Speaker 1: Welcome to the MLK Tapes, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in
Speaker 1: this podcast are solely those of the podcast author or
Speaker 1: individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent those
Speaker 1: of I Heart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees. Listener
Speaker 1: discretion is advised. Mr Larson, Yes, Sir William Pepper, I'm
Speaker 1: calling you from good morning to you. Good morning. How
Speaker 1: are you? You're about twenty minutes We're going to Corrida again?
Speaker 1: Sorry I am, yes, sir. I got a couple of
Speaker 1: hearings over there this morning. Uh. I have a client
Speaker 1: who has imparted some information to me and he assures
Speaker 1: me that he can back up everything. He has told
Speaker 1: me that quite frankly, could prove that James are already
Speaker 1: did not shoot Dr King, and I think could probably
Speaker 1: prove who actually did it. Yeah. I called the Union Hall.
Speaker 1: I said it's a matter of life and death. I said,
Speaker 1: I think these people are planning to kill Dr King.
Speaker 1: The authorities were parade. Oh, we found a gun that
Speaker 1: James ol Ray bought in Birmingham that killed Dr King.
Speaker 1: Except it wasn't the gun that killed Dr King. James
Speaker 1: Lvey was upon for the official story from My Heart
Speaker 1: Radio intended for TV. The plan was to get King
Speaker 1: to the city because they wanted it handled in memphisfore
Speaker 1: Dead and in cat Hamon. And I've lived with it
Speaker 1: so long, my sion, and they scared for me. The
Speaker 1: Lord told me to not the word. I've been wanting
Speaker 1: to tell it all my life. I'm Bill Claiburg, and
Speaker 1: this is d MLK Tapes. I'm sitting with Bill Pepper
Speaker 1: in his cluttered study, listening to a phone conversation that
Speaker 1: Bill had recorded in I found the unlabeled cassette in
Speaker 1: a box with others that Bill had stashed at the
Speaker 1: King Center in Atlanta, a hundred tapes, ninety minutes each.
Speaker 1: I was doing triage. I was about to set this
Speaker 1: tape aside because it was just ordinary phone calls. But
Speaker 1: then some lawyer comes on and tells Bill that he
Speaker 1: is a client who, thirty years after the fact, can
Speaker 1: prove that James Earl Ray did not shoot Martin Luther King,
Speaker 1: the very thing that Pepper had been trying to prove
Speaker 1: for twenty years. That, of course, it's very exciting. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not in the best of hell. And he had
Speaker 1: quite frankly believed that the King family deserves to know
Speaker 1: what actually happened. Right. Ah, he has known that great
Speaker 1: for many years. Apparently they at one time we're imprisoned
Speaker 1: together in Southeast Missouri when they were both young. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I'll be quite honest with you, and you could
Speaker 1: care less about James all right. You know he thanks
Speaker 1: the Kings deserved to know what happened, and that's why
Speaker 1: he has come forward. If you're Bill Pepper, you get
Speaker 1: phone calls like this every once in a while. People
Speaker 1: who know things reach out often as they approached the
Speaker 1: end of their lives. I was fascinated by what I
Speaker 1: heard on this tape, and Bill had agreed to sit
Speaker 1: and listen to it with me. So that's what we're
Speaker 1: doing in a study. And at times you can hear
Speaker 1: the Harlem Street noise from below. So Bill, you're living
Speaker 1: in England and you get a call from this guy,
Speaker 1: attorney Larson, and you call him back and he spins
Speaker 1: you this tale. Um, what do you think about that?
Speaker 1: What was your initial reaction? Well, my initial reaction was
Speaker 1: of interest. I had an open mind with respect to
Speaker 1: witnesses potential with as is coming forward, and here was
Speaker 1: a guy who was represented and represented himself as to
Speaker 1: be a lawyer. Seemed to be a lawyer. So I
Speaker 1: was interested in, uh opening that door and having a conversation.
Speaker 1: Why would Bill Pepper say that this man on the
Speaker 1: phone represented himself to be a lawyer. It's an odd
Speaker 1: way to put it. The answer is because over the
Speaker 1: years Pepper has been approached by a few people who
Speaker 1: are not who they said they were, or otherwise offered
Speaker 1: false information. Bill did agree that this Mr. Larson seemed
Speaker 1: on the up and up, but there was still the
Speaker 1: matter of the client. Was he for real? Mr? Larson
Speaker 1: said he was. He worked for the federal government for
Speaker 1: many years. He did considerable undercover work, a lot of
Speaker 1: it through my understanding the U. S. Attorney's office in
Speaker 1: County Ryan. And have you known this client, Mr Larson
Speaker 1: for quite a period of time. I have known him
Speaker 1: for probably seven or eight years. He has several business
Speaker 1: operations in Tennessee and I have done work for them.
Speaker 1: And quite honestly, it was stunned when he called and
Speaker 1: said I need a visit with you. I had no
Speaker 1: idea that he had the involvement that he did. I
Speaker 1: see and have you found it to be a reliable person.
Speaker 1: If he were to tell me that it was going
Speaker 1: to snow on the fourth day, I would probably laugh
Speaker 1: that I'd get a cop just in case. I'm Lustralian,
Speaker 1: for instance. Now, because he said that he has ever
Speaker 1: met me at any time, Telser, he did testify several
Speaker 1: years ago an executive session of the Subcommittee on as
Speaker 1: the Congressional Committee. Yes, yesterday he testified in executive session.
