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Speaker 1: Welcome to the MLK Tapes, a production of I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in

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Speaker 1: this podcast are solely those of the podcast author for

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Speaker 1: individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent those

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener

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Speaker 1: discretion is advised. He looked like he had stuck his

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Speaker 1: friend in his socket. Lord however, standing up and even

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Speaker 1: like somebody had drained all the good his body. He

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Speaker 1: was so white. Oh, he was so Whitey. He ain't

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Speaker 1: been on his knee. How do you know he's been

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Speaker 1: on I know he had been on his knee and

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Speaker 1: coast the ground with that, because one the ground was

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Speaker 1: down and he's in his knees was dirty. And when

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Speaker 1: he came in there and went behind the counting and

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Speaker 1: uh put the gun on account it was a brand

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Speaker 1: new trick. Black. The para was black, but it was

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Speaker 1: shy lack. It been wax the hamlet of the dal brown. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's black, ditap was? This is Betty Spates telling Attorney

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Speaker 1: William Pepper that just moments after Martin Luther King was shot,

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Speaker 1: she saw a man she knew come running in the

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Speaker 1: back door with a smoking rifle. Betty was working as

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Speaker 1: a waitress at Jim's Grill on South Main Street, the

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Speaker 1: back door to which opened onto a brush covered yard

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Speaker 1: directly opposite the room at the Lorraine Motel where Dr

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Speaker 1: King was staying. The grille was owned by Lloyd Jowers,

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Speaker 1: and he and Betty had an ongoing sexual relationship. Lloyd

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Speaker 1: was white, Betty was black and she was seventeen. I

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Speaker 1: call the Union Hall, says matter of life and death.

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Speaker 1: I said, I thank these people are planning to kill

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Speaker 1: Dr King. The authorities were parade all we found a

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Speaker 1: gun the James al Ray board in Birmingham that killed

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Speaker 1: Dr King. Except it wasn't the gun that killed Dr Key.

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Speaker 1: James Lvey was upon or the official story from My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio in Tender for TV. The plan was to

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Speaker 1: get King to the city because they wanted it handled

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Speaker 1: in Memphis. Were dead in incl Hamlet, and I've lived

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Speaker 1: with it along my sire, and they they scared for me.

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Speaker 1: The Lord told me to not the word. I've been

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Speaker 1: wanting to tell it all my life. I'm Bill Claiburg

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Speaker 1: and this is the MLK tapes. At the time of

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Speaker 1: his conversation with Betty SPADs. Bill Pepper had been working

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Speaker 1: on the King murder for over a decade, but he

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Speaker 1: had been representing James Earl Ray as his attorney for

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Speaker 1: just a few years, and that only after he's satisfied

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Speaker 1: himself that Raisin folvement was not voluntary. Although the official

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Speaker 1: version of the crime had the fatal shot coming from

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Speaker 1: the bathroom window above Jim's grill, there were people who

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Speaker 1: thought the shot had come from the yard below the bathroom.

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Speaker 1: The best access to this yard was by way of

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Speaker 1: the back door of the grill, and of course nothing

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Speaker 1: could have happened through that door without the cooperation of

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Speaker 1: the grill's owner, Lloyd Jowers, so he was always on

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Speaker 1: Bill Pepper's suspect list. Showers was in the frame right

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Speaker 1: from the beginning because he was the one who ran

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Speaker 1: Jim's grill. He owned it, and he ran it, and

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Speaker 1: he clearly had some role to play, which which eventually

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Speaker 1: started to become defined by Betty's spades. When I eventually

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Speaker 1: was able to get her to talk. What brought you

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Speaker 1: to Betty space, I guess it's local People said that

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Speaker 1: Showers girlfriend was was Betty's face, since she worked part

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Speaker 1: time for him and her sister worked also in the grill,

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Speaker 1: and so I started talking to them. Betty was not

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Speaker 1: willing to disclose anything, uh that was going to incriminate

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Speaker 1: Lloyd for quite a long period of time because she

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Speaker 1: actually thought Lloyd was the shooter who did the shooting,

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Speaker 1: because she saw him carrying the rifle smoking rifle into

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Speaker 1: into the kitchen. Lloyd kept her under wraps to the

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Speaker 1: extent that he could. Lloyd Jowers had grown up in

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Speaker 1: rural Dyersboro, Tennessee, and after his discharge from the Navy,

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Speaker 1: he came to Memphis in newly married to his first wife, Dorothy.

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Speaker 1: With no training at all, he got a job as

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Speaker 1: a Memphis police officer. This was back in the day

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Speaker 1: when Edwin Hull Crump, better known as Boss Crump, ran

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Speaker 1: most everything in and around Memphis. Here's what Jowers said

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Speaker 1: at nine civil trial. The audio quality is so poor

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Speaker 1: we've taken the liberty of using a voice actor. Crump

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Speaker 1: is the one who got me the job. I went

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Speaker 1: in to see him on a Monday, and on Thursday,

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Speaker 1: I was riding a squad car with the thirty eight

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Speaker 1: hanging on my side. That is the way things operated

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Speaker 1: back then. Now Johnny Barger was my partner. He's the

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Speaker 1: one who introduced me to Frank Liberto. They were real

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Speaker 1: good friends. Of course, I gotta be pretty good friends

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Speaker 1: with Frank myself, because he could do you a lot

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Speaker 1: of good in Memphis, especially if you're with police. Policemen

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Speaker 1: were often seen stopping by Frank Liberto's produce market, but

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Speaker 1: they were rarely seen coming out with lettuce or tomatoes.

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Speaker 1: Word was the cops would do favors for Frank and

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Speaker 1: his friends, and he would make sure there was something

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Speaker 1: in it for them. In those days, getting a job

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Speaker 1: as a cop was easy enough if you were white,

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Speaker 1: but the pay was bad, so after a few years,

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Speaker 1: Jowers quit the police and began working for a local

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Speaker 1: cab company. Around the same time, Jowers also quit his

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Speaker 1: marriage with Dorothy and soon married another woman. That marriage

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Speaker 1: also ended in divorce. In a short while after that,

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Speaker 1: he married his first wife, Dorothy for a second time.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty seven, Jowers bought Jim's grill, and he

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Speaker 1: hired two sisters, Bobby and Betty, to cook and service

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Speaker 1: waitresses for decades. Jowers had said that the afternoon King

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Speaker 1: was shot, he was working the tables by himself, and

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Speaker 1: that Betty Space was not there when actually knowed when

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Speaker 1: off I was gone a bellers all headed about head

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Speaker 1: gone and went off and quit. I went back to

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Speaker 1: the kitchen door like I was in the kitchen. I

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Speaker 1: looked inside of the kitchen when I was there, ill

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Speaker 1: going back to finished all there. Jowers told this his

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Speaker 1: standard story to Bill Pepper as part of an extensive

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Speaker 1: legal deposition he was required to give. In in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, things regarding the murder of Martin Luther King

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Speaker 1: were playing out in different venues on TV, in the

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Speaker 1: Office of the Attorney General, with a Shelby County grand jury,

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Speaker 1: and eventually in the States court system. The trigger for

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Speaker 1: all this was the mock trial, televised on HBO, which

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Speaker 1: brought together lawyers, a real judge, and an impartial jury, which,

