So Ray has a car waiting to drive away in, then goes up to Canada and overseas, where he ends up getting caught two months later at the London airport. All by himself, right? No one aiding or abetting him in any way, shape or form. As Judge Joe Brown put it: You want to say that a three-time loser, an escaped convict with no obvious financial resources and no technical knowledge, is going to not only miraculously learn how to become a good marksman:, this one individual is able to acquire the resources to get identities of deceased individuals, come up with very good forgeries for passports and fake identification, and somehow acquire funds for a very expensive itinerary and travel schedule? Now, be real!... What youve got in this case was a stooge whose task was to throw everybody off the trail.

While he was being held in a British jail before getting extradited, Ray told an officer that hed expected to profit from being involved in the killing; later, he testified to the House committee that he figured hed only be charged with conspiracy. His second attorney, Percy Foreman, convinced Ray to cop a plea or else face the death penalty. Foreman later said he didnt give a damn whether there was a conspiracy or not, and never asked Ray about it. Ray reluctantly agreed to plead guilty, but pretty soon felt hed been hung out to dry. When he died in prison in 1998, he was still saying he was innocent.

It would be a stretch to say that Ray wasnt involved at all. For one, there was big money being floated by Klan types that he certainly could have heard about. The question is, Who was directly involved with Ray, and how far did the plotting go? Butno trial. Why arent we having trials in such high-profile cases even when the guy pleads? It should go ahead anyway, just for the countrys peace of mind. Then wed know, well, he was tried and convicted and there was no evidence of a conspiracy. Or let the chips fall where they may, let the trial show enough evidence to get a couple more indictments. Just because you get a plea, isnt there any suspicion that someone is doing that to cover up for someone else? Is this guy simply falling on the sword?