FirmhandKY
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Joined: 9/21/2004 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen Consider another case of an assassin of a prominent black man. James Earl Ray, at the time MLK was killed an escapee from a Missouri prison, somehow made it to London with money to take an international flight and 2 convincing fake passports. Officially Ray is supposed to have acted alone but where did all the money come from for the trip to London, fake passports etc. come from? The rumor always has been that white racists paid for Ray and based on the wheres and whens of this new guys cross country adventure it sounds like he could have been visiting certain groups of white supremacists to collect weapons and funds for a hit. How Toronto concealed King's killer Before his death, James Earl Ray revealed fascinating details of his fugitive tour of Toronto Apr 05, 2008 04:30 AM quote:
... he boarded a Greyhound bus for Detroit and, using the alias Eric S. Galt, hopped in a cab across the border to Windsor, where he caught a train for Toronto's Union Station. "I got to Toronto pretty late in the day (on April 6, 1968). It was 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. Then I started walking and trying to find a room and I walked quite a while until I found this Ossington St. address," he said. "I went in and this Polish lady in there, they couldn't hardly speak English. So I rented a room off them. I don't think I even gave them a name that time." Even though he was more familiar with Montreal, having spent the previous summer there at Expo, robbing brothels and rolling tourists, Ray felt Toronto was a better bet. "I really like the French section of Canada, it's more like a European country. I guess I could have went there. I was just trying to get a passport and probably I think I'd have an easier time getting a passport in Toronto than Montreal (because) it's English speaking and all of that." The plan was to fly to Europe and finally Africa, where he felt he could earn a living as a mercenary. Because he could not hide all day on Ossington without arousing suspicion from his landlady, Ray also rented a room for $9 a week from Yee Sun Loo around the corner on Dundas St. West. "I stayed at Ossington at nighttime and told the lady I was working daytime and I stayed with the Chinese lady and told her I was working nights," he said with a laugh. "I'd just stay eight hours in one and eight hours in the other. They can get suspicious if you just stay in your room the whole time. I didn't want to hang around in bars too much because I don't drink much." An enduring falsehood about Ray's stay here is that he frequented the Silver Dollar, an iconic saloon on Spadina Ave. "I've never heard of that place. There was a bar around the corner from Ossington St., not toward Dundas St., but in the other direction. I think it sat on a corner (at Queen St. W.)," he told me, possibly referring to the Drake Hotel, then a hardscrabble beer hall. "I'd go there a couple of times and I might watch TV and see if there's anything on the news or anything like that..." Given he "was in Canada about a week ... when they came out with my real name," keeping a low profile was paramount. Ray acquired a false birth certificate and Canadian passport by researching old newspapers at the Toronto Telegram on Front St., now home to The Globe and Mail. One day, after leaving the Telegram, he was stopped by a police officer. "He said I was jaywalking and asked for my name and address," Ray said. "I'd got an address from a lonely hearts club ... to use as a cover. So I gave him this address from ... Condor (Avenue, near Pape and Danforth). I'd never contacted this woman or anything, but I guessed the police wouldn't check it." Ray's luck had not yet run out. "Next day, I called up the police station or substation and asked them about the ticket ... they said there was no jaywalking ticket." Still, worried the alias was compromised, he burned the identification papers and, using information from the Telegram's birth notices, assumed the names Paul Edward Bridgman and Ramon George Sneyd, the latter, ironically, a Toronto police officer. In the days before computer databases, Ray easily obtained duplicate birth certificates, using them to secure Canadian passports. Posing as a government clerk, he would phone the men whose identities he was considering stealing and ask about lost passports. If they said they had never applied for one, he would apologize for the misunderstanding then adopt that name. With multiple identities he was able to be his own reference on passport applications. On April 16, Ray bought a ticket to London for $345 from the Kennedy Travel Bureau on Bloor St. W. in the Annex. But he had to stay in Toronto for almost three more weeks waiting for his passports. ... On May 6, 1968, Ray boarded a flight to London. Following what was then billed as the biggest manhunt in history, he was nabbed at Heathrow Airport on June 8 trying to fly to Belgium. Not a hell of a lot of money, if he was "supported" by some cabal, and his ability to do things in the pre-computer, pre-911 world sounds pretty realistic. Firm
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