Lawyer 'put bounty on King’

Press, 1 December 1978, Page 6

Lawyer ' put bounty on King’

NZPA-Reuter Washington A wealthy American law-! yer once offered SUSSO.OOO for the murder of the black civil-rights leader, Dr Martin Luther King, the House of . Representatives assassinai tions committee has been I told. Mr Russell Byers said the lawyer, John Sutherland, and 'ja businessman, John Kauffman, both from St Louis, I Missouri, had been involved i” a conspiracy to kill Dr King. Sutherland and Kauffman [are now dead, and comi mittee investigators said , they had been unable to establish a direct link between ithem and James Earl Ray,

-convicted of murdering Dr [ King in 1968. “But,” the committee said, I “we did determine that they met the necessary criteria , for being considered participants in a serious conspiracy (to murder Dr; King).” Mr Byers, testifying under ■ immunity from prosecution, said that in late 1966 or early 1967 he had been ap- ! proached by Kauffman and asked if he would like to earn SUSSO,OOO. He said Kauffman had ' taken him to meet Sutherland, who had offered SUSSO,OOO to arrange Dr; King’s murder. Sutherland had told him that a secret southern organisation would raise the money. i

•I Mr Byers said he had [declined the offer, but when- , Dr King had been killed, “It; r struck me as awful funny! . that I get the offer and the ■ man turns up dead.” Asked why he had been; ■; approached, he said he thought it had been because -his brother-in-law, John Spica, had been convicted of ■ a contract murder in St ■ Louis. - He said he had told his 1 lawyer, Mr . Murray Randall, - of tire offer, but Mr Randall, - now a criminal court judge, testified that he thought Mr I Byers had fabricated the 'story. The committee said Ray might have been prompted • to kill Dr King by hearing

of the reported SUSSO,OOO 'bounty on his head. Ray and Spica were both ■jailed in Missouri State Penitentiary at the time, and Dr Hugh Maxey, a long-time associate of Kauffman, was a medical officer at the prison, it said. The committee has said it has uncovered no evidence that Ray received any payment for the killing. The committee . said it ; could not identify the secret Southern organisation which Mr Byers said he had been told would pay for the murder. But it said it had established that Sutherland and at least two organisations he had belonged to had strong , segregationist leanings.