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 for
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. After several hours of questioning and cross examining,
Speaker 1: Ray told him that there was no such person as Raoul,
Speaker 1: and he knew there was no such person as Raoul.
Speaker 1: He admitted that and told me that he had to
Speaker 1: invent in vent Rayoul, because that's fuck Hughie wanted. He
Speaker 1: suggested something that implied that I had more acuity than Bradford,
Speaker 1: Huey and Hayes. I asked him how you happened to
Speaker 1: pick the name Raoul, and he said that was the
Speaker 1: name of a operator of a party house that he
Speaker 1: had held up, and he admitted there was no Raoul.
Speaker 1: He laughed at Haines and Hewish, having accepted Rayoul's story.
Speaker 1: That was Percy Foreman, former attorney for James Arl Ray,
Speaker 1: telling the House Select Committee in ninety eight that Ray
Speaker 1: had told him that the whole story about Raoul, giving
Speaker 1: him money and moving him about the country was made up,
Speaker 1: and that Ray had done this because the writer Bradford Huey,
Speaker 1: who Ray had never met, had wanted him to do it.
Speaker 1: According to Foreman, the reason that Ray told him this
Speaker 1: but had never told anyone else, was that he respected
Speaker 1: Foreman's intelligence, that he knew that Foreman would see through
Speaker 1: his lie about Raoul, and according to Foreman, they had
Speaker 1: a good laugh about it. Of course, it may have
Speaker 1: been Foreman making up the story here, but if it
Speaker 1: were rely on his part, it was a safe one
Speaker 1: to tell, because at that time no one had found
Speaker 1: the mysterious Raoul or even claimed to know of him.
Speaker 1: I called the Union Hall, I said, a matter of
Speaker 1: life and death. I said, I think these people are
Speaker 1: planning to kill Dr King. The authorities were parade. Oh,
Speaker 1: we found a gun that James ol Ray bought in
Speaker 1: Birmingham that killed Dr King. Except it wasn't the gun
Speaker 1: that killed Dr King. James Lvey was upon for the
Speaker 1: official story from My Heart Radio, intended for TV. The
Speaker 1: plan was to get King to the city because they
Speaker 1: wanted it handled in Memphis for dead in them could
Speaker 1: hand it. And I've lived with it so long. My Sirion,
Speaker 1: and they they scared for me. The Lord told me
Speaker 1: to not the word. I've been wanting to tell it
Speaker 1: all my life. I'm Bill Claiburg and this is d
Speaker 1: MLK tapes. As we heard in previous episodes, James Earl
Speaker 1: Ray escaped from prison in nineteen sixty seven and a
Speaker 1: year later found himself in Memphis on the day King
Speaker 1: was killed. After he had been captured, he told his
Speaker 1: attorneys and anyone else who would listen that he had
Speaker 1: met a man in Canada named Raoul who had moved
Speaker 1: him about the country and gave him money in exchange
Speaker 1: for odd chores. But while most details in race story
Speaker 1: proved to be true, for example, the restaurant where he worked,
Speaker 1: or the woman with whom he had a brief affair,
Speaker 1: no one was able to find Raoul, not a big
Speaker 1: surprise because Ray never knew Raoul's last name, where he lived,
Speaker 1: or even for Raoul was his real first name, and
Speaker 1: Raoul most likely didn't want to be found. The official
Speaker 1: explanation for how Ray financed his travels, and the one
Speaker 1: embraced by the House Committee, was that instead of getting
Speaker 1: money from the fictional Raoul, Ray robbed a bank or two,
Speaker 1: and that if he had any help, it came from
Speaker 1: his brothers John and Jerry. So for twenty five years,
Speaker 1: no one had come up with a good lead as
Speaker 1: to who them his serious Raoul might be, if he
Speaker 1: had existed at all. But then after seeing the trial
Speaker 1: on television, Roy and Glenna Grabo contacted John Billings and
Speaker 1: Ken Herman, who were investigators working with Bill Pepper and
Speaker 1: producer Jack Saltman on the HBO trial. We met with
Speaker 1: a blended Grabow and rom. She first said, I mean
Speaker 1: they they're almost Their openly statement was we know the ray,
Speaker 1: but we don't know it's the Rays. And we listened
Speaker 1: to her story about her early life in Houston, Texas
Speaker 1: and the stories and her meeting and this mysterious Rayoul,
Speaker 1: and and after it was over, when they left, I
Speaker 1: was convinced that she was a government plan. That's my
Speaker 1: disposity is that this is incredible story and it's just government.
Speaker 1: They've sent somebody here to discredit us with the story.