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Speaker 1: after hearing evidence from both sides, found James Earl Ray

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Speaker 1: not guilty of murdering Martin Luther King. Lloyd Jowers testified

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Speaker 1: at this trial, but he didn't say much beyond what

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Speaker 1: you just heard. Pepper started to ask Jowers if he

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Speaker 1: had played any role in the murder of King, but

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Speaker 1: the judge scolded him and disallowed the question. I had

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Speaker 1: a number of altercations with Judge Frankel, who was was

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Speaker 1: known as a fairly conservative United States District Court judge

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Speaker 1: when he was on the court. He started off with

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Speaker 1: a degree of skepticism that waned as we went on

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Speaker 1: with the trial. I think he began to accept that

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Speaker 1: there was an actual case being made before him that

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Speaker 1: he didn't have any idea about. Pepper had good reason

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Speaker 1: to ask Jowers about his involvement because Betty Spates had

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Speaker 1: recently confessed to him that she had seen Jours with

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Speaker 1: a smoking gun. After trying for two or three years,

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Speaker 1: eventually got her to tell me what had happened that

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Speaker 1: afternoon with respect to Lloyd Jowers looking for him. Think

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Speaker 1: he was playing around with some women out in the bushes,

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Speaker 1: and she going into the grille, seeing the kitchen door closed,

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Speaker 1: which was unusual, but then seeing the back door open,

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Speaker 1: which also was unusual. So she went to the back door,

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Speaker 1: and on our way there she heard the shot. And

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Speaker 1: as she got to the back door, already here comes

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Speaker 1: Lloyd running in with the rifle still smoking, and him

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Speaker 1: as white as a sheet, and he brushes past her,

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Speaker 1: starts to break down the rifle and said to her.

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Speaker 1: He would never do anything to hurt me, Betty, would you?

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Speaker 1: She said, no, of course not. Then he wrapped it

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Speaker 1: the rifle put it on a shelf, where eventually he

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Speaker 1: showed it to McGraw, his friend, and a local taxi driver.

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Speaker 1: Betty's Spates was scheduled to testify the mock trial, but

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Speaker 1: she became frightened and didn't show. But Jowers may have

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Speaker 1: heard that she had been called, and perhaps this unnerved him,

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Speaker 1: for when he was under oath at his deposition, he

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Speaker 1: lied the simplest things. Was he aware Bill Pepper asked

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Speaker 1: that doctor King was coming to town? No, he hadn't

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Speaker 1: heard a thing about that. Did he have any contact

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Speaker 1: with a guy named Frank Liberto, No, none at all.

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Speaker 1: Had Betty Space worked at the grill that day? No,

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Speaker 1: not that day. Had he had a romantic relationship with

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Speaker 1: Betty Spaces, No, he hadn't. Pepper patiently plotted through his

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Speaker 1: questions without challenging jowers most obvious lies. None of it

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Speaker 1: made any sense. Why would you Owers, under oath revert

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Speaker 1: to his former see no evil here, no evil approach

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Speaker 1: to the killing of King, when just months before he

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Speaker 1: had been on national TV on ABC Prime Time with

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Speaker 1: Sam Donaldson, where he had confessed to having played a

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Speaker 1: role in this very murder. Did James Earl Ray killed

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Speaker 1: Dr Martin Luther King? No, he did not. Do you

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Speaker 1: know who killed Dr King? I know who was paid

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Speaker 1: to do it. From the outside, it is difficult to

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Speaker 1: understand jowers motivation for going on national TV and confessing

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Speaker 1: to some part in the murder of doctor King, but

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Speaker 1: knowing that Betty's space testimony was loose in the world

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Speaker 1: may have made Jowers worry about being prosecuted for his

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Speaker 1: part in the crime, or perhaps something else did. Looking

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Speaker 1: for relief, jowers attorney Lewis Garrison approached the Attorney General

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Speaker 1: John Parotti. He asked for immunity from prosecution for Jowers

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Speaker 1: in exchange for coming forward with what he knew about

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Speaker 1: the crime. That kind of deal is common in criminal cases.

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Speaker 1: What Jowers and Garrison had perhaps overlooked was that in

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Speaker 1: this case, the authorities, the police in the AGES Office,

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Speaker 1: were heavily invested in the lone assassined version of the

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Speaker 1: King murder. At the time of Race conviction, the a g.

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Speaker 1: S Office loudly proclaimed that if any information surface that

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Speaker 1: indicated others were involved, they would take vigorous action and

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Speaker 1: chase those guilty parties to the ends of the earth.

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Speaker 1: But now that that information had arrived, they didn't want

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Speaker 1: to act on it. Rather, the investigators tried to get

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Speaker 1: witnesses to change their stories or discredit them altogether. So

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Speaker 1: Garrison's attempts to negotiate immunity hit a wall, and Jowers

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Speaker 1: consent to come out on ABC Prime Time might be

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Speaker 1: seen as an attempt to force the AG's hand. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: when Donaldson asked ours on Live TV to name the

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Speaker 1: actual shooter, Garrison jumped in and said that Jowers would

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Speaker 1: do that as soon as he was granted immunity. But

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Speaker 1: why would Garrison allow us client to go public with

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Speaker 1: such a confession. I asked Bill Pepper if he knew

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Speaker 1: whether Garrison had recommended that Jowers go on TV. I

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Speaker 1: don't think he opposed it. I think Lewis knew that

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Speaker 1: his client was guilty, and he believed this was a

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Speaker 1: horrendous crime and that the truth should be out. And

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Speaker 1: while he was trying to protect the interests of his

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Speaker 1: client to the extent that he could, he nevertheless, I

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Speaker 1: did not want to get in the way of the

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Speaker 1: unfolding truth and what did Garrison have to say about it.

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Speaker 1: This audio comes from a twelve interview of Garrison by

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Speaker 1: court reporter Brian Dominski. Well, they had contact me at

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Speaker 1: bath and I don't know where mister Jarns want to

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Speaker 1: do it, and I it didn't matter to me because

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Speaker 1: he won't pay anything, but a right, uh. He told

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Speaker 1: me one day, you know, he said, well for second history,

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Speaker 1: if it will help out, you know, I'll do it.

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Speaker 1: And Ms Dalson came and talked to us or once

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Speaker 1: to twyfore you had to you know where we actually

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Speaker 1: filmed anybody? So I think, I mean, I didn't lead

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Speaker 1: Lord into this thing. They a great to it. And

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Speaker 1: the only thing I wanted, you know, I don't want

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Speaker 1: I'm getting in died anything like that. So Jowers had

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Speaker 1: been on TV saying he had been involved in the murder,

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Speaker 1: but now with Pepper asking him questions while under oath,

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Speaker 1: Jower just wanted to go back to the story that

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Speaker 1: he was just drawn a picture of beer when King

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Speaker 1: was killed. After having let the charade go on for

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Speaker 1: over an hour, Bill Pepper handed Jowers a transcript of

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Speaker 1: what he had said to Sam Donaldson and asked him

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Speaker 1: to look at the first page, Donaldson saying asking you

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Speaker 1: a question. Right on that first paragraph there he is

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Speaker 1: saying that James ear already killed Martin Luther King. You

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Speaker 1: see your answer to that question as it appeared from transcript.

