action what would the horrific deaths and all Loeb decided to go in the opposite direction by being a completely unreasonable douchebag who refused to negotiate 8 on February the 12th the day after the union declared the strike 930 out of 1100 sanitation workers didn't show up for work some of those that did show up also walked out once they heard about this strike it's like everyone showed up no one showed up for work except for the people who didn't know they weren't supposed to shuffle work and then they all home except for Jeff who's like I love picking up trash I love my job I'm good at it and I'd like to keep it when the mayor refused to meet the union protesters March from the union hall to a meeting place at the Memphis city council there they found about 50 police officers waiting for them Loeb led the strikers to a nearby Auditorium so that they could have a friendly little chat and by friendly I mean Loeb grabbed the microphone from the union organizer and yelled at them to get back to work why are they doing this just stay at home just be like I'm on strike I'm not getting paid I'm gonna stay at home and I don't know watch some Telly or whatever crack a beer in the morning why not you're on strike and it's not like you're striking about some non-essential service it's trash collection very very quickly there's going to be a lot of pressure on the mayor to get that short sorted because people aren't going to be happy like if no one ever came to collect the trash from my apartment building it would build up real fast they come I think two or three times a week and if they stopped coming very quickly I'd be like hey stop paying the more you [Music] and then they would come and everything would be better especially if I heard that two of them have been crushed I'd be like hey stop not paying them all and fix those trucks mayor you whoa this Outburst was met with choruses of laughter and people chanting boo Loeb went on to make several public statements about the strike and in each and every one he looked like a right [ __ ] within three days of the strike beginning there were over ten thousand tons of garbage piling up in the streets of meant this so low began to ask strike Breakers to go and pick up the trash while all of this had been going on King was working on creating the Poor People's campaign it was to be a diverse multiracial Coalition of poor people from all across the country based on Census Data anywhere from 22 to 33 percent of Americans were living below the poverty line at the time Jesus that's like one in five to one in three people so it shouldn't have been too hard to find people that agreed with sentiments that King espoused in the quote at the beginning of the episode yeah honestly it sounded quite reasonable so I I get why governments like status quo and like look governments get a lot of money from rich people to like their status quo but uh this seems quite reasonable well I'm with these guys they're like this man this is not right outside of the obvious racism since the Memphis annotation strike was the fusion of a civil rights matter and a property issue it caught the attention of King on March the 18th over a month into the strike he made his first visit to Memphis Bob Airy spoke before a crowd at 25 000 protests as an activist calling for a city-wide shutdown he wanted others like the schools to go on strike in solidarity with the sanitation workers after his speech he promised to return to Memphis for a few days on the 22nd to lead a peaceful protest through the city I know that fans of this channel typically don't believe in things like ghosts aliens and Magic as they shouldn't but if for some reason you do happen to believe in signs the protesters in Memphis were about to get one on average Memphis receives about three inches of snow over the entire year that protest March had to be canceled because they were hit by a massive snowstorm that dumped over 17 inches of snow on the city undeterred the protesters opted to reschedule the protest from March the 28th rather than canceling it entirely is that foreshadowing that this protest's not going to go very well Kevin oh yeah the next I just read the next title subtitle which is in giant bold letters the March 28th Riot when the March began on March 28th that's confusing isn't it it was a massive turnout City officials estimated that 22 000 students had skipped school in order to participate in the protest King was late and when he arrived the crowd was already on the verge of chaos it was meant to be a peaceful protest as that was how they had achieved results in the past however unbeknownst to King there was a division among the African-American residents of Memphis the peaceful protests had been infiltrated by militant black power group based in Memphis known as the Invaders as the March cool name though right Millers and groups awesome but I mean the Invaders it sounds like a like a 1970s rock band as the March proceeded through downtown members of the Invaders began smashing the windows to every storefront and looting everything in sight I take back what I said they're not cool there were 600 police officers on duty at the protest nearly the entire police force and they wasted no time launching tear grass at the crowds despite his protestations King was escorted away to a hotel by those close to him for fear that the police would come after him the hardest live media coverage focused on the actions of quote negro youths making little to no comment about the use of police force not even when the cameras showed the bloodied faces of African-American men who were being arrested their only comments with regards to the sure Force were about the use of tear gas with one correspondent calmly stating live on air here comes the tear gas and this reporter just got a sting of it oh no boo hey [Music] oh no when the dust had settled there were a total of 276 people arrested and 60 injured during the riot they were also a single fatality sixteen-year-old Larry Payne there were conflicting reports over exactly what had happened to Larry by which I mean the police officer who killed him said one thing and literally every eyewitness said something else I didn't kill him 100 people yes you did I hope he goes to prison according to Witnesses Larry came up from his basement in the projects to see what was going on when officer Leslie Dean Jones pressed his sword off shotgun barrel against Larry's stomach why the [ __ ] as a police officer got a sword off shotgun that's mental Larry put up his hands and asked the officer not to shoot but he pulled the trigger anyway according to Leslie Larry was holding a butcher's knife a claim that every witness stated was false the county court did not press charges and the Department of Justice said that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him for civil rights abuses are you [ __ ] me there's a dead body and everyone says he had a sawn off shotgun and he shot him in the gut completely unprovoked you Department of Justice stuff like this is why the police now have body cams that night Marlo declared martial law in stated a 7pm curfew and brought in about 4 000 members of the National Guard keep in mind that everything that happened in Memphis up to and including the riot looting and fatal shooting of a minor could have been completely did if low but just paid his employees enough to not to need to go on welfare though he initially was reluctant on account of just having one of the single worst days of activism in a 13-year-long career King decided to return to Memphis if the Poor People's campaign and his fight for economic Justice were going to succeed then he needed to follow through in supporting the sanitation Strikers on April the third he returned to Memphis where he delivered his famous I have been to the Mountaintop speech there had been a bomb threat but King was not concerned he had been the recipient of death threats for well over a decade and it even survived an assassination attempt 10 years prior when a woman stabbed him at a book signing the tip of the blade had been touching his hay order and after the surgery the doctor told him that if he had sneezed during the hours awaiting surgery the blade would have punctured his heart and he would have drowned in his own blood but that this serve as a reminder to all of you that if you ever find yourself stabbed or otherwise punctured with something don't pull the object out whatever it is that stabbed you is the only thing plugging the wound keeping you from bleeding out and trying to remove it may cause even more damage because the position of the knife it took hours of open chest surgery for doctors to safely remove the blade that had lodged in King so back to the speech he spoke of the bomb threat of his own mortality and even of the time when he was almost stabbed to death the conclusion of the speech is seen as being almost prophetic with King concluding and get ready for another massive quote here from Kevin and then I got to Memphis and some began to say threats or talks about the threats that we're out what would happen to me from some of our sick White Brothers well I don't know what will happen now we've got some difficult days ahead but it doesn't matter with me now because I've been to the Mountaintop and I don't mind like anybody I would like to live a long life longevity has its place but I'm concerned about that now I just want to do God's Will and he's allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've seen the promised land I may not get there with you but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land so I'm happy tonight I'm not worried about anything I'm not fearing any man mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord that was the last public speech that he would ever make the assassination James Earl Ray was staying in Memphis at the new Rebel Motel on the night of April the 3rd he learned King was in town staying at the Lorraine Motel footage of King and his Entourage at the hotel are aired on the 10 o'clock news and the room number 306 was plainly visible in the footage his location was also published the next day in the commercial appeal a Memphis Daily newspaper this is like I've been to things where it's like they want to keep stuff private and I feel like this is something that the media shouldn't publish like I went to a conference once and in in checking in they were like okay we need to know that for the duration of the or like events or whatever it was they're like you can't post when you're onto social media and it's like literally within about four hours there was a crap people outside from like it was like a influencer thing because someone obviously had and then someone had worked it out and it's like these things leak but it's like you should be more careful with this you shouldn't be broadcasting it on the news he said bomb threats and stuff don't tell people where he is what's wrong with you that's not ideal but it also wasn't surprising King accompanied by fellow activist Ralph Ralph Abernathy among others stayed in that room so often that it was nicknamed The King Abernathy Suite how about guys rotate where you stay not just rooms but also motels I'm sure there are many on the afternoon like everyone knows don't create patterns that's not some like complicated spy it's just Basics and you should probably have some complicated spice going on anyway because you're bloody Martin Luther King on the afternoon of April the 4th array checked out of the new Rebel motel and traveled across town at 3 30 PM Ray checked into Bessie Brewer's rooming house located on the second floor of a building above Jim's grill and across from the Lorraine Motel using the fake name of John Willard Ray rented room 8. he asked to change room to 5B which directly overlooked the remit Lorraine Motel but he found that the window from the communal bathroom had the best line of sight of room 306. at 4pm he traveled to the York Arms Company to Dubai what must have been an incredible pair of binoculars with a cost of 41.55 cents or over 350 in today's money binoculars get mad expensive that was like something I didn't expect but they make amazing binoculars that cost I see you get binoculars that are literally thousands of pounds it's crazy he then returned