Who shot Martin Luther King Jr.?

In the 60s, the FBI created the Counterintelligence Program, or COINTELPRO, whose main aims seemed to be to discredit and disrupt the civil rights and feminist movements.  One month before his assassination, a document was released prioritizing targets for COINTELPRO, which included Martin Luther King (along with "The Nation of Islam")

On April 4^th, 1968, Martin Luther King was in Memphis Tennessee trying to pick up the pieces of a peace march disrupted by a group called “The Invaders” which was later revealed to be connected with COINTELPRO.  A memo ridiculing Martin Luther King for staying at the white-owned Holiday Inn rather than the black-owned Motel Lorraine was approved by the FBI and circulated to the press.  King changed his arrangements and before he arrived, an unknown individual supposedly representing King changed the hotel room from the ground floor to the second level, claiming that he liked to look at swimming pools.

The new room was in the rear of the building, facing open alleys and was wide open to sniper fire from multiple angles.  At 6PM, while standing on the balcony and speaking to his driver, MLK Jr. was shot and killed.  Some witnesses claimed the shot came from the bathroom window of Bessie Brewer's boarding house.  Those that claimed the shot had been fired from the hedge near the building were ignored and ridiculed.  James Earl Ray was arrested, coerced to confess and later retracted his confession.

A former FBI ballistics expert testified that not even the most skilled gunman could have accurately fired a rifle in the manner claimed by the prosecution.  The prosecution countered that Ray had contorted himself into position in the bathtub.

A reporter from the Memphis Press Scimitar found an unpublished AP photo from the boarding house which showed that the view was obscured by branches from trees growing in between the buildings.  Shortly after the assassination, the City of Memphis ordered the trees cut down making it impossible to see how they could have interfered.

The only witness claiming to have seen Ray leaving the boarding house was a man named Charles Stephens.  According to two sources, Stephens was extremely inebriated at the time of the shooting, and one saw him urinating in the bushes.  The first three descriptions Stephens gave did not resemble Ray at all, in fact, his first two described the assassin as a black man.  The FBI paid $30,000 in bar tabs for Stephens for his testimony.

Stephen’s wife Grace said she got a good look at the man leaving the boarding house, and that it was definitely not James Earl Ray.  She was committed to a mental institution and fought a lengthy court battle resulting in her eventual release.  She stands by her testimony.

In addition to Grace, the owner of the boarding house and two other witnesses insisted that the man who rented Ray’s room looked nothing like James Earl Ray.

A service station manager came forward to Ray’s defense team claiming that he had seen Ray several blocks from the boarding house at the time of the shooting.  He was later stabbed to death.

Martin Luther King’s brother, an excellent swimmer, was found drowned in his pool following the assassination.

Less than two minutes after the shots were fired, a bundle containing the 30.06 Remington rifle allegedly used in the assassination along with some of Ray’s belongings was conveniently found in the doorway of the building next to the boarding house.  Within two minutes, we are supposed to believe that Ray shot King from his contorted position in the bathtub, exited the sniper’s nest, collected his belongings, wrapped and tied it all in a bundle, left the room, ran down the stairs and out of the boarding house, stashed the bundle in plain sight at the building next door and finally got away from the scene unnoticed.

After receiving evidence that the Remington rifle allegedly used leaves a distinct marking on the bullet and that the bullet found in King’s body does not have this marking, Coretta Scott King and the rest of her family have urged Tennessee to allow Ray a re-trial.