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Speaker 1: What was your response to that question? Mr? Donaldson asked

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Speaker 1: you no, and then he said do you know who

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Speaker 1: killed Martin Luca King? And the answer, the answer Jowers

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Speaker 1: gave to Donaldson was I know who was paid to

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Speaker 1: do it. These were important words for Bill Pepper because

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Speaker 1: his client, James Earl Ray, had been in jail for

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Speaker 1: over twenty five years for a murder he said he

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Speaker 1: didn't commit. And now here was testimony from someone with

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Speaker 1: presumed inside knowledge who was saying that James Earl Ray

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Speaker 1: had not, in fact been the killer of Martin Luther King.

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Speaker 1: Pepper was trying to reopen the case in the courts,

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Speaker 1: and here was the can opener that might do the job.

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Speaker 1: But Lloyd Jowers didn't like this new turn in the questions.

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Speaker 1: I think I've got to take care of the man rowan.

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Speaker 1: So Jowers pled the fifth He refused to answer Pepper's

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Speaker 1: question by asserting his right to not incriminate himself. Pepper

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Speaker 1: kept on and asked you Owers if he had any

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Speaker 1: business dealings with Frank Liberto take pare Mary known if

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Speaker 1: they're going to read no um? Have you ever set

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Speaker 1: your eyes on a man who has comes be known

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Speaker 1: as many of us as Raoul I have to be

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Speaker 1: the fast man? Question? Have you ever had in your

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Speaker 1: possession any weapon that might have been associated with the

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Speaker 1: murder at Martin? LUs King built the man well that question?

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Speaker 1: And so it went a few more questions that Jowers

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Speaker 1: wouldn't answer, and Pepper said he was finished. But chowers

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Speaker 1: awkward confession and then is taking the fifth would be

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Speaker 1: enough for Pepper to get his motion for an evidentiary

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Speaker 1: hearing before a sympathetic judge. We will follow that story

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Speaker 1: in another episode. But what happened to Betty Spates and

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Speaker 1: her story of seeing Jowers running back into Jim's grill

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Speaker 1: rifle in hand. Betty Spates didn't work the afternoon shift

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Speaker 1: at Jim's Grill. She worked the morning and the evening shifts,

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Speaker 1: and in between she'd go across the street and work

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Speaker 1: her second job at Seabrook Wallpaper. Years later, she told

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Speaker 1: Bill Pepper that on the day Martin Luther King was killed.

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Speaker 1: Seabrook let out early, so she returned to the grill

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Speaker 1: around three thirty, just in time to run into Jowler's wife, Dorothy,

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Speaker 1: who didn't much care for Betty spaces what happened when

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Speaker 1: she came in because he slept. She came right up

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Speaker 1: to here and was calling her name. How slept about company?

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Speaker 1: And then she can learned the lower I want her

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Speaker 1: and then would say to get the hand here, and

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Speaker 1: he told her and now she's name you are, you'll

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Speaker 1: get adding that man he didn't help him and nothing.

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Speaker 1: Second she left, she didn't say anything. She's just left.

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Speaker 1: A short time after her run in with Jour's wife,

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Speaker 1: Betty Speech recalled seeing Charlie Stevens put out of the

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Speaker 1: grill so drunk he was becoming a danger to himself.

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Speaker 1: This was the same Charlie Stevens who would become the

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Speaker 1: state's star witness, saying he saw James ol Ray run

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Speaker 1: from the bathroom on the second floor of the rooming

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Speaker 1: house after the shot was fired. Betty didn't think much

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Speaker 1: of that story. Was nothing right? When did when was

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Speaker 1: he put out of the grill? Cappain though his wife there, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can put out, you know, he came before them,

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Speaker 1: but he would say about him, who would put it out? Bobby.

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Speaker 1: Bobby told him to believe that would be massive. He

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Speaker 1: was a bouncer. So it was a busy afternoon in

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Speaker 1: the grill for Lloyd Jowers, and the little scene between

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00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:53,440
Speaker 1: Betty and Dorothy had played out just an hour and

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Speaker 1: a half before Dr King was to be murdered, and

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Speaker 1: there were still things that needed doing. Betty said that

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00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:03,080
Speaker 1: Jowers disappeared on a handful of short errands that didn't

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Speaker 1: make much sense. Out the door, back in ten minutes,

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Speaker 1: out the door and back in five And then near

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Speaker 1: six o'clock she noticed Jowers was again not in the

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Speaker 1: dining room and she hadn't seen him leave, so she

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Speaker 1: went into the kitchen and Jowers wasn't there either, but

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Speaker 1: the back door was open. Then she heard of popping noise,

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Speaker 1: and Jowers came running through the back door, white as

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Speaker 1: a sheet and carrying a gun. And over the next

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Speaker 1: thirty years that image would follow her like a ghost.

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Speaker 1: And what about Lloyd Jowers, What was life like for

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00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:40,680
Speaker 1: him in the years following King's murder. According the Jowers attorney,

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Speaker 1: Lewis Garrison, it wasn't too bad because Jowers had come

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Speaker 1: into some heavy money right after the murder of Dr King.

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Speaker 1: He purchased a cab company sometime oh here six days

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Speaker 1: sixty nine, but anyway is the second larger cab gun

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00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:57,720
Speaker 1: in Memphis. Stad Sam had over a hundred card colled

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Speaker 1: ahead pocket when Dr English FASSINYI you got this money,

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Speaker 1: but I mean, I mean, I can't tell you. What

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00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:04,920
Speaker 1: do you tell me? A personally? But I don't know

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00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:09,000
Speaker 1: for sure? Under town very fat with other witnesses for

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00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:13,760
Speaker 1: sad messia. According to Jowers, he closed down Jim's grill

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Speaker 1: in July of nineteen seventy one. The neighborhood was changing,

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Speaker 1: and for some reason, the cops and cab drivers who

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00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:23,280
Speaker 1: had been as regulars no longer felt like sitting around

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Speaker 1: the old place. Sometime before he closed the grill, Jowers

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00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:31,840
Speaker 1: bought what he told Bill Pepper was of Southland Cab Company.

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Speaker 1: It was as an owner of south Land that Jowers

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Speaker 1: would meet Attorney Lewis Garrison first on the posing sides

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Speaker 1: of an injury lawsuit. But Jowers liked Garrison's relaxed style,

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Speaker 1: so Garrison became jowers attorney for the odd things that

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00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:52,440
Speaker 1: befall anyone in life like a divorce. Jowers divorced his wife,

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Speaker 1: Dorothy for the second time in nineteen seventy five, and

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six he married Donna Turner, but Turner

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00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:05,160
Speaker 1: worst Jhowers before their second anniversary, so Jowers, unfazed, turned

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Speaker 1: around the same year and married Dorothy for the third time.

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Speaker 1: All the while, Lloyd Jowers and Betty Spaces kept up

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00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:15,200
Speaker 1: an occasional relationship that would go on for twenty years.

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00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:18,639
Speaker 1: Betty gave birth to five children, two of which she

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Speaker 1: said were fathered by Jowers. As she told Bill Pepper,

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Speaker 1: all through the seventies and into the eighties, Jowers kept

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Speaker 1: tabs on her. He came right to my house back

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Speaker 1: for came okay, Loah called me like we was bud buds.