to the rooming house to wait King and Abernathy were preparing to have dinner at the home of a local Minister before attending an event that night King walked out onto the balcony of the motel room to talk to some of his associates including his driver musician Ben Branch who would be performing at the event that night and also Reverend Jesse Jackson according to Jackson King's last words before the assassination were Ben make sure you play Take My Hand Precious Lord in the meeting tonight play it real pretty at 601 PM Rayford had a single bullet from his Remington 760 game master 3006. the bullet hit King in the right cheek and downward trajectory breaking his draw and several vertebrae ah it also severed as jugular and finally lodged in his shoulder Abernathy heard the shot and rushed from the hotel room out to the balcony King was in critical condition but he was still alive approximately two minutes later Rey was seen carrying a green blanket from the boarding room down the street he was spooked by something allegedly the site of a police cruiser and dropped the blanket in front of the store kanip's Amusement Company before returning to his white Ford Mustang that was parked on the street and fleeing the scene the store owner informed police of this at 608 15 minutes after the bullet was fired King arrived at the nearby St Joseph's Hospital doctors tried to resuscitate him but he never regained Consciousness at 705 PM Martin Luther King Jr was declared dead but about half an hour before that police arrived at canip's Amusement Company to investigate the bundle that Ray had dropped on the sidewalk after unwrapping the blanket they found that Rey had handed them all the evidence they would need on a silver platter the bundelier dropped contained his suitcase and the Remington rifle inside the suitcase they found the binoculars a radio and the Commercial Appeal news story that contained King's location this is remarkable convenient and there was some sort of clothing and a couple of cans of beer there too but that's far less incriminating the owner of Clips had seen Ray drive away in the white Mustang and police were able to learn from investigating the rooming house the John Willard of 5B drove such a car though they had yet to discover that this was not his real name by F15 that night the bundle of evidence that bread Left Behind was handed over to the FBI while red already found his way to Mississippi by this point this was not yet known to law enforcement and it is seen as highly unusual that the FBI would have gotten involved so quickly the FBI generally dealt with Interstate crime terrorism and financial crimes especially those involving federally insured Banks I agree that it was a little weird for them to be quickly commandeering the investigation of a murder of someone who wasn't a federal employee but King was a prominent public figure and political force so it's not necessarily unreasonable yeah I get that the FBI has these like special jurisdictions and stuff but are they also called in for like just generally bigger cases like if like I guess then these are federal employers just thinking if the president gets assassinated it's not going to be like local police looking in it's going to be the FBI right even though it was in one place and there's like no State Line crossing and all that stuff like for big crimes they get in on the big crimes at least judging by movies I've seen it's a little suspicious but of all the things we'll talk about involving the FBI today this decision was by far the least suspicious so I'm willing to give it a pass as reports of the assassination began hitting the news riots broke out Across America in over 110 major cities Washington DC alone saw over 6 000 arrests and a thousand injured as a result of the riots Bobby Kennedy was scheduled to have a campaign rally in the heart of Indianapolis ghetto that night while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination when his plane landed in Indianapolis he was informed of the assassination despite everything around him saying that he should not attend the rally and the police warning him that both a riot was likely and they didn't have enough people to protect him but we decided to attend anyway he refused the note that his press secretary and speech tried to prepare for him and decided to Simply take the stage and wing it generally terrible advice but I imagine he did well right by any estimation this was a disaster waiting to happen few names are more synonymous with the idea of white privilege than Kennedy I mean the air after this Ted Kennedy drove drunk off a bridge killing his mistress yet he remained a senator for the next 80 years or something and there in the middle of the ghetto while race riots were raging Across the Nation Kennedy was about to be the one to break the news to a predominantly black audience that King had been shot and killed yeah this does just sound like a terrible idea doesn't it as Kennedy informed the audience that King had been assassinated a cacophony of cries and whales rose up from the crowd what followed is regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history a speech in which he called for peace love and compassion it was also the first time he spoke publicly about the death of his brother JFK who had been killed over five years earlier wow dude you turn that [ __ ] around that's kind of legendary yeah cool good for you perhaps more important than what he said was how he said it there was no doubt from the audience about his sincerity likely aided by the fact that he was speaking to them without any remarks prepared while he only spoke for five minutes by the end of his speech in the happiness was left as one of few major cities which did not Riot unfortunately as heartwarming as that may have been there was still a killer on the loose and it was going to take what was the FBI's largest ever investigation at the time to track down this criminal genius was he really a criminal genius he bought a rifle changed his name and then shot a dude from across the street genius really um International Manhunt raid a solid head start on his Escape he'd immediately left the rooming house where he was staying in a driven 11 hours on back roads to get to the place he had been staying in Atlanta once there he abandoned his Mustang wiping it clean of fingerprints grabbed some things from his room swung by the cleaners to pick up his laundry and took a Greyhound bus to Detroit that's upwards of a 19-hour bus ride if you've never taken a greyhound I think someone would agree with me when I say zero out of 10 would not recommend I would I'd taken many Greyhounds they used to I've talked about this before for sure but they used to do this past thing so I went to America uh I think I was like 21. yeah I was just 21 because I could just drink I mean I'm amazed of mine we bought these like month-long Greyhound buses and traveled all over the show and it was oh they're not a way to travel it was it was so Grim the traveling was so grim I thought it would be like I did we have Israel pass which is you could buy a a month-long unlimited Rail ticket basically and travel all around Europe and that was amazing and I did that the year or two before that this the the Greyhound buses were a little bit different about a little bit different I mean a lot a lot worse but options are limited when you're being hunted by the FBI on April the 6th two days after the assassination of King Rey's bus arrived in Detroit from there he took a taxi to Canada so he could lay low for a while and try to obtain a passport his ultimate goal was to travel somewhere in Africa that didn't have an extradition treaty with the United States most likely Rhodesia which is modern day Zimbabwe this is not a bad plan I was kind of making fun of Kevin for the criminal genius reply uh remark but this guy's actually making a pretty solid effort running away because normally people get caught fairly instantly but taking the back roads ditching the car wiping the prince uh I wouldn't going back to your house I think was a bad idea I'd have just like burned the car or dumped it in lake or something but um then get in the bus and trying to get a passport and out of the country and then to a different country is is pretty big brain maybe should go on South though I feel like getting out of Mexico and a passport in Mexico be a little easier than Canada right meanwhile the FBI had been investigating the evidence left behind in Memphis they were operating under the belief that the assassination was a conspiracy between three men first there was John Willard the man who had rented room 5B of the rooming house then there was Harvey lomair the man that had purchased the Remington 3006 from era marine supply company at a mall in Alabama and finally there was Eric s gold there were laundry tags on the clothes Left Behind from home service laundry in Los Angeles and Galt was the name on the receipts a week after the assassination the FBI found the abandoned white Mustang registered to Galt in a parking lot in Atlanta there was a sticker in the window that showed the car had been serviced in Los Angeles a couple of months prior they simultaneously tried to track his activities in LA and Atlanta learning more about the suspected killer Eric gold he had taken dancing lessons enrolled in the International School of bartending and taken a couple of classes from the locksmithing Institute who are these people are these all his fake identities that he's just built back personas for authorities were able to attain a photo of golf from the school of bartending and investigating his home city of Atlanta they found a map of the city that seemed to show that he was stalking King circled on the map with four locations King's home Ebenezer Baptist Church the southern Christian leadership conference's headquarters and the capital homes housing projects most importantly they were able to pull a clear fingerprint from the map it's going to be found to be the same dude right all three of these dudes are going to be one dude using the photo obtained from the school of bartending the FBI issued a warrant for gold however FBI director J Edgar Hoover had a hunch the investigators had already begun to suspect that they were dealing with a single culprit operating under different aliases rather than a conspiracy of three men largely on account of the fact that every fingerprint they found related to the evidence came from the same person suspects suspecting that all three of these names were aliases Hoover ordered investigators to compare golt's fingerprints against the database of all known fugitives in the country how did they do that back did they have computers that could do that back in the day because otherwise what they're going to have like loads of people like magnifying glasses up to their eyes like watchmakers looking at cards with fingerprints on them oh my God computers changed the world didn't they as crazy now you might be thinking that that should be the first thing they did yeah I'm assuming it just would take forever because they didn't have computers and in modern times it's almost certainly would have been among the first things they did but in modern times we have computers and this was taken base back in 1968 there were over 53 000 known fugitives in the United States at the time and detectives would have to perform the fingerprint analysis by hand to match galt's Prince with that of a known fugitive oh my Lord that's 53 000 people but they've each got 10 fingers and thumbs that's gonna take forever that's an awful lot of fugitives but they're not created equal yeah but how do you know it's even from a fugitive it could just be someone who's in uh like it might not even be someone who's got a fingerprint registered when driving from Ohio to Massachusetts I got a speeding ticket while in New York I did eventually pay it before the deadline but for a couple of weeks my opinion was you New York why would I ever go back there anyway had I not paid the speeding ticket they would have issued a warrant from IRS that I would technically be on this list of fugitives only well that's intense they if you don't pay a speeding ticket they're gonna warrant your arrest I pay my speeding tickets begrudgingly so even