Speaker 1: And if we're gonna go chasing this Roman in depart
Speaker 1: because we're telling over kids saslation sounds very scared. After
Speaker 1: hearing Glenda's story, Herman and Billings brought it to Jack Saltman,
Speaker 1: with whom they had begun work on a proposed movie
Speaker 1: that would be about the murder of Dr. King. Saltman
Speaker 1: also found Glenda's story hard to believe, as he explained
Speaker 1: at the civil trial. She claimed that her friendship would Raoul,
Speaker 1: had all taken place at you still, and his story
Speaker 1: was so extraordinary that when I first heard it, I
Speaker 1: had to say that I was profoundly scared. But yes,
Speaker 1: we did go to Houston. Um. There was only parts
Speaker 1: of the story that I could get corroberational. As a
Speaker 1: parts of the story that I could corroborate. We're all
Speaker 1: corroborated bits of the story. You turned out to the address,
Speaker 1: and he leads you to then more credibility to the
Speaker 1: rest of the story. So she gained an increduence. Can
Speaker 1: I ask if they say one of this lady, a
Speaker 1: very uneducated lady. She left to watch she was very young.
Speaker 1: She had a reminous life of abuse when she was young.
Speaker 1: By the time Bill Pepper had sat down with Glenda,
Speaker 1: thirty five years had passed since she was first abused
Speaker 1: by members of her family, but it was still a
Speaker 1: hard story for her to tell. According to her husband Roy,
Speaker 1: the abuse of Glenda, much of its sexual began when
Speaker 1: she was eleven or twelve. When things became intolerable at home,
Speaker 1: Glenda went to live with her aunt and uncle, but
Speaker 1: things there became even worse. Late at night, Glenda's uncle
Speaker 1: would come into her room. What's that is not? My
Speaker 1: aunt knew that, but she didn't neventhing about it. And
Speaker 1: I would babysit for kids, never night that never want
Speaker 1: unique food, I'd say, the kids and and everything cleaned
Speaker 1: the table off and made me throw at the trash.
Speaker 1: I meant nothing to It's hard to understand the withholding
Speaker 1: of food from a niece who was living with them.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the aunt allowed herself to believe that Glenda was
Speaker 1: somehow responsible for her husband's criminal conduct, and withholding food
Speaker 1: was revenge or an attempt to drive the girl away.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was, Glenda at age fourteen was in a
Speaker 1: horrific situation. But after school she would walk past a
Speaker 1: particular gas station and there would usually be this man
Speaker 1: just hanging around every day, and he would be easy
Speaker 1: to be sitting out over here drinking a coach or something.
Speaker 1: Instead giving the tighter chips since step keep me going anyway.
Speaker 1: Conversation and potato chips were a big draw for Glenda,
Speaker 1: and she got to know this fellow who was called Dago.
Speaker 1: She thought he was about thirty. He had dark hair
Speaker 1: and spoke with something like a Spanish accent, and he
Speaker 1: could never pronounce her name. He called her, oh, Linda.
Speaker 1: Glenda never saw Dago pump gas at the station, but
Speaker 1: he always seemed to be there. Someone else who encountered
Speaker 1: Dago was Glenn, his little brother Royce. Here is what
Speaker 1: Royce remembers about Daego, as portrayed by a voice actor.
Speaker 1: There was a small gas station by a store my
Speaker 1: sister and I would walk to, and he would see
Speaker 1: us go by, and he would get in his car
Speaker 1: and follow us. He used to follow my sister and
Speaker 1: I around, you know, in his car. He was kind
Speaker 1: of a dark complexed guy. I guess he talked Spanish
Speaker 1: or some other you know. That's why he kind of
Speaker 1: stood out to me, and and I was kind of
Speaker 1: scared of him. But Glenda never had an unkind thing
Speaker 1: to say about Daego during this time. At least, she
Speaker 1: regarded him as a friend and saw him frequently that
Speaker 1: first year, But the next year, when Glenda was fifteen,
Speaker 1: she escaped her home life by marrying Roy Grabo. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a great trade. Roy was in prison a lot
Speaker 1: of the time, and when he was out he often
Speaker 1: didn't come home at night. Here going forward are Roy
Speaker 1: and Glenda Grabo, as portrayed by voice actors. I just
Speaker 1: got to drinking. I wasn't holding the job too long,
Speaker 1: but she pretty well went where she wanted to go.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was doing what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I guess I did. Anyway, I stayed drunk pretty good.
Speaker 1: Glenda and Roy moved around a bit, but since Roy
Speaker 1: was hardly there and not bringing money home, Glenda, as
Speaker 1: Roy just said, went where she wanted to go. She
Speaker 1: found some men who would pay for her attentions, and
Speaker 1: that's how she kept her boat afloat. There was one
Speaker 1: older man, maybe fifty five or sixty, who was particularly
Speaker 1: fond of Glenda. This name was Tomorrow, though Glenda and
Speaker 1: others called him Armando. He would look out for her
Speaker 1: in small ways, and in return, she became his driver.
Speaker 1: Where would they go down to the Houston Docks? What
Speaker 1: would they get there? Stolen guns? And Roy Grabo apparently
Speaker 1: knew and approved of Armando. He get her a run
Speaker 1: down to the waterfront and carry boxes. They'd have boxes
Speaker 1: coming off the ship or going on the ship, some
Speaker 1: of the trunk and some of the back. There'll be
Speaker 1: certain ones of them, you know, a certain guard on
Speaker 1: the game. I have a picture of the guard, a
Speaker 1: good one. You can see that. Make sure that certain
Speaker 1: guard was there, and they could drive right through. Producer
Speaker 1: Jack Saltman, who was investigating Glenda's story, described the arrangement
Speaker 1: this way. Well, this is Grever told me that she
Speaker 1: had actually as a driver for a morrow, and that
Speaker 1: she had driven down to the dark Side in Eastern
Speaker 1: and she did profriended us of the garden James and
Speaker 1: only certain guards wrong duty. Did she then drive in
Speaker 1: the bottom of the game of a certain busy David ship.
