Read Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin Online

Authors: Hampton Sides

Tags: #History: American, #20th Century, #Assassination, #Criminals & Outlaws, #United States - 20th Century, #Social History, #Murder - General, #Social Science, #Murder, #King; Martin Luther;, #True Crime, #Cultural Heritage, #1929-1968, #History - General History, #Jr.;, #60s, #United States, #Biography & Autobiography, #Ray; James Earl;, #History, #1928-1998, #General, #History - U.S., #U.S. History - 1960s, #Ethnic Studies, #Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Histor

Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin (81 page)

BOOK: Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin
9.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

722
"We're happy he's been caught":
Williams, quoted in
Atlanta Constitution
, June 9, 1968, p. 20.

723
"Some felt this case":
Byrd's comments before the U.S. Senate, in MURKIN Files, sec. 57, p. 71.

724
two men held up a bank:
For an in-depth discussion of the Alton bank robbery and the possible involvement of the Ray brothers, see House Select Committee on Assassinations (hereafter HSCA),
Final Assassinations Report
, pp. 342-50.

725
"We are dealing with a man":
Hoover, quoted in HSCA,
Appendix Reports
, vol. 7, p. 7.

726
"one of the strongest":
Author interview with Clark.

727
"Some Americans":
Ibid.

728
"Nothing Ray did":
DeLoach,
Hoover's FBI
, p. 256.

729
"was a loner":
DeLoach testimony in HSCA,
Appendix Reports
, vol. 7, p. 28.

730
"Truth be told":
DeLoach,
Hoover's FBI
, p. 257.

CHAPTER 48
RING OF STEEL

731
"Look, they got me mixed up":
This exchange between Sneyd and Eugene is recounted in Frank,
American Death
, p. 201.

732
"Yes, I'd like you to call my brother":
Ibid., p. 203.

733
Patriotic Legal Fund:
Huie,
He Slew the Dreamer
, p. 181.

734
Alexander Eist:
The passages concerning Eist and his time spent with Sneyd in London are drawn from a lengthy interview with Eist conducted at Cambridge, England, on August 4, 1978, by Edward Evans, chief investigator, House Select Committee on Assassinations,
Appendix Reports
, vol. 3, pp. 264-84.

735
"He seemed absolutely mad about publicity":
Ibid.

736
"There's no way":
Ibid.

737
Sneyd was met by four FBI agents:
Custody Log, James Earl Ray, July 19, 1968, Aboard USAF Plane C135," MURKIN Files, 4901-4982, sec. 66, pp. 178-81. See also Posner,
Killing the Dream
, pp. 55-56.

738
At 3:48 a.m.:
My depiction of Ray's arrival in Memphis is largely drawn from the
Memphis Press-Scimitar
, July 19, 1968, and the
Memphis Commercial Appeal
, July 20, 1968. See also Frank,
American Death
, pp. 223-34.

739
"They're getting out of the plane":
DeLoach,
Hoover's FBI
, p. 254.

740
"ring of steel":
Ibid.

741
Morris had arranged:
Frank,
American Death
, pp. 228-34.

EPILOGUE
#65477

742
two hundred inmates:
My reenactment of Ray's prison escape is drawn primarily from newspaper and magazine accounts from June 1977--especially the
Atlanta Constitution
, the
New York Times
, the
Memphis Commercial Appeal
, the
Nashville Tennessean
, and the
Washington Post
. In-depth stories in
Time
and
Newsweek
, both appearing on June 20, 1977, proved especially helpful. I also consulted
Building Time at Brushy
, a semi-fictional memoir by the prison's warden, Stonney Lane. Finally, I found James McKinley's interview with Ray
(Playboy
, Sept. 1977) extremely useful.

743
"Ray's hot":
New York Times
, June 12, 1977, p. 1.

744
"Ray is smart like a rat":
Foreman, quoted in
Newsweek
, June 20, 1977, p. 25.

745
"funny in the head":
McKinley, "Interview with James Earl Ray," p. 176.

746
"Raoul does not and did not exist":
Time
, June 20, 1977, p. 17.

747
"You always have it":
McKinley, "Interview with James Earl Ray," p. 86.

748
"convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt":
Abernathy, quoted in the
Washington Post
, June 11, 1977, p. A10.

749
"engineered to see that Ray":
Time
, June 20, 1977, p. 14.

750
"I hope they don't kill him":
Martin Luther King Sr., quoted in the
Atlanta Constitution
, June 13, 1977, p. 19A.

751
Sammy Joe Chapman:
This passage involving the bloodhounds is largely drawn from my interview with Sammy Joe Chapman, Sept. 2009. I also relied on "How the Mountain Men Did It,"
Time
, June 27, 1977, pp. 11-12, and "Back in Cell: Ray Brought to Bay by Two Bloodhounds,"
Washington Post
, June 14, 1977, p. 1.

752
"For a 49-year-old man":
"How the Mountain Men Did It," p. 11.

753
"It's disappointing being caught":
McKinley, "Interview with James Earl Ray," p. 94.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

City of Memphis v. Martin Luther King Jr. et al.
, April 3, 1968. Hearing proceedings.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. MURKIN Files. King Assassination Documents, FBI Central Headquarters. Viewed on microfilm at Stanford University's Cecil H. Green Library.

House Select Committee on Assassinations. U.S. Congress.
Investigation of the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: Appendix Reports
, Vols. 1-13. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979.

------.
Investigation of the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: The Final Assassinations Report
. New York: Bantam, 1979.