though there were 53 000 fugitives I'm going to guess they were heavily prioritized by different types of crimes but what makes you even thinks this guy is a fugitive it's gonna isn't it gonna be harder as a fugitive to commit this sort of crime because you can't get a gun you're going to be suspected like that isn't it just more likely and how many people a few trips is 53 000 in like an entire country otherwise the detectives got damn lucky because on the second day of the fingerprint comparison they found Gold's fingerprints matched to those who escaped convict James L Ray well there you go Color Me surprised this was only about the 700th fingerprint comparison they had done so finding a match could easily have taken two months instead of two days the FBI I'm usually put out mugshot posters of Rey announcing that gold was in fact Rey and broadcast His Image around the country they extended the search to Canada and Mexico as well since there was proof that rare visited both countries since escaping from prison it's got a good run escaping from prison how do you even leave the country are they gonna check on April 21st the FBI was able to make an appeal to the public for information on a show aptly named the FBI the show which was in its Fifth Season at that point was a true crime docu-series featuring dramatizations of real FBI cases and each episode ended with a quick segment featuring the FBI's current 10 most wanted criminals unfortunately all of this had taken far too long Ray had already been in Canada for weeks and just three days after the episode aired he finally obtained a passport under the name George Sneed with which he purchased a round-trip ticket from Toronto to London he obviously had no intention of coming back but a round-trip ticket is less suspicious yes uh yeah if you like on the Run just just just buy that because it it looks less suspicious and it's a little bit of extra money is going to be worth it for you top tip of array was just kind of wingy at this point and not exactly doing a great job of it despite thus far evading capture on May the 6th the exchanges return ticket to Canada for a ticket to Lisbon Portugal he arrived there the next day only to find out that he had missed the boat to Africa I'm not sure how often these boats left but they must have been pretty infrequent since 10 days later Ray flew back to London to try and find another way to reach Rhodesia that sounds like a bad idea just wait just go find some like no one knows where you are just hole up in some tiny place or move around every few days in the city or the country of Portugal and just wait for the boat why are you getting on a plane unnecessarily that's a bad idea also why are you going to London I feel like London's communication with America is going to be better than like Portugal's by May the 27th weeks after he had originally arrived in Europe was running out of money it's here that we get a glimpse into the type of Master criminal that was so deftly eluding the FBI he attempted to rob a jewelry store in Paddington but the store owners decided they weren't terribly keen on being robbed given this rather unexpected resistance Ray simply ran off empty-handed again Kevin's making fun of him but unlike if you try to rob a jewelry store and the owners put up some form of resistance leave empty-handed there are plenty of other jewelry stores well they'll just be like I'm sorry take everything it's that's a big brain criminal move to be honest a week later he decided to try his hand at crime once again this time robbing a bank why you don't need that much money just stay small time just stay small time and escape to Rhodesia and when you're there figure that [ __ ] out but you need to get out of London it seemed that the robbery was going more successfully this time but the teller accidentally kicked a metal box the loud noise which may have sounded like a gunshot spooked Ray and he ran off with only 95 pounds the equivalent of about 240 or about two thousand dollars today it's a pretty small Payday for a bank robbery but it was enough to keep a buffalo to little while longer but the authorities were closing in after examining about 175 000 passport applications the Royal Canadian amount of Belize matched the photo of George Sneed to that of Rey checking the address on the passport they found that he had been living in Canada under the name Paul Bridgeman before receiving his passport you can just wait what's going on he's just like using a false name in Canada applies for a passport and they're like and here you go the FBI updated his list of aliases which would result in his arrest a week later though just barely on June the 8th Rey was at uh England's Heathrow Airport attempted to purchase a plane ticket to Brussels Belgium he nearly was able to leave successfully but when he gave his passport to an immigration officer the officer noticed that there was a second passport in Rey's bag uh oh what have you done why do you have your old criminally passport with you that's insane you are made of stupid we're not for this act of carelessness the immigration officer would never have checked the watch and detained list and discovered the name George Snead have been listed by the FBI George oh George slash Ray what the [ __ ] this is so St amateur dude so far even though Kevin doesn't think so I think your Escape was quite good and now you've just really bungled it haven't you he was quickly arrested and the process of extradition began it took over a month but he was finally extradited to Memphis uh where he got to meet Arthur Haynes senior who's defense attorney the defense are always being bankrolled by journalist William Bradford Hui in exchange for exclusive book rights it's it's weird to me that two men could make a deal over the rights to raise story without his knowledge especially since this was before the Son of Sam laws but whatever I have no idea what the Son of Sam laws are but um I mean I think it'd be pretty willing right if they're like yo we're going to get you a good defense attorney someone who actually might get you off somehow or at least not get you with a needle in your arm or um in a chamber but like it's it's worth it so you have to write a book for them gesture you're gonna say yes on November 10th a few months after he had arrived back in the United States Ray discovered that his lawyer felt there was no chance of acquittal so he fired Haynes two days later an interview had given who he published was published in look magazine this was the Public's first introduction to a man known only as Raul who will get to shortly okay wait who's Raul I thought that was Rey's pen name or something in February 1969 Ray hired a new lawyer RC Foreman Foreman was famous for defending 778 Q's murderers and getting 705 of them acquitted dude that is a serious track record if I ever murder someone that's who I want I'll be like Ray sorry Percy I'm flying you out from the 1970s I need you to defend me I've murdered Percy sorry uh but Foreman said the case was hopeless and convinced Ray to submit a guilty plea to avoid the death penalty on Martian sends Ray pled guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr and was sentenced to 99 years in prison that's the official version of everything that happens and it could have been the end of the story however just three days after pleading guilty Rey again fired his lawyer and recanted his confession claiming that he was coerced into pleading guilty for the rest of his life he would maintain that he had not shot King and was an unknowing accomplice in the assassination and this brings us to the matter of Rey's side of the story James Earl Ray's story James Earl Ray was born Ma March the 10th 1928. this means he entered his guilty play play on his 41st birthday so happy birthday he was born in Illinois as the oldest of nine children but his family relocated to Missouri to escape law enforcement after his father wrote a bad check this seems like a huge reaction to What would have probably been a modest fine but who am I to question his decisions I was just thinking he wrote a bad check family we have to go on the Run oh God what's that show with the guy from the rest of the development where he goes on the run from the cartels I've not seen it but it's been on my it's one of those shows which is like yeah I think I'm gonna really enjoy this but I've just never got around to watching it um I don't remember but he goes on the run like that's the reason to go on the run when the cartels are after you it's like oh well I just didn't have enough money in my account and I didn't realize and it's like we're leaving for Mexico ironically where the cartels are at the age of 12 Ray dropped out of school and he joined the military at the close of World War II when he was roughly 17. he was stationed in West Germany but military life didn't suit him he was constantly drunk and at one point escaped from a stockade though I was being detained isn't clear wait like a stockade like what's a stockade is it a stockade where they put your hand in your arms through those things and then they lock it down and people throw vegetables at you Stockade a barrier formed of upright wooden post specialist defense against attack or a means of controlling animals okay so he's in some sort of prison I guess he didn't have his arms oh that's the stocks not a stockade my bad you guys know what I'm talking about or is that just a British thing you see them like in all Downs it's really weird it would be one thing if this guy was like Sterling Archer a severe alcoholic who was the best at what he did but he absolutely was not it's like yeah you're an alcoholic but you're the best so we have to put up with you and it's like no you're just a severe alcoholic and it just makes you a bit more to everything like with most people Sterling archers from that Archer TV show right is these the cartoon spy I really enjoyed their shirts watching it with my wife she just didn't like it as much as me so we stopped watching it but I think I'll watch that by myself because it I really enjoyed it it was very funny as a soldier Ray was pretty much the worst he received the lowest possible passing grade on his Marksmanship test and when he was dishonorably discharged in 1948 it was for ineptitude and lack of ability you just [ __ ] you're just [ __ ] [ __ ] Ray this is a bit surprising since he spoke with his brother John about his time serving in the office of strategic services or oss the precursor to the CIA Ray described the OSS as being like the mafia saying once you're in they are never really allowed to leave there's the first part of the story that there's no conformational but even if Ray really was in the OSS he wouldn't have been recruited because of his incredible abilities it would have been because he was Expendable allegedly he was subjected to hypnosis the hypnosis and psychoactive drugs like a prototype for the MK Ultra program that the CIA would begin a few years later while all this is theoretically possible it's unlikely it could ever be proven or disproven it does seem unlikely though doesn't it seems like one of those guys he's like yeah I was in the Army and so that was in the SAS oh yeah saved the queen many times it's like no you didn't stop it it's time to stop he's like I was in the CIA it's like bro you could barely shoot a gun everyone knows you're spray they dishonorably discharged you for being this would all have been taken place during the two-year period after the OSS was officially disbanded but before the CIA was officially formed so I can't imagine there's much of a paper trail for anything that happened during that period just keep in mind that the only source we have for this is the word of Rey's brother yet who was told it by Rey since we're on the topic we may as well get some further unverifiable details of Rey's life from this time period out of the way after being discharged from the military he moved to California where he began his life a petty crime that part's true more contentious is his reputation in the media as a lifelong racist and supporter of George Wallace a presidential hopeful famous for stating in his 1963 inaugural address as Alabama Governor segregation now segregation tomorrow segregation forever again everyone 1963 