Speaker 1: Apparently he and Mr Stokes did not hit it off immediately.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that will come as no great shot you.
Speaker 1: Attorney Larson has just dropped a bomb. He said his
Speaker 1: client had been called to testify before the House Up
Speaker 1: Committee on Assassinations a full twenty years earlier. Not just
Speaker 1: anybody gets called before the h s c A. An
Speaker 1: executive session was reserved for people who had things to
Speaker 1: say that would be kept secret for fifty years. So
Speaker 1: who was this guy? Bill Pepper didn't know at this point.
Speaker 1: He didn't know the guy's name. Back to the phone call.
Speaker 1: He's a he's a white with the Southerner, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: he is from southeast Missouri. Now live isn't another state
Speaker 1: that I am in contact? With him. How do you
Speaker 1: suggest we've received as Larson. I mean, I certainly would
Speaker 1: like in your presence to um to meet with your client.
Speaker 1: Does he have any any concern about his own situation
Speaker 1: in terms of prosecution or anything of that sort, But
Speaker 1: not not a whole bun, because basically his knowledge came
Speaker 1: after the fact. I mean, he is not extraordinarily concerned
Speaker 1: about it, although he is well aware that it's possible
Speaker 1: because of all the other things that had transpired in
Speaker 1: this case. Uh, what he had suggested to me, and
Speaker 1: I'll throw this out in you, he had suggested, perhaps
Speaker 1: if there were some injuries in talking with him, everyone
Speaker 1: meeting in Atlanta, perhaps at the Key Museum, and he
Speaker 1: could then basically explained to the sign is what Dexter gets. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's a that's the good starting point suggestion. I
Speaker 1: think the center is probably too my profile, and I
Speaker 1: think but I think the idea of having Dexter there
Speaker 1: is a very good one. I'd very much like to
Speaker 1: have you president, if that's if that's if you don't
Speaker 1: object to it, and if that's uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I think my client would prefer that also, is
Speaker 1: it is we we meet internally outside of Tennessee. I mean,
Speaker 1: would would Nashville be a possibility for UM? I think
Speaker 1: Nashville would be a possibility. Yeah. Would he mind on
Speaker 1: recording this session? I don't believe. So I'll clarify that
Speaker 1: with him that I certainly would expect you to do that.
Speaker 1: Quite frankly, we would like to do that. We'll give
Speaker 1: you a company his information as arson such that it
Speaker 1: could be um it could be produced in court if
Speaker 1: he were willing to do that, or is it a
Speaker 1: portion of it would be admissible? There would be some
Speaker 1: that I think would be perhaps hearsay, you know. But
Speaker 1: the circumstances I found to be somewhat chilling. Ye, And
Speaker 1: what what troubled me, especially as I grew up down
Speaker 1: in Memphis, right and I was in high school where
Speaker 1: the murder occurred. Right now, I remember the cast of
Speaker 1: characters and all of a sudden names were coming back, right.
Speaker 1: So I based on that, I think that there's there's
Speaker 1: something there. Listen. I do thank you very much, UM,
Speaker 1: and please tell your client I'm I'm very grateful to
Speaker 1: him at his late point in his life. We're coming
Speaker 1: forward because he wish that his name not be known
Speaker 1: to me or Dexter prior to any meeting that we uh, yes,
Speaker 1: or he would prefer not to have that done just yet.
Speaker 1: That's one that's fairly fine. And how your telephone lines secure? Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: far as I know I have, well, I have your number.
Speaker 1: You don't even need to lose that. You could just
Speaker 1: say it's Rusty calling, okay, And but I will come
Speaker 1: back to you fairly quickly, and I look forward to
Speaker 1: meeting you and your client, and I'm sure Dexter will
Speaker 1: as well. All right, sir, I thank you very much,
Speaker 1: my pleasure, very forward to meeting you, and thank you, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: When we were listening to this tape, neither Bill Pepper
Speaker 1: nor I knew if the lawyer or his client were
Speaker 1: still alive. And when Bill hung up the phone on
Speaker 1: the original call, he didn't even know the name of
Speaker 1: the guy, the one with this new information. But we
Speaker 1: know it now. His name was Green, Jim Green. According
Speaker 1: to his story, Green had led a life of crime
Speaker 1: when he was young and spent time in prison more
Speaker 1: than once. Then he served some years with law enforcement,
Speaker 1: after which he opened a couple of topless bars. But
Speaker 1: he was just twenty one when He says he was
Speaker 1: picked or more or less told to kill James L. Ray.
Speaker 1: According to Green, whose voice we will hear right now,
Speaker 1: he didn't know that doctor King was to be murdered
Speaker 1: the people and took the money. That may have been
Speaker 1: difficult to hear, as the recording of this phone conversation
Speaker 1: between Jim Green and Bill Pepper is of poor quality.
Speaker 1: Jim Green said, I've been told that he, referring to
Speaker 1: James Earl Ray, double cross some people and took their money.
Speaker 1: Now here's the rest of that statement from the Coalst
Speaker 1: transcript as read by a voice actor. They knew that
Speaker 1: Ray was going to perform a robbery in Memphis. We
Speaker 1: were going to kill him after the robbery. We don't
Speaker 1: even know King is in town as far as we're concerned.
