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

"We are police officers," Butler began, in a formal, courteous tone. "I understand you had in your possession two passports."

Sneyd seemed glad to see a fresh face to whom he could register his indignation. "I can't understand why I'm here," he said.

Butler would not dignify Sneyd's concern with a reply. "What is your name, sir?"

"Sneyd--my name is Sneyd !"

Butler produced the two passports and shuffled them in his hands like a deck of cards. He tapped them, opened them, and shuffled them again. He screwed up his face into a pained expression. "Both of these passports show that you are a Canadian citizen born in Toronto on October 8, 1932. Are these details correct?"

"Of course they're correct." Sneyd's frustration was palpable.

Then Butler produced the Liberty Chief pistol and held it in his palm. His pained expression returned. "This .38 revolver with five rounds of ammunition in its chambers was found in your hip pocket when you were first questioned. Is this your gun?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to tell us, Mr. Sneyd, why you are carrying a gun at all?"

"I was going to Brussels."

"Why should you want to take a gun to Brussels?"

Sneyd stammered. "Uh, well. I'm really thinking of going on to Rhodesia and things aren't too good there just now."

Butler traded glances with Inspector Thompson, then studied the revolver some more, knitting his eyebrows for effect. He was deliberately drawing things out, trying to make the suspect sweat. "In this country," he said, "one has to have a firearms certificate to own a gun--even to have ammunition in one's possession. Have you a firearms certificate issued by the competent authority?"

Sneyd shook his head. "No," he said, "I haven't got a certificate."

More pregnant pauses, more scowls and grimaces. "Then I must inform you, Mr. Sneyd, that you are under arrest for possession of a gun without a permit. I must also caution you that anything you say may be held against you."

SHORTLY THEREAFTER, SNEYD was transported to Cannon Row jail, a redbrick and granite cell block inside Scotland Yard, less than a hundred yards from the Houses of Parliament. There he was placed inside a large empty cell and detained until Butler and his Yard men could scramble together more information. The iron gates of the compound were guarded by a pair of tall London bobbies. With each passing quarter hour, immured in this gray dungeon, Sneyd could hear, could almost feel , the resonant chime of Big Ben, reminding him that he had not made it to the empire's extremities--only to the empire's central police station. Nearby, an armed guard stood vigil.

Scotland Yard detectives at Heathrow had succeeded in retrieving Sneyd's bag from the returning Brussels flight, and around 3:00 p.m. Chief Inspector Kenneth Thompson brought the suitcase to Sneyd's cell. "Is this your luggage?" he asked.

Yes, Sneyd said, it was.

The contents of the suitcase were quickly inventoried--and, in the words of one Scotland Yard official, "proved most enlightening." Among other items, investigators found a map of Portugal, a guidebook to Rhodesia, two books on hypnotism, and a well-marked paperback titled Psycho-Cybernetics . There was also a jacket with a label bearing the name Mr. Eric Galt. Wedged inside the battery housing of his transistor radio was a folded sheet of paper scribbled with the names of several mercenary groups in Angola.

A policeman appeared and told Sneyd to remove his clothes; he was to put on prison garb and turn in his present attire to Scotland Yard. Sneyd balked at this indignity--"I don't know what you're doing this for. It's no good for the lab boys, if that's what you think"--but then he did as he was told. The clothes were placed in a cellophane bag and entered into evidence.

A few minutes later Detective Chief Superintendent Thomas Butler entered Sneyd's cell and sat across from the prisoner, now in his jailbird uniform. Butler wasted no time in picking up where he'd left off at Heathrow. "As a result of inquiries 714made since you were detained," he said, "we have very good reason to believe that you are not a Canadian citizen, but an American."

Sneyd averted his eyes and seemed to be struggling with the implications of what he'd just heard. Then he nodded and mumbled, "Oh well, yes I am."

Sensing vulnerability, Butler aggressively pressed his case. "I believe your name is not Sneyd," he said, "but James Earl Ray, also known as Eric Starvo Galt and other names." Butler let that sink in, and then continued. "And that you are wanted at present in the United States for serious criminal offenses, including murder in which a firearm was used."

Sneyd was devastated. He collapsed onto a nearby bench and cradled his head in his hands. "Oh God," he said. "I feel so trapped."

Despite all the dire things Butler had just said about the detainee, the two charges Scotland Yard was now filing against Sneyd alias Galt alias Ray seemed puny indeed: traveling on a forged passport and carrying a firearm without a permit. But that was enough to stop the world's most wanted man and end his sixty-five-day flight from Memphis. He would soon be sent off to London's storied Brixton prison, to await extradition hearings.

"I should caution you again," Butler said, "that anything you say may be held against you."

Sneyd stared at the floor, his blanched face a mask of worry. "Yes, I shouldn't say 715anything more now. I can't think right."

47 THREE WIDOWS

IN THE SUBURBS of Washington, D.C., Cartha DeLoach was making late Saturday morning pancakes 716for his kids when the phone rang. It was an operator at FBI headquarters, patching through an international call from London.

"Deke--they've got your man." DeLoach heard a delayed and echoey voice from across the ocean. It was John Minnich, an FBI agent serving as the legal attache at the American embassy in London.

"They what?"

"Scotland Yard," Minnich said. "They've got Sneyd. He was caught at Heathrow a few hours ago."

DeLoach couldn't contain his joy. "Really? Where was he going?"

"On his way to Brussels, apparently," Minnich replied. "He told them he was heading to Rhodesia after that."

DeLoach breathed a sigh of relief that was audible over the international phone lines. "Every muscle in my body relaxed," 717DeLoach recalled in his memoirs. "I hadn't realized how tense I'd been over the past two months. Light flooded into every corner of the room."

"But, Deke," Minnich said, snatching DeLoach from his reverie. "There's a small problem. We don't have a positive ID on him."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we're not absolutely sure it's Ray."

"Well, that's easy," DeLoach barked. "Just get his fingerprints."

"Can't," Minnich replied. "It's not allowed here in Great Britain. Not unless the subject voluntarily agrees."

DeLoach almost hurled the phone at the wall in disgust--he had no patience for the Brits and their misplaced courtesies. The bureau had too much riding on this case, too many agents still slaving in the field, following too many costly leads; he had to get a positive identification--immediately.

"Dammit, man, 718give this guy Sneyd a glass of water. Then take the glass and lift the latents."

"But ..."

"Do it!" DeLoach demanded, and hung up. He was too nervous to cook pancakes, too anxious to do anything but pace the floor.

An hour later, Minnich called back and began with a single word: "Positive!"

The ruse had evidently worked. Sneyd had gripped his glass of water and drunk his fill. Investigators whisked the glass away and submitted it to a Scotland Yard crime lab. The latent prints lifted from the glass were instantly familiar to the FBI--they included a left thumbprint with an ulnar loop of twelve ridge counts. The prints not only matched Ray's fingerprints; they were identical to the ones Scotland Yard experts had found on the scribbled-over paper bag left at Fulham's Trustee Savings Bank.