but also how that turned out for you George ah fortunately for Wallace forever about seven years that's how it turns out [ __ ] you because in 1970 he became a born-again Christian and apologized for all of his previously racist views I take it back good for you wow that's great I I I I'm all into people changing like that's fantastic but where did Rey stand on these issues well according to his family and friends he couldn't be racist because some of his best friends were Flack and I'm not a racist I have I have black friends I just hate all other black people come on it's not oh oh oh my God while living in Los Angeles Ray had predominantly lived in a black apartment building went to black dance clubs another black girlfriend and even if all of that well I mean that does make him sound not racist doesn't it and I I make fun of they're like oh because it's like a meme like oh I'm not racist I've got black friends it's a meme but the reality is this dude if if this is true he I I would say that that is a sign of probably not being racist or being less racist if you like hanging out with black people you probably don't hate them you know what I mean does that make sense it would sound more racist if you're like no I never lived with black people I definitely don't have any black friends and I would never go to a black dance club see that sounds more racist and oh my God is this section forever going to haunt me on Twitter when people cut these clips out why Jesus Christ even if all of that's true I'm not necessarily sure that it means he wasn't a racist though it does make it a much harder sell fully agree we do need to remember that the main source for this was his brother John who would have had an ulterior motive in trying to paint Rey In a Different Light John owned the Grapevine Tavern which was known to be a common meeting place for George Wallace's supporters since it is believed that Rey's two primary motivations for assassinating King were racism and the desire to collect a large Bounty from the KKK and other racist organizations for King's murder a bounty that allegedly may have come to his attention through his brother's bar and it would all be in John's best interest to separate Rey from this narrative so let's get back to the parts of Rey's story that can be verified before we dive head first into conspiratorial Waters after his brief stint in the military where he may or may not have been drugged out of his mind he became the newest member of America's revolving door prison system he first entered the prison system after being convicted to burglary in California following that he served another two is imprisoned for robbing a taxi driver at gunpoint in Illinois for the kingly sum of 11 and change once he was released he was convicted of mail fraud in Missouri Ray wasn't even smart enough to commit some sort of actual mail fraud scam he just strolled into a post office to steal some money orders apparently this is technically classified as male fraud that just sounds like theft it's one of those things where it's like yeah but the post office was involved so there's a federal crime and you're gonna hang for this you know one of those weird crimes that is surprisingly bad after another four years in four years in prison he stole some things from a post office dude the accidentally committing really bad crimes after another four years in prison he was again convicted of armed robbery now that is a bad crime uh and and I mean these are all bad crimes I'm not trying to say that they're not bad crimes but like stealing from a post office am I armed robbery feels like a different game doesn't it uh this time for stealing roughly 120 from a Kroger grocery store in Missouri in honor of his many repeat offenses and with very little down time between his releases from prisoners next crimes Rey was finally sentenced to 20 years it was in 1960 when he began serving this sentence but by 1967 it'd make his daring Escape escaping a prison is not easy and practice makes perfect so of course he had made other attempts before finally being successful the first attempt saw Ray built his own makeshift ladder to climb over the prison wall it was brilliant in its Simplicity and ended with him falling off the wall and knocking himself unconscious brilliant Master criminal at work is ah no I don't have a ladder for the other side Ray the second attempt resulted in Rey being found by guards hiding in a ventilation shaft but third time's the charm and it was on the third attempt the ray was finally able to escape by hiding inside a box on a bread delivery truck there's no real reason that this should have worked as the guards and delivery Crews should have been accustomed to making sure there weren't any convex hiding in the truck but it did work and now we get back to the less reliable information while I could find lots of sources that mentioned these alleged facts all of them list the book written by Rey's brother John as their source so well take it as you will after each unsuccessful escape attempt Rey was administered Librium by a doctor who just happened to be a high-ranking military psychiatrist Librium is a relatively weak benzo that could be used in medical hypnosis and it is allegedly used to strengthen the effects of MK Ultra star mind control stuff the Escape band plan allegedly hadn't originated with Rey either but rather with his cellmate Ronnie Westberg according to the story Westberg knew that the plan would work would work but wasn't able to do it himself because he was under extremely heavy surveillance for his repeated Escape attempts while Ray had tried to escape twice in six years he was otherwise a model prisoner he was a model prisoner except he tries to escape the prison every three years or so he doesn't sound like a model prisoner at all but his Escape attempts were so comedically bad that he didn't need to be watched as carefully as some other inmates following the Escape Westberg was found hanging dead in his cell his arms and legs were all broken and the death was ruled as suicide why break his arms and legs before he hang himself Jesus it's not wiped him shot himself in the head twice that would be really suspicious if I could find any evidence other than Jon's book that such an event ever transpired surely after Ray escaped prison and had traveled to Montreal Canada but he claimed to have met Raul he described Raul only as a blonde Cuban and that a man he began working for running guns and possibly drugs it was Raul who he claimed had set him up with the three fake identities he used Eric ald Harvey Lomar and John Willett and here's where things start to get really interesting some of the previous allegations that came from John are more than a little bit out there but Rey's own accounts involving roll is a bit more credible first there are the fake identities he used to put it nicely Rey seems like he was a bit of a dumb dumb he could probably be described as a person who had more money than sense and as a recently escaped convict on the run in a foreign country he did not have any money way I thought he had more money than sense so he's got nothing I I feel like Evan doesn't give this dude enough credit like yeah he's clearly a piece of [ __ ] but he did manage to escape the country which I don't think is something most like people who commit assassinations manage to achieve they end up captured very quickly smart and yet despite this Rey was able to come up with genuine credentials for three aliases not only that but the three fake names he used Were Real Canadian citizens who happened to look extremely similar to him the name he used most frequently was Eric stavo Galt most likely the result of him misreading the signature of the actual man Eric Saint Vincent Gall to signed his name as Eric STV Galt physically the two match one another almost perfectly including scars there on the forehead and right palm what a [ __ ] odds according to Rey Rao gave him twelve thousand dollars in the fake credentials in exchange for Doom doing deliveries for him he then traveled around the country working under the employer Raul who he believed to be selling guns to anti-castro Cuban militants one day Raul Gabe Rey two thousand dollars and told him to get to Birmingham Alabama to get a car this is where he bought the white Mustang so this dude's on the run from prison for a long time and he's like in America he's in Canada he's Crossing Borders I thought people generally escape from prison and they were back in prison within like three days like the vast I thought it was F all of them but I guess this guy actually escaped from prison and set himself up with a new life which is pretty crazy on March the 30th four days before the assassination of King Raul informed him that he was making a large deal with the Cubans and would be supplying them with 200 guns he again sent raid Birmingham this time to buy a Remington 760 3006 with a telescopic side that could be used as a demonstration of the weapons that the Cubans would be buying Rey went to the error marine supply company in Birmingham returned with 762-43 Winchester it purchased the wrong caliber gun classic Ray small brain the next day Ray called the store before returning there to exchange over a 3006. according to the era Marine Supply Company employees it was clear over the course of his two visits that Rey knew exactly two things about guns Jack and [ __ ] he didn't know what the right scope for the gun was and despite being given explicit instructions he couldn't even pick out the correct gun this was a guy who served in the military but remember got discharged for being incompetent when he went to make change the employees told him that the 243 was powerful enough to take down any deer he'd find in Alabama his response was that he intended to take the rifle hunting in Wisconsin apparently deer are a bit sturdier up north on the day of the assassination ray met Raul Jim's grill a restaurant below the rooming house and across from the Lorraine Motel he was instructed to rent room 5B but it doesn't sound like he actually spent any time in the room according to his account this isn't necessarily without evidence though Rey's fingerprints were found on the discarded gun and beer cans they were not present in the hotel room or the bathroom sure he could have wiped everything down or worn gloves the whole time but there was little very little time between the shop being fired and him driving away so wiping the room for prints afterwards becomes less likely but according to him he never fired the gun anyway he bought it and gave it to Raul which is why his fingerprints were on it he was then instructed to wait in the Mustang as a getaway driver in case things went South while Raul met with the militants at Jim's grill according to Ray the 1pm he was waiting in the car when he had a gunshot Raul then ran to the car and they sped off at the time he believed that something had gone down with the arms deal and they were just trying to escape when the car nearly exited Memphis rail waited until they slowed down a bit and then jumped out of the moving vehicle never to see Ray again it wasn't until after he had been driving for a few more hours that he claimed to have first learned that King had been shot from a report on the car radio that report also mentioned the suspect was a white male driving a white Mustang uh oh which is why he claims to have dumped the car and taken a bus to Detroit from there the story of his months on the lamb in Canada and Europe is pretty much the same but who are we to believe the official story of ore's personal account of being accidentally involved well let's first look at the evidence involving Rey and then we'll get to the evidence of a potential FBI conspiracy right now I'm like I just believe the official narrative because this sounds like a narrative that Rey made up with some mysterious Raul character to have someone to blame other than himself for the shooting and it seems like he definitely did the shooting right that's the obvious thing to go for the shaky evidence against Rey I've already touched upon some incongruities in the official story Rey was ported to have worked alone in the assassinations but even on the surface it's hard to believe that he didn't have help he dropped