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NASHVILLE, March 27— In an extraordinary face-to-face meeting in
a prison conference room, James Earl Ray told the youngest son
of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today that he did not
assassinate his father, and the son, Dexter Scott King, told Mr.
Ray that the King family was convinced of his innocence.

As Mr. Ray seeks to clear his name before dying of liver
disease, Mr. King's assertion reflects a remarkable evolution by
the family of the slain civil rights leader.

For most of the nearly three decades since Dr. King was shot in
Memphis on April 4, 1968, the King family has maintained a
studied silence about the guilt of Mr. Ray, who confessed to the
crime, then recanted after being sentenced to a 99-year prison
term. But in the last two months, with Mr. Ray's health
deteriorating rapidly, the King family has become his outspoken
ally: first by telling reporters that there were legitimate
evidentiary questions to explore, then by testifying in support
of a new trial and finally by declaring today that Mr. Ray was
innocent.

''I just want to ask you, for the record, did you kill my
father?'' Mr. King, 36, asked Mr. Ray as the two men sat facing
each other, a yard apart, in wooden armchairs.

Mr. Ray, 69, replied: ''No, no, I didn't, no. But like I say,
sometimes these questions are difficult to answer, and you have
to make a personal evaluation.''

Mr. King said: ''Well, as awkward as this may seem, I want you
to know that I believe you and my family believes you, and we
are going to do everything in our power to try and make sure
that justice will prevail. And while it's at the 11th hour, I've
always been a spiritual person and I believe in Providence.''

Aides to Mr. King said he had been trying to arrange the meeting
with Mr. Ray -- the first between Mr. Ray and a member of the
King family -- for several months. As president of the Martin
Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta,
Mr. King has served in recent years as the principal spokesman
for his mother, Coretta Scott King, and his three siblings.

Accompanied by William F. Pepper, Mr. Ray's lawyer, Mr. King
arrived 15 minutes late for the meeting at the Lois M. DeBerry
Special Needs Facility, a boxy state prison in Nashville for
sick and disabled inmates. Shortly after Mr. King was ushered
into the concrete-block conference room, Mr. Ray was guided into
the room in a wheelchair.

The frail Mr. Ray, dressed in prison blues and cloth slippers,
rose to greet the robust Mr. King, who wore a navy suit, a bold
red tie and shiny black shoes. As they shook hands, Mr. King,
who bears a striking resemblance to his father, said, ''Glad to
meet you. Thank you for letting me come and impose on your
time.''

Like heads of state at a White House photo op, the two men sat
in facing chairs with their hands folded over their laps and
with tiny microphones clipped to their jackets. After about 25
minutes, the few reporters allowed to witness the scene were
dismissed, and Mr. King and Mr. Ray spoke privately for 20
minutes.

During the public part of the meeting, Mr. King did most of the
talking. The conversation was awkward and stilted, with Mr. King
filling the silences left by Mr. Ray and with Mr. Ray rambling
far from the topic of his role in Dr. King's killing. His face
etched with creases, Mr. Ray has been severely weakened by
cirrhosis, and he complained to Mr. King that his stomach was
distended.

''My stomach is kind of falling out, and I need minor surgery,
but other than that we're just, you know, taking things day for
day, I guess you could say,'' he said. ''And, of course, you've
got your problems, too. You've had them for a long time now.''

It took Mr. King nearly 15 minutes to pose the question he had
come to ask. He first told Mr. Ray that he considered their
meeting ''a spiritual experience.''

''I guess in some strange way our destinies, that of my father
and yourself, somehow got tied up together, and we still don't
feel as a family that we have all of the questions answered,''
he told Mr. Ray.

Later he added, ''In a strange sort of way, we're both victims.''

At one point, Mr. Ray volunteered, ''I ain't had nothing to do
with shooting your father.''

Since Dr. King's assassination on the balcony of the Lorraine
Motel, most official inquiries, including a Congressional
examination, that of the House Select Committee on
Assassinations, have concluded that Mr. Ray probably fired the
fatal shot. Mr. Ray's original confession still stands in the
opinion of every judge who has heard him out.

A bank robber who had escaped from a Missouri prison at the time
of the shooting, Mr. Ray had rented a room in a boarding house
across the street from the motel. His fingerprints were found on
a rifle that was dropped outside the house. After the shooting,
he fled to Atlanta, Canada, Portugal and England before being
arrested. He pleaded guilty in 1969.

But after his sentencing, Mr. Ray said he had pleaded guilty
under pressure from his lawyers to avoid the death penalty. He
has said since then that he had been framed ''as a patsy'' by a
shadowy figure named Raoul. And Mr. Pepper, his lawyer for the
last 19 years, has suggested a number of conspiracies that he
outlined two years ago in a book.

Mr. Pepper has argued that modern tests would prove that Mr.
Ray's rifle did not fire the bullet that killed Dr. King, an
assertion questioned by some ballistics experts. Last month Mr.
Pepper asked a judge in Memphis to order the new tests,
believing that favorable results would force a new trial. The
judge has referred the question to an appellate court, which has
not ruled.

Without a ruling from the court and a liver transplant for Mr.
Ray, Mr. Pepper said today, ''We're going to be stalled out of
existence.''

At a news conference after the meeting today, Mr. King declined
to say what evidence had convinced him of Mr. Ray's innocence.
He also denied that his interaction with Mr. Ray was designed to
generate interest in a movie deal that Mr. King and the agent
for Dr. King's estate, Phillip Jones, have been negotiating with
Oliver Stone, the film maker.

''I'm not Oliver Stone,'' he said. ''I'm not a conspiracy
theorist.''

But Mr. King made it clear that he had been influenced by Mr.
Pepper's theories, and he briefly mentioned the story of Lloyd
Jowers. Mr. Jowers, a former Memphis tavern owner, said on
national television in 1993 that he had a hired a man -- not Mr.
Ray -- to kill Dr. King at the request of a grocer with reputed
mob connections. His story has never been proved.

Asked who killed his father, Mr. King said, ''I don't know.
Again that's why a trial, I think, is so necessary. I do think
that attorney Pepper has some very compelling evidence that will
lead in that direction. You know, I can't prove this. I'm a very
instinctual person. My instincts tend to tell me when things are
not right. I can't always put my finger on it but I can say
this, that I have felt this sense of suppression, that there are
those forces out there that don't want what has been in darkness
to come to light.''

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/28/us/dr-king-s-son-says-family- believes-ray-is-innocent.html


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