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00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:40,000
Speaker 1: It was a week or he was calling once more.

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Speaker 1: And whenever you changed jobs, he went to see you.

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00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:45,920
Speaker 1: When have I changed? Is left them up? So I

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00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:49,119
Speaker 1: was watching me r and b Dan market. Who year

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Speaker 1: I want? She said, I wouldn't be there a month,

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00:21:53,760 --> 00:21:57,359
Speaker 1: and suddenly he was there. Of course, Jowers knew what

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00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:00,320
Speaker 1: Betty had seen the day King was killed, and this

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00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:03,680
Speaker 1: may have caused him some anxiety, and at times he

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00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:06,159
Speaker 1: apparently felt the need to push some of it in

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00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:10,200
Speaker 1: her direction, and he didn't always do it himself. Jowers

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00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:13,200
Speaker 1: had a friend named Willie Aikins who would sometimes come

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Speaker 1: by Betty's house. On one particular visit, Aikins pulled a

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Speaker 1: gun and fired three bullets into the couch on which

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Speaker 1: she was sitting. He knocked on my back door, came

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Speaker 1: in my house ful of the three fifty seven magnis

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Speaker 1: and shot three times in my captain, I have sitting

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00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:36,399
Speaker 1: right there, adn't jump adenfra adam me hey work A

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00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:41,280
Speaker 1: sixty was a sleep. Sometimes the lessons would be in

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00:22:41,359 --> 00:22:43,960
Speaker 1: the form of a story, like the one about Aikins

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00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 1: and Jowers murdering the wife of some doctor who gave

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Speaker 1: the money to do it. And when Agins told me

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00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:53,240
Speaker 1: there was a doctor I had a wife and paid

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Speaker 1: load to get rid of it and him and lower

356
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Speaker 1: feel this one on State manually embar with her. She

357
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:03,639
Speaker 1: owned a pink CALLI and I asked me, don't you

358
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: remember reading in the paper? And that stuck in my

359
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:11,520
Speaker 1: head because it's so unusual pink can I. As the

360
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:15,200
Speaker 1: years passed, the games to frighten Betty died away, but

361
00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:20,359
Speaker 1: you ours still kept contact. I never bobbed Lloyd. I

362
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:24,600
Speaker 1: always stayed way from Lord. I knew he knew where

363
00:23:24,640 --> 00:23:27,880
Speaker 1: I was, and if he wanted me, I knew he would. Secondly,

364
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:31,120
Speaker 1: wherever he said for me, I always when where you are.

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Speaker 1: It's not that I loved it, Lotte, It's not that

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00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:36,399
Speaker 1: I was afraid of a little I guess I was

367
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: different fool you, but I failed whenever he said for me,

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00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,200
Speaker 1: if I was always there, he would hurt me. And

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00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 1: that's why I did it it. But I do always

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00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:50,359
Speaker 1: do it anymore. Over the years, Attorney Lewis Garrison and

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00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 1: Lloyd Jowers kept on with their business relationship, but people

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00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: would sometimes say strange things to Garrison about you Owers,

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00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,480
Speaker 1: allusions to some secret that everyone else seemed to know about,

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00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 1: or sometimes they might just say it. They might write

375
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 1: out ask if Garrison knew that Jowers was in on

376
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,360
Speaker 1: the murder of Dr King. What a strange thing to say,

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00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: unless there was some truth to it. Finally, Garrison summoned discourage.

378
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: So one day I said, Lord, I said, you know,

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00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 1: they've been a lot of discussion about the fact you

380
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 1: may have been involved in the Martin Luther King assassination.

381
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 1: And he said, well that a lot of people talking

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00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:29,120
Speaker 1: about he said, and one thing share that Blanket Black

383
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Speaker 1: is not coming back. I said, no, we coming back.

384
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:34,640
Speaker 1: But that's that's when we first started, the very first

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00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 1: time we've we've probably talked about it very much. Lewis

386
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 1: Garrison is a Southern gentleman and blankety blank is as

387
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:43,399
Speaker 1: close as he will come to saying the words that

388
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: Jowers actually said, but they probably weren't nice words, and

389
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 1: Garrison understood right away that Jowers had not denied the rumors.

390
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 1: Garrison and Jowers talked further on subsequent occasions, and soon

391
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Speaker 1: Garrison was not the attorney defending his Liliant and Cab

392
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: related lawsuits. He was the attorney representing a man who

393
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: had admitted to him that he was involved in the

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00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:15,880
Speaker 1: murder of Dr Martin Luther King. The appearance with Sam

395
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 1: Donaldson a National TV may have been an attempt to

396
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: force the d a's hand as far as granting immunity

397
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:25,160
Speaker 1: to Jours, but there may have been something else in play.

398
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,160
Speaker 1: Bill Pepper had worked with an English TV producer named

399
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:33,240
Speaker 1: Jack Saltman on the HBO Mock Trial. When the trial

400
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,680
Speaker 1: ended with a surprise not guilty verdict in raised favor.

401
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: Saltman apparently imagined a movie about the assassination that would

402
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: reveal what really happened without telling Pepper a thing about it.

403
00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 1: He took on Pepper's former investigators Ken Herman and John Billings,

404
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 1: and they began to put the pieces together. I think

405
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: I got launched very early on after the HBO trial.

406
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 1: I think they saw off ffortunity to make some serious money.

407
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 1: Herman had been um an investigator on the case, as

408
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 1: was Billings, and they got sucked into this arrangement with

409
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 1: with Saltman, who was a producer from England, of course,

410
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: and they thought they could put together a a script

411
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 1: and launch a private project and make money on it.

412
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:27,639
Speaker 1: But Chowers was the key player, so he was brought in.

413
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,159
Speaker 1: But further to be a movie, they needed to know

414
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: who shot King, and Jowers, now seeing dollar signs, was

415
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 1: happy to say that it was a guy named Frank Holt,

416
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: a big black fellow that Jowers knew way back when,

417
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,400
Speaker 1: but no one had seen him for years. So jowers

418
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: confession on ABC Prime Time may have been not only

419
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 1: a play to pry an immunity deal out of a

420
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 1: g Paroti, but also perhaps a play to get a

421
00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 1: major studio interested in doing a movie. But to get

422
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 1: a movie studio involved, they needed to flesh out the story,

423
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: and they wanted Betty Space to help. She would say

424
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 1: that she listened in on jowers phone conversation where some

425
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:13,920
Speaker 1: produce guy named Liberto told Showers about money that was

426
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: to arrive in a box of lettuce, and Jowers now

427
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:19,720
Speaker 1: wanted Betty to tell her story about what she saw

428
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: at the back door, except she would say that she

429
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 1: saw a man hand ours the gun, a large black man.

430
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 1: He told me, I want you always be noticed him

431
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: and whenever I get on the phone, n and to listen,

432
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: and I want you to eat that. And here Frank

433
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 1: Liberto telling me from that produce from the end today

434
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 1: they would be an extra order. And when the produce

435
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:51,360
Speaker 1: came in, I was supposed to have a nose enough

436
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: to open a box that I thought was a box

437
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: and maze, but it was a box bear with mode.

