The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 13

4B ThurwUy. SplmW 18 1997 THE TENNESSEAN LOCAL NEWS: THE KING ASSASSINATION "Kiin nanrder Me considers conspiracy in Assassin gets hearing today in quest for trial alone in assassinating King in Memphis in 1968. "James Earl Ray is a professional con man who very much wanted attention," Gibbons said. "This is a guy who had for King's murder. In Memphis, judicial wrangling has stalled a request by Ray lawyers that they be allowed to test, for the second time this year, the rifle prosecutors believe was used to kill King.

And former Ray attorney Jack McNeil has asked the Shelby County grand jury for permission to present conspiracy allegations next week. McNeil said he hopes to elicit testimony from 15 witnesses under a state law that allows private citizens to make a case before the grand jury. Some conspiracy buffs question By MARC PERRUSQUIA Scripps Howard News Service MEMPHIS A prosecutor said Tuesday he is seriously investigating conspiracy allegations in the death of Martin Luther King Jr. But if there was a conspiracy, District Attorney General Bill Gibbons said, it revolved around admitted assassin James Earl Ray. "There is a pretty good possibility that he had some help," said the chief prosecutor for Shelby County.

Still, he doesnt discount the state's long-held position that Ray acted primary motive." Gibbons' comments come amid continued pressures to re-examine the case from Ray's attorneys, King's family and critics of the lone-gunman theory. Ray, 69, faces a hearing today in a Nashville Criminal Court in his efforts to withdraw his 1969 guilty plea and get a trial. Ray, who is serving a 99-year sentence and battling a liver disease that doctors say may kill him' in a few months, claims he was set up as a fall guy RAY very, very low self-esteem and saw assassination as a way to improve it, basically. I think that was the Declining to discuss details, Gibbons said a staff investigator, working with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and other law-enforcement agencies, has examined a number of claims. Among developments, prosecutors John Campbell and Lee Coffee and investigator Mark Glankler traveled to Indiana this month to interview University of Notre Dame professor G.

Robert Blakey, who once headed a congressional investigation of King's murder. The probe Blakey led cost 2J5 million, took two years and interviewed hundreds of witnesses. In the end, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979 that Ray killed King, yet found a "likelihood" of a conspiracy. The committee's chief suspects included two racist St Louis businessmen, already dead by 1979, who in the 1960s had offered a $50,000 bounty for King's murder. The committee theorized that Ray, an escaped convict from the St Louis area, may have tried to collect that bounty.

Campbell said it would be difficult 20 years later and with limited resources to bring conspiracy charges against anyone. Congress "still came down to the conclusion that James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King," Campbell said. "If he got help, which is possible, I dont see how we'd be able to do anything more than that" McNeil's credibility he is under indictment for alleged sexual battery but still support a push to re-examine the case. Prosecutors "never did anything" to investigate a possible conspiracy, said Ray defense lawyer Wayne Chastain. Gibbons bristles at such statements.

"It's been somewhat frustrating to have some people suggest that we are not investigating any of this," Gibbons said. His staff has logged "a very significant amount of time" examining conspiracy he said. When John Pierotti was district attorney general, he reluctantly launched a conspiracy investigation in 1994 after former Memphis resident Loyd Jowers claimed in a nationally televised interview that he received money to have King murdered. In 1968, Jowers, now 70, ran a cafe directly below the second-story rooming house where prosecutors say Ray fired a shot from a hunting rifle through a bathroom window to kill King, who stood across the street on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Pierotti initially called Jowers' story "a sham and a fraud" but agreed to investigate amid a swirl of publicity.

Gibbons, 47, who was appointed district attorney general last year after Pierotti resigned, inherited the inquiry. DVERAUL Respond to a print ad and then hear even more personals with similar profiles. 4 s- YOUR BASES i TheTermessearis u-2Z3 award-wnining sports derailment brines A. 4 all your sports j--' news home. i io suDscnrje, Details inside The Tennesson's Friday Weekend Sunday Showcase, and the Nashville Banna's Thursday BackbeaL call 242-NEWS.

Jurors still doubt whether Ray acted alone (V I Millions of Kwik Sak and Speedway customers have discovered our commitment to Quality Gasolines for a Whole Lot More. In fact, our quality Premium gasoline meets or exceeds octane recommendations from every major automobile and truck manufacturer. So why are we giving gas away? We're so confident of our premium quality, we know that once you've experienced the performance and quality of our never pay higher prices someplace else again. Stop in today at any one of our 42 Nashville area locations and get your $2 in FREE gasoline. With Premium Performance for less than regular fill-up anywhere else? "A'ra By MARC PERRUSQUIA Scripps Howard News Service After 28 years, they still have doubts.