State of Tennessee v. James Earl Ray
. Shelby County Criminal Court, div. 3, Tenn., 1969. Proceedings.

United States of America v. James Earl Ray
. Extradition proceedings.

U.S. Justice Department. "Report of the Department of Justice Task Force to Review the FBI Martin Luther King Jr. Security and Assassination Investigations," Jan. 11, 1977.

ARCHIVES, LIBRARIES, AND MUSEUMS

Hughes, B. Venson Collection on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Germantown, Tenn. Collection includes unpublished crime scene and evidentiary photos, Memphis Police Department files, police dispatcher audio files, rare and unpublished FBI reports, and other investigation documents.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Birmingham, Ala.

British Library Newspaper Archives, Colindale, U.K.

Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University. Collections consulted include the Gerald Posner Papers, the letters of James Earl Ray, and the Martin Luther King Collection.

Huie, William Bradford. Papers. Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Ohio State University, Columbus.

King Center Library and Archives, and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, Atlanta.

Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, University of Texas, Austin. Martin Luther King Papers Project, Stanford University.

Mary Ferrell Foundation Digital Archive (
www.maryferrell.org
), Ipswich, Mass. Collections consulted include FBI MURKIN files, HSCA executive sessions, and Church Committee hearings.

McMillan, George. Papers. Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Memphis and Shelby County Room, Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, Memphis. Collections consulted include the Henry Loeb Papers, the Frank Holloman Papers, and news clippings from the
Memphis Commercial Appeal
and the
Memphis Press-Scimitar
.

Memphis
Magazine Archives. Contemporary Media, Inc., Memphis.

Mississippi Valley Collection. Ned R. McWherter Library, University of Memphis.

National Civil Rights Museum, Lorraine Motel, Memphis.

Withers, Ernest C. Photographic Collection. Panopticon Gallery of Photography, Boston. Collection houses the work of the legendary Memphis civil rights photographer Ernest Withers.

NEWSPAPERS

Atlanta Constitution

London Daily Mirror

London Daily Telegraph

London Evening Standard

London Observer

Los Angeles Times

Manchester Guardian

Memphis Commercial Appeal

Memphis Press-Scimitar

New York Times

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Times
(London)

Toronto Telegram

Washington Post

BOOKS

Abernathy, Ralph David.
And the Walls Came Tumbling
. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.

Ayton, Mel.
A Racial Crime: James Earl Ray and the Murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
. Las Vegas: ArcheBooks, 2005.

Barry, John M.
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Bearden, William.
Cotton: From Southern Fields to the Memphis Market
. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2005.

------.
Memphis Blues: Birthplace of a Music Tradition
. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2006.

Beifuss, Joan Turner.
At the River I Stand: Memphis, the 1968 Strike, and Martin Luther King
. Memphis: B & W Books, 1985.

Biles, Roger.
Memphis in the Great Depression
. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986.

Bishop, Jim.
The Days of Martin Luther King Jr
. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1971.

Blair, Clay, Jr.
The Strange Case of James Earl Ray: The Man Who Murdered Martin Luther King
. New York: Bantam Books, 1969.

Bond, Beverly G., and Janann Sherman.
Beale Street
. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2006.

------.
Memphis in Black and White
. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2003.

Bowman, Rob.
Soulsville U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records
. New York: Schirmer Trade Books, 1997.

Branch, Taylor.
At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

------.
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63
. New York: Touchstone, 1989.

------.
Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998.

Branston, John.
Rowdy Memphis: The South Unscripted
. Nashville: Cold Tree Press, 2004.

Brinkley, Douglas.
Rosa Parks
. New York: Viking, 2000.

Burch, Lucius.
Lucius: Writings of Lucius Burch
. Nashville: Cold Tree Press, 2003.

Burrough, Bryan.
Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
. New York: Penguin, 2004.

Busby, Horace.
The Thirty-first of March: An Intimate Portrait of Lyndon Johnson's Final Days in Office
. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

Califano, Joseph A.
The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.

Capers, Gerald M.
The Biography of a River Town: Memphis, Its Heroic Age
. New Orleans: Tulane University Press, 1966.

Carson, Clayborne, ed.
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King
. New York: Time Warner Books, 1998.

Carson, Clayborne, and Peter Holloran, eds.
A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Martin Luther King Jr
. New York: Warner Books, 1998.

Carson, Clayborne, et al., eds.
The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr
. Vols. 1-6. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992-2009.

Carter, Dan T.
The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics
. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995.

Carter, Hodding.
Lower Mississippi
. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942.

Cash, Johnny, with Patrick Carr.
Cash: The Autobiography
. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1997.

Chapman, C. Stuart.
Shelby Foote: A Writer's Life
. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2003.

Christopher, Warren.
Chances of a Lifetime: A Memoir
. New York: Scribner, 2001.

Church, Annette E., and Roberta Church.
The Robert A. Churches of Memphis
. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Edwards Brothers, 1974.

Clark, Ramsey.
Crime in America: Observations on Its Nature, Causes, Prevention, and Control
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970.

Cobb, James C.
The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Conaway, James.
Memphis Afternoons: A Memoir
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

Cooper, William J.
Jefferson Davis, American
. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, 2001.

BOOK: Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin
9.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Perfect Prom Date by Marysue G. Hobika
The State of Jones by Sally Jenkins
Evan Blessed by Rhys Bowen
Liverpool Angels by Lyn Andrews
Geezer Paradise by Robert Gannon
Davidian Report by Dorothy B. Hughes
Tea-Totally Dead by Girdner, Jaqueline
Stalked For Love by Royale, KC