438
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 1: But it's not in her. That's true. No rose treat

439
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: and not end of that is tream. I don't know

440
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: anything about a phone call. I don't know anything about

441
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,480
Speaker 1: no lettuce and no money, no box, and I never

442
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: heard of front Lberto before. That's what Lord wanted me

443
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: to say. He wanted me to tell the truth about

444
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:19,479
Speaker 1: seeing him with the rifle. He just wanted me change

445
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 1: it just a little bit by saying I saw him

446
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 1: standing in the back door and a black man passing

447
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 1: him a right and that's not true. And he said,

448
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 1: if I didn't say it, I will lose my share

449
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 1: of three hundred thousand dollars. Trust Roy, it is to

450
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 1: a book. And I told him I can't lose you nothing.

451
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: I never hate it. So Lloyd Gawers was saying that

452
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: a black man named Frank Holt, whom he had hired,

453
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: had handed him the rifle that day while he was

454
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 1: at the back door of his restaurant. Perhaps Saltman and

455
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: Hermann believed this story, but when Bill Pepper found out

456
00:28:59,880 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 1: about the whole movie intrigue and that the fall guy

457
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: was to be this Frank Halt, he jumped on it. Well.

458
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 1: I thought it was important to find him and to

459
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: interview him, and I hired a private investigator in Florida

460
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 1: to locate him because I understood that's where he was.

461
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 1: Where he was, we found him, Pepper flew down to

462
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: Orlando and met with a penniless Frank Holt, who had

463
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: been living in a series of homeless shelters. Holt was

464
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: surprised to hear that Jowers was now accusing him of

465
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: murdering Martin Luther King. It was apparent to Pepper, after

466
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: asking three questions that Holt didn't no thing about it.

467
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 1: Why would Jowers name you? He asked, Halt, I don't know,

468
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: The man replied, maybe he thought I was dead, And

469
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: that made sense to Pepper because to him, Frank Holt

470
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 1: alive did not make a very convincing killer. So with

471
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: Betty Space ready to say that the story wasn't true,

472
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 1: and Halt turning up alive, the movie idea died a

473
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: quiet death, but it had done damage. Anytime someone looks

474
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: into the murders of the Kennedy's or King, the charge

475
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: is almost always levied that they are just doing it

476
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 1: for a quick buck. It's an easy way to dismiss

477
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: an honest effort to look at the evidence. But now

478
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: here was someone actually trying to make money by telling

479
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:24,680
Speaker 1: a story about the murder of King. It became the

480
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: easy way to dismiss Bill Pepper and Jowers and the

481
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: substantial evidence that the assassination was run out of his grill.

482
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: They were all just trying to make a movie. As

483
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: for Betty Spaces, she would endure a great deal of harassment.

484
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: In the beginning, Jack Saltman and a few others showed

485
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 1: up at her door. Then they appeared at the restaurant

486
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: where she worked. They wanted her in on the story.

487
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: So did Willie Aikins, who was angry that she was

488
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: going to cost them all a lot of money if

489
00:30:56,120 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 1: she didn't follow their script. And ABC host Sam Donaldson

490
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: himself showed up in the company of Aikin's who that

491
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 1: day presumably left this three fifty seven magnum at home.

492
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: When Betty told Pepper that Donaldson had come to her house,

493
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: he was surprised. Did Donaldson come over there? And at

494
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: to hear him on a point? And he was dinging

495
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: when Aidan was beena on the winning doors and he

496
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: was damaged. If this lady don't want to talk, I

497
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 1: don't want to bother her. Those were nice sentiments spoken

498
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: by Donaldson, but it didn't keep ABC Prime Time from

499
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: turning Betty's life upside down When they did their special

500
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: on Lloyd Showers and his confession, because right in the

501
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: middle of things, they showed a blurry video of Betty

502
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 1: leaving work and getting into her car like she was

503
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: part of some drug deal, and while that was playing,

504
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 1: they said that Betty could confirm the story told by Jowers.

505
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: Now lots of people wanted to talk to Betty, journalists,

506
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: people posing as journalists, guys in suits flashing I D.

507
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 1: Betty didn't want to talk to any of them. Sometimes

508
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: she had and pretended she wasn't home. As for Jowers,

509
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: things weren't great for him either. With a movie deal

510
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: dying and the Attorney General not offering immunity, he felt

511
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: more exposed than ever, And now the King family had questions.

512
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: They wanted to speak to him, and when the possibility

513
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: of a meeting was proposed, Jowers said he was willing.

514
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: He apparently hoped that he might find some shelter in

515
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: a meeting with a King family, So one was arranged

516
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 1: in a room at a motel out on the highway.

517
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 1: At the meeting was Lloyd Jowers and his attorney Lewis Garrison,

518
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 1: Martin King's son Dexter, and Ambassador Andrew Young. They also

519
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: brought a tape recorder. When Martin Luther King was shot

520
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, King's lute, ennant

521
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: and confidant Andrew Young, was standing below in the parking lot.

522
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 1: Young heard a popping noise and then suddenly realized that

523
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 1: King was down. After King's death, Young stayed on for

524
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: a time with the SCLC. Then he entered politics and

525
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:19,160
Speaker 1: served two terms in Congress. In nineteen seventy seven, he

526
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: was made Ambassador to the United Nations by President Carter,

527
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: and following that he won two consecutive terms as mayor

528
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 1: of Atlanta. Three decades after King's death, Andrew Young would

529
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:34,960
Speaker 1: return to Memphis and take the witness stand in the

530
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: civil trial. Under the questioning of Bill Pepper, attorney for

531
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 1: credit Scott King, Young explained that his energies after King's

532
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 1: murder were directed towards carrying forward with King's work, rather

533
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: than answering the questions that still lingered about his death.

534
00:33:52,440 --> 00:34:00,719
Speaker 1: But eventually that changed. Did you and recent years, and said, um,

535
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: the events of April four from the assassination on your friends,

536
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: and you prob gain again. I did investing. As a

537
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:14,920
Speaker 1: result of UM, the families knew awareness and concern, and

538
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:18,319
Speaker 1: where you asked to participating in a meeting with an

539
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 1: individual who who was a dependent came Mr Royal Johns.

540
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:27,240
Speaker 1: Yes I was. I was told that that Mr Jarros

541
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 1: will getting older, he wasn't very well and it was

542
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 1: almost like he wanted to get right with dogs before

543
00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 1: he died. But when we met with him, that was

544
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 1: still impression that I had that he was a man

545
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 1: who had a lot on his mind and a lot

546
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: on his conscience and who wanted to confess it and

547
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 1: be free of couldn't you in the time remaining summarized

548
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 1: for us what Mr Jarros told you? And next you

549
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 1: came as I beat well. He said that he was

550
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 1: a Ryan Jim's grill and that he was a retired

551
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 1: Members police officer and that a lot of police officers

552
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 1: hung out at his place. He said he hadn't lived

553
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,280
Speaker 1: such a good life. He had a lot of drinking

554
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 1: and gambling problems, and that he was in debt to

555
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: somebody that he identified as the head of the mafia

556
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:34,240
Speaker 1: who called him up, and that he was nervous about

557
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:37,719
Speaker 1: him and afraid that he was calling the collective money

558
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 1: which he didn't have. The guy said, I'll forget about that.