"Ill always believe there was a conspiracy," said James Pate, one of 12 Memphis jurors who in 1969 accepted James Earl Ray's guilty plea for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "James Earl Ray could not have pulled this off himself. I just wish they could have a trial so everybody could know what happened." Prosecutors say evidence of Ray's guilt is overwhelming. Still, speculation thrives about King's 1968.

murder in Memphis, and not just conspiracy crackpots have kept it alive. Reviewing King's murder in 1979, a congressional committee concluded Ray shot King but said there was a "likelihood" of a conspiracy. That sentiment prevailed when reporters this month interviewed several members of the only legal panel to sit in judgment of Ray in court The 1969 Ray jurors agreed on one point Ray is guilty of King's murder. Yet four of the five who commented expressed concerns that others may have escaped justice. Among the original 12, one declined to comment at least two are dead and four could not be located.

"I think somebody helped" Ray, said Joe Stovall 67, a semi-retired carpet salesman. "He's too dumb. I just dont feel like this man could have gotten out of the country as fast as he did." Pate, 51, now the owner of a pest-control company, said a trial could help clarify concerns, but Stovall said he didnt think the government should spend money on a trial for Ray. John Blackwell agreed with Stovall. "I dont think he should get a trial he had his trial," said Blackwell, 60, a retired air traffic controller who said he still wonders if Ray got help, but said he lsnt overly troubled.

"He had his opportunity." It was a cold, crisp day in Memphis on March 10, 1969, when Ray, wearing an ill-fitting suit lumbered into a courtroom in the old Criminal Courts building downtown to change his plea from innocent to guilty. During a three-hour hearing, the state called five witnesses who told how King was murdered April 4, 1968. Cue by one, they told of the horror of King's shooting, and how the evidence pointed to Ray. The Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles of Memphis and Chauncey Eskridge, King's lawyer, told how they watched as King, shot by a sniper, lay dying in a pool of blood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel Shelby County Medical Examiner Jerry Francisco said King died when a bullet struck his spine.

The angle of the bullet's path was consistent with having come from the second story of a rooming house across the street, he said. Police Inspector N.E. Zachary said he found a rifle, a pair of binoculars and other items wrapped in a bedspread on the sidewalk in front of the rooming house on Mato Street FBI agent Robert Jensen, charge of the bureau's Memphis office, said police turned over the rifle and evidence bundle to him hours after the murder. Then prosecutor Jim Beasley, now a retired Criminal Court judge, narrating from the guilty plea in which Ray agreed to 56 detailed allegations in return for a 99-year sentence brought the case together: Three hours before King was shot Ray, an escaped convict from a Missouri prison, rented a room across the street under an alias. About an hour later, he purchased binoculars on Main Street Ray's prints were found on the rifle, the binoculars and other items.

Ray fled overseas after the murder. In signing his plea, Ray admitted to all of this, including firing the shot that killed King. But it was Ray who stole the show. Speaking out of turn, Ray rose to his feet to contest statements that there had been no conspiracy. "Your honor, I would like to say something," Ray told Judge W.

Preston Battle as observers took a collective breath. Moments earlier, District Attorney General Phil Canale had announced to the court that "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by James Earl Ray and James Earl Ray alone." Also, Ray's attorney, Percy Foreman said he was in agreement with U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark that there had been no conspiracy, triggering Ray's outburst "The only thing that I have to say," Ray told Battle, "is that I cant agree with Mr.

Clark." "You dont agree with whose theories?" Battle asked at one point Ray, in his trademark ramble, attempted to explain. "Mr. Canale's, Mr. Clark's and Mr. J.

Edgar Hoover's about the conspiracy," Ray said. Ray's impromptu speech madf an impression on juror James Ballard, now 63. A "He said, Tm not saying I did it alone," said Ballard, a salesman. "And it just seems logical he got help. One guy who's an escaped convict on the run, why would he just up and shoot King?" The jury, empaneled under a practice of using juries to accept pleas for major crimes, was asked by a show of hands to accept Ray's plea.

All 12 raised their hands. But Battle's decision not to question Ray about a conspiracy puzzled some. "Why hadnt Judge Battle seized this extraordinary opportunity to question Ray about conspiracy?" author Gerold Frank asked in his 1972 book, An American Death: The True Story of the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Greatest Manhunt of Our Time.

Frank answered his own question: Battle could not question Ray because then it would not be a free and voluntary plea of guilty. It corHd have been overturned on appeal. It 1 Stores oj nt accepted. iSaK. rwV- or Stores oi Vine 2J coupon per' Umitone Itrancode j) I QUUJTY GASOLINES FOR LESS, PUIS A WKOII LOT MOHI ViSAt I inr-inM.