out of high school essentially failed out of the army and once he came back from West Germany he was a petty criminal he spent more time in jail than out and yet we're supposed to believe that he was able to acquire a large sum of money and authentic passports bearing the names of Real Canadian citizens who genuinely almost looked exactly like him this was the same guy went to jail for holding up a cab driver at gunpoint over 11. yeah this whole time I've been like Ellen you don't give this guy enough credit and now I see why Kevin doesn't give this guy enough credit because Kevin doesn't think that the one pulling all of this off and now I'm kind of like yeah Kevin's a big break why did I draw that conclusion oh God I don't know it's really kind of obvious Now isn't it but it does feel very conspiratorial or maybe I'm just naive God I don't know either way it's not good but I'd rather be stupid or naive probably naive I guess I'll go with naive then of course there's the rifle he demonstrated a clear lack of understanding of firearms when he went in to purchase the gun and and he had demonstrated a clear lack of ability with guns while in the military this also wasn't like Lee Harvey Oswald a man who earned the designation of Sharpshooter from the Marines and had a clear line of sight from the depository window to JFK regardless of whether or not he was the only shooter Rey had barely passed his Marksmanship test and his line of sight was anything but clear the window in the bathroom of the rooming house did in fact face the Lorraine Motel but you could see anything there was a sycamore tree growing right in front of the window with large branches covering and practically entering the window in order to take the shot to hit King at the correct angle Rey would have needed to be standing on top of the bathtub holding his body in an incredibly awkward position and using his superhuman x-ray vision to see through the tree in order to aim at his at least somewhat moving time Target this is the guy who was basically incompetent at guns in the military it's like come on if it's as bad as that no way speaking of the bathroom I did mention it earlier but this was a communal bathroom it may have been publicized in the news where King was going to be staying but there was no way a sniper was hitting somebody inside the hotel room from this bathroom they would have had to have been outside how long exactly Rey would have to be standing on the bathtub and aiming his rifle at the balcony in the hopes the king might walk outside and what are the odds that he could wait there for that long with nobody coming in to use the bathroom I can only imagine how awkward an encounter would be if someone knocked on the door only for Ray to give her polite on a meme as he walked out of the bathroom carrying around I can just imagine you just walk into the bathroom as a dude just standing there with a [ __ ] off massive gun mounted on a light and he's just mounted himself on a bathtub we were like oh I can see it's occupied excuse me carry on don't mind me Ray I'm just gonna take a dump over here you stay there with your gun please don't shoot me that clearly didn't happen but if the sound of a gunshot came from the bathroom the rooming house surely another guest must have poked their head out to see what was going on right I mean if it was gunfire coming from inside the building then maybe not but there was one witness that claimed to see Rey fleeing from the bathroom after the shooting a man named Charles Stevens depending on who you ask he was better known either as bourbon Charlie or Bay Rum Charlie that either way Charlie had over 150 arrests mostly related to his rampant alcoholism so not exactly a reliable witness right there this was the FBI star witness and the only person to claim to see Rey fleeing the building Charlie's wife his landlord and another witness all stated that Charlie was too drunk at that point to have seen anything and the only other witness that saw a person leaving the building that day said it was not Rey during a pretty fantastic interview televised on CBS News a reported a picture of Ray up to Charles and Charles did not recognize him at all oh Bay Rum Charlie come on when they're order us if it looked like the man he had seen his reply was no sir it certainly doesn't I cannot possibly stress enough that this was the FBI's star witness against Ray he's a drug guy he said nah it doesn't look like him at all what did you forget your lines Charlie come on the FBI gave you the lines allegedly next there's a bullet that killed King initial testing showed that it was consistent with a bullet fired from a Remington 760. Guns use rifling to spin the bullet through the barrel and the spin makes its flight path more consistent all guns of the same model should have similar rifling but not necessarily identical but that is of course barring some sort of defects like was present on the gun with Ray's fingerprints early ballistics tests came back as inconclusive this isn't proof of anything one way or the other however later tests using updated techniques was while still not 100 conclusive began telling a different story the judge presiding over Rey's final appeal was Judge Joe Brown for fans of daytime television yes it's that Joe Brown no idea what you're talking about Brown was presented with updated ballistic tests that showed in 12 of 18 trials using the alleged murder weapon the resulting bullets did not match those of the Fatal bullet but then I would say that the other four the other six did and that's pretty damning isn't it that doesn't seem inconclusive at all it's like yeah 12 dinner but six did but would there be another gun in the world that were delivered that six that did I don't know how ballistics works but that does seem unlikely doesn't it the rate of rifling on the bullet being pulled from King was one turn every 11 and a half inches but the rate of rifling on the test bullets was only one turn every 10 inches there was also marks on the test bullets from a manufacturing defect in Ray's Gun that were not present in the Fatal bullet now that seems like a bigger deal that's fairly huge and if two-thirds of the test bullets did not match that would mean that it was more likely that the rifle with Rey's fingerprints on was not the one that killed King more likely than not but not guaranteed while more likely than not it's what we're looking for here we just need I say this like I'm bending Ray um all they needed all they should surely need to get ray off because I'm really feeling conspiracy Vibes right now is Reasonable Doubt surely that's reasonable doubt Brown requested additional ballistics at which point he was removed from the trial for his alleged bias you know bias in wanting the most accurate possible evidence with which to make a decision but even if it's twice as likely that this rifle wasn't the murder weapon people saw Rey drop it on the ground before fleeing the scene that's got to be damning evidence right I mean it is evidence but if the forensic evidence is saying something else then that is far more compelling isn't it if that's what we all saw then yes it would be but allegedly it's not in the 1999 trial that we'll be getting to later oh my God he had the trial that says that this isn't how it went down the official narrative right I forgot about that this is a very long video so long as this all maintains Simon's interest yeah sometimes I'll just be really a scripts and I'll abandon they'll be like nah not interesting enough sorry very rarely happens very very rarely Kevin's kind of joking I think Ray's original lawyer that he fired Arthur Haynes told a different story by this point he was Judge Arthur Haynes and he was telling his story in the form of testimony sworn under oath Haynes stated that he didn't interviewed Gary kanip early on in the investigation of the scene before anyone had the opportunity to temper with the witness geikenip was predictably the owner of canip's Amusement Company the store in front of which Rey is said to have dropped the bundle of evidence according to Haynes guy said that the bundle containing the alleged murder weapon was dropped in front of his store two to five minutes before the shot was fired and the man who dropped it off was a dark-skinned white male with a chunky Bill the description that did not fit Rey what this is a judge saying this this is a judge relaying witness testimony that he took before someone was allegedly tampered with this is crazy this is like the JFK assassination where I'm like there's something going on here there's definitely something going on here other witnesses that were in the store at the time agreed that Ray was not the person they had seen drop off the bundle another issue with the evidence against Rey is that no one seems to have actually heard the shot come from the bathroom window however there are a whole lot of witnesses who claim to have heard the shot come from bushes outside of the building directly across the street from the Lorraine Motel bushes from which someone would have a much better vantage point there were numerous reports of the gunshot coming from the bushes followed by a plume of smoke coming up from the bushes people even saw a man with a white shirt leap out of the bushes afterwards and run around the building all of these people were told by police that they were mistaken yeah please you're not supposed what are you doing your job is to gather Witnesses gather testimony and you said you're like no no you didn't see that what the [ __ ] are you CIA Jesus if there was someone in the bushes that took the shot who could it have been was it this enigmatic Raul a magical being like The Great Gazoo or Snuffleupagus that only one character can even see well it turns out there's some evidence that rail May in fact have existed it's a more questionable evidence but it's there at one point during his Prison Break Ray was driving from Los Angeles to New Orleans to meet Rel along with the ride was a songwriter named Charles Steen okay during the journey race stopped cool Raul from a pay phone for reasons unknown Steen decided to write down the number that he called Steen brought this information up to an investigative reporter in the 1970s and the report did the only logical thing as they called the number the phone reached Louisiana State Police barracks in New Orleans area Barracks that happened to be well known as a staging ground for CIA responsible gorilla operations against Fidel Castro and the man who answered the phone was one Raul Esquivel that doesn't seem like very shaky evidence I mean the the songwriter in the car writing down the number that seems like why did he do that who is this guy what's going on but if that is legitimately the number that he called and it reaches this Raul dude at this place that doesn't seem I guess the shakiness is like why would the songwriter have this number and then come forward so much later that seems weird this could of course be a coincidence if Federal intelligence agencies were involved it seems a bit silly to think that an operative would actually give their real name to be the intended Fall Guy that's just sloppy no one else is probably coincidence I mentioned that there was a witness besides drinky the drunk guy who saw someone leave the rooming house bathroom after the shot was fired when the witness was shown pictures of different individuals the person she identified as having seen happened to be a Louisiana state trooper the final issue with this whole thing is the timing I'm not sure if the reliability of the sources for this one one but I'll just throw it out there anyway as I said it would have been weird if Ray just happened to go to the bathroom at the precise moment that King decided to go out to the balcony to talk to Jesse Jackson his driver and others he would have probably waited in the bathroom for a while in the hopes that King came out but what if it's an even less believable time window than that allegedly King got out onto the balcony before 6 PM for a cigarette and it was out there for 15 minutes talking to people and waving it's true that he was a regular smoker but he'd be hard-pressed to find a picture of him smoking because he tried to hide this from the public and especially from his