Killing the Dream : James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

After thirty years, Killing the Dream reexamines the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., based on explosive new interviews, confidential files, and previously undisclosed evidence. Killing the Dream not only uncovers the errors of previous investigations--both private and governmental--but resolves the speculation about whether the FBI, CIA, or mafia was involved in the death of Dr. King.

Killing the Dream untangles the case's leading puzzles:

* Was there a mysterious person called Raoul who directed James Earl Ray in the year leading up to the murder?

* Was the fatal shot fired from the bathroom window of a Memphis flophouse, or from a sniper's perch hidden in a densely overgrown garden across from King's hotel?

* Did the military have a covert team of snipers in Memphis on the day King was killed?

* Has the recent confession by a restaurant owner exposed a wide conspiracy leading to a New Orleans crime family?

* Was James Earl Ray a patsy, as the King family recently declared?

At the heart of this study is an in-depth profile of James Earl Ray himself, a fascinating portrait of a career criminal from one of the most forsaken parts of poor white America. By studying Ray's often bizarre life--from his hard childhood to his recent attempts to win a new trial and freedom from prison--Gerald Posner clears away years of misinformation. Killing the Dream follows Ray from his pro-Nazi leanings in the U.S. Army, through his many crimes, to King's murder and beyond, detailing his dealing in and abuse of drugs, his desire to dabble in the porn business, and his obsession with making a quick profit, by any means. Posner re-creates the memorable dramas of the case: Dr. King's rousing "mountaintop" speech the night before he was killed; the chilling moments of the assassination; the FBI's far-ranging manhunt for the missing assassin; Ray's frantic flight across four countries as he tried to escape justice; the shock in the courtroom when Ray suddenly pled guilty and the truth in the case seemed forever lost.

Killing the Dream lays to rest three decades of conjecture and distortion--much of it spawned by Ray's frequently changing stories--to make the case for what happened in Memphis in 1968, and what most certainly did not. This groundbreaking book finally unveils the simple truth of the last great political murder mystery left from the 1960s. In this compelling account of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., Gerald Posner thwarts James Earl Ray's determined efforts to take his secrets to the grave.