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Ex-FBI agent says he kept evidence
Donald Wilson, who worked in the FBI's Atlanta office when King was slain in 1968, showed copies of the documents yesterday to Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard.
Wilson claimed to have found in Ray's car an envelope containing two pieces of paper with the name ''Raul'' on them. For years, Ray has contended he was set up by a shadowy gunrunner named Raoul, a man whose existence has never been verified.
''This is the first time ... that there has been a verification of the existence of a man whom James said set him up all of these years,'' said William Pepper, Ray's attorney, who was with Wilson yesterday.
Wilson declined to say why he withheld the papers from his FBI superiors. But Pepper described Wilson as having been an idealistic young agent who doubted the integrity of the FBI's investigation.
''It's become clear to me that he had grave concerns as to whether the bureau itself was not going to obstruct justice in this case,'' Pepper said.
Cartha DeLoach, who was assistant to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in 1968, said he was not aware of Wilson's evidence.
''If Mr. Wilson had received such evidence during the course of his official duties, he should have turned it in to the FBI,'' DeLoach said yesterday from his home in Hilton Head, S. C. ''I think all evidence should be considered, but I think the FBI did a very thorough, excellent job.''
Wilson said he wants to meet with US Attorney General Janet Reno to show her the documents, which he says he kept from his FBI superiors in 1968.
Ray pleaded guilty to killing King in 1969, but later recanted his confession and has been seeking a trial ever since.
Wilson was one of two agents who impounded Ray's white Ford Mustang from an Atlanta housing project on April 10, 1968, six days after King was assassinated in Memphis.
One of the papers contained a list of names, including Raul, and figures that appear to be payments made to those people, Pepper said.
Coretta Scott King, the civil rights leader's widow, released a statement calling for an investigation of Wilson's evidence ''to help bring about at least some sense of closure to the pain my family and the American people have endured over unanswered questions surrounding this tragedy.''
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which obtained copies of the papers Monday, reported yesterday that one of the papers had the number 450,000.00 written at the bottom, with a date and a name that appears to be Raul. The other document contains a telephone number and the name Raul, the newspaper said.
In an odd twist, the Journal-Constitution said a telephone number on one of the papers appeared to refer to Jack Ruby. The number is next to a capital J inside a circle. A 1963 Dallas directory showed that number listed to Ruby and the Vegas Club, the newspaper said. Ruby was arrested in 1963 for killing Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy.
This story ran on page A03 of the Boston Globe on 03/25/98.
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TLANTA - After 30 years of silence, a former FBI agent said yesterday that papers he took from James Earl Ray's car after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. support claims of a conspiracy. 
