Melanson, Philip H. The Murkin Conspiracy: An Investigation into the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1989. 203 pages. (An expanded and updated edition was published in 1991 under the title "The Martin Luther King Assassination" by Shapolsky Publishers.)

Although Philip Melanson is better known for his work on the Robert Kennedy assassination, he is also acquainted with the MLK assassination. Other MLK researchers include Harold Weisberg, Mark Lane, and William Pepper.

In 1978 a House committee concluded that King was assassinated by a conspiracy, but that it didn't involve the FBI. Their circumstantial evidence pointed to right-wing individuals based in St. Louis. But Melanson points out that in Toronto, James Earl Ray used as aliases the names of four men who lived there. Even though he had never been to Toronto before 1968, the names used by Ray looked like him, and two had left a paper trail with officials in the same southern U.S. states where Ray had traveled. Melanson doubts that the unsophisticated Ray could have chosen these aliases by himself.

(At the end of 1993 a Memphis businessman, Loyd Jowers, confessed to involvement in the MLK conspiracy, and implicated organized crime and the FBI. Jowers said Ray was a patsy. As of this writing in January 1994, the Memphis district attorney has opened a new investigation, but has refused to grant immunity to Jowers as a condition for further information.)
ISBN 0-275-93029-7

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