559
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: I just need you to do me a favor. So

560
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 1: what was the favor? The mafia guy to whom Jowers

561
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 1: owed a large debt, Frank Liberto, who we've spoken about before,

562
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: wanted jowers grill for use as the staging ground for

563
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 1: the murder of Martin Luther King. It was the thick

564
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: place if King were staying ethel Lorraine Motel. But when

565
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 1: Jowers met with King's son Dexter, he wasn't quite ready

566
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:10,279
Speaker 1: to let it all hang out, so he told a

567
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 1: more limited but rather unbelievable story to Dexter King and

568
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:18,919
Speaker 1: Andy Young. In this telling, Jowers did not know Martin

569
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: Luther King was to be murdered. All Jowers knew was

570
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 1: that he was supposed to receive a large amount of

571
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 1: money hidden in a box supposedly containing vegetables, and that

572
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: he was supposed to hand this money over to a

573
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,840
Speaker 1: Spanish looking guy named Raoul, who would bring Jowers a package.

574
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:37,279
Speaker 1: Jowers claimed the man brought the package, which was a

575
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 1: long box that presumably contained a rifle, But Jowers told

576
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:44,400
Speaker 1: Dexter King and Andy Young that he never looked in

577
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: the box. But he did give this Raoul guy the money.

578
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 1: Then crazy day that this was. Jowers said he got

579
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 1: a phone call telling him to be at the back

580
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: door of his grill at six o'clock someone would give

581
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 1: him something. He didn't know what, and asad Or Young

582
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:04,879
Speaker 1: tells what happened next. According to Jowers, but he said

583
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: when he went to the back door, just as he

584
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:11,839
Speaker 1: got to the door, shot rang out and somebody came

585
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: out of the bushes and handed him a Smogan rifle.

586
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 1: And he broke it down and wrapped it in a

587
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 1: table ball and put it back in the store room.

588
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: He said. The guy who handed him the rifle was

589
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,319
Speaker 1: the Vello who had been on his police force with him.

590
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: That was a friend of his who he used to

591
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:39,359
Speaker 1: go hunting with. It was quite a good box. Bill

592
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 1: Pepper asked the court for permission to play the recording

593
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:45,760
Speaker 1: of the meeting between Ambassador Young, Dexter King, and Lloyd Jowers.

594
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:49,279
Speaker 1: The judge agreed, and the jury then heard the entire

595
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:52,319
Speaker 1: tape of that meeting, selections from which we will play

596
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,360
Speaker 1: for you. Here should be noted that this was the

597
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 1: second such meeting. The first included Jowers, Garrison King, and

598
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: Bill Pepper, so there is a more relaxed informality here

599
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,520
Speaker 1: than one might expect for a meeting where one man

600
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: confesses to killing the other man's father. And while the

601
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 1: evidence strongly suggests that the basic underlying story here is true, many,

602
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:17,759
Speaker 1: if not most, of the pieces of this story as

603
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 1: told by Jowers, are not true, and we will try

604
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: to point these out as they occur. As we heard

605
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 1: Attorney Garrison say before, Jowers did not speak well of

606
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 1: King and private company, But now in meeting with Dexter King,

607
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 1: Jowers wanted not only forgiveness from the King family, but

608
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: their support in his bid for immunity from prosecution. In

609
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 1: return for his coming forward. The King family, on their side,

610
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 1: was grateful to finally here after thirty years some version

611
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 1: of the truth from someone inside the conspiracy. Because of this,

612
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: they were not inclined to challenge Jowers or make things

613
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: difficult for him when he made absurd claims such as

614
00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 1: he did not know it was Martin Luther King who

615
00:38:59,719 --> 00:39:03,720
Speaker 1: was to be murdered. It's an odd trade off. Also,

616
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: after the civil trial, the original tape of this meeting

617
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 1: appears to have been lost, so what we have now

618
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: is what was made when the original tape was played

619
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 1: and re recorded in open court with all its distortion

620
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 1: and background noise. So instead of playing the courtroom recording,

621
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 1: we're going to recreate the exchange between Dexter and Showers

622
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: heard on that tape with voice actors. We appreciate your

623
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: willingness to open up and come forward. As you know,

624
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,360
Speaker 1: we continue to support immunity for you, but the district

625
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:47,399
Speaker 1: attorney doesn't seem to want your story to come out,

626
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,959
Speaker 1: so it appears that they are shutting everything down. Yeah,

627
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 1: I think that would be a major tragedy. Well, we

628
00:39:56,160 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: would be definitely. Dexter then brings the conversation back to

629
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 1: where it had been the last time they met. When

630
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: we had last met, you had pretty much taken us

631
00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:09,280
Speaker 1: I think, up to a point where you had received

632
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 1: the rifle from Lieutenant Clark. I couldn't swear it was

633
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: Clark that I took it from, but I believe it was.

634
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,360
Speaker 1: Now say it happened just about that quick. I was

635
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 1: in the back door at six o'clock like I was

636
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 1: supposed to be. How many seconds did it take him

637
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 1: to hand me the rifle and got going? That was

638
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 1: just a split second. Here again, Jowers being at the

639
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: back doors six for a mysterious handoff is a ludicrous

640
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 1: fabrication to support the notion that he really didn't know

641
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: what was going down, and Jowers tries to pretend that

642
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:42,399
Speaker 1: the handoff was so quick that he really couldn't say

643
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:44,879
Speaker 1: for sure that it was his friend Earl Clark, dead

644
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:47,239
Speaker 1: for some years now, who had handed him the gun.

645
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: It was just like that, he said, snapping his fingers.

646
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:54,920
Speaker 1: But a little while later Andy Young asked again, but

647
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: are you pretty sure that it was Clark who handed

648
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 1: you the rifle? This time Jowers is more certain. I'm

649
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:04,919
Speaker 1: sure it was Clark, he says, of course. Jowers saying

650
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:08,320
Speaker 1: so doesn't mean that Lieutenant Earl Clark, an m b D.

651
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: Sharpshooter was out in the bushes behind Jim's grill, just

652
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,320
Speaker 1: as they say so didn't mean that Frank Holt was

653
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: out there. But there is other testimony that we will

654
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: hear later that says that Earl Clark was out in

655
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 1: the yard, and the muddy knees on jowers pants says

656
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: that he was also out there, along with evidence of

657
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 1: a third man. But Jowers says that he got a

658
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:33,560
Speaker 1: smoking rifle handed to him moments after doctor King was

659
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 1: shot Dexter King then asked you Owers if he knows

660
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: of any evidence determining what rifle killed his father. To

661
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 1: my knowledge, I don't know of anyone that has scientific

662
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:49,280
Speaker 1: evidence of which rifle did actually kill him. I definitely

663
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 1: don't believe it was one of the police found. I'll

664
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: never believe that in a million years. So is it

665
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 1: your feeling that James Earl Ray did not know? He

666
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 1: didn't no more kill him and you killed your own dad? No? No, no,

667
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: I'd never believe that in a million Even if he

668
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:10,320
Speaker 1: told me, I wouldn't believe it. You could be forgiven

669
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:13,279
Speaker 1: for smiling as you listen to how certain Jowers is

670
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 1: that neither Ray nor Ray's rifle kill King? If Jowers

671
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: were out in the bushes when the fatal shot was fired,

672
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 1: as it appears he was, of course he's certain. How

673
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: could he not be? Dexter then has another question, So

674
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 1: why was he set up his own fault? They got

675
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,800
Speaker 1: him out of jail, they furnished him money, they furnished

676
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 1: him with passports. Now they come up at that tale

677
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: about him setting up a gun deal, But that wasn't true.

