7 – Ray Said a Smuggler Called ‘Raoul’ Framed Him
After recanting his confession, Ray insisted that a mysterious man named ‘Raoul’ tricked him and ultimately framed him as King’s killer. The assassin said he met this individual in a Montreal bar in 1967 and that this man gave Ray the money to purchase the Mustang. It was Raoul who instructed Ray to rent the room in the boarding house and Raoul who told Ray to purchase the rifle. According to Ray, it must have been Raoul who was upstairs when the shot was fired at King.
The main issue facing Ray when trying to prove the existence of this man is a complete lack of evidence. During his time in prison, Ray identified at least 20 people as ‘Raoul,’ and every time it was proven that a named individual couldn’t have been this mystery man, his legal team concocted a new suspect. For one of the suspects, a woman named Glenda Grabow was the primary source of information. It turned out that she was talking nonsense as her story was full of holes. The fact that Grabow claimed Raoul also killed JFK speaks volumes.
One of the most amusing aspects of the Raoul story is that this mystery man has been a state trooper from Louisiana, an accountant, a cancer researcher, a hobo, and a Fortune 500 company employee. Ray’s team threw out new and improved suspects from all walks of life. Not one of these suspects had a standout characteristic, and Ray couldn’t even determine Raoul’s race or nationality as he has been Hispanic and Caucasian according to King’s killer.
Based on Grabow’s rambling story, the mystery man was called Dago. As an aside, she also claimed to have had sexual relations with Jack Ruby, the man who killed Oswald. She said that Dago was in Dallas at the time of JFK’s assassination and was probably the president’s killer. Grabow didn’t see Dago again until the 1970s when she met him in Houston. At a friend’s house, Dago stamped on a keychain Grabow was wearing which had a photo of King. He supposedly said, while referring to King: “I killed him once. Do I have to kill him again?” Then, Dago raped Grabow in the bedroom. Overall, the Raoul story is an interesting work of fiction, but nothing more.