A Racial Crime is the first full account of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s mur-der based on the FBI MURKIN files, the 1976-1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation, the 2000 US Justice Department Report, the 1998 Memphis Attorney General's investigation, and the previously classified James Earl Ray Scotland Yard file. The book is an investigation into the circumstances of the assassination, the evidence against the convicted assassin, James Earl Ray, and a review of the conspiracy theories which have been promoted for over thirty years. For the first time documentary evidence is presented which establishes the truth about: Why James Earl Ray protested his innocence from the time of his arrest, his true motives in the assassination, along with the first criminal profile of the assassin based upon handwriting analysis. The FBI examination of the getaway car and the truth about the mysteri-ous "cigarette ashes" found in the car's ashtray. Ray's criminal activities in London based on his previously classified Scot-land Yard file. The original file was released to the author in 2000, and has never been previously seen outside Government investigatory bodies. The 1999 trial in which the jury concluded a Mafia/FBI/US Army con-spiracy had existed in the Martin Luther King killing. Allegations made by an ex-FBI agent who purported to have evidence proving the existence of a conspiracy.
VISIT MEL AYTON'S WEBSITE - www.melayton.com
Mel Ayton lives in County Durham, England, with his wife Sheila and has two grown children, Laura and Tim. He has a B.A. Honours degree in Politics and History and an M.A. from Durham University where he specialized in historiography and the teaching of history in American schools. In the early 1980s he was a college lecturer teaching in Colleges of Further Education. In 1988 he was selected as a Fulbright Teacher and taught in schools in Michigan, USA. He also worked in Bermuda and taught in Zambia. He retired as a school deputy headmaster in 1999 to write full time.
Mel Ayton's first book, Questions of Conspiracy, was an examination of the claims made by JFK conspiracy theorists. He decided to write the book following a conversation in 1988 with US Senator Arlen Specter in which Specter expressed his dismay at the way the JFK consipiracists had misused the evidence in the case. The book was updated and revised and was published in 2002 as The JFK Assassination: Dispelling the Myths. Dispelling the Myths was reviewed by The Nation magazine contributing editor and leading JFK historian and author, Max Holland, who described it as "outstanding." The book was favourably mentioned by Vincent Bugliosi in Reclaiming History (2007) his New York Times bestseller about the JFK assassination. (See page 539, Endnotes)
In 2001 the University of Sunderland Press published Mr. Ayton's book Questions of Controversy - The Kennedy Brothers which examined the controversial stories about John, Robert and Edward Kennedy. He was the first researcher to prove that JFK mistress Judith Campbell Exner had deliberately embellished her stories and lied about her role as a conduit between mobster Sam Giancana and JFK. Former JFK adviser and Kennedy White House historian, Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., described his research about RFK and the Vietnam War as "persuasive." Questions of Controversy was acclaimed by Professor of History at the University of Wales, William D. Rubinstein, in his book Shadow's Pasts - Amateur Historians and History's Mysteries (Longman, 2007).
In 2003 Mr. Ayton acted as the historical adviser for the BBC's television documentary, "The Kennedy Dynasty," which was broadcast in the UK in November 2003. In 2005 Ayton's book A Racial Crime - James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King was published by ArcheBooks. In 2008 Insignia Films film director Stephen Ives said A Racial Crime was "essential to (my) research" for an upcoming (2009) PBS documentary about Martin Luther King Jr.
In 2007 his book about the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, The Forgotten Terrorist, was published by Potomac Books. The paperback edition was published in 2008. The Forgotten Terrorist was highly acclaimed by authors Dan Moldea, Max Holland, Patricia Lambert, Gus Russo and Paul Donnelley in his 2008 book Assassins and Assassinations. He was interviewed about the book for National Geographic Channel's documentary "CIA Secret Experiments" (2008) and the Discovery Channel's "CIA - Mind Control" (2006) and "Conspiracy Test: The Robert Kennedy Assassination" (2008). In July 2008 Mel Ayton was interviewed about his latest book for the BBC's Newsnight and Channel 4 News.
Mel Ayton has also written for Ireland's leading history magazine, History Ireland, Crime Magazine, David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine, Washington Decoded, George Mason University's History News Network and a British regional newspaper, The Journal.
His book about the life and crimes of racist killer Joseph Paul Franklin, Dark Soul of the South, was published by Potomac Books in May 2011.
