- JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -
The FBI in Florida is looking into claims by a minister that his father,
not James Earl Ray, was the triggerman in the 1968 assassination of the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
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- The Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson, 61, said Wednesday that
his father, Henry Clay Wilson, shot King on April 4, 1968. Wilson, whose
father died in 1990, said he wanted to "clear my conscience"
and could no longer remain silent after 34 years.
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- Wilson offered no documents, photographs or witnesses
to corroborate his story.
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- FBI agents from Jacksonville interviewed Wilson and his
family for three hours early Wednesday to try to determine if his story
was credible. "We are taking this very seriously," agent Ron
Grenier said.
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- FBI agent George Bolds in Memphis, Tenn., where King
was assassinated, said the bureau knew nothing about Henry Clay Wilson
and is not investigating any claims concerning him and the King
murder.
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- John Campbell, an assistant prosecutor in Memphis,
handled
the state's opposition to Ray's attempts to recant his guilty plea and
said he had never heard of Henry Clay Wilson. Campbell said he has no
doubts
about Ray's guilt.
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- "James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King on April
4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m.," he said.
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- Ray pleaded guilty to shooting King at the Lorraine Motel
in Memphis, but he later recanted. He was convicted in 1969 and sentenced
to 99 years in prison. He died of liver disease in 1998.
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- Wilson claimed he was with his father, Henry Clay Wilson,
and two other men as they plotted in March 1968 in Gainesville to kill
King. The younger Wilson was 27.
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- Wilson said he could not come forward while his father
and the other men were alive. His father died in 1990, and the last of
the men died in 1996.
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- "I'm a minister and I wanted to clear my
conscience,"
he said Wednesday. Wilson said he saw a rifle and $100,000 cash in a
suitcase
when his father and the other two men met in Gainesville. Wilson said the
men were Ku Klux Klan members and killed King because they believed he
was a communist.
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- Wilson, pastor of New Convenant Church in Graham, north
of Gainesville, said his family had been in contact with a publisher in
Indiana about a possible book about his father.
-
- A spokeswoman for the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference
said Martin Luther King III, Martin Luther King Jr.'s son, had no
comment.
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