children so they wouldn't take up the Habit that fact makes me less convinced of the veracity of the claim that he would be smoking in public while waving at people but uh will at least consider the idea for a moment if someone was stalking King monitoring his balcony in the hopes that he would emerge what did it make more sense for him to be shot during the 15-minute window he was on the balcony rather than letting him go back into the room and waiting for him to emerge to again for a minute and isn't it unlikely that Rey would have entered the bathroom after King had been out for a smoke but before he had left the room for the night unless of course the shooter wasn't yet in position because the hit was planned for precisely 6 p.m but I mean how could anyone know exactly when King was planning to leave his room in order to know that you'd probably have to be stalking him intently wiretapping his Foams bugging his hotel rooms listening in from adjoining rooms you know all the sort of shady [ __ ] that the FBI was absolutely doing no allegedly required there I think but let's just say just in case allegedly they were allegedly doing I think that was like that's part of History though right that the FBI were like sparring on him and stuff allegedly the FBI and Martin Luther King Jr J Edgar Hoover and most historians agree was a massive racist as well really wasn't that that is that uh I haven't seen it I can't believe I haven't seen it because I'm a big fan of DiCaprio but doesn't he play Hoover in a movie called I want to say it's called Hoover or J Edgar J Edgar it's called Jay Edgar or Edgar or something like this I'd like to see that Hoover essentially created the FBI and he ran the organization for 48 years the way that he saw fit unfortunately the way he saw Phil was by no means appropriate although he is probably best known for his intense anti-communist stance a stance that wasn't particularly controversial at the time is an anti-communist starch starts controversial today especially in America as long as anti-communist I'd be like okay you don't like communists not a big fan of Communism myself but like is it controversial I don't think so people are gonna be like something I can't believe you said you didn't like communism I don't look I don't not like communism I think like in a Utopia communism might be or more like socialism right but the problem is it doesn't work it just doesn't work we tried it many places have tried it it doesn't work out very well Hoover greatly opposed anything you saw as leftist or subversive and this included the Civil Rights Movement thanks to a slew of foia requests in the 1970s we know some of the links that the FBI went to in order to Monitor and harassing for the better part of a decade over 70 000 pages of FBI secret files onking were released and but that's not even close to the whole story the majority of the documents and recordings were sealed Away by federal court order until 2027 according to the final report from the Senate select committee to study governmental operations with respect to intelligence agencies aka the church committee published in 1976 the FBI's extensive attempts to discredit King and they were one of the most abusive of all FBI programs The Unofficial harassment of King by the FBI may have begun in the 1950s in the form of newspaper articles and the like but it was in 1962 that a more official Vendetta against him began one of King's closest advisors New York lawyer Stanley leverson was pegged as communist by FBI informants while it's true that lemerson had been one of the top financiers of America's Communist Party previously it does not appear that he was still active with the party at the time but as far as Hoover was concerned once communist always a communist and this also meant that King may have been a communist by association something that they could use to discredit him on June the 22nd 1963 King got to meet with President Kennedy at the White House to discuss civil rights it was a public perception about Kennedy and King one that is credited with helping Kennedy win the presidency in October 1960 shortly before the election JFK made a phone call to King's Rife Coretta it was a short call maybe only a minute long in which he expressed his condolences to her over the fact that her husband was sitting in a jail cell at the time it was a phone call that everyone in his campaign told him not to make because it would cost him the election but in addition to the phone call both JFK and Bobby Kennedy had been working hard behind the scenes to get Kennedy released after 30 hours in jail King was let go on bail when speaking to the Press he credited the work Kennedy in his release though he did not officially endorse Kennedy King spoke very highly of him and said that he held Senator Kennedy in very high esteem before this Kennedy hadn't been particularly popular with the black community even though he was supposed to be far more Progressive than his opponent Richard Nixon he still lost the support of many civil rights activists for being seen as catering to racist white Southerners in an effort to win votes with King's statements after his release from prison he received a huge wave of support with black voters and from then on he and King were seen as friends and allies but this wasn't actually the case and they may have had similar goals in terms of civil rights but they weren't actually friends and had a rather complex Association in a recording of Kennedy from the month before their meeting he spoke about the schedule for that day he wanted to push the meeting with King further back in the day to surround it with meetings involving Southern Governors he said the trouble with King is everybody thinks he's our boy later adding King is so hot these days it's like Marx coming to the White House end quote this is important because of the Kennedy's complicity in what eventually followed during the meeting Kennedy LED King out of the Oval Office and into the Rose Garden king would later joke that Kennedy took him out of the office for fear that it was bugged Once In the Garden King was informed that levison was a communist and that he had to drop him Kennedy also warned that King was under surveillance as well and that he couldn't allow there to be any Scandal that would damage his administration's chances of getting a Civil Rights bill through Congress unfortunately King felt that this covert request from the president was just a polite suggestion and there was no harm in ignoring it the FBI had gotten approval to wiretap levison and once it was discovered that he and King were still in contact Hoover went to attorney general Bobby Kennedy to get approval for wiretaps for King's Home and Office Bobby approved the wiretap with the caveat that he wanted a full report in 30 days after which he would determine whether or not there was any reason to continue the surveillance of course that never happened the FBI never submitted a report but but Bobby never brought up the subject again either because he hadn't explicitly rescinded the authorization for wiretapping the FBI was able to use the original authorization to conduct even more wiretapping over the following years wow that [ __ ] should have an expiration date shouldn't it it's like yeah you could do it for 30 days and then you've got to come back to me for more not like you could do it forever unless I say no because you're a busy dude Bobby Kennedy is probably real busy and he's gonna forget the Kennedys were privy to some of the FBI's monitoring of King but it is unclear exactly how much they knew Hoover had been keen on discrediting King so that he could derail the civil rights movement and he felt nothing would be more effective than finding proof that King had communist ties although the wiretaps never resulted in evidence of communist rhetoric I want the FBI uncovered oh is far more salacious rather than calling levison to discuss his Marxist ideals King was calling him to talk about his extramarital Affairs as far as Hoover was concerned he just hit the [ __ ] jackpot proving King was a commie would have been great but the country was filled with communist sympathizers who might not have been dissuaded by such a revelation but a Baptist Reverend who couldn't keep it in his pants now that was a scandal the entire nation could get behind the extent of the surveillance against King ramped up dramatically following this Revelation and there seemed to be no limit to the lengths that the FBI would go to in order to find proof of his infidelity at least one FBI operative was planted within the southern Christian Leadership Council though King wasn't an idiot and was reportedly well aware that this person was on Hoover's payroll but that was only the beginning thanks to all the art apps the FBI knew exactly where King was traveling at all times and what hotels he would be staring at it became standard procedure for them to arrive at hotels beforehand and make management let them into the room where kinwards be staying so they could plant bugs they would also book The Room next door so they could listen through the walls Jesus Christ FBI feels like incredible overreach the documents compiled by the FBI a startling both in their content and their volume didn't say it was like 70 000 Pages or something insane they were monitoring Kings every word every movement and every pelvic thrust oh God according to monitoring from the FBI King had affairs between with between 40 and 45 different women hosted orgies and would engage in quote unnatural sex acts of course this was the 1960s so God only knows what that meant up until 1962 sodomy was a felony in every single state and the law wasn't even really targeting homosexuals it should have just gone without saying that being gay was a crime back then the anti-sodomy laws prohibited any sexual act that wasn't performed with the intent of procreation while the enforcement of such laws varied greatly the term unnatural sex acts could easily have just referred to stuff like oral sex in fact there's a good chance that that's exactly what it meant at least in part in 1964 the FBI directed the deputy director William Sullivan wrote a memo paraphrasing one of the recordings of King in the memo he wrote that when King was trying to coerce women to let him perform unnatural acts on her he declared to the room that he had started the International Association for the advancement of [ __ ] eaters what Jesus Christ it's so crazy that all of this is public this is like Martin Luther King and it feels like we're reading his diary Jesus what are you doing FBI this is none of your business while that may be the single greatest phrase I've ever seen in official government documents page 19 of file number 62 HQ 116395 for anyone who wants to see it for themselves the scene as it's described actually comes off as a bit rapey on the part of King in fact this same document alleges a scene in which a minister raped a woman while King just looked on and laughed Jesus there are two important things to note here the first is that these documents are the FBI's accounting of what happened recordings exist but those are all locked away until 2027 so we can't yet verify how honest they were being the second important thing is that the FBI was it's gonna be a mighty coincidence if those recordings Disappear by 2027 isn't it what do you reckon the odds are about us actually getting to hear those are I'm gonna say low it's like when the government was like yeah yeah we gotta release them we're going to release this oh no well we decided to redact everything if the account is accurate that means that the FBI also just sat there doing nothing while they listened to a woman being raped if this is what the bureau gets up to it kind of makes me glad that they never accepted my application oh there you go Kevin didn't know you applied to the FBI with proof and recordings of King's infidelity there was only one thing left for Hoover to do release the information to the public to destroy both King's credibility and the civil rights movement in one Fell Swoop he felt this would be a foolproof plan and yet it didn't work the funny thing about news media back in the 1960s is that it wasn't nearly as sensationalist as it is today it's not entirely clear whether