Speaker 1: There were wooden boxes which she certainly be discovered contained
Speaker 1: the several cousins. According to Glinda, the boxes of guns
Speaker 1: would be brought to a rundown house in South Houston,
Speaker 1: where they would be assembled. The house belonged to a
Speaker 1: man named Felix Torino. They take the over to Felix's
Speaker 1: and I'd go sit in the living room or else
Speaker 1: I'll go in the kitchen Felix. Felix was always cooking.
Speaker 1: A bunch of them would sit around and put them together.
Speaker 1: They would snap them this and that. This was around
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, and it was during this time that
Speaker 1: Glenda arrived at the house with Armando to find Dago,
Speaker 1: who she had only seen now and then in the
Speaker 1: intervening years. He was sitting there with the rest of
Speaker 1: the crew and acting like he was in charge. A
Speaker 1: bigger surprise was that Armando turned out to be Dago's uncle,
Speaker 1: and Daego's real name was Raoul. Glenda's connection with the
Speaker 1: group continued to be Armando. He told Glenda that he
Speaker 1: and Raoul had come from Portugal, which explained the accent
Speaker 1: that sounded Spanish. Then, while driving around with her one day,
Speaker 1: Armando told Glenda that Raoul had been involved in the
Speaker 1: killing of Martin Luther King. This is Bill Pepper talking
Speaker 1: to Glenda in Was it Armando that first told you
Speaker 1: that he was involved, that Raoul was involved in the
Speaker 1: in the King case? A minded tell me that I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it, You know, hadly what did Armando actually
Speaker 1: say to you? Do you recall the Fando tell me
Speaker 1: in a business of daylis with ye together sure bits
Speaker 1: and pieces that you were starting to put together with
Speaker 1: leading you to believe what that he had involvement or
Speaker 1: that he was the actual killer. He was. He admitted
Speaker 1: it later that he was killing. He was trying to
Speaker 1: keep it from me what it was. He got a
Speaker 1: man the mind of visit any mind of tewl made.
Speaker 1: Glenda kept her car keys on a ring that also
Speaker 1: had a miniature viewfinder which displayed three portraits John Kennedy,
Speaker 1: Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. One day, Armando and
Speaker 1: Glenda arrived at to Reno's house and the usual suspects
Speaker 1: were sitting around the table playing cards. This is Glenda's
Speaker 1: and Roy's account of what happened next, as portrayed by
Speaker 1: voice actors. Well, just me and Armando came in, and
Speaker 1: I had the viewfinder with me, had the car keys
Speaker 1: hooked into it, and threw him a purse and the
Speaker 1: keys on the table, and one of them looked at it,
Speaker 1: and he threw it over to him. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: he looked through it and jumped backwards and the chair
Speaker 1: hit the floor and he started stomping on the ground. Uh,
Speaker 1: just keep going they're gonna be okay. Tell him, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't cuss or nothing. Well, don't worry about it,
Speaker 1: just say s O P or whatever. He just said,
Speaker 1: I killed that s O B once, Do I have
Speaker 1: to do it again? I never understood him saying it
Speaker 1: that way, but that's the way they talked. The boy
Speaker 1: that he had a fight with was a karate expert
Speaker 1: and they got in a fight inside a bar over
Speaker 1: a topless dancer. My brother kind of had a girlfriend
Speaker 1: that was a topless dancer. At shy In Social Club
Speaker 1: in night, Roy Grabow's younger brother got into a scrape.
Speaker 1: It involved alcohol, guns and a girl. They had a
Speaker 1: fight inside and the boy knew karate and all that stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: a friend of my brothers had a gun. He gave
Speaker 1: my brother a gun and my brother ran him out.
Speaker 1: They broke the fight up inside. The owner of the
Speaker 1: club he broke it up and run that boy off.
Speaker 1: That boy stayed outside. About an hour later, my brother
Speaker 1: went out and he had something in his hand. They
Speaker 1: didn't know if it was a gun or what, but
Speaker 1: they said he had a gun. Anyway, this other boy
Speaker 1: gave my brother back the gun and my brother shot
Speaker 1: him dead and they got him for murder and they
Speaker 1: gave him eighty years. Roy and Glenda both felt that
Speaker 1: Royce brother had gotten a raw deal and they decided
Speaker 1: to do what they could. This was still in seventy
Speaker 1: eight and they were living in Houston and had heard
Speaker 1: that when it came to fighting a murder charge, Percy Foreman,
Speaker 1: who was also in Houston, was the best there was.
