The Search for Mysterious – Raoul
 

After reading the article below, I wonder if Leon Czolgosz and Charles Guiteau ever stopped by the Carousel Club to visit Jack Ruby.


Prosecutors probe claims by Ray’s lawyers about King assassin

Michael Dorman ~ SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Memphis prosecutors are investigating claims by James Earl Ray’s attorneys that they have identified the long-sought mystery figure called "Raoul" - the man Ray contends masterminded the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and actually fired the fatal shot.

The prosecutors are also investigating claims by Ray’s lawyers that a witness once saw "Raoul" meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby in Ruby’s Dallas strip joint. Moreover, they are checking claims by the defense that Ruby - pronounced dead of a blood clot in 1967 while jailed for Oswald’s murder - actually is alive and living in Chicago.

This is not to say the prosecutors are swallowing these claims, but they say they are checking them out for the record.

"Some of this stuff is getting a little far from reality," said John Campbell, the chief prosecutor in the King case. "It’s bizarre. But we have investigators checking out all the leads we get."

The renewed investigation followed repeated court actions and efforts by King’s family to overturn Ray’s 1969 guilty plea and 99-year sentence in the murder. Prosecutors have launched a put-up-or-shut-up attempt to try to bring some resolution to the case. They took the major claims by Ray’s lawyers one by one and sent investigators to check them.

Ray’s chief lawyer, William Pepper, has accused a New York man - not publicly identified - of being "Raoul." Campbell assigned four investigators from a task force to travel to New York recently and check out the claim. They reported finding that employment records showed the man identified as "Raoul," whose first name actually is Raul, was working in a New York factory on April 4, 1968, the day King was killed in Memphis. The man, a retired wine importer, has said he never knew Ray.

Some of the leads were prompted by information Ray’s lawyers said they received from the self-described "babushka lady" from the investigation of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Pictures at the Kennedy assassination scene showed a woman in a kerchief standing on the grassy knoll and appearing to be shooting motion pictures. A woman named Beverly Oliver, who said she had been a strip-club dancer since age 14, claimed she was the "babushka lady" - but no firm identification was ever made.

Oliver made sundry claims about the assassination - among them that her movie camera had been confiscated by the FBI or Secret Service, she couldn’t remember which. Investigation revealed that the camera she claimed to have used did not come on the market until two years after the Kennedy assassination. The House Select Committee on Assassinations interviewed her but decided against calling her as a witness.

She previously had claimed she had seen Oswald with Ruby in Ruby’s club. Now she says "Raoul" was also there. Both the House committee and the Warren Commission concluded there was no evidence Oswald and Ruby knew each other.

As for the claim that Ruby is living in Chicago, the Memphis investigators are checking it, but all evidence reflects that Ruby died behind bars after a long fight with cancer.

Campbell said his office expects to act on the investigation early next year, either by taking evidence before a grand jury or by issuing a public report.

Copyright 1997, Newsday Inc.

Search for Mysterious ‘Raoul’/Prosecutors probe claims by Ray’s lawyers about King assassin., 12-10-1997, pp. A24.

Some Additional "Stuff" From The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza Archive

Beverly Oliver says she was introduced by Jack Ruby to his friend "Lee Oswald of the CIA." The introduction supposedly happened in the Carousel Club a few days before the assassination. Also present, according to Beverly, was her friend Jada, Ruby's star attraction. Beverly claims that Jada admitted this to a reporter after Ruby shot Oswald, then she disappeared.

What did Jada really know? At 8pm the night of 11/24/63, Jada appeared on local radio station KRLD-AM in a live interview conducted by news director Eddie Barker. Here is the relevant excerpt:

Q:    Did you know Lee Oswald?
A:    No, I didn't at all.
Q:    You never saw him in the club?
A:    No, no I haven't worked there for about, uh, since Halloween night.

    (Reel 49. KDFW-TV Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza)
   

And An Additional Note:

Excerpts from Beverly Oliver's first feature film, Hot Blooded Woman (1965), appeared on the USA cable channel program called Reel Wild Cinema. It aired Saturday night/early Sunday morning on March 28/29 at 4 eastern, 3 central.

CBS News used a clip from the film in a 48 Hours special a few years ago. A tape of the entire feature is available from Something Weird Video: www.somethingweird.com, or you can call them in Seattle at (206) 361-3759.

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