Speaker 1: We're told that when he turns the corner that if
Speaker 1: the policeman don't get him, I get him. I was
Speaker 1: the backup shooter and the cop was late, and then
Speaker 1: Ray turned and walked the other way where I couldn't
Speaker 1: get him. Jim Green died about ten years ago, but
Speaker 1: as you just heard, we have a tape of him
Speaker 1: talking to Bill Pepper, and we will play that tape
Speaker 1: in a bit. But Green's lawyer, Rusty Larson, the man
Speaker 1: you heard on the phone with Bill, is very much
Speaker 1: alive and still practicing law in Jackson, Tennessee. We contacted
Speaker 1: Larson and asked if he would tell us what he
Speaker 1: knew of Jim Green and the plan to murder Ray.
Speaker 1: We'll hear from Larson after the break. Attorney Larson, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: Bill Claibor here, Yes, sir. How are you Bill? Good? Good?
Speaker 1: How you doing? I'm doing good? Did did our engineer arrive?
Speaker 1: He has gotten here and he has more equipment than
Speaker 1: you say, Grace over. I'm at home in upstate New York.
Speaker 1: An attorney Russell Larson, better known as Rusty Larson, is
Speaker 1: sitting in his law office in Jackson, Tennessee, where he
Speaker 1: has practiced law for forty years. Larson grew up in
Speaker 1: South Memphis in an area called fittingly white Haven, and
Speaker 1: he was a junior in high school when King was shot.
Speaker 1: I asked him if he was aware of the desperate,
Speaker 1: deepening divide in his city. Of course, I was aware
Speaker 1: of the sanitation strike because that had gone on for
Speaker 1: quite a while. My dad, being in the restaurant business,
Speaker 1: was adversely affected by that. But you know, it was
Speaker 1: just business as usual basically in my world. But business
Speaker 1: as usual was about to change in Memphis when Dr
Speaker 1: King was shot. The National Guard troops came in and
Speaker 1: downtown Memphis got shut down, and he got a little
Speaker 1: scary at that point, the first time I had ever
Speaker 1: been around or have much exposure to armed military people
Speaker 1: with real life guns. Kind of a coming of age time.
Speaker 1: Larson went to college and got his law degree at
Speaker 1: Memphis State. Upon graduation, he landed a job with an
Speaker 1: appellate judge in Jackson, just an hour and a half
Speaker 1: of the road from Memphis. A few years later, he
Speaker 1: went out on his own as a criminal defense attorney,
Speaker 1: which is the work he has done it for since.
Speaker 1: I asked Larson how this led to Jim Green. Mr
Speaker 1: Green opened a adult entertainment establishment here called the Doll House,
Speaker 1: and needless to say, when the topless bar came to
Speaker 1: town with scantily clad women dancing, it upset a lot
Speaker 1: of folks and the police department tried to shut them down.
Speaker 1: I was hired by Jim Green two represent them, and
Speaker 1: we danced off to Federal Court and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden we had a federal judge who understood that dancing
Speaker 1: was really speech and it was protected by the Constitution.
Speaker 1: And so that's how I got involved with Jim and
Speaker 1: some of his operations. He often would come to town
Speaker 1: and would dropped in the office and we would talk
Speaker 1: for hours of a time, because Jim had plenty of
Speaker 1: stories to tell, what kind of stories, scary ones about
Speaker 1: his life of crime and then his life in law enforcement,
Speaker 1: things that Green had seen or done, and enough that
Speaker 1: Green himself began to write them down for a book
Speaker 1: he hoped to publish. The unfinished manuscript was titled Blood
Speaker 1: and Dishonor, and it was his account of his life
Speaker 1: on both sides of the law and his role in
Speaker 1: the murder of Martin Luther King. The book had been
Speaker 1: kept in a safe by Attorney Larson, who was kind
Speaker 1: enough to copy its pages and send them to me
Speaker 1: with an associate reading for us. The book begins this way.
Speaker 1: I was raised in Carruthersville, Missouri, on the west bank
Speaker 1: of the Mississippi. The town had bars, whorehouses, drugs, gambling,
Speaker 1: and about one killing a week. If you wanted anything,
Speaker 1: all you had to do was ask. But even in
Speaker 1: a town like that. People live normal lives. I played
Speaker 1: baseball and football. You might ask, how could I be
Speaker 1: that normal and end up doing all the things I did.
Speaker 1: It was easy look at what was around me. As
Speaker 1: he tells it, Jim Green was fourteen the first time
Speaker 1: he was put in jail. He had driven someone's truck
Speaker 1: from Tennessee to Florida to see a girl. When the
Speaker 1: cops pulled him over, they found a kid without a license.
Speaker 1: While they were still in high school, Jim and his
Speaker 1: friend Butch started running moonshine from Missouri into Tennessee and Alabama.
Speaker 1: They made good money. They also got busted a bunch
Speaker 1: of times. According to Attorney Larson, Jim was very young
Speaker 1: when when all this was taking place. I know that
Speaker 1: his career started when he was was pretty young, maybe
Speaker 1: even as a juvenile, and then he graduated to adult facilities.
Speaker 1: He had spent some time behind bars, and he knew
Speaker 1: the routines, and his personality was such that he had
Speaker 1: a great way of asking questions and getting people to
Speaker 1: talk to him. Inside the walls, you had punks, snitches,
Speaker 1: the ones who ran the drugs, the money, and finally
Speaker 1: the guards that thought they were cons This is where
Speaker 1: my education really began, or should I say where I
Speaker 1: found out what the world was really made of. Prison
Speaker 1: is a world with rules of its own. You either
Speaker 1: abide by the con rules or die. That's how simple
Speaker 1: it is. One of the people Green met in prison
Speaker 1: was a fellow named James Earle Ray. Green remembers him
Speaker 1: as a quiet guy who worked in the kitchen. That
Speaker 1: was about it. They weren't friends or anything, but Green
Speaker 1: thinks that is Knowing Ray, however, casually, was a reason
Speaker 1: he was picked for the job of killing him, because
Speaker 1: Green knew what Ray looked like. I asked Lawson how
Speaker 1: we found out about Green's involvement in the killing of King.