Speaker 1: So they called Foreman and asked if he would handle
Speaker 1: the appeal. Here is Roy and Glenda. I called Percy
Speaker 1: Foreman and he said he would handle it for five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and he wants that five thousand dollars right
Speaker 1: there before I leave, a look at you. Roy and
Speaker 1: Glenda didn't have five thousand dollars, so they put a
Speaker 1: mortgage on their house, and when they gave him the money,
Speaker 1: Percy Foreman did look at Roy and Glenda, but mostly
Speaker 1: at Glenda. Had a subsequent meeting, Foreman started to pester her,
Speaker 1: asking Glenda if she would like to work for him.
Speaker 1: I went up there, but he got mad, sort of
Speaker 1: because I wanted to paint houses, or he wanted me
Speaker 1: to stay right there. He was going to move his
Speaker 1: office or something. He wanted me to get past the
Speaker 1: secretary and out of the office or something while they
Speaker 1: made their move when I don't understand what he was
Speaker 1: talking about them. By the time producer Jack Saltman got
Speaker 1: down to Texas and was looking in the Glendas story,
Speaker 1: Percy Foreman had died, but Michael Degaron, Foreman's partner the
Speaker 1: law firm, was still there. So Saltman took a shot
Speaker 1: and asked to Garon if he had any recollection at
Speaker 1: all of Glenda Grebo. Turns out he did. As Jack
Speaker 1: Saltman describes, Mrs Grebo had said that she had told
Speaker 1: me as part of her statement that her husband Roy
Speaker 1: his brother, was on a birdy charge and that she
Speaker 1: had been termed with Percy Thornan was the topman in
Speaker 1: the business that had gone along to see it. She
Speaker 1: said that he had said he would charge her five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, but that she would give her three thousand
Speaker 1: dollars back if she went to work for them. She said,
Speaker 1: I paid houses. What is that going to be? What
Speaker 1: us is that going to be? Fro an attorney, He said,
Speaker 1: what I want you to be? Some fire um. I
Speaker 1: gathered the fighting was of the more sexual nature, and
Speaker 1: this was Acknoledge fires instead Garren and that that's really
Speaker 1: what she was asked to do. She ever got the money. So,
Speaker 1: according to Foreman's partner Michael Degaron, Glenda did work of
Speaker 1: some kind for Foreman, but she never got the money
Speaker 1: she was promised. As we have seen before, not honoring
Speaker 1: his promises was Foreman's standard way of doing business. But
Speaker 1: he did give Glenda one thing. Mrs Grebo gave me.
Speaker 1: It was a Cartrooto bestI Foreman, and he had inscribed
Speaker 1: to her in his own handwriting. Saltman called it a cartoon,
Speaker 1: but what he meant to say was that it was
Speaker 1: a reproduction of a somewhat flattering line drawing a Foreman
Speaker 1: on which he had written to Glenda, best wishes, Percy Foreman,
Speaker 1: You're invited to check it out on our website. Michael
Speaker 1: Garrett Hardy confirmed that that was posie of handwriting, and
Speaker 1: then he was exactly the sort of thing that he did.
Speaker 1: So Glenda Grebo ended up spending time around Foreman's office,
Speaker 1: mostly cleaning and doing make work filing jobs. Bill Pepper
Speaker 1: would ask Glenda if Foreman ever mentioned ray or the
Speaker 1: King case, But we didn't even know it was his lawyer.
Speaker 1: We had no idea. We'd seen things in his office,
Speaker 1: you know, little things that were about Ray, and we
Speaker 1: didn't pay much attention to it, and I didn't know
Speaker 1: he was raised lawyer. But at some point when they
Speaker 1: were alone, Foreman felt a need to tell Glenda what
Speaker 1: an important man he was. He told her that he
Speaker 1: was the lawyer and the king case, the lawyer for
Speaker 1: the infamous James Earl Ray. Then he said something else,
Speaker 1: something about that all white people is going to thank
Speaker 1: Ray someday for being sacrificed, for being the sacrifice for us.
Speaker 1: Pepper then asked Glenda what Foreman said about Ray, something
Speaker 1: about his brother sold him up the river, or something like,
Speaker 1: I don't understand we're talking about, but I remember that part.
Speaker 1: Until this point, Glenda is the Foreman a plaything of
Speaker 1: no consequence because he doesn't know what she knows about
Speaker 1: Raoul and what Raoul said he did and what his
Speaker 1: uncle Morrow said he did. But then Glenda makes a mistake.
Speaker 1: She thinks, because Foreman is a lawyer and already involved
Speaker 1: in the case, an educated man up presumed the good
Speaker 1: character that he is someone she can talk to. I figured, well,
Speaker 1: I found somebody that knows something about this. I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell him about it, you know. But I went
Speaker 1: to the wrong person. I think. Glenda then told Percy
Speaker 1: Foreman about how she knew Raoul and how she thought
Speaker 1: he had been involved. I thought I was talking to somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody with authority, just talk about it. I
Speaker 1: had no idea he was this liar. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what was going on or nothing. I just just didn't
Speaker 1: know where to turn. So Glinda tells Foreman about Raoul.
