Loyd Jowers

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Loyd Jowers
Born (1926-11-20)November 20, 1926
Died May 20, 2000(2000-05-20) (aged 73)
Tennessee, U.S.
Cause of death
 heart attack
Occupation Owner of Jim's Grill

Loyd Jowers (November 20, 1926[1] – May 20, 2000) was the owner of a restaurant (Jim's Grill) near the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. In December 1993, Jowers appeared on ABC's Prime Time Live and related the details of an alleged conspiracy involving the Mafia and the U.S. government to kill King. According to Jowers, James Earl Ray was a scapegoat, and was not involved in the assassination. Jowers believed that Memphis police officer Lieutenant Earl Clark fired the fatal shot.

The United States Department of Justice published the results of its investigation into Jowers' allegations and concluded that they were not substantiated nor credible and that they found significant evidence to refute them. According to the DOJ report,[2] Jowers contradicted himself on virtually every key point about the alleged conspiracy:
In these statements, Jowers has repeatedly changed key aspects of his new story, disavowed his confession, and even retreated to his long-standing account of the previous 25 years. For example, he not only identified two different people as the assassin, but also most recently claimed that he saw the assassin and did not recognize him. Jowers also abandoned his initial allegation that he received $100,000 with which he hired a hit man to kill Dr. King, claiming instead that he merely held the money for the conspirators. Additionally, Jowers has been inconsistent about other aspects of the alleged conspiracy, including his role in it, Raoul's responsibilities, whether and how Memphis police officers were involved, and the disposal of the alleged murder weapon.[2][3]

According to the same report, Jowers initially sought compensation for his story, and his friends and relatives acknowledge that he hoped to make money from his account. He also refused to cooperate with the DOJ investigation. Even though he repeatedly confessed publicly without immunity from prosecution, he was unwilling to provide a final, definitive version of his story in order to be granted immunity by the Department of Justice. Jowers has never made his conspiracy claims under oath according to the report.[2]

In 1998, the King family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators" for the murder of King. A Memphis jury found Jowers responsible on December 8, 1999, and that the assassination plot also involved "governmental agencies."[4]

The Memphis county prosecutor said on several occasions that Mr. Jowers' claims were without merit and that his motivation was to sell his story for a book or a movie. Both sisters that worked at Jowers' restaurant recanted their support for the case. Their conversation in which the main witness for Jowers admitted that the story was false was taped by the authorities. The sister admitted that Jowers had fabricated the story so he could make $300,000 from selling the story, and she in turn corroborated his story in order to get some money to pay her income tax.[5][6]

Following the verdict, John Campbell, an assistant district attorney in Memphis who was part of the criminal trial said:
I'm not surprised by the verdict. This case overlooked so much contradictory evidence that never was presented, what other option did the jury have but to accept Mr. Pepper's version?[4]

At a 1999 press conference following the verdict, Coretta Scott King stated that "there is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr... the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame."[7]

Following statements by Dexter King and other family members, Dexter was subsequently asked by a reporter, "there are many people out there who feel that as long as these conspirators remain nameless and faceless there is no true closure, and no justice." He replied:

"No, he [Mr. Lloyd Jowers] named the shooter. The shooter was the Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl Clark who he named as the killer. Once again, beyond that you had credible witnesses that named members of a Special Forces team who didn't have to act because the contract killer succeeded, with plausible denial, a Mafia contracted killer".[7]
Gerald Posner, an investigative journalist who wrote the book Killing the Dream in which he makes the case that Ray is the killer, said after the verdict:
It distresses me greatly that the legal system was used in such a callous and farcical manner in Memphis. If the King family wanted a rubber stamp of their own view of the facts, they got it. [4]

Author, activist, and Christian theologian Jim Douglass who attended the trial commented in The Fellowship of Reconciliation magazine:

This historic trial was so ignored by the media that, apart from the courtroom participants, I was the only person who attended it from beginning to end. What I experienced in that courtroom ranged from inspiration at the courage of the Kings, their lawyer-investigator William F. Pepper, and the witnesses, to amazement at the government's carefully interwoven plot to kill Dr. King. The seriousness with which US intelligence agencies planned the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks eloquently of the threat King and nonviolence represented to the powers that be in the spring of 1968.[8]

Death

Jowers died from a heart attack on May 20, 2000, at the age of 73.[9]

References

  1. ↑ Indexed at SSDI
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Overview". United States Department of Justice Investigation of Recent Allegations Regarding the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. U.S. Department of Justice. June 2000. Archived from the original on 2013-01-09. Retrieved 2013-03-21. 
  3. ↑ PART IV. JOWERS' ALLEGATIONS
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Memphis Jury Sees Conspiracy in Martin Luther King's Killing", New York Times, December 09, 1999
  5. ↑ "Washingtonpost.com: Martin Luther King Jr.: The Legacy". The Washington Post. January 30, 1999. 
  6. ↑ "Loyd Jowers, 73, Who Claimed A Role in the Killing of Dr. King". The New York Times. May 23, 2000. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Assassination Conspiracy Trial". The King Center. December 9, 1999. 
  8. ↑ The King Trial
  9. ↑ http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/crm/mlk/part1.php

http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/crm/mlk/part3.php

Additional sources

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