Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - The family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. has been invited to a private memorial service for his confessed killer, James Earl Ray, Ray's brother said Friday. Jerry Ray, who was with his brother when he died at a Nashville hospital Thursday, also said Ray made no deathbed confession or other final statement. The 70-year-old Ray had been reported unresponsive and comatose after he was taken to the hospital from his prison cell suffering what turned out to be the last of a series of declines caused by end-stage liver disease. An autopsy was scheduled Friday. Jerry Ray told Reuters from his home in Smart, Tennessee, that Ray's memorial service was being arranged by his brother's London-based lawyer, William Pepper, who was due into Nashville Friday. Details of the venue and and timing of the service had not yet been finalized. Pepper wrote a 1995 book that claimed U.S. Army marksmen were in Memphis at the time King was killed there and had their rifles aimed at him the moment of the April 4, 1968, assassination. Ray was sentenced to 99 years in jail after pleading guilty to killing King. He signed a court stipulation saying he fired the shot from a nearby rooming house. But Ray took it all back within a few days, claiming he was the fall guy in a conspiracy. He tried unsuccessfully for the next 30 years to win the trial his guilty plea had denied him. Jerry Ray said the few remaining members of Ray's family were expected to attend the memorial service. They include another brother, John, and a sister, Carol, both of the St. Louis area. He said an uncle, William Maher of Alton, Illinois, is 87 but would be unable to attend. He also said King's family had been invited to attend. Within the past two years they had joined the effort to win Ray a trial, saying they believed there was a still a hidden conspiracy surrounding the civil rights leader's death. King's widow Coretta and other family members said Thursday they were saddened at his death and the fact that the country "will never have the benefit of Mr. Ray's trial, which would have produced new revelations about the assassination". A year ago last month King's son, Dexter, met Ray in the Nashville prison where he was serving his jail sentence and asked him if he had killed his father. "No, no I didn't," Ray responded. In Memphis, local prosecutors said they considered the case closed. Jerry Ray said his brother's body would be cremated and he would like to dispose of his ashes in Ireland, birthplace of their maternal great-grandmother. "Her name was Fitzsimmons but we don't know yet if we can find out just where she had lived," Ray said. He added that he preferred Ireland because if the ashes were interred in the United States they might be subject to future investigation or in some way disturbed. -- Two rules in life: 1. Don't tell people everything you know. 2. Subscribe/Unsubscribe, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the body of the message enter: subscribe/unsubscribe law-issues