Speaker 1: Foreman is surprised and deeply disturbed. Just a few months before,
Speaker 1: he testified before the House Select Committee and been caught
Speaker 1: in a number of outright lies about how he entered
Speaker 1: the case and what he did and didn't do for Ray,
Speaker 1: about hiring loss students to do investigative work and lying
Speaker 1: under oath to a congressional committee could have cost him
Speaker 1: his license, but since Foreman was on the Ray did
Speaker 1: It Alone team, he got off with only a scolding,
Speaker 1: and nobody challenged him about his dubious story about Ray
Speaker 1: telling him and only him that Raoul was a made
Speaker 1: up guy. But now suddenly Foreman had working in his
Speaker 1: very office a woman who might blow his whole world apart,
Speaker 1: and this is where the story gets really weird, because
Speaker 1: Percy Foreman, former attorney for James ol Ray, appears to
Speaker 1: know the elusive Raoul. As Jack Saltman describes the situation
Speaker 1: when she told Raoul cooking to his story, when she
Speaker 1: told Raoul that she was working to Percy Foreman, he
Speaker 1: apparently lost his temper and there was curious word between
Speaker 1: him and pressing forward. Foreman then allegedly ranging up and
Speaker 1: so your life is in danger. There are no witnesses
Speaker 1: to this conversation, but apparently the two men exchanged heated
Speaker 1: words on the phone. Raoul, we might guess, is furious
Speaker 1: that Foreman has for his own pleasure taking Glenda on
Speaker 1: as part time office help, and Foreman most likely is
Speaker 1: angry that Raoul and his friends have told Glenda thinks
Speaker 1: that she should not know. The danger for each man
Speaker 1: is real and it can be measured in words, because
Speaker 1: the next time Foreman sees Glenda, he tells her that
Speaker 1: she must leave town or be killed because of what
Speaker 1: she knows. Maybe by telling her this he was just
Speaker 1: trying to save her life. More likely, he has his
Speaker 1: own interests in mind. Perhaps he fears a violent encounter
Speaker 1: between Roy and Raoul, or a botched murder attempt that
Speaker 1: drives Glenda to the police, better to just have her
Speaker 1: leave if he can get her to go. You got
Speaker 1: to get out of town or something. And then he said,
Speaker 1: he talked to Raoul, but I don't know if he
Speaker 1: came up there, talked to him on the phone or what.
Speaker 1: He kind of sort of threatened me. He sort of
Speaker 1: put it like, he gotta get out of town or
Speaker 1: you ain't even gonna here. From what Glenda could understand,
Speaker 1: Percy Foreman and Raoul seemed to know each other. Foreman
Speaker 1: was a criminal defense attorney. He might have represented Raoul
Speaker 1: or some of his cohorts when they got into trouble,
Speaker 1: because defending criminals is what Foreman did for a living.
Speaker 1: Knowing his way around and being on friendly speaking turns
Speaker 1: with local hoodlums was good business. Did Foreman know of
Speaker 1: Raoul before the King murder? That would be utterly outrageous,
Speaker 1: but he may have. He certainly seemed to know him
Speaker 1: or know of him after the murder. In any case,
Speaker 1: Glenda and Roy took the thread at face value and
Speaker 1: moved as fast as they could. But there was a
Speaker 1: house to sell. So it didn't happen right away. One day,
Speaker 1: Glenda was alone in her car. I just come back
Speaker 1: from Cols and I hit the freeway. The wheel come off,
Speaker 1: and the semi truck was right on my tail. I've
Speaker 1: looked in my rearview mirror. I said, oh God, here
Speaker 1: I go. I knew I was dead rat. Then it
Speaker 1: just served out of the way, just in time. Pepper
Speaker 1: then asked if they thought that someone had loosened the
Speaker 1: lux and there was no doubt at all in Roy
Speaker 1: Grabo's mind. It had to be. It had to be.
Speaker 1: Roy and Glenda Grabo moved from Texas to Mississippi sometime
Speaker 1: in nineteen nine, and they never heard from Percy Foreman again.
Speaker 1: But then they saw something on TV. It was called
Speaker 1: the Trial of James Earl. Ray King met with Glenda
Speaker 1: and Loriy Bravo and listened to with Glenda and say, uh,
Speaker 1: Paul hearing her safe when he got into wonder, I founded.
Speaker 1: I didn't necessarily believe. I thought this was to do
Speaker 1: too incredible. We were back with John Billings, as he
Speaker 1: describes meeting Glenda and Roy Graybow because we were going
Speaker 1: to follow this story down another road. Billings fellow investigator
Speaker 1: Ken Herman and TV producer Jack Saltman, all Harvard big
Speaker 1: doubts about Glenda's story, but they decided to look into it.
Speaker 1: But where is start? We didn't know quite you to
Speaker 1: talk to. So what we did was, I have handsome
Speaker 1: contacts in Miami, New York. I've met a number of
Speaker 1: people who quiney influential what I'm saying in underworld or
Speaker 1: call and I had called back, call them the real help.
