Historic debut
Just-released 1968-’69 James Earl Ray tapes document painful moment in Memphis past
James Earl Ray sits slumped in a plane seat, jet engines purring in the background.
As the grainy, black-andwhite video unwinds, Shelby County Sheriff Bill Morris hovers over the pale figure who led the FBI on a world- wide manhunt following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Nabbed in London and flown overnight back to Memphis, Ray hangs his head as Morris reads him his rights.
“Mr. Ray, I’d like to read this statement,” a young Morris announces before rattling off Ray’s many aliases: Eric Starvo Galt. John Willard. Harvey Lowmeyer.
The scene from July 19, 1968, comes to life in newly released video airing on County Register Tom Leatherwood’s website, just hours before the 45th anniversary of King’s April 4, 1968, assassination in Memphis.
“That’s a historical moment
in our nation’s history,’’ an excited Leatherwood said Tuesday in announcing the release of nine videos documenting Ray’s incarceration and 1969 guilty plea here.
The videos, located two years ago in sheriff’s department storage boxes and restored by the County Archives under Leatherwood’s control, in- clude court and jailhouse footage as well as scenes depicting a TV interview with author William Bradford Huie, who paid Ray for exclusive interviews and wrote the first book on the King assassination.
Ray spent eight months in custody in Memphis before entering a guilty plea in March 1969, when he admitted to stalking King and shooting him from a sniper’s nest with a highpowered rifle as the civil rights leader stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Ray died in 1998 at age 70 in a Nashville prison.
Restoration of t he tapes, shot on an obsolete Sony system, was been a delicate, time-consuming process.
Leatherwood solicited vendors through a professional bidding process known as requests for proposals. NBC, the broadcasting network, agreed to restore the videos at no cost, turning the work over to a New York firm, Leatherwood said.
Leatherwood posted the videos late Tuesday afternoon on his site at register.shelby.tn.us/.
In the first video, Ray is seen on an FBI jet as authorities place a bulletproof vest on him. Later, he is hustled into the jail and given a thorough medical examination.
Missing from the newly released videos is hours of footage authorities are believed to have shot while Ray was under 24-hour microphone and video surveillance. Leatherwood said records refer to such surveillance, yet videos have not surfaced.
Still, Leatherwood said he hopes technology can further enhance the video and audio quality of the long-forgotten tapes now in the public domain.
“We believe the audio, especially, can still be further enhanced and the video as well,’’ Leatherwood said.