Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides Page B
Authors: Hampton Sides
Tags: United States, General, Social Science, History, Biography & Autobiography, True Crime, 20th Century, Ethnic Studies, Murder, Criminals & Outlaws, Murder - General, Cultural Heritage, History - General History, Social History, ‘60s, Assassination, History - U.S., History: American, United States - 20th Century, King; Martin Luther;, 1929-1968, Jr.;, Ray; James Earl;, 1928-1998, U.S. History - 1960s, Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Histor
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the hard mass of metal--or what was left of it--just under the skin, wedged against the scapula.
Shortly after making this determination, Dr. Gioia set down his instruments and shook his head. He came over to speak with Abernathy and Lee. "It would be a blessing 388 if he did go," the doctor said, his piercing blue eyes peering over his surgical mask. "The spine is cut and he has sustained awful brain damage." Shards of bullet, he noted, had severed prominent nerves near the base of the skull.
If King did survive, he would be paralyzed from the neck down and would probably live in a vegetative state. There was very little Dr. Gioia could do, very little anyone could do at this point. By most medical definitions, King was already brain-dead. The organs were alive, and the lungs drew breath thanks to the respirator, but King's vital systems had ceased to function as an organic whole.
Yet his heart kept beating.
EVER SINCE THE first dispatcher alerts around 6:10 p.m., the Memphis police had been on the lookout for a late-model Mustang driven by a well-dressed white man possibly answering to the name John Willard. Cruisers were placed at nearly every major thoroughfare leading from the city, and all across Memphis policemen pulled over every Mustang they saw. This was no mean task, as the wildly popular Mustang was one of the most common cars on the road. A quick check with area Ford dealers would reveal that some four hundred light-colored Mustangs had been sold over the past three years in Memphis and Shelby County.
Still, several promising leads soon developed. At 6:26, a sheriff's department dispatcher broadcast an alert, based on information of uncertain origin, that put the assailant's Mustang heading north and east out of the city: "Subject now believed north of Thomas from Parkway, dark hair, dark suit."
Ten minutes later, a police lieutenant named Rufus Bradshaw, 389 driving car 160, was flagged down by an agitated young man named Bill Austein at the corner of Jackson and Hollywood in north Memphis. The twenty-two-year-old Austein, who drove a white and red Chevrolet Chevelle and worked for a heating and air-conditioning company, was a licensed citizens-band radio enthusiast (FCC call letters KOM-8637). Lieutenant Bradshaw described him as "looking like the deacon of a church." Austein said he was just now receiving an extraordinary transmission over the CB radio in his Chevelle--a transmission on Channel 17, one of the lesser-used frequencies, that urgently concerned the shooting of Martin Luther King.
His curiosity piqued, Bradshaw pulled his cruiser alongside Austein's car in the parking lot of a Loeb's Laundry and listened with fascination to the chatter on his radio. For the next twelve minutes Bradshaw heard a live narration purportedly being transmitted from a blue 1966 Pontiac hardtop barreling toward the northeastern precincts of the city--a Pontiac that was in hot pursuit of a fast-fleeing white Mustang. The broadcaster claimed the man he was following was "the man who had shot King."
As he attempted to decipher this unfolding story, Bradshaw got on his own radio and excitedly relayed to the central police dispatcher what he was hearing. The headquarters dispatcher, who could not directly raise the CB signal himself, listened to Bradshaw and, in spurts and fragments, broadcast an often garbled version of his narration. "White male, east on Summer from Highland, in white Mustang, responsible for shooting," the dispatcher began. The minutes slipped by, and the chase escalated from seventy-five miles per hour, to eighty, ninety, ninety-five, as the Mustang and pursuing Pontiac hurtled east through rush-hour traffic and ran red lights by the dozen. The CB operator in the Pontiac, who spoke with brisk officiousness in a cracking adolescent voice, said he had two companions in the car.
Several times the transmission faltered due to atmospheric conditions, distorting the voice to the point of incoherence, but
Shortly after making this determination, Dr. Gioia set down his instruments and shook his head. He came over to speak with Abernathy and Lee. "It would be a blessing 388 if he did go," the doctor said, his piercing blue eyes peering over his surgical mask. "The spine is cut and he has sustained awful brain damage." Shards of bullet, he noted, had severed prominent nerves near the base of the skull.
If King did survive, he would be paralyzed from the neck down and would probably live in a vegetative state. There was very little Dr. Gioia could do, very little anyone could do at this point. By most medical definitions, King was already brain-dead. The organs were alive, and the lungs drew breath thanks to the respirator, but King's vital systems had ceased to function as an organic whole.
Yet his heart kept beating.
EVER SINCE THE first dispatcher alerts around 6:10 p.m., the Memphis police had been on the lookout for a late-model Mustang driven by a well-dressed white man possibly answering to the name John Willard. Cruisers were placed at nearly every major thoroughfare leading from the city, and all across Memphis policemen pulled over every Mustang they saw. This was no mean task, as the wildly popular Mustang was one of the most common cars on the road. A quick check with area Ford dealers would reveal that some four hundred light-colored Mustangs had been sold over the past three years in Memphis and Shelby County.
Still, several promising leads soon developed. At 6:26, a sheriff's department dispatcher broadcast an alert, based on information of uncertain origin, that put the assailant's Mustang heading north and east out of the city: "Subject now believed north of Thomas from Parkway, dark hair, dark suit."
Ten minutes later, a police lieutenant named Rufus Bradshaw, 389 driving car 160, was flagged down by an agitated young man named Bill Austein at the corner of Jackson and Hollywood in north Memphis. The twenty-two-year-old Austein, who drove a white and red Chevrolet Chevelle and worked for a heating and air-conditioning company, was a licensed citizens-band radio enthusiast (FCC call letters KOM-8637). Lieutenant Bradshaw described him as "looking like the deacon of a church." Austein said he was just now receiving an extraordinary transmission over the CB radio in his Chevelle--a transmission on Channel 17, one of the lesser-used frequencies, that urgently concerned the shooting of Martin Luther King.
His curiosity piqued, Bradshaw pulled his cruiser alongside Austein's car in the parking lot of a Loeb's Laundry and listened with fascination to the chatter on his radio. For the next twelve minutes Bradshaw heard a live narration purportedly being transmitted from a blue 1966 Pontiac hardtop barreling toward the northeastern precincts of the city--a Pontiac that was in hot pursuit of a fast-fleeing white Mustang. The broadcaster claimed the man he was following was "the man who had shot King."
As he attempted to decipher this unfolding story, Bradshaw got on his own radio and excitedly relayed to the central police dispatcher what he was hearing. The headquarters dispatcher, who could not directly raise the CB signal himself, listened to Bradshaw and, in spurts and fragments, broadcast an often garbled version of his narration. "White male, east on Summer from Highland, in white Mustang, responsible for shooting," the dispatcher began. The minutes slipped by, and the chase escalated from seventy-five miles per hour, to eighty, ninety, ninety-five, as the Mustang and pursuing Pontiac hurtled east through rush-hour traffic and ran red lights by the dozen. The CB operator in the Pontiac, who spoke with brisk officiousness in a cracking adolescent voice, said he had two companions in the car.
Several times the transmission faltered due to atmospheric conditions, distorting the voice to the point of incoherence, but
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