investigation is warranted.
MLK, like JFK and RFK, was killed by a “lone nut”. America in the 1960s, it seems, was full of lone nuts who somehow managed to pull off the assassinations of great men.
Or maybe not. In 2004 Reverend Jesse Jackson, who was with King at the time of his murder, noted:
…I will never believe that James Earl Ray had the motive, the money and the mobility to have done it himself. Our government was very involved in setting the stage for, and I think the escape route for, James Earl Ray.
Jackson voiced the beliefs of millions.
William Pepper,
David Garrow,
DOCUMENT:
The Suit of the King Family Against Loyd Jowers and Unknown Conspirators
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF TENNESSEE FOR THE THIRTIETH JUDICIAL DISTRICT AT MEMPHIS PLAINTIFFS
CORETTA SCOTT KING,
MARTIN LUTHER KING III,
BERNICE KING,
DEXTER KING, & YOLANDA KING
vs. DEFENDANT S
LOYD JOWERS & OTHER UNKNOWN CO-CONSPIRATORS
DOCKET NO. 9724210
DIVISION 4
[…]
1) Plaintiffs sue Defendant LOYD JOWERS and other unknown parties for having joined a conspiracy—both criminal and civil in origin in the year 1968—to deprive the Hon. Dr Martin Luther King Jr of his life, Plaintiffs of the presence, companionship, love, benefits, both tangible and intangible, and available to them while he was alive.
2) Only recently have the Plaintiffs had the opportunity to identify Defendant JOWERS as one of the key players in this conspiracy. This, with precision, occurred within the last year, hereof, when confessed Defendant JOWERS confessed his role in the 1968 murder conspiracy and admitted to have been paid a large sum of money to participate in the conspiracy. Defendant JOWERS made these admissions in the presence of his attorney and Plaintiff Dexter Scott King and Plaintiffs’ counsel and on another occasion, also within the last year, in front of Plaintiff Dexter Scott King and former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Andrew Young.
3) On those occasions, Defendant JOWERS said he had owed a “big favor” to the now deceased FRANK C. LIBERTO, a Memphis produce house operator, who was alive in 1968. LIBERTO advanced the money to further the conspiracy to kill Dr King to JOWERS as part of the plot to shoot Dr King from the back of JOWERS’ cafe. This area was then heavily vegetated with large bushes and trees which could conceal a gunman with a clear view of the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
4) Defendant JOWERS also admitted that the person accused of the crime, James Earl Ray, was not the gunman involved and that he, JOWERS, took the still smoking rifle from another person, carried it into the kitchen of his cafe, and concealed it until it was collected the next morning.
5) Defendant JOWERS confirmed the existence and the role of a man he knew as “Raul”, who brought him the rifle to be used to kill Dr King. JOWERS, thereby, confirmed the existence of the person whom James Earl Ray had identified more than thirty years ago as the individual who lured him to Memphis on the pretext of participating in a gun-running scheme.
6) Plaintiffs sue Defendant JOWERS for the tortious actions that constitute: 1) outrage; 2) the deprivation of the life, companionship and benefits, tangible and intangible, material and spiritual, emotional and intellectual, all of which were available to the Plaintiffs in life and taken from them with the death of their husband and father which was the direct result of the Defendant’s tortious actions. Such tortious actions grew out of an illegal conspiracy that had the common design, concert of action, and overt acts that included the killing of Dr King and the coverup of that murder and the framing of another—James Earl Ray—for the murder of Dr King.
7) Memphis, Tennessee, in Shelby County, is the
8) Memphis, Tennessee, in Shelby County, is also the
9) Memphis, Tennessee, was the
10) Plaintiffs are the widow and children of the victim of this illegal conspiracy and tortious actions of the Defendant.
11) Defendant LOYD JOWERS is a resident citizen of Tennessee with sufficient ties to Shelby County. In 1968, Defendant JOWERS was the owner of Jim’s Grill, 422 1/2 South Main, Memphis, and Shelby County in which establishment amongst other places in Memphis and Shelby County. Defendant has admitted the conspiracy took place and the murder was planned. He has also confirmed that it was behind his establishment, Jim’s Grill, where the murder was carried out.
12) In early 1968, Plaintiffs’ husband and father the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr decided to come to Memphis, Tennessee in order to support striking sanitation workers in that city.
13) In or around the middle of March, Defendant JOWERS was approached by one FRANK C. LIBERTO, a Memphis resident and produce dealer, and asked to participate in a conspiracy to kill Dr King. LIBERTO told JOWERS that a person—a “patsy”—was in place to take the blame and that no police would be around. Defendant agreed to participate in the conspiracy to kill Dr King and eventually was provided with a large sum of money, some or all of which he turned over as instructed to a man he knew only as Raul. Their money was delivered to Defendant JOWERS in a vegetable box from another Memphis produce house, and Defendant JOWERS believed that it came from New Orleans.
14) During this time between the middle of March and the date of the murder, Defendant JOWERS observed and participated in a number of acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. These included planning meetings attended by persons known to him which took place in his establishment—Jim’s Grill.
15) In addition, in the morning of the day of the assassination, April 4, 1968, Defendant JOWERS received and concealed in Jim’s Grill a rifle from the man he had come to know as Raul.
16) Late in the afternoon of that day—4 April 1968—Defendant JOWERS gave the rifle to a third party, now deceased and known to him, who took it away.