Speaker 1: I got the impression that Jim just needed to talk
Speaker 1: to somebody who didn't know a lot of the people
Speaker 1: that Jim knew. You know, sometimes you just need to
Speaker 1: talk to somebody and and if it's somebody that has
Speaker 1: a confidentiality situation, that your semi safe and talking and
Speaker 1: getting things off your chest. And I got the impression
Speaker 1: that there were a lot of ghosts that Jim was
Speaker 1: dealing with. When you reached out to Larson, Green was
Speaker 1: out of place in his life where he no longer
Speaker 1: wanted to carry his and everybody else's secrets about the
Speaker 1: murder of Dr. King, and both he and Attorney Larson
Speaker 1: thought that Bill Pepper was the person to talk to,
Speaker 1: so they each talked to Pepper on the phone and
Speaker 1: then made plans to meet with him and Dexter King
Speaker 1: in Memphis. Can you remember anything of what was said
Speaker 1: when Jim met Dexter King. Nothing as far as great substance.
Speaker 1: Mainly it was Dexter King trying to ascertain who was involved,
Speaker 1: what was it all about. Although Larson was representing Green
Speaker 1: and had grown up in Memphis, he really wasn't up
Speaker 1: on the complexities of the murder of Martin Luther King.
Speaker 1: So Larson was hearing a lot of stuff he hadn't
Speaker 1: heard before. It really kind of opened my eyes that
Speaker 1: there was more of a conspiracy than I thought there was.
Speaker 1: I think my idea probably developed fairly late in the game.
Speaker 1: The more I was involved in criminal defense work and
Speaker 1: got to know some of the cast of characters in
Speaker 1: Memphis and the Memphis Police Department, I got the feeling
Speaker 1: that there were some what we call them suits, the
Speaker 1: investigators who were involved in either the timing, the surveillance,
Speaker 1: maybe the planning. I had prepped for my interview with
Speaker 1: Rusty Larson by reading Jim Green's manuscript Blood and Dishonor,
Speaker 1: And since Green was no longer alive, I thought Larson
Speaker 1: and I might enter his story by way of the
Speaker 1: book and talk about the intrigue or the characters like
Speaker 1: Buster or j Bird, for whom crime was simply a
Speaker 1: way of life. I had some paragraphs that I intended
Speaker 1: to read to Larsen as springboards into Jim Green's story.
Speaker 1: There was one character in particular who had a powerful
Speaker 1: position in the Missouri crime mosaic. Yet to Jim Green,
Speaker 1: he seemed different from the others. His name was Paul,
Speaker 1: and one evening, Jim and Paul were alone together at
Speaker 1: the back of the pool hall. This is how Green
Speaker 1: describes the situation in his book. Paul reached inside his
Speaker 1: jacket and pulled out what looked like a wallet. He
Speaker 1: flipped it open, and all I could see were the
Speaker 1: letters FBI. Paul smiled at me and said, don't worry.
Speaker 1: I'm your friend, not your enemy. He said. Everybody had
Speaker 1: to make a little money, even cops. I knew we
Speaker 1: had worked with the local cops before, but I had
Speaker 1: never known of the FEDS being crooked. When I left,
Speaker 1: I drove straight back to Carruthersville. I told j Bird
Speaker 1: what had happened, and he started laughing and said, I
Speaker 1: bet you shape your pants. I asked him what he
Speaker 1: would do if he saw that kind of badge. Jay
Speaker 1: Bird said not to worry, because he needed us and
Speaker 1: we needed him, and that I was never to say
Speaker 1: anything about his badge where we would all end up
Speaker 1: being dead. I was eager to talk to Attorney Larson
Speaker 1: about this guy Paul and Paul's boss, who he called Rochi.
Speaker 1: I thought the book would be our springboard, but I
Speaker 1: would be disappointed because although Larson had read the manuscript,
Speaker 1: it had been over twenty years ago and little of
Speaker 1: it was still in his head. But there remains something
Speaker 1: important that I wanted from Larson, because if Jim Green's
Speaker 1: story is true, it points straight back to those who
Speaker 1: planned the murder of Dr. King. And in our phone conversation,
Speaker 1: I had found Rusty Larson to be smart, funny, and perceptive,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to apply those qualities to the question
Speaker 1: at hand. What did he think of Jim Green? Was
Speaker 1: Green the sort of man who would have gone to
Speaker 1: enormous trouble to invent an elaborate, self incriminating story. Why
Speaker 1: would he want to for attention? Larson didn't think so.
Speaker 1: He was not the type that needed the attention. He
Speaker 1: made a good bit of money in his various topless
Speaker 1: operations and kind of enjoyed that type of life. So
Speaker 1: I never had the impression that he would have to
Speaker 1: make up some story just too elevate himself and appear
Speaker 1: to be something that he wasn't. If anything, Jim just
Speaker 1: really didn't give a flip. He was who he was
Speaker 1: and if you like him, great, and if you don't
Speaker 1: like him, go screw yourself. Yeah, it was real simple
Speaker 1: with him. How simple. We'll let Jim Green tell you himself.
