In 1993, Loyd Jowers was interviewed on the ABC News program PrimeTime Live. He said he had been paid $100,000 by the alleged Memphis mobster Frank Liberto to help organize the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