Hoover was trying to shop the recordings around various news outlets or if he just bailed copies of the tapes to them but either way the end result was the same nobody gave a [ __ ] that's not to say that the public wouldn't have cared because they absolutely would have but no news Outlet was interested in releasing the information given the world we live in today this is almost impossible to imagine but back then the Press didn't think that the private lives of public figures was anybody's damn business this oh my God I missed the past sometimes I know the past was the worst but God damn wouldn't that be a nicer World they had declined to publish proof of JFK's Affairs and they weren't going to publish proof of King's Affairs either so if Uber couldn't take care of his problem in the court of public opinion he was going to have to try a more personal approach the FBI King suicide letter if the FBI couldn't get the press to play the tapes King's Affairs then it was time to be more direct they mailed some of the tapes along with Anonymous letter to King's house Coretta received the package though she claimed to not really make anything out in the tapes referring to the audio as a bunch of mumbo jumbo when King returned home and read the letter he immediately and correctly assumed that it was sent by the FBI the existence of the ladder often referred to as the FBI King suicide letter was known but it had only existed in a heavily redacted and unreadable form that had been discovered in 1971 when an activist group broke into the FBI office and stole about a thousand classified documents including the suicide letter oh my God that sounds dangerous it wasn't until a 1975 investigation during the church committee hearings that an unredacted copy of the letter was found alongside other papers that had been in the desk of FBI deputy director William Sullivan the presumed author I wouldn't think this needed to be said but do not keep carbon copy records of your crimes in your work files did he know is this I mean it seems insane to say but is this a crime is the FBI doing crimes or is this like super Shady like they had the authorization from what's his face uh Kennedy to uh to do the wart app so can they send him this letter which encourages him to like you know um yeah so yeah that's got to be a crime right I don't know why I'm questioning that's definitely a crime the letter was received on the 21st of November 1964. just two days after Hoover publicly stated to an assemblage of reporters that King was the most notorious liar in the country the suicide letter claimed to be written by a fellow African-American and former supporter of Kings but it wasn't fooling anyone the author called himself a fraud multiple times referred to him as an evil abnormal beast and kept her of heating the phrase you are done the letter concluded King there is only one thing left for you to do you know what it is after 34 days in which to do it this exact number has been selected for a specific reason it has definite practical significance you are done there is but one way out for you you better take it before you'll feel the abnormal fraudulent self is bad to the nation there are only a couple of possibilities for what the author was specifying that King should do one proposal was that he should decline to accept the Nobel Peace Prize that he had won that year but the ceremony was only 19 days away and I suspect like the FBI could ensure a package would be delivered in less than 15 days the other alternative was that he was being asked to Simply step down from his role as civil rights leader and president of the Southern Christian leadership conference the 34-day deadline which would have been Christmas doesn't make any real sense in the scenario but it's perfectly likely that it wasn't meant to mean anything and it was just chosen arbitrarily to give a sense of urgency to the matter of course those two readings of the letter are the minority opinion the vast majority of people the words there is one way out for you you better take it can mean nothing but a call for King to commit suicide especially given the harsh tone of the letter but for Skeptics there's more evidence that this was intended to coerce him into suicide it was not known to the public but King had pretty severe bouts of depression he hid this as much as he could because of how awful the stigma surrounding mental health was at the time but those in his private life knew and since the FBI was listening to everything he said that mean they knew as well there is evidence that they frequently timed their harassment to explain loiter's depression the FBI would likely have been aware of the little known fact that by the age of 13 King had already tried to commit suicide twice in the more dramatic of the two events he snuck out to a parade after promising his grandmother that did stay home with her when he returned home from the parade he found that she had died of a heart attack while he was gone and he was so overcome by guilt that he jumped out of a second story window the FBI's attempted exploitation of his depression was absolutely deplorable and there's a reason that the church committee said that it was one of the most abusive FBI programs of all time since this letter was received in 1964 and King wasn't assassinated until 1968 he probably already figured out that the threat didn't work those 34 days passed and nothing happened nothing special anyway it was just a continuation of run-of-the-mill abuse of power by Hoover that continued all the way until April the 4th 1968. suspicious events on the day of the assassination so we already know that Hoover and the FBI headed out for King in a big way that's an established fact supported by tens of thousands government documents and sure they may have tried to gently extort him into suicide but does that mean that actually go so far to kill him when it was just about civil rights maybe not for most of his life King was just campaigning for African Americans to actually enjoy the rights that Congress had promised them nearly a century earlier that shouldn't really been seen as a big ask but after the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. his attention had shifted he was still involved in civil rights activism but he was expanding beyond that King was very vocal in his opposition to capitalism in the Vietnam War the way he saw it as evidenced in the quote Simon red light 75 minutes ago getting very aware of the length of this script America was fundamentally broken it needed to be burned down figuratively and rebuilt from the ground up so that it could be a more Equitable society that respected the rights of all people and and worked together to Vanquish poverty from within the nation God a water monster God what a monster no under the government wanted him dead it's so absurd it's so insane when King was returning to Memphis on April the third he was a bit wary given the riots that had taken place there just a week prior during his last visit as an extra security precaution he and his team decided to book room 202 at the Lorraine Motel rather than the normal King Abernathy Suite room 202 was more seclude than the door and balcony didn't open to the Main Street however before he arrived the motel received a call from a person claiming to be part of King's Entourage that person requested that they move be moved back to room 306 if that's not from his Entourage that is Mega suspicious by the time King arrived at the motel and learned of the change a change that nobody on team had requested every other room was booked so they stuck with 306. oh my Lord the only people who would know outside of his Entourage that he didn't want to stay in that room because it was too open I would be the people spying on him which was the FBI so they would phone and get them to change the room which is insane the city of Memphis wasn't thrilled about King returning after his last visit resulted in a riot and it was put under surveillance by the Memphis Police Department it's probably worth noting that the MPD had five paid informants who were working with the FBI when he arrived at the airport King was met by four police officers who had been assigned to protect him he hadn't requested police protection and wouldn't tell them where he was staying but they followed him to the motel anyway in addition there were two black plain clothes officers that began tailing him from the moment he arrived at the airport one of these officers was detective Edward read it the police detail would stay as close to King as possible for his protection while the undercover officers kept an eye on him for the fire station across the street a fire station that the FBI happened to mention had an excellent vantage point of the Lorraine Motel well I don't think it's a coincidence that they mentioned it's got an excellent vantage point they're there to look at him that that they're openly admitting to that so saying it's got a good mileage but it doesn't have any secret meaning other than the room change so far this isn't suspicious over the room changes so suspicious oh my God a notable and contentious public figure was back in town and the MPD had dedicated half a dozen men to ensuring his round-the-clock protection I get why King and his team would have been thrilled about the police detail but personally I'll be happy knowing that my safety was being taken seriously it wasn't until the next day that things started to get really strange there were only two black farmer who worked at the station across the street from the motel both of whom were called and given the day off on April the 4th shortly after noon that day detective Reddit received a threatening phone call he and the other undercover officer sent back to the station and upon arriving Reddit was informed that threats have been made against him and his family they would have to stay at the hotel under a fake name until it all blew over Reddit would never hear another word about the alleged threats at 505 PM less than an hour before the assassination the four policemen guarding King were called back to the station this hadn't been scheduled and they had no idea why they were called back when they chief of police was asked why they were asked to return to the station he claimed that he didn't remember it happening in fact the chief of police claimed that he didn't even remember there being any officers assigned to King's protection that's a pretty bold stance to take since there's testimony on the matter from all of the officers involved but well you do you Chief sounds like that dude just wants to stay out of this which I don't know if I can't blame him it sounds it's super messy and scary one interesting thing that came from their testimony is that Reddit said that it was his idea to use the fire station and his partner hadn't been given a specific location from which to surveil King I'm not saying that the alleged threats against his life and family wouldn't have happened if it chose in a different location I'm just saying so over the course of that afternoon King went from having six police officers on site and dedicated to his protection down to Zero thanks to mysterious orders from the police department in which the FBI had multiple people on its payroll yeah nothing to see here by the way do you remember when I mentioned that most of the witnesses not only heard the shot come from outside in the bushes but a man in a white shirt ran out of the bushes around the building you're not supposed to but all I could do is tell you that every one of those Witnesses must have been wrong do you also remember when I said that there was a tree blocking the window from the rooming house and the shot would have been nigh impossible especially for the rather inept Rey well you definitely aren't supposed to remember that in the city of Memphis was going to make sure you didn't remember it this was the example the the one about the guy in the bushes or whatever where the police were like nah you didn't see that which is like not what you're supposed to do as police officers right idiots on April the 5th there was no tree one officer testified that he heard several conversations at the police department with others saying that the shot couldn't have come from that window