Speaker 1: I would run we come. This is Jim Green talking
Speaker 1: on the phone in late to Bill Pepper in London. Again,
Speaker 1: because of the tape's quality, this statement will be read
Speaker 1: by a voice actor. I was running moonshine and stolen
Speaker 1: cars with the mob out of St. Louis. I was
Speaker 1: working for Buster Workman Jim Michaels and then boys out
Speaker 1: of Gaslight. We ran money from the vending machine companies
Speaker 1: back and forth. Because my cousin was an owner of
Speaker 1: one of the companies, and I got tied in through them,
Speaker 1: and that's how I met the agent. I was told
Speaker 1: to go to this place in St. Louis with Butch
Speaker 1: and meet this guy. He told me we work hand
Speaker 1: in hand. They help us, we help them. Back in
Speaker 1: the sixties, that was the way of life. The agent
Speaker 1: Jim Green speaks about is a guy named Paul, who
Speaker 1: had FBI identification. But we're closely with organized crime in
Speaker 1: the southern US. They help us, we help them, is
Speaker 1: what he was told. From this point forward, we're going
Speaker 1: to forego the voice actor and play the original tape.
Speaker 1: We highly recommend wearing headphones. While some of it may
Speaker 1: be difficult to hear, we feel it's important that you
Speaker 1: hear Jim Green make the statements himself. According to Green,
Speaker 1: Paul was the one who recruited him for the upcoming
Speaker 1: job in Memphis. Our crowd they robbery as members. We
Speaker 1: were looking. He had to the robbery. This is what
Speaker 1: we're doing. That's what you were trying. And I'm told
Speaker 1: that the mender of polices go back and up. We
Speaker 1: only no key and then right as far as we're concerned, right,
Speaker 1: we're told that when Ray turned this corner, then it's
Speaker 1: the police, and don't get him when he turns upoint
Speaker 1: when he draw his driving. So when he's walking, I
Speaker 1: was a bag of pater in case and the cop
Speaker 1: was k and then Ray turned and walked the other
Speaker 1: way where I couldn't get what I would have done
Speaker 1: it or night, I don't know. I say the end.
Speaker 1: As a kid, I would have been to see. There's
Speaker 1: one other thing my lower my son told me. I
Speaker 1: was like, right, he didn't he didn't mention that that.
Speaker 1: I don't know when Ray will remember me, because I
Speaker 1: was a very young kid in his army. I was
Speaker 1: turned his army and I wasn't order taken and Ray
Speaker 1: had a free to run in the bread and you
Speaker 1: know it adventicated stuff. And then when they had burned
Speaker 1: me back through them, I made him again. It made me.
Speaker 1: We're making before okay now when they and that's one thing,
Speaker 1: and I think God would pick ncud when they held
Speaker 1: me in figure and then you remember him. I didn't
Speaker 1: remember me. And then when they told me he ran
Speaker 1: with the club board. Then I've been all in because
Speaker 1: that love and found these very cosys from ringing beginning.
Speaker 1: Attorney Rusty Larson had said in his call to Pepper
Speaker 1: that Green had testified before the House Select Committee. So
Speaker 1: Pepper asked Green about that. I can divide under exective
Speaker 1: in that, but my catrimonial nobody would allowed that room
Speaker 1: when I did everybody, but I only came home, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't they can play to him. And I was
Speaker 1: already gray, and I knew the Ray didn't do the
Speaker 1: killing because I was looking at him with the D
Speaker 1: and uh so my dad's funny was never known and
Speaker 1: never will be known until two thousand and twenty nine. Okay, so,
Speaker 1: but did still your name appear anywhere in the well?
Speaker 1: I was repeating, You're spinning till your name appear anywhere
Speaker 1: in any of the volumes the report. I don't know
Speaker 1: they'd let me to warri it, you know, because they
Speaker 1: had a man and a woman inventityator come to me
Speaker 1: and men. Right. I was working on an undercover time
Speaker 1: at the time, right, and uh, they asked me would
Speaker 1: not come out to night. Ain't no way I'll do.
Speaker 1: I don't be fay no way, I thought the Brontu right,
Speaker 1: and uh, he said, well, we've got a way to
Speaker 1: put me in. What they called me because they could
Speaker 1: have said head that way and only uh, the propagator
Speaker 1: and the committee will be the only people. They again,
Speaker 1: and and then I drink. Then I got a visit
Speaker 1: from the federal ward before I win, and they told
Speaker 1: me that I think you can talk about They didn't
Speaker 1: they want round God. I think it was more warning
Speaker 1: than anything. The way we worked. Well, I've been involved
Speaker 1: several other cases that I didn't think was right when
Speaker 1: you worked for the government. You're John, you do you
Speaker 1: forget about? It? Was Walter Fauntroy President at your testimony.
Speaker 1: The only one I remember Walter is who will yes,
Speaker 1: well Stokes is we think Stokes was pretty much involved.
Speaker 1: He would invoud a, y don't me? And I looked
Speaker 1: at anotherment though not only had to me, you know.
Speaker 1: Pepper then questioned Green about the day the king was killed.
