Hampton Sides - Hellhound on His Trail - The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. And the International Hunt for His Assassin

Young, for one, believed there was no hope for King, that this frantic press of medical attention was probably a useless formality. He thought King was already dead, or at least irretrievably on his way.

In the parking lot, concerned onlookers parted for the stretcher as it jounced over the asphalt. Georgia Davis, her eyes brimming with tears, threaded her way through the small crowd. She stood transfixed as the medics threw open the twin doors and eased King into the ambulance. Abernathy climbed in the back and crouched at King's side. On instinct, Davis followed Abernathy's lead and started to get into the ambulance, eager to be with her lover. But Andy Young touched her shoulder and said softly, "Georgia, I don't think 378you want to do that."

She seemed puzzled for a moment, her face caught in the flashing red dome light, but she realized Young was right: this was not her place. Any photographer could capture her there at King's side, and the awkward truth of a mistress would become part of history forever. She backed away from the ambulance and melted into the crowd.

The rear doors slammed shut, and at 6:09 the ambulance roared off for St. Joseph's Hospital, the nearest emergency room to the Lorraine. The driver, J. W. Walton, got on the radio and yelled to a dispatcher, "Give me the loop lights!" 379At Memphis Fire Headquarters, a city engineer threw a master switch that held the traffic lights at green on all north and south streets, while all the cross streets remained red. Now Walton could race to the hospital without having to slow down at even the busiest intersections.

The ambulance, escorted by several policemen on motorcycles, sped through downtown Memphis. One of the medics hovered over King, taking his pulse and blood pressure. A different oxygen mask was placed over his mouth, and the resuscitator pump soughed away. As the siren wailed in the twilight, Abernathy wondered if his friend could hear it, and if he was frightened.

"Is he alive?" 380Abernathy asked.

The medic gave a perfunctory nod. "Barely," he said. "Just barely."

After four breakneck minutes the ambulance pulled up to the St. Joseph's emergency room--the same emergency room that had treated James Meredith two years earlier after he'd been shot on his ill-fated march from Memphis. Catholic-run St. Joseph's Hospital was one of the largest and most prominent institutions in Memphis, but it had been chosen for one simple reason: it was closest to the Lorraine.

At 6:15 p.m., Martin Luther King, unconscious but with his heart still beating, was wheeled through the swinging double doors and down a long corridor toward the emergency room. Abernathy walked briskly at his side.

IN FRONT OF Canipe's Amusement Company on South Main, Lieutenant Judson Ghormley stood sentinel over the curious bundle the stranger had dropped on the ground. Faithful to the dispatcher's command, Ghormley had not laid a finger on it, but had simply parked himself in front of the door with his pistol drawn and awaited instructions from farther up the chain of command.

Captain Jewell Ray 381of the police department's Intelligence Division raced down Main Street and halted in front of Canipe's. Thirty-six years old, a native of Memphis with a slow, custardy drawl, the craggy-faced Ray wore plain clothes--a sport coat and a tie. "Captain," Ghormley told Ray. "The guy dropped this."

Captain Ray crouched on a knee and studied the bundle. A dingy green bedspread was loosely twirled around a black cardboard box. He could also see a blue zippered satchel. Not wanting to taint the evidence with fingerprints, he removed a pencil from his breast pocket and used it to pull back the edge of the box cover. On the box he could plainly see the word "Browning." Next to the rifle, he saw a box of ammunition.

Impressed but also puzzled by the trove, Captain Ray ordered two other policemen, armed with shotguns, to guard it until homicide detectives arrived. As more police flooded the area, he had them block the doors to Canipe's and all the adjoining businesses along South Main, including Jim's Grill.

"No one leaves the area," he barked. "This entire block is to remain secure until Homicide gets here."

At that, Captain Ray, accompanied by Lieutenant Jim Papia, clambered up the narrow steps of Bessie Brewer's rooming house. On the second floor, they found tenants circulating in the dim halls, animatedly discussing what had happened. They first met a wild-eyed middle-aged man named Harold Carter who said he heard something "that sounded a mighty lot like a shot, but I'm crazy--don't pay any attention to what I say." Captain Ray then moved on to the deaf-mute, Mrs. Ledbetter, who gestured and made guttural mumbling sounds that made no sense, but she pointed down the hall. Willie Anschutz stepped into the conversation and told Captain Ray the shot had come from the bathroom. There was a guy in the bathroom who wouldn't come out, Anschutz said. "Then I heard what sounded like a shot in there. He took off down the hall with something in his arms. I told the guy, 'That sounded like a shot.' And he said, 'It was.'"

Then Captain Ray met Charlie Stephens, who appeared to be drunk and agitated by all the commotion. "Yeah, the shot come from the bathroom," Stephens said. "It was the new tenant, the guy in 5B. This afternoon, when he moved in, I heard a noise in there--sounded like he was moving furniture."

Ray and Papia raced down the hall and turned the coat-hanger "doorknob" of 5B. The door screaked open, revealing a cheerless room devoid of personal belongings or luggage. The two officers had a sinking feeling, an eerie sense that they'd missed their man by a matter of minutes. The bed was tidily made, but there was still a depression on one side of the mattress, as though someone had just been sitting there. The window overlooking the Lorraine was open. The curtains had been slid to one side and now rippled faintly in the breeze. A straight-backed chair was by the window, facing toward the Lorraine, and a large rickety dresser had been scooted across the floor, evidently to make room for the chair.

Ray and Papia walked to the window and tried to figure the sight lines. "Looks like he was settin' here watching," Lieutenant Papia said. "But it's not a good angle to shoot from."

Captain Ray tried to picture the shooter standing there and agreed. He began to think that Stephens was right--maybe the shot came from the bathroom.

As they turned to leave, however, Papia spotted something: on the floor were two short black leather straps. Papia thought they had come from a camera.

Now Captain Ray and Lieutenant Papia clomped down the linoleum hall to the bathroom. They opened the door and moved toward the window, which was cracked open about five inches. Ray tried to open the window farther, but it was jammed. He peered down into the littered yard and spotted a wire-mesh screen directly below, as though it had been jimmied from its groove.

Outside, through the gloaming, Ray and Papia could see the Lorraine dead ahead, about two hundred feet away. The motel parking lot was a confusion of swirling squad-car lights and chattering radios. Unlike in 5B, the sight line from this window to the Lorraine was a direct one. "Yeah," said Papia, "he could get a good shot from here."

Captain Ray discovered that the wooden windowsill had a curious marking, a half-moon indentation that appeared to him to have been freshly made; thinking it could have been caused by the recoil of a firing rifle barrel, he made a note of it, and later that night homicide detectives removed the sill and took it into evidence. By the look of things, the sniper would have had to stand in the bathtub to squeeze off the shot. Indeed, there appeared to be new scuff marks in the tub. Above the tub, higher along the wall, was a large palm print. It seemed likely to Captain Ray that the sniper, while climbing into the tub, had used one hand to steady himself against the wall.