Speaker 1: And they contacted a a bind coming called Las Vegas
Speaker 1: Bond Comty in Houston. It was ran a large black
Speaker 1: female was about six ft two and captain machine gun
Speaker 1: art as interesting. Herman and Saltman flew to Houston and
Speaker 1: paid a visit to the Las Vegas Bond comp and
Speaker 1: the black woman with the machine gun. They told her
Speaker 1: who they were looking for, but she said that she
Speaker 1: had never heard of this guy, Raoul, but she offered
Speaker 1: the names of two people who might have One was
Speaker 1: a retired state judge and the other owned a string
Speaker 1: of movie theaters. So Herman and Saltman found the judge
Speaker 1: and sat down with him. He said he never met Raoul,
Speaker 1: but he had heard of a guy by that name
Speaker 1: who had a gun running operation on the Houston Docks.
Speaker 1: Not a lot to go on, but it was something.
Speaker 1: Then there was the theater guy. They found him and
Speaker 1: he said right away that he knew Glenda. Here's billings.
Speaker 1: They asked him if he had any pictures a ring laugh,
Speaker 1: he said, I've got lots of pictures of Blen. He said,
Speaker 1: I keeping under my band, and he went produced some
Speaker 1: young pictures, not sque to pictures from very young pictures
Speaker 1: for a plum, very trashic girl and talked about he's
Speaker 1: in canters. Whether ye know she didn't, yes. He verified
Speaker 1: what she was saying about running in this group of
Speaker 1: gun runners and serious people and using the theaters, and
Speaker 1: then and again story ending up, but no one they
Speaker 1: talked to new Raoul's last name Tomorrow. Raoul's uncle spent
Speaker 1: much more time with Glenda and Roy, and no one
Speaker 1: knew his last name either, But he had led on
Speaker 1: that he was a former seaman and he had some
Speaker 1: sort of maritime card and occasionally received payments of some kind.
Speaker 1: So Herman and Saltman paid a visit to the offices
Speaker 1: of the Maritime Union. They presented an unusual first name
Speaker 1: and wondered if someone will look through the files to
Speaker 1: see if there was a person in the Union with
Speaker 1: that name. Usually the answer would have been no, they
Speaker 1: don't give out this kind of information. But Saltman said
Speaker 1: that it was a matter of utmost importance. They were
Speaker 1: making a movie. Jack kind of bossed them into wod
Speaker 1: out as BBC predictions and we're making a movie, and
Speaker 1: they gave him the informations that we had. We had
Speaker 1: the name with the real last name, and the help
Speaker 1: of a Memphis police sergeant, the team came to possess
Speaker 1: a copy of Raoul Quelo's naturalization record. It said that
Speaker 1: Kuelo was born in July of nineteen thirty four and
Speaker 1: that he had first come to the United States in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one. He was naturalized in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: Saltman was elated what we had also discovered that the
Speaker 1: same Rowl that we had met, and we see his
Speaker 1: naturalization papers. Among his papers of his application, we knew
Speaker 1: that he had been working in alongment factory Importugal Invisibeth, Capital, Portugal,
Speaker 1: prior to see in the American naturalization and I believe
Speaker 1: there was an EMBI note on the papers that suggested
Speaker 1: he was known that he had been seting assembled guns
Speaker 1: out of Portugal at this time. But then the big prize, Well,
Speaker 1: we obtend a photograph that I believe was one on
Speaker 1: his naturalization papers, so that would have been uto um
Speaker 1: having O taking the immigration photograph. What we then did
Speaker 1: was we've got five of the similar type graphs. We
Speaker 1: made a spread of six phetographs, which was a sort
Speaker 1: of thing to recent situation. So once they had the
Speaker 1: official photo of Raoul Kaelo, Saltman thought to construct a
Speaker 1: six photo lineup or display using photos of men of
Speaker 1: similar age, and to use that display to see who
Speaker 1: else might recognize this man and what person more important
Speaker 1: to show it to than James Earl Ray. And as
Speaker 1: John Buildings explains, he was visiting Ray quite often at
Speaker 1: that time. We discussed shot and UH excided when he
Speaker 1: had let see So we went to a r head
Speaker 1: in prison and never James and said tame on in
Speaker 1: granto James, and I told her he had a picture
Speaker 1: photo and he seems so surprised, and I asked him
Speaker 1: he would I attempt to pick out whole in his
Speaker 1: photo spread. He said that he would, so we put
Speaker 1: this before you know, James put on his glasses and
Speaker 1: Benner two. She studied the picture very careful, and as
Speaker 1: he studied and he looked down at him and he
Speaker 1: just kind of dropped his finger down said that's bottle
Speaker 1: And he said you possibly just He said, yes, I am.
Speaker 1: And then Ray said something unexpected. He said, I've seen
Speaker 1: this picture before, and I have seen this, so we
Speaker 1: mean you've seen this picture before, you know, I think
Speaker 1: Hoppy can see this because and he said that during
Speaker 1: the Blue Quote House assassinations to me that someone had
Speaker 1: mailed him in no return addressed picture and it was
Speaker 1: this picture and it had a name on the backup
Speaker 1: and he could remember the Lane. And I asked him,
Speaker 1: We asked him he did anyone ever about this? He
Speaker 1: said no, no one could have Benifiest, that can anybody else?
