Coy Dean Cowden James Earl Ray Alibi Mark Lane, Ray's attorney at the time of the committee's public hearings, circulated Ray's gas station alibi and identified witnesses who allegedly saw Ray at a Texaco service station at the corner of Linden Avenue and Second Street in Memphis at the time of the assassination. Cowden said he had told the service station story as a favor to Renfro Hays, a Memphis private investigator who had spent a decade on the King case The government determined it was a false story told to the National Enquirer and also to Mark Lane Larce and Phillip McFall, coowners of the Texaco station in question, testified in . public session that no white Mustang entered their station during the late afternoon of April 4, 1968.
Can you tell the committee why you told this false story with such serious implications to the National Enquirer and also to Mark Lane? Mr. COWDEN. Yes. Renfro Hays was a fellow that supported me for a period of about 4 months, completely, while I was unemployed. He befriended me in that he gave me food and lodging and he had the great ability to, you know, let you know, make you feel like that you really owed him something, you know, and really what he was trying to do was sell the movie rights, a book, I believe. There were several things that he mentioned from time to time that he was trying to market, and he would call on me, especially with Mark Lane and some other people that came by to talk to me from time to time, with basically this same story.
Findings on MLK Assassination | National Archives
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-2a.html
Jump to James Earl Ray's alibi for the time of the assassination, his story of ... - He told the committee that he was not at the roominghouse at the moment Dr. King was murdered, but was, in fact, ... Coy Dean Cowden, one of the men who, according to Lane, saw Ray at the station, testified in public session that he ...
James Earl Ray purchased ... · It is highly probable that ...
committee was unable to understand why Ray, who planned to go to trial and take the stand, would have decided to withhold a valid alibi from his own attorney, especially since Ray faced the possibility of capital punishment. If the gas station story were true and Hanes had been told of it, he could have found witnesses to corroborate it and support Ray's testimony. By withholding his story, Ray guaranteed that his testimony, which was subject to impeachment because of his prior criminal record, would stand alone without independent corroboration.
The committee found it impossible to believe that Ray would have engaged in such risky trial tactics had the gas station story been anything more than an unsupportable fabrication.
Mark Lane, Ray's attorney at the time of the committee's public hearings, circulated Ray's gas station alibi and identified witnesses who allegedly saw Ray at a Texaco service station at the corner of Linden Avenue and Second Street in Memphis at the time of the assassination.19 When the committee investigated Lane's account, however, it found no factual support for it. Coy Dean Cowden, one of the men who, according to Lane, saw Ray at the station, testified in public session that he was 400 miles away, in Port Naches, Tex. at the time of the assassination and therefore could have seen no one at a Memphis service station on the evening of April 4, 1968. (98) Cowden explained that he fabricated the story to assist a friend, Renfro Hays, who had been an investigator for Arthur Hanes, Sr.
Congressman EDGAR. Can you tell the committee why you told this false story with such serious implications to the National Enquirer and also to Mark Lane?
Mr. COWDEN. Yes. Renfro Hays was a fellow that supported me for a period of about 4 months, completely, while I was unemployed. He befriended me in that he gave me food and lodging and he had the great ability to, you know, let you know, make you feel like that you really owed him something, you know, and really what he was trying to do was sell the movie rights, a book, I believe. There were several things that he mentioned from time to time that he was trying to market, and he would call on me, especially with Mark Lane and some other people that came by to talk to me from time to time, with basically this same story. This story--I don't remember how many of us, not only Mark Lane and the National Enquirer, but this was to five or six different people. I do not know who they represented, what publication.(99)
The committee also investigated the whereabouts at the time of the assassination of Thomas I. Wilson, because he also could, according to Lane, substantiate Ray's alibi. Wilson had died by the time of the committee's investigation, but a friend of his, Harvey Locke, told committee investigators that he and Wilson were at a store blocks away from the Texaco station at the time of the assassination. (100)
Finally, Larce and Phillip McFall, coowners of the Texaco station in question, testified in public session that no white Mustang entered their station during the late afternoon of April 4, 1968. (101)
19Lane's account of Ray's gas station alibi appears in a paperback edition of "Code Name 'Zorro.'" See MLK Exhibit F-117, III HSCA-MLK Hearings, 518.
Page 305
The committee, therefore, found that there was no evidentiary support for Ray's alibi.
Witnesses Divided As King Hearings Recess in House - The ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/...king.../bcfa418e-a47a-4909-acbb-7101c1d09284/Aug 19, 1978 - Martin Luther King Jr. ... Cowden said he had told the service station story as a favor to Renfro Hays, a Memphis private investigator who had spent a decade on the King case. ... Lane never questioned him to be sure the story was correct, but appeared really to believe the alibi, Cowdentestified.
Full text of "Lane Mark M L King" - Internet Archive
https://archive.org/...LaneMarkMLKing/...LaneMarkMLKing/Lane%20Mark%20M%20...Testimony Rebuts Alibi Used By Ray By JOHN BENNETT WASHINGTON — The testimony of three Memphis men — including the sole living supporter of James Earl Ray's alibi in the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King — flatly contradicted contentions that Ray was in a service station in Memphis at the time King was killed 10 ...
Testimony Rebuts
Alibi Used By Ray
By JOHN BENNETT
WASHINGTON — The testimony of three
Memphis men — including the sole living
supporter of James Earl Ray's alibi in the
murder of Dr. Martin Luther King — flatly
contradicted contentions that Ray was in a
service station in Memphis at the time
King was killed 10 years ago.
Larce McFall, 70, and his son, Phillip
McFall, 36, coowners in 1968 of the Texaco
station at Second Street and Linden Ave-
nue, where Ray said he was at the time,
both swore under oath that neither Ray
nor his white 1966 Mustang were at the
station on April 4, 1968.
And Coy Dean Cowden, 43, also of Mem-
phis, the lone living supporter of Ray’s
contention that he had been to the station,
testified before the House Select Commit-
tee on Assassinations that he had lied in a
national newspaper story and in a book
written by Ray's attorney when he said he
saw Ray at the service station near the
time King was murdered.
A fourth man, Harvey Locke of Little
Rock, gave an affidavit to committee inves-.
tigators which refuted that another man,
Thomas I.-McBatJ. who died two weeks ago,
could ever have thKhfully claimed to have
seen Ray at the station:'
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