# Who Shot MLK revealed?! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2002, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-shot-mlk-revealed/101791 "2002-04-04T15:49:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-shot-mlk-revealed/101791/1 "2002-04-04T15:49:04Z")
Why is this story not front page news in major newspapers? It sounds fairly credible. [Area man says father shot MLK](http://gainesvillesun.com/articles/2002-04-03b.shtml) > [@](#): > > Claiming he wanted to get a 34-year-old secret off his chest, an Alachua County man said Tuesday that his father was the triggerman in the April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. > > And, the Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson said, portions of the murder plot were hatched in Gainesville. > > “My dad told me James Earl Ray had nothing to do with the shooting other than to buy a rifle for them,” said Wilson, a 61-year-old preacher and siding contractor who goes by “R.D.” > > “My dad was the one who shot Dr. King,” he said. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-shot-mlk-revealed/101791/2 "2002-04-04T22:50:51Z")
And my Great-great-grandfather was the sole survivor of Custer’s Last Stand. Proof: he was bald, Sitting Bull scalped him himself. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-shot-mlk-revealed/101791/3 "2002-04-04T23:12:21Z")
The unsubstantiated word of one hearsay witness sounds credible? A word of advice, astro - don’t sell the family cow, those beans aren’t really magic. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-shot-mlk-revealed/101791/4 "2002-04-05T01:22:02Z")
I was reading TV Guide and they had celebrities talking about famous moments on TV. Larry Hagman (of “Dallas” and “I Dream of Jeannie” fame) said when he first heard about the assassination he suspected the government…"and I still do… Maybe it was Mary Crosby. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-shot-mlk-revealed/101791/5 "2002-04-05T04:42:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Little Nemo \* > \*\*The unsubstantiated word of one hearsay witness sounds credible? > > A word of advice, astro - don’t sell the family cow, those beans aren’t really magic. \*\* Mmmoooo… I’m sorry I should have put it in context. I’m not a conspiracy buff in the least (I have boundless faith in a human being’s innate ability to screw things up all by themselves) In any case there has been a lot of evidence over the years of exactly this kind organized “conspiracy” scenario having been played out in the shooting of MLK. James Earl Ray has always been a questionable suspect for the actual shooting but the FBI has never been able to get to the core of the setup. In fact the King family went so far as to state that he was not the likely shooter but that there was a larger conpiracy afoot. The information this man is providing could be false but it ties in pretty well with a lot of the loose threads that surround the case. [Will James Earl Ray’s story ever be fully told? - CNN](http://www.cnn.com/US/9804/04/james.ray.profile/) > [@](#): > > King’s family believes Ray > > Ray came as close as he ever would to being absolved in King’s assassination in a March 1997 meeting with one of the civil rights leader’s sons, Dexter King. > > “I had nothing to do with shooting your father,” Ray told King. > > Later, King asked Ray directly, “I want to ask for the record: Did you kill my father?” > > “No, I didn’t, no, no,” Ray replied. > > “I believe you, and my family believes you, and we will do everything in our power to see you prevail,” King promised. > > The King family joined Ray’s relatives and others in the call for a trial, saying it would be the only way to discover the full truth about what happened in Memphis. ---
**Author:** ![JonScribe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3be4f8/32.png) [@JonScribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonScribe)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-shot-mlk-revealed/101791/6 "2002-04-05T05:29:09Z")
Loved the pastor’s explanation for why his dad “allegedly” killed King: It was just because he was a communist, not because he was black. OK, dad was a member of the KKK and yeah, he liked to beat up black people, but he shot the Rev. King out of purely patriotic reasons. Feh. Dad was a racist asshole, but trying to gain some notoriety by claiming he killed King is just sick. You’re going to have to look for other ways to build you church membership. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-shot-mlk-revealed/101791/7 "2002-04-05T17:13:06Z")
Martin Luther King was a great man and his family has my sympathy for his loss. But the fact that his son has become a believer in a conspiracy theory really means nothing more than if you or I believe it. Theories ultimately are proved true by evidence not the amount of belief they engender. James Ray killed King. The evidence is that there was no conspiracy that extended farther than the possible involvement of his brothers as accessories. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-shot-mlk-revealed/101791/8 "2002-04-05T17:27:54Z")
I recall now, with some small amusement, the howls from conspiracy theorists, back in the late 70s, when James Earl Ray briefly broke out of prison. During the jailbreak, conspiracy theorists screamed at the tops of their lungs that Ray was surely about to be murdered, “silenced,” to prevent him from ever revealing the “real” killers of Dr. King. In reality, of course, Ray was found in short order, returned to his cell, and served out the rest of his life in prison. Now, I know that, late in his life, Ray swore up and down that he didn’t kill Dr. King, and he even managed to hoodwink King’s family into believing that he had secret evidence of a vast conspiracy behind the assassination. But of course, he never actually named any names or provided any evidence for this conspiracy. He only dropped vague hints and allegations, and offered to provide more information in exchange for a new trial or a pardon. Even after Ray knew that he was fatally ill, and had only weekss to live, he never revealed any of the information he claimed he had. To me, that suggests he had NOTHING, that he was toying with the King family, hoping they’d be gullible enough to believe him, and help get him out of prison. Ray was a con artist his whole life, and that didn’t change, even on his deathbed. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-shot-mlk-revealed/101791/9 "2002-04-05T19:18:08Z")
Gary Posner, of Case Closed fame (The book that torpedoed the JFK buffs and made exposed their foolishness) [has writtne a book on the MLK assasination.](http://www.cnn.com/books/reviews/9804/27/killing.the.dream.cnn/) Pretty much it was just him.