Speaker 1: Or see said all my attorney, uh say Lee label
Speaker 1: first and we also are working in his behalf and
Speaker 1: seen it. After Billings reported what Ray had said, Saltman
Speaker 1: set up a meeting with April Ferguson, who, along with
Speaker 1: Mark Lane, had represented James ol Ray during the House
Speaker 1: Committee hearings. He left the photo out on a table
Speaker 1: with other material, but when Ferguson passed by she stopped
Speaker 1: and picked it up. She picked the photo draft out
Speaker 1: and said, I saw the photograph. I was absolutely a
Speaker 1: fault because he was a direct actor to get the
Speaker 1: photograph intress. Because it wasn't just anywhere, this was very specificity.
Speaker 1: And I said what happened and she said, well, there
Speaker 1: wasn't name grit of the back of the checked that
Speaker 1: out and he turned out to be a placement to
Speaker 1: the Phone group. And I said, when did you intersue
Speaker 1: pedograph at all? She'd be cham pangra Hi. I think
Speaker 1: the house investigators who were looking into the house as
Speaker 1: susinations committee. The investigation was going on at that time,
Speaker 1: and she said she was shown the pedograph him one
Speaker 1: of the investigators. They haven't talk you to the office.
Speaker 1: And I said did you pursue it? And she said
Speaker 1: that top. We have no money in packing us at all.
Speaker 1: Everybody offulys notices to pay and we just did not
Speaker 1: have the money to hire five investigators to go checking.
Speaker 1: So now, with all the information now discovered about Raoul Kawelo,
Speaker 1: it was easy enough to trace the man or someone
Speaker 1: using that identity to a home in Yonkers, New York.
Speaker 1: But was the man living there with his wife and
Speaker 1: daughter the same raoul who came over from Portugal in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one. Was he the Dago that Glenda had known?
Speaker 1: Was he the raoul that Percy Foreman seemed to know?
Speaker 1: And most of all, was he the raoul who led
Speaker 1: James ol Ray into Memphis. There were a few attempts
Speaker 1: to answer these questions. One was simply to knock on
Speaker 1: his door and talk to the man. This is Jack Saltman.
Speaker 1: Some months later I went around to his house in
Speaker 1: New York City, and not on the door. M the door,
Speaker 1: if I can explain, was there was a gos iron
Speaker 1: grill type door, and then there was a sort of
Speaker 1: mesh class doors mention oject. They can obviously see how
Speaker 1: we liked to see the sort of dark interior of
Speaker 1: the house with shapes that It was apparently the wife
Speaker 1: who first came to the door, but she didn't open it. Instead,
Speaker 1: she threw at Saltman what he was pretty sure were
Speaker 1: curses in Portuguese. She was then replaced by someone he
Speaker 1: assumed was the daughter. She's spoken perfect English and asked
Speaker 1: him what he wanted and what he please go away.
Speaker 1: Saltman said that he was an English journalist, and that
Speaker 1: he had heard certain allegations made about her father and
Speaker 1: he wanted to sit down with him and talk. She
Speaker 1: replied her father was indisposed. Then I said, would you
Speaker 1: help look at this photograph? In confirms to all worstless
Speaker 1: effect that the photographs her father. And she said something
Speaker 1: to the effect that anybody could get nationalization photograph, and
Speaker 1: if I could get that, then I could get all
Speaker 1: the other answers to what I was chasing anywhere and
Speaker 1: not something to that change. She'd been no noble for
Speaker 1: that she had positively identified. I didn't show the spread.
Speaker 1: I showed an enloyement of that favor. Actually, you just
Speaker 1: showed her single vote. Yes, there's no want to ask
Speaker 1: for it because of father, because I never believe that
Speaker 1: was her father. So Saltman left Raoul's house believing he
Speaker 1: had gotten a positive idea from Raoul's daughter by way
Speaker 1: of the photo he had shown her through the door.
Speaker 1: Not exactly conclusive, but Saltman had another idea. He gave
Speaker 1: Glenda Grabow Raoul's phone number and asked her to call him.
Speaker 1: She did, and, according to phone records, she had a
Speaker 1: conversation of several minutes with Raoul. According to Glenda, Raoul
Speaker 1: seemed happy enough to hear from her, as though nothing
Speaker 1: bad had ever happened between them. Roy Grabow was present
Speaker 1: during this phone call, and he testified at the civil
Speaker 1: trial that from what he heard, Glenda was speaking to
Speaker 1: someone she knew and who knew her. But when Glenda
Speaker 1: described the conversation to Bill Pepper, he wanted to know
Speaker 1: one thing. How did Raoul on the telephone pronounce her name?