678
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: They may have told him that, you know, So is

679
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,239
Speaker 1: it possible that he was doing things that appeared to

680
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 1: be stalking, but maybe he didn't realize it. They probably

681
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 1: didn't even realize it. Yeah, I'm sure that's the way

682
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 1: it went down. He was doing what he was told

683
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 1: to do. So Jowers is certain that Ray was set up,

684
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:03,879
Speaker 1: and he seems to know more than just a little

685
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: bit about it. He knows about the phony gun deal

686
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: were according to Ray, he was asked to buy a

687
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 1: rifle to present to a prospective customer. And Jowers also

688
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: says that they got Ray out of jail, strongly suggesting

689
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:19,880
Speaker 1: that Ray was sprung so he would be available for

690
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 1: future service, perhaps Ay as a full guy. And how

691
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: Ray escaped from prison has always been a mystery because

692
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 1: he needed help and probably high level permission on the inside,

693
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: and once out, Ray had the use and protection of

694
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 1: several false identities. Jowers refers to them as passports identities

695
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 1: that he could never have come up with by himself.

696
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 1: And so now here's Jowers, who, on the one hand

697
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 1: is saying that he didn't know King was to be killed,

698
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: but on the other seems to know a lot of

699
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: inside details about how Ray was moved about and brought

700
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 1: to Memphis. So what to make of all this? With

701
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 1: Lloyd Jowers and Betty Spades. Over the years, Jowers has

702
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:04,400
Speaker 1: changed his story many times, like the absurd claim that

703
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 1: he didn't know who was to be murdered or who

704
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:08,880
Speaker 1: supposedly handed him the gun at the back door to

705
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:11,840
Speaker 1: the grill, And of course, at one point he was

706
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:14,760
Speaker 1: clearly chasing the prospect of making money from his story.

707
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: So after this many lies, is there any reason to

708
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: believe that some part of jowers story is true? The U.

709
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 1: S Department of Justice doesn't think so. In the year

710
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 1: two thousand report, they carefully list out all of jowers

711
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 1: prevarications and conclude that every facet of his story is false.

712
00:44:33,760 --> 00:44:37,320
Speaker 1: The totality of the evidence, the report concludes, suggests that

713
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: Jowers fabricated his allegations, hoping to promote a sensational account

714
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 1: of a conspiracy to murder Dr Martin Luther King while

715
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,800
Speaker 1: acknowledging the many lies told. My own view is that

716
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 1: it's a stretch to imagine someone making up an entirely

717
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 1: untrue story about being part of a horrific murder in

718
00:44:56,640 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: the hope of making some money out of it. Seems

719
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:01,839
Speaker 1: like a out of trouble to invite into your life

720
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,439
Speaker 1: for an unlikely reward. And of course, the short lived

721
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:08,720
Speaker 1: chase for the movie deal arrived with producer Jack Saltman

722
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:13,280
Speaker 1: after the HBO mock trial. But Betty's Space had already

723
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:16,800
Speaker 1: told Bill Pepper about Jowers and the rifle before Jowers

724
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 1: or Space had ever met Jack Saltman. An attorney, Louis Garrison,

725
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 1: spent some long hours preparing a proposed immunity deal for

726
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:27,800
Speaker 1: Jowers for a crime that he had confessed to Garrison

727
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 1: again before he met Jack Saltman. Until his recent death,

728
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 1: Lewis Garrison maintained a respected law practice in Memphis. He

729
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:40,359
Speaker 1: was horrified by the murder of King, and he would

730
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 1: not have abused the legal system with a phony immunity

731
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: proposal so that as client might make some money on

732
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 1: a movie deal. He wasn't that kind of man. The

733
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:55,919
Speaker 1: Department of Justice also concluded that Betty Space was lying,

734
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:59,720
Speaker 1: but the motive here is hard to find. They assert

735
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:01,920
Speaker 1: that Space's name does not appear on the list of

736
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 1: people in Jim's grill made right after the shooting, but

737
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 1: her account of her spat with jowers wife, the drunk

738
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: Charlie Stevens, being escorted out of the place by her

739
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: sister Bobby and Jowers short errands before the murder, ring

740
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: true to me, and I feel the same about her

741
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: account of Jowers coming through the back door with hair

742
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:22,760
Speaker 1: standing on end and the knees of his pants muddy.

743
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:26,280
Speaker 1: The d O j would also refer to a statement

744
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 1: that the AGS investigators got in January with Betty's space's

745
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 1: signature on it, saying that she had not seen Jowers

746
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:36,799
Speaker 1: with a rifle. But a little more than a month

747
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 1: after that, Betty signed a statement in the presence of

748
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 1: Bill Pepper where she once again affirmed in detail her

749
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 1: original account of seeing Jowers coming through the back door

750
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 1: with the gun, saying, in part as read by a

751
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 1: voice actor, I will not retract the truthful accounts of

752
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 1: the events which I witnessed around six pm on April

753
00:46:56,080 --> 00:47:02,320
Speaker 1: fourt which confirms Mr jowers involvement based on everything I know,

754
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: James Earl Ray was not the person who shot Dr. King.

755
00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: Other persons have tried to get me to change my story,

756
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 1: saying that if I did so, I would benefit financially.

757
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: I refused to do so and continue to refuse. I

758
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:19,400
Speaker 1: was in any attempts by the attorney general or his

759
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:22,839
Speaker 1: investigators to imply that I am telling lives for money.

760
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 1: So the Attorney General of the State of Tennessee has

761
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,239
Speaker 1: a statement signed by Betty Space saying one thing, and

762
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:34,439
Speaker 1: Bill Pepper has one saying something entirely different. Both things

763
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 1: can't be true. How to make sense out of this?

764
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:41,239
Speaker 1: In my investigation of the murder of Robert Kennedy, I

765
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 1: came across recordings that have been hidden for twenty years,

766
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 1: recordings of dozens of police interviews of witnesses who had

767
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 1: inconvenient accounts of what they saw the knight of Kennedy's murder,

768
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:55,760
Speaker 1: accounts that didn't fit with the official version of the crime.

769
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,320
Speaker 1: When the investigators made it clear that they wanted a

770
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 1: change of ory, they often got it. Because it is

771
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 1: very intimidating to be visited by men in suits who

772
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: suggest that if you don't change your story, they will

773
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:12,400
Speaker 1: have to return with more questions to discover what reason

774
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 1: you might have to obstruct a murder investigation by putting

775
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:19,399
Speaker 1: forward an untrue story, which would be a very serious crime.

776
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 1: They might need to talk to your employer. Have you

777
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:24,800
Speaker 1: ever been in trouble with the law, How are you

778
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:27,880
Speaker 1: doing drugs. Perhaps you told the story to cover up

779
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 1: an affair. For any normal person under this kind of pressure,

780
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:35,279
Speaker 1: where the men asking the questions have no interest in

781
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: what you saw, but only in what they want you

782
00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:41,400
Speaker 1: to say you saw, the easiest thing to do is

783
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 1: sign what they want you to sign and have them leave.

