On April 4th, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot in the face as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN. The official version of history is that a man named James Earl Ray fired this shot from a bathroom window of a rooming house across the street, and did this because of his alleged hatred for black people and for King.

Ray had escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary one year earlier on April 23rd, 1967, and was evidently smart enough to travel about the US, Canada, and Mexico without a job and without being caught. But on the day of the assassination he was evidently dumb enough to leave a duffel bag at the scene containing a Remington 30.06 rifle with his prints on it, a beer can also with his prints, and a radio with his inmate number engraved on it. He was caught at Heathrow airport in London two months later and brought back to the States where he pleaded guilty and received a 99 year sentence.

He pleaded guilty because he believed this would help his case, but he never confessed and maintained his innocence until his death in 1998. In 1978, attorney William F. Pepper interviewed Ray in prison for 5 hours, along with 5 others present. At the end, all agreed on one thing: James Earl Ray did not shoot Martin Luther King, Jr. But who did and why would be the subject of Pepper’s research until the present day. Pepper became Ray’s attorney in 1988 and also became the King family attorney. In 2016, his book “The Plot to Kill King: The Truth behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.” was released. From his nearly 4 decades of research into the case, his findings were that Ray’s escape from prison was orchestrated by the FBI, and Ray was set up to be the patsy in King’s asassination. Russell Adkins, Sr., the head of the Dixie Mafia, paid the prison warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary with funds supplied by the FBI to enable Ray’s escape. Once Ray escaped, he was handled by a man named Raoul Coelho, supplied with money, and was never apprehended because he was under the FBI’s “protection” and management. He was given an alias of the name Eric S. Galt, who was a real man living in Canada as well as bearing a close resemblance to Ray. Galt also happened to be  working as a defense contractor with US intelligence. If Ray were stopped he would be let go because of who he apparently was. Ray would not have come up with an alias of a man such as this on his own. It was supplied by US intelligence itself. Ray’s handler instructed him to buy the Remington 30.06 in Alabama and bring it to Memphis where the handler placed the rifle and other incriminating evidence neatly and conveniently on the scene right after the shooting of King. Ray realized he’d been set up and was later apprehended in London. Ray was handled and set up as a patsy in a similar way as Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, and Timothy McVeigh.

King became a threat to the establishment when he began to speak boldly against the Vietnam war in 1967. King was not someone who could be compromised and would not back down if he believed in a matter. The merging of the anti-war movement along with the civil rights movement was something that was seen as a threat to the power structure and King’s influence had to be eliminated. The FBI’s disdain for King began much earlier though. On November 24th, 1964, King received a package and letter from the FBI suggesting he commit suicide or else they would “expose” him as being a fraud. On the day of the assassination, Pepper contends that a sniper team from the 902nd Military Intelligence Unit was sent to Memphis as back-up in case the primary shooter failed. Pepper contends that the shooter was Frank Strausser of the Memphis Police Department, who fired from within some bushes that were of the same direction and of a similar angle as the window of the rooming house. Solomon Jones, King’s driver, witnessed the shot coming from these bushes as did half a dozen others. This shot, however, did not kill King and he was killed at St. Joseph’s hospital by the chief of neurosurgery, Dr. Breen Bland, MD, by smothering him with a pillow. The witness to this was surgical aide Lula Mae Shelby and was recounted by her son to William Pepper. Bland was the family doctor for the Adkins family of the Dixie Mafia who had helped enable Ray’s escape from prison.

A man named Loyd Jowers, owner of a grill at the scene of the shooting, came forward and admitted he had been part of the plot. The King family in turn filed a civil suit against Jowers. On December 8th, 1999, a jury took less than one hour to conclude that Jowers was guilty of being part of this plot; but also that the plot included members of the Memphis PD, the government of TN, and the federal government. James Earl Ray had no involvement other than being the fall guy. The day after the trial Coretta King, King’s widow, stated: “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband…in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the mafia, local, state, and federal agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband.” Dexter King, King’s son, stated that he believed it was Army Intelligence, the CIA, the FBI, and president Lyndon Baines Johnson who were the main elements behind the plot to kill his father. King’s aide, Andrew Young, who was present on the balcony at the shooting and who would later became a US congressman and the mayor of Atlanta from 1982-1990 stated: “I believe there was a very complex plot that involved organized crime and the military” and that “there were influences in very high places in our government that were responsible for putting all this plot together, especially the FBI.”  

The mafia and the government working together is nothing new. This was also the case in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. What then, is the difference between organized crime and the federal government? Ted Gunderson ret. FBI (1951-1979) summed it up: “The CIA makes the Mafia look like a Sunday school class.” The government is above the law and more brutal.

Fletcher Prouty, Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under JFK, stated that anyone who thinks either Kennedy assassination, or the assassination of King were done by individuals, doesn’t understand history or how things work. He stated that organizations like the CIA and FBI commonly work together in covert operations such as assassinations and terrorist plots. Alphabet agencies such as these are arms of the monolithic criminal empire which is the US government, and their real job is to enforce the will of this empire and to protect its interests and enterprises, not keep America safe or protect Constitutional rights. The King assassination is an example of how history has been rewritten and how the media and education system indoctrinate and brainwash the American people into believing in a false reality and false system. But as King stated in a speech on April 30th, 1967, regarding the Vietnam war: “God has a way of standing before the nations with Judgment and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, you are too arrogant…”

“And I shall punish the world for its evil, and the wrong for their crookedness, and shall put an end to the arrogance of the proud, and lay low the pride of the ruthless.”   (Isaiah 13:11)