Speaker 1: Glenda replied, Golenda, Olenda down down, Tolenda Linda rather than
Speaker 1: Glendas name. As you may recall, oh Linda was how
Speaker 1: Dago pronounced Glenda's name in Houston. At this point, it
Speaker 1: would appear that Pepper was well on his way to
Speaker 1: establishing that the Yonkers Raoul was the Houston Raoul that
Speaker 1: both Glenda and Percy Foreman new, and the Raoul who
Speaker 1: Ray had identified by way of his photo, But how
Speaker 1: to prove it, how to put it all on record?
Speaker 1: At that time, Pepper was putting together the civil suit
Speaker 1: on behalf of credit Scott King and her family, So
Speaker 1: we decided to subpoena Raoul Kuolo to see if he
Speaker 1: could get him to testify under oath. But Quelo declined
Speaker 1: to appear, and he didn't have to because he lived
Speaker 1: in New York and this was a civil matter in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: The defenders of the Yonkers Raoul say the whole thing
Speaker 1: was a case of mistaken identity, and according to his lawyers,
Speaker 1: Raoul Kuelo had documents which said he was working at
Speaker 1: a General Motors plant in Tarrytown, New York from nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two till nine two. In contrast, Glenda gray Bows
Speaker 1: story seems moth eaten, filled with holes and sketchy people.
Speaker 1: But however, sketchy Glenda's story does have a trail, and
Speaker 1: by following the clues on that trail, Herman and Saltman
Speaker 1: discover Raoul's last name, his naturalization papers, and then the
Speaker 1: photo that came with those papers, a photo that Roy
Speaker 1: and Glenda say is of the Raoul that they knew,
Speaker 1: And according to John Billings, it's the same photo that
Speaker 1: James Earl Ray picked out and then said that both
Speaker 1: he and his lawyer had seen it in and the
Speaker 1: Kailo family and Yonkers, to my knowledge, has never denied
Speaker 1: that the photo was genuine. So if the Yonkers Raoul
Speaker 1: has nothing at all to do with any of this.
Speaker 1: If it really is a case of mistaken identity, how
Speaker 1: is this photo floating around at the time of the
Speaker 1: house hearings in So is the Yonkers raoul the same
Speaker 1: person as the Houston raoul. Well, there's a good body
Speaker 1: of evidence that says that he is. But whether he
Speaker 1: is or not, there is something more important here, something
Speaker 1: that goes to the very heart of this case. It's
Speaker 1: the assertion that Percy Foreman knew the Houston raoul and
Speaker 1: that he told Glenda Grebo that James Earl Ray was
Speaker 1: just a guy who had to be sacrificed. And more
Speaker 1: than that, Foreman told her that if she didn't want
Speaker 1: to be sacrificed herself, she needed to leave town because
Speaker 1: this raoul had been in on the murder of Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King and he was dangerous. And Foreman knew all
Speaker 1: this because he knew the guy. With Percy Foreman, the
Speaker 1: hits keep coming. Why did he force himself into this case?
Speaker 1: Who was he really working for? And those questions do
Speaker 1: have answers. Stay with us and find out what really
Speaker 1: went down when Martin Luther King was murdered. Next time
Speaker 1: on the MLK tapes, it really kind of opened my
Speaker 1: eyes that there was more of a conspiracy than I
Speaker 1: thought there was. Paul reached inside his jacket and pulled
Speaker 1: out what looked like a wallet. He flipped it open,
Speaker 1: and all I could see where the letters FBI. Paul
Speaker 1: smiled at me and said, don't worry. I'm your friend,
Speaker 1: not your enemy. He said. Everybody had to make a
Speaker 1: little money, even cops. I knew we had worked with
Speaker 1: local cops before, but I had never known of the
Speaker 1: FEDS being crooked. I got the feeling that there were
Speaker 1: some investigators who were involved in either the timing, the surveillance,
Speaker 1: maybe the planning we're talking about, I'm surfacing at the
Speaker 1: time when the trial was about to take place. They
Speaker 1: didn't want that civil trial. I have a client who
Speaker 1: had imparted some information to be that, quite frankly, could
Speaker 1: prove that James were already did not shoot. Dr King.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to The MLK Tapes, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and tended with TV. This podcast is
Speaker 1: not specifically endorsed by the King Family or the King
Speaker 1: of State. The email K Tapes is written and hosted
Speaker 1: by Bill Claiper, Matt Frederick, and Alex Williams are executive
Speaker 1: producers on behalf of I Heart Radio with producers Trevor
Speaker 1: Young and ben Keebrick. Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay are
Speaker 1: executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV with producers Jamie
Speaker 1: Albright and Meredith Steadman. Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Speaker 1: Cover art by Mr Soul to six with photography by
Speaker 1: Artemis Jenkins. Special thanks to Owen Rosenbaum and Grace Rowyer
Speaker 1: at U t A, The Nord Group, back Median Marketing,
Speaker 1: Envisioned Business Management, and Station sixteen. If you have questions,
Speaker 1: you can visit our website, the email k tapes dot com.
Speaker 1: We posted photos and videos related to the podcast on
Speaker 1: our social media accounts. You can check them out at
Speaker 1: the email k Tapes. For more podcasts from I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Tenderfoot TV, please visit the I Heart Radio app,
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