784
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:47,880
Speaker 1: And this is Bill Pepper's understanding as to what happened

785
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 1: with Betty Spaces. Well. Betty Spates obviously was a very

786
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:58,320
Speaker 1: important witness to the events that took place at the

787
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:01,879
Speaker 1: time of the assassination, and so they had to try

788
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:05,279
Speaker 1: to discredit her in every way that they could and

789
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:10,240
Speaker 1: to try to get her to collaborate with a false story.

790
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:14,879
Speaker 1: So they went to visit her, and they intimidated her.

791
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 1: They used some pressures they had on one of her children,

792
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:22,080
Speaker 1: one of her sons. They were determined to get her

793
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:26,480
Speaker 1: to provide a different story. But that was not the truth,

794
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:31,920
Speaker 1: and Betty, of course told me the truth to actually tearfully.

795
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:36,800
Speaker 1: Some time later. He wanted to tell the truth, he

796
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:40,960
Speaker 1: wanted it out there, and she held nothing back. She

797
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 1: taught to her relationship with Jowers and what happened on

798
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:50,759
Speaker 1: that afternoon exactly the way that she recalled it. I

799
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:55,880
Speaker 1: was very, very proud of her. In the process of

800
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:59,320
Speaker 1: trying to discredit Spats as a witness, the Department of

801
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: Justice port reveals two other instances where Betty Spates made

802
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 1: allegations about the murder of Dr King, and this might

803
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:10,759
Speaker 1: be the most telling evidence of all, because this was

804
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:13,920
Speaker 1: back in early nineteen sixty nine, less than a year

805
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 1: after King was killed. The first instance is short on details,

806
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:21,400
Speaker 1: but according to the report, Betty is supposed to have

807
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:24,840
Speaker 1: told someone that her boss, presumably Jours, was in on

808
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:29,360
Speaker 1: the murder. This person told the police, and Space was questioned.

809
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 1: She denied having said any such thing. In the second,

810
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 1: Space was arranging bail for her brother. When she remarked

811
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: the two bailed bondsmen that she knew who shot Dr

812
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 1: King and that Ray was innocent. The bondsman notified the

813
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 1: AG's office and two investigators were sent to question Spates again.

814
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 1: She denied the allegation and said she didn't know a

815
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:58,240
Speaker 1: thing about the assassination. In reviewing alleged crimes that happened

816
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:01,400
Speaker 1: many years before, like a sexual saul, what a victim

817
00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:03,720
Speaker 1: or witness said at the time to a third party

818
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:08,040
Speaker 1: is regarded as strong evidence, but to the Department of Justice.

819
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:12,399
Speaker 1: The fact that Spates twice denied her reported accusations when

820
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: confronted by law enforcement proved to them that her murder

821
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:19,279
Speaker 1: stories were untrue. Of course, one might well see it

822
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 1: the other way. One might perceive a woman who saw

823
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 1: something so disturbing that she lets it out in an

824
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:28,800
Speaker 1: unguarded moment, but when the lawman show up, she becomes frightened,

825
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 1: so she denies she ever said it. And if Jowers

826
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 1: came through that door with a smoking rifle, as Space

827
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 1: said he did, and as he said he did, and

828
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:40,239
Speaker 1: as lawyer said he did, then you can put away

829
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 1: most of what you've been told about the murder of Dr. King.

830
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 1: And remember, Betty Space was never part of the movie scheme.

831
00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:49,399
Speaker 1: She didn't want to be on TV, and she never

832
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:52,440
Speaker 1: at any time asked for a single thing for her story.

833
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 1: I want to play again what she said about what

834
00:51:55,800 --> 00:51:58,479
Speaker 1: Jowers and the movie bunch had wanted her to say.

835
00:51:59,560 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 1: They want me to tell the truth about seeing him

836
00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 1: with the rifle. He just wanted to change it just

837
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:10,480
Speaker 1: a little bit by saying I saw him standing in

838
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: the back door and a black man passing him a

839
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:19,719
Speaker 1: right and that's not true, and he said if I

840
00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:23,520
Speaker 1: didn't say it, I will lose my share of three

841
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:28,120
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars plus royalties to do it. And I

842
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 1: told him, I can't love me nothing. I never hate it.

843
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 1: I believe that Betty Spits saw what she said she saw.

844
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:37,759
Speaker 1: I don't believe the men in suits. I've seen what

845
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 1: they do next time on the Emilk tapes. Memphis is

846
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:52,840
Speaker 1: an interesting reputation of being the first degree murder capital

847
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,440
Speaker 1: of America, and in that context we're not talking about

848
00:52:56,600 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 1: street crime, but organized hitch. I heard some noise, and

849
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:06,239
Speaker 1: I was sitting in my kitchen, and I'm be getting

850
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:09,720
Speaker 1: aware of some shadows out back, in some out front.

851
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:12,800
Speaker 1: And to make a long story short, two people tried

852
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,279
Speaker 1: to break in the front, three in the back at

853
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: the same time. More scientific tests may be conducted on

854
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:22,319
Speaker 1: James Earl Ray's rifle to see if it was used

855
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:26,759
Speaker 1: to kill Martin Luther King. Tests described Friday were inconclusive,

856
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: though a build up of material and the rifle barrel

857
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:33,359
Speaker 1: could be to blame. Did you attempt to determine from

858
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 1: outside the skin the structure of that bullet under the skin? Yes?

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00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:41,200
Speaker 1: Or I did, and you could take your finger and

860
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:44,600
Speaker 1: pinch and feel and roll that bullet under the skin.

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00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 1: You're saying, what you all saw taking out of Dr

862
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:50,960
Speaker 1: King looked like that. We felt like we found a

863
00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:58,360
Speaker 1: piece of gold when we found a bullet. Thanks for

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00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:00,919
Speaker 1: listening to the MLK Tapes for auction of iHeart Radio

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00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:04,799
Speaker 1: and Tenderfoot TV. This podcast is not specifically endorsed by

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00:54:04,840 --> 00:54:07,400
Speaker 1: the King Family or the King of State. The Email

867
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:10,399
Speaker 1: K Tapes is written and hosted by Bill Claper. Matt

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00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 1: Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf of

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00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:16,800
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio with producers Trevor Young and ben Keebrick.

870
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:20,400
Speaker 1: Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay are executive producers on behalf

871
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:24,320
Speaker 1: of Tenderfoot TV with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Stepman.

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00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:28,359
Speaker 1: Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Cover art by

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00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:33,280
Speaker 1: Mr Soul to six with photography by Artemus Jenkins. Special

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00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 1: thanks to Owen Rosenbaum and Grace Royer at u t A,

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00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:40,719
Speaker 1: The Nord Group, back Median Marketing, Envisioned Business Management, and

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00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 1: Station sixteen. If you have questions, you can visit our website,

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00:54:44,719 --> 00:54:47,960
Speaker 1: The Email K Tapes dot com. We posted photos and

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00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:50,960
Speaker 1: videos related to the podcast on our social media accounts.

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00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:53,400
Speaker 1: You can check them out at the email k tapes.

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00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV,

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00:54:57,080 --> 00:55:00,319
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:01,680
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,