Expert Assails Fbi Probe Of King’s Assassination

James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King, Jr., but was definitely involved in the plot, an expert on American political assassinations said Saturday night.

“I believe it is a conspiracy,” Philip H. Melanson, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of a book on the assassination, told about 30 people gathered at The Met in Spokane.

Melanson did not say who was responsible for King’s death, but blamed the FBI for a “slipshod, inadequate and superficial” murder investigation.

The civil rights leader was killed April 4, 1968.

Ray would never have been convicted under today’s legal standards, Melanson said. The fatal bullet was never tested and never decisively matched to the murder weapon, he said. No one saw Ray pull the trigger. Ray’s fingerprints were not at the murder scene.

Ray was an incompetent petty criminal, Melanson said. He was not capable of dodging federal authorities on the international manhunt that followed King’s assassination. He must have been helped, Melanson concluded.

Melanson researched government documents and interviewed dozens of people, including Ray. Some of the people Melanson interviewed had never been sought out by investigators, he said. “This is a case that might be solved if it were re-opened.”