because of a sycamore tree that was in the way a work order was put in on the fourth and after working all night the MPD had finished removing the tree by the morning of the fifth holy [ __ ] guys do you not understand how suspicious that looks this allowed for a clear line of sight from the bathroom window to the Lorraine Motel oh yeah they also removed the bushes while they were at it so if anyone saw the shooter in the bushes the police could shrug their shoulders and be like what bushes I don't know the bushes that were there the day before and the tree this is crazy suspicious all of those rather suspicious things are a combination of established fact and sworn testimony by the people involved this final part was sworn testimony as well but I'm gonna put a big allegedly here because this is a second-hand account told over 30 years after the fact yeah an account not our belief an account this story came from the son of Lulu May Shelby a surgical aide that had been working at St Joseph's Hospital the night the King was shot and allegedly was the last person to leave the room before he died I mentioned the King still had a pulse when he was shot he arrived to the hospital at 6 16 pm and his time of death was recorded at 7 05 PM meaning hospital staff spent 15 minutes unsuccessfully trying to save him Lulu allegedly told her family including her son the following story after returning home from work the next morning King's room was full of doctors and AIDS desperately trying to save his life it was just after 7 PM when the chief of surgery entered the room accompanied by two men in in suits they ordered everybody out of the room with the chief of surgery very very allegedly telling them stop working on the n-word and let him die the men in suits then allegedly removed his breathing tube while the doctor allegedly smothered him with a pillow in sub-tellings of the story the men were also expectorating on King's body what's that mean spitting Jesus um what the F this feels made up that car surely that can't be real also why is the doctor it doesn't the chief of surgery of a hospital smothering a patient to death with a pillow just feels like it's out of a movie this feels um just this doesn't feel real to me I just I don't believe people aren't horrible pieces of life there's plenty of examples of that in today's episode but this just feels a bit much doesn't it personally this part of the conspiracy is a bridge too far for me thank you places that quote this testimony is irrefutable fact also tend to add that the FBI didn't allow an autopsy to be performed on King to hide his cause of death and that's just not true since I can tell you the king's spleen weighed 80 grams and that this stomach contained 10 cc's of partially digested food fragments I think we can view those sources with a healthy dose of skepticism according to the doctor that performed the autopsy King at the heart of a 60 year old man despite only being 39 this was likely the result of intense stress from his 13 years in civil rights activism it also meant that the state of his heart and the severe damage the bullet had done his wounds were almost definitely proved fatal anyway without the need for him to be smothered Lulu also died a few months after King so the whole story is relying entirely on the testimony of what she allegedly told her son once 30 years prior I had to bring down those claims for completion's sake but there's already enough Shady stuff going on that we can actually prove as well as the years-long FBI persecution of King we don't need to add in murderers doctors banding around the n-word just for the hell of it yeah it goes too far for me as well Kevin I just don't really believe that part though and like you say the movement of the room and stuff is like it's already like we know what's up come on so where does that leave us we know that the FBI particularly Hoover absolutely hated King and wanted to do everything in their power to discredit him and take him out of the equation we know that there's a lot of suspicious stuff surrounding the events of the assassination particularly actions taken by a police department that had been compromised by the FBI we also know that Rey was never found guilty at trial despite recanting his guilty plea and filing every appeal they could he was never given the opportunity to be Tried by a jury of his peers while Ray never went to trial I did mention rather a rather surprising 99 Court verdict at the beginning of this episode and I'd say it's high time that we examine that case the Lloyd Jazz trial fortunately we've already covered most of the evidence that was presented in this trial so we don't need to retrace our steps the official name of this court of the court case was the king family versus Lloyd Jazz and other unknown co-conspirators okay so this is a civil case because it's not the state versus the official name of the court case was the king family and Lloyd Jowers and other unknown Conseco conspirators okay well we know it's a civil case then because it's um The King Family and another party rather than the king family in the estate or and the state so I think by 1999 the game family was firmly of the belief that Rey did not kill Martin Luther King and had been used as a patsy not only were they all vocal about this in the media but King sung Dexter even visited Rey in prison and told him in person that they knew he was innocent and were doing everything in their power to seek Justice and that's all well and good but who the hell is Lloyd Jowers Lloyd Jowers owned Jim's grill the restaurant below the rooming house the back door of his shop led directly to the bushes that were definitely never there so please stop talking about them according to Jowers he was paid a hundred thousand dollars by alleged local monster Frankie Liberto to help organize the assassination his version of events claimed the involvement of Raul the MPD and the mafia Eva went so far as the name police Lieutenant Earl Clarke as the shooter it sounded like jazz was involved in some of the planning but more than anything he was being used for the location of his restaurant after Clark allegedly shocking he passed the Remington rifle through the door to ours he then hid it behind the bar that way even if someone could have identified Clark they wouldn't be able to say that they saw him carrying the murder weapon beyond that the evidence presented was mostly things we've already discussed after nearly a four week Charlie took the jury only one hour to deliberate the jury unanimously found that jazz was responsible along with conspirators including government agencies yonato said a responsible rather than guilty and that's where things start to get a bit interesting it's already pretty interesting you see this wasn't a criminal trial oh okay oh oh okay and yeah Americans you have juries was civil trials as well I forget I forget I'm sorry uh it was a civil suit for wrongful death despite being a civil suit it wasn't about money the king family was only seeking a hundred dollars in Damages they wanted it on the record in a court of law that the government was responsible but that's really hard to do thanks to a little thing called sovereign immunity you can't file criminal or civil charges against the government unless they agree to let you what it's like no no no no no no I I I pass on that I'm not interested it's like I got a speed to get it's like no no I'm not interested in that not today not today maybe some other time how's that fair what the [ __ ] that may come as a shock but the government was not about to go to court to defend themselves against a conspiracy theory by naming unknown co-conspirators in their filing it left the door open for the jury to name government agencies as conspirators without the Kings actually having to sue the government that's pretty clever you have some big brain lawyers but because this was a civil case the burden of proof is dramatically lower that's what I was discussing at the beginning the prosecution only needs to show that something is more likely than not rather than proving it Beyond a reasonable doubt there's a huge difference between a person being 50.1 percent sure of something in a person being a hundred percent sure of something reactions to the verdict are more than Little Mix the Kings felt Vindicated they believed it was finally on record in a court of law that Martin Luther King was assassinated as the result of a conspiracy the government fell differently and the Department of Justice decided to reopen the gates in 2000 to investigate the evidence that was put forth in the trial after reviewing all of the evidence attorney general Janet Reno declared that she could find no evidence of a conspiracy that Frank the Berto wasn't a member of the mafia and that the Jowers had made up the entire story for financial gain but that's just what they want you to think I don't know man there's a lot of this is it's exactly like the JFK episode I don't know what happened but I know in my heart like allegedly that there is way more to this than they're letting on there's way more to this than the official story I think if you've listened to this episode and you listen to what Kevin's presented and you think it's like it is in the official narrative it's not like you're I'm with this conspiracy theory if you're not it's like did you not pay attention wrap up I've laid out as much potential evidence as I can I've been as forthright as possible about The credibility of that evidence so to you Simon and everyone at home where do you land on this one was James Earl Ray acting alone in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr what do you think he was an unknowing Patsy that took the fall as part of a larger FBI conspiracy in my eyes the official story leaves a lot to be desired Rey was an incompetent criminal and a terrible Rifleman even if he was somehow capable of pulling this off alone the evidence is really suspicious the murder weapon covered in fingerprints was left gift wrapped on the street despite no fingerprints in his room or the bathroom and the FBI's star witness was a drunk who looked at a picture of Rey and literally said that's not the guy on the other hand the story given in the Jaws trial isn't great either because Jazz was the main defendant instead of emphasizing the released FBI documents it had to focus on Jazz's story this included a lot of second and third party testimony of events like the doctor smothering king with a pillow there's a fair chance that he really did make up his involvement in the hopes of selling his story if neither of these stories seems great well that brings us back to all the Declassified documents from the FBI and the accounts of police officers that were tasked with protecting King that day based on all of that it looks really bad there's no direct evidence of a murder conspiracy but they had already told King to kill himself and he refused to take the hint it's not unreasonable to think that as his fight against capitalism and for human rights intensified so too would the response of an increasingly corrupt and vindictive FBI a jeg Hoover all I know is that where the smoke there's fire and there's an awful awful lot of smoke in today's episode but there wasn't any plume of smoke coming from the bushes and there are no bushes across the street from the hotel and there never were so just keep your bow shut about the bloody bushes okay yeah lots and lots of smoke isn't there I said it already I said my piece you know how I feel this has been an episode of decode in the unknown thanks for watching or listening if you enjoy it please do leave a review Apple podcast or Ava podcast if you're watching on YouTube hi there leave a like and I'll see you next time [Music] foreign

Channel: Decoding the Unknown

Views: 306,681

Keywords: dr. martin luther king jr., dr. martin luther king, martin luther king, jesse jackson dr. martin luther king, martin luther king jr, martin luther king jr., martin luther king lorraine, fbi's poison pen letter exposed, fbi vs mlk, poison pen letter, history channel documentaries, history channel full episodes, investigating mlk, conspiracy theories

Id: NGTV-_BKaKs

Length: 102min 38sec (6158 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 18 2023