Speaker 1: Where the one that meant when the eight and out
Speaker 1: on Lamar that night before and took the dry runs
Speaker 1: down and we're related with me. We left them up
Speaker 1: down to enter send up together about three o'clock. Were
Speaker 1: you and Jim's grilled all that day? Me and Budge
Speaker 1: was at one time? Yeah, did you did you? We
Speaker 1: introduced to Lloyd Jowers at any point and back then
Speaker 1: the first time, I hadn't been down or in that area. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know he would be in
Speaker 1: the group. I was there anyway. But your specific role
Speaker 1: in this whole operation was pe gave little Rudel, Right,
Speaker 1: that's what your role was, trying my own him from
Speaker 1: three thirty three fifteen, you know, you know, holding up
Speaker 1: where I was there, I could see everything. I couldn't
Speaker 1: see all right, but I could see in the bar,
Speaker 1: I could see you drink down the drink. Okay, you
Speaker 1: can remember when you can describe where you were in
Speaker 1: your location. Oh yeah. Green said he would do that
Speaker 1: when they met. But we'll do it here by reading
Speaker 1: from Blood and Dishonor Green's unpublished account of his life
Speaker 1: and his role in the murder of Martin Luther King.
Speaker 1: We arrived in Memphis at two pm on the third
Speaker 1: of April and got a room. Then we went out
Speaker 1: and visited a massage parlor. South Haven was full of parlors,
Speaker 1: and we knew a few of the owners, most of
Speaker 1: them women. Butch and I got up the next morning
Speaker 1: and left the motel around noon. Then we went downtown
Speaker 1: and stopped in a bar by the old King Cotton
Speaker 1: Hotel while we sat there, but punched me and said,
Speaker 1: look at this. There was James Earl Ray coming in
Speaker 1: the door. I asked what if we should do him now?
Speaker 1: And he said no. We were told he couldn't die
Speaker 1: until after six pm. And James Earl Ray's account of
Speaker 1: his coming into Memphis, given to Attorney Louis Garrison, he
Speaker 1: speaks of entering a bar a few blocks south of
Speaker 1: Jim's Grill, ordering a beer and asking for directions. But
Speaker 1: he noticed this two guys who keep looking at him.
Speaker 1: This is what he said. I got a south Main
Speaker 1: strate and I went in the bar on the right side,
Speaker 1: and I think about this an rest and he said
Speaker 1: those rooms she was standing mark, and she said that
Speaker 1: it was narrow street and left the block. Or so well.
Speaker 1: I was in indes in are. I thought maybe it
Speaker 1: were one apparently watched mate. Now, returning to Green's written
Speaker 1: account of that afternoon, at about three, Boots dropped me
Speaker 1: off and I climbed the ladder to the roof and
Speaker 1: posted myself with a clear view of four to two Mate.
Speaker 1: I had been told to climb the Loomis building, but
Speaker 1: I changed that to a building about four doors down
Speaker 1: because the loomis was right in front of the fire
Speaker 1: station and I thought it was too wide open. At
Speaker 1: about three thirty, Ray came out and walked up made
Speaker 1: in half a block. I lost sight of him. This
Speaker 1: would carst on would Ray's verified trip to the sporting
Speaker 1: goods store to buy as he was told to do,
Speaker 1: a pair of binoculars. From his perch on the roof,
Speaker 1: Green saw Ray come and go a couple of times
Speaker 1: as six o'clock approached. Then at five, I saw Ray
Speaker 1: emerge from the rooming house and get into the Mustang.
Speaker 1: Ray started his car and pulled away, and I waited
Speaker 1: for him to turn his car south, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: I thought he would circle the block and park and walk.
Speaker 1: This is what I was told, so I waited. Then
Speaker 1: some minutes later I hear a sound like a backfire.
Speaker 1: Then I heard hollering and sirens starting to go off.
Speaker 1: As this was going on, I saw a butch come
Speaker 1: from the side of the building, and then Paul emerged
Speaker 1: from the rooming house and I saw Paul lay down
Speaker 1: what looked like a coat on the sidewalk. Then they
Speaker 1: got into the car, made a U turn and came
Speaker 1: toward me. I hurried down, and as soon as I
Speaker 1: reached the car, pushed asked if I got Ray. I
Speaker 1: said no. His eyes lit up and he said, damn,
Speaker 1: we're in trouble. As Green explains in his book, the
Speaker 1: trouble they were in had to do with the fact
Speaker 1: that Ray was not intending to rob anybody, as they
Speaker 1: were told, but he was there to take the blame
Speaker 1: for the murder of King, and that's why he needed
Speaker 1: to be dead. The whole idea they had they had
Speaker 1: to rent room and he would prof sent it me
Speaker 1: or that police officer head guilty, No, wefriend me you
Speaker 1: got again and Black that the old man the police
Speaker 1: and they Bill Pepper ended his conversation with Jim Green
Speaker 1: by asking him why he had decided to come forward.
Speaker 1: Maybe I want to clear my card. I didn't have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with you. Again, I didn't know even
Speaker 1: but I was on the under side and I put
Speaker 1: it together. Then when I started real line and everybody,
Speaker 1: you know, I would not getting body here and not
Speaker 1: get my mond went on with my life. H So
Speaker 1: that was it. And sometime after this phone call, Bill
Speaker 1: Pepper arranged for a meeting in a room at the
Speaker 1: Memphis Airport with Jim Green, Rusty Larson, and Dexter King.
Speaker 1: But I could not find a tape of that meeting,
Speaker 1: either in Bill Pepper's collections or down at the King Center.
Speaker 1: So as far as the voice of Jim Green telling
Speaker 1: a story, we only have this short phone conversation with
Speaker 1: Pepper in London. I felt proud of myself for finding
Speaker 1: this tape, but when we had finished listening to it,
Speaker 1: I was surprised to learn that after his meeting with
Speaker 1: Jim Green and Extra King in Memphis, Bill Pepper concluded
Speaker 1: that Jim Green's story was fabricated, that Green had been
Speaker 1: sent forward with a phony story for some reason. I
Speaker 1: believe Green was largely a disinformation agent, and I think
Speaker 1: we saw him that way, and I thought it didn't
Speaker 1: make sense of the total picture that eventually I've covered.
Speaker 1: The only thing that gave Mr Larson any credible ability
Speaker 1: was the fact that he had a client he was
Speaker 1: willing to put before us, who was going to tell
Speaker 1: us a story about how his job was a designation
Speaker 1: that killed James or Ray, and that seemed to be
Speaker 1: par for the course. I mean, Patsy's are routinely disposed
Speaker 1: of because they may inadvertently or or or actually learn
Speaker 1: facts that could be embarrassing to the people involved with
Speaker 1: the conspiracy. But that was about the only thing that
Speaker 1: Pepper found in Green's favor. This guy is creating a
Speaker 1: scenario that is supposed to give credibility to a story
Speaker 1: that he has, but he falls short in so many areas.
Speaker 1: And he, for example, could not have been watching Ray.
Speaker 1: He says at one point that he he saw Ray
Speaker 1: at the time of the shooting. It impossible. He couldn't
Speaker 1: have couldn't have done that. Uh Ray was up at
Speaker 1: the gas station with the time the shooting took place,
Speaker 1: not anywhere else. Pepper also questioned whether Green had met
Speaker 1: Ray in prison and whether he had really testified before
Speaker 1: the House collect Committee in both of those stories had
Speaker 1: run true to me. I then asked what kind of
Speaker 1: damage you could have done if Green had been let
Speaker 1: in the door? Pepper rolled his eyes. Do you remember
Speaker 1: what time we're talking about here? Do you you know
Speaker 1: what here we're talking about? We're talking about him surfacing
Speaker 1: at the time when the trial was about to take place,
Speaker 1: the civil trial. They didn't want that civil trial. The
Speaker 1: government didn't want it at all because of all the
Speaker 1: evidence that was laid out. So this was all a
Speaker 1: hated time when it would be very important to undercutt undermine,
Speaker 1: or distract us from where we were going and what
Speaker 1: we were learning. So Jim Green appeared out of the
Speaker 1: mist when Bill Pepper was beginning to put together the
Speaker 1: civil trial that would feature all the evidence that had
Speaker 1: surfaced in the thirty years following King's murder. This was
Speaker 1: the very thing that the authorities that fought so hard against,
Speaker 1: a trial with witness testimony preserved in court records, but
Speaker 1: putting on the trial was no small thing. Seventy witnesses
Speaker 1: flying in and out of Memphis and put up in hotels,
Speaker 1: all to be scheduled, arranged, and somehow paid for. It
Speaker 1: was a tremendous undertaking. And because he had been fed
Speaker 1: disinformation in the past, Pepper was on the lookout for
Speaker 1: someone who might try to push their way onto the
Speaker 1: witness stand and then make a mockery of the whole
Speaker 1: proceeding and to build Pepper, Jim Green looked like that
Speaker 1: guy that said, I believe that Jim Green's story is true,
Speaker 1: at least most of it. In arriving at this conclusion.
Speaker 1: I had the advantage of twenty additional years to watch
Speaker 1: the story play out. I had talked to Rusty Larson,
Speaker 1: who was not only Jim Green's lawyer but also his friend,
Speaker 1: and I had the extraordinary benefit fit of reading Jim
Speaker 1: Green's unpublished, an unvarnished manuscript. So Bill Pepper and I,
Speaker 1: widely separated in time, came to different conclusions about Jim Green.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it, and I think it speaks to
Speaker 1: the health of our relationship that we can see pieces
Speaker 1: of this thing differently. Bill has spent over forty years
Speaker 1: of his life successfully investigating this murder. I would not
Speaker 1: be here today except for the work he has done.
Speaker 1: As to my take, was Jim Green looking at Ray
Speaker 1: at the moment of the shooting as he said to
Speaker 1: Bill Pepper, No, I think he was giving the abbreviated
Speaker 1: form of the story. He intended to sit down with
Speaker 1: Pepper and Dexter King and lay it all out, as
Speaker 1: he did in his book where he explains how James
Speaker 1: ol Ray emerged from the roomy house before six pm,
Speaker 1: got into his car and drove away just as Ray
Speaker 1: said he did, and the same said by witnesses Hendricks
Speaker 1: and read in their sworn statements to the FBI. Was
Speaker 1: Green telling the truth when he said he didn't know
Speaker 1: that King was to be killed? Maybe not, but it's
Speaker 1: a very understandable, almost forgivable lie to tell. If it
Speaker 1: was a lie, Green got sucked into the plot, but
Speaker 1: none of it was his idea. He was just twenty one.
Speaker 1: But the biggest reason to believe that Green was not
Speaker 1: an agent of disinformation is that his story points an
Speaker 1: accusing finger back to the very same people that Bill
Speaker 1: Pepper was pointing to, including the FBI. But it's not
Speaker 1: a simple thumbs up or thumbs down with Jim Green,
Speaker 1: because if you accept Green's story, you bring on stage
Speaker 1: a cast of characters that doesn't exactly fit with the
Speaker 1: ones already there. For example, Ray says that it was
Speaker 1: a man named Raoul who was up in the rooming
Speaker 1: house with him, sending him on errands and presumably placing
Speaker 1: the rifle with raised finger prints out on the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: a rifle covered by a bedspread. But according to Jim Green,
Speaker 1: Paul was the one who appeared out of the rooming
Speaker 1: house and placed something on the street, something that from
Speaker 1: his instance, looked like a Coat. Is it possible that
Speaker 1: Paul was Raoul, or if they were separate people at
Speaker 1: different times in his year long journey to Memphis. Did
Speaker 1: Ray to protect himself roll him into one, perhaps along
Speaker 1: with others to finish this puzzle. It would have helped
Speaker 1: if Ray had been more forthcoming with his story. But
Speaker 1: Ray was not the only one whose secrets make it
Speaker 1: difficult to construct a clean mosaic of this crime. M
Speaker 1: Jim Green says he was called to testify before the
Speaker 1: House Select Committee in He believes that came about because,
Speaker 1: in a foolish moment, he told Memphis reporter Kay Black
Speaker 1: that he knew that Ray had not killed King. Green
Speaker 1: said that two agents accompanied him to Washington, and before
Speaker 1: he testified, he was visited by the agent he knew
Speaker 1: as Paul and Paul's boss, who he knew was Rocchi,
Speaker 1: a visit he interpreted as a warning. What did Green
Speaker 1: tell the committee? We don't know, because, like with a
Speaker 1: lot of other stuff that might shed light on this crime,
Speaker 1: it was kept secret, not to be revealed until sixty
Speaker 1: years after the death of Martin Luther King. If King
Speaker 1: were murdered by James Earl Ray acting alone, what was
Speaker 1: the need for secrecy. If the purpose of the committee
Speaker 1: was to use their power to investigate this murder and
Speaker 1: reveal to the public their findings, why are their secret
Speaker 1: files and secret testimony. I believe that Jim Green's story
Speaker 1: is based in truth, and because of the official secrecy
Speaker 1: surrounding this murder and the secrecy surrounding his testimony, I
Speaker 1: feel obligated to present his story, even if it does
Speaker 1: not precisely fit with other stories that I also believe
Speaker 1: are based in truth. So that is what I have done.
Speaker 1: I'll close with a brief paragraph from Jim Green's unpublished
Speaker 1: account of his participation in this horrific crime. So why
Speaker 1: did I wait so long to tell what I know?
Speaker 1: Watch TV and see how they try to discredit the
Speaker 1: people who do come forward. Then I would ask myself,
Speaker 1: what about my family? What if they charged me even
Speaker 1: though I didn't know King was to be killed? Why
Speaker 1: ruined my life over something no one will believe or
Speaker 1: jeopardize what I now have for a murder that took
Speaker 1: place over thirty years ago. And then I think that
Speaker 1: I am older now and want to clear the air
Speaker 1: before death. The first time I tried, the subcommittee didn't
Speaker 1: want the truth. But this time I will do it
Speaker 1: my way, and if people don't believe me, at least
Speaker 1: I know that I told the truth and the rest
Speaker 1: will be up to history next time. On the email
Speaker 1: K tapes is how we live. As you didn't have
Speaker 1: a rap, how would you feel about undergoing hypnosis for
Speaker 1: the purpose of taking you back and putting you face
Speaker 1: to face with this man to see if you could
Speaker 1: remember his name. He tells you that he was the
Speaker 1: one who did the shooting straight up, Yeah, he told me, pop.
Speaker 1: I mean it was three guys out there were Lionel Clark,
Speaker 1: my brother, and had no old man and no man
Speaker 1: didn't have guts to do it is to shake in ship.
Speaker 1: If it was the brother that did it, and the
Speaker 1: brother convinced the younger brother that he was the one
Speaker 1: who did it, it would give him that type of insulation,
Speaker 1: that type of protection. There was a man that was
Speaker 1: a sign to get the king before anybody could run
Speaker 1: up from anywhere to get the king and make sure
Speaker 1: he was dead. It was already arranged that he was
Speaker 1: to go to Saint Joseph's Hospital down the straight. He
Speaker 1: never was gonna make it out of that emergency room. Alive.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to The m l K Tapes, a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV. This podcast
Speaker 1: is not specifically endorsed by the King Family or the
Speaker 1: King of State. The Email k Tapes is written and
Speaker 1: hosted by Bill Claiper. Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are
Speaker 1: executive producers on behalf of I Heart Radio with producers
Speaker 1: Trevor Young and Ben Keebrick. Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay
Speaker 1: are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV with producers
Speaker 1: Jamie Albright and Meredith Stepman. Original music by Makeup and
Speaker 1: Vanity Set. Cover art by Mr Soul two six with
Speaker 1: photography by Artemis Jenkins. Special thanks to Owen Rosenbaum and
Speaker 1: Grace Royer at u t A, The Nord Group, back
Speaker 1: Median Marketing, Envisioned Business Management, and Station sixteen. If you
Speaker 1: have questions, you can visit our website, the Email k
Speaker 1: Tapes dot com. We posted photos and videos related to
Speaker 1: the podcast on our social media accounts. You can check
Speaker 1: them out at the Email K Tapes. From our podcasts
Speaker 1: from I Heart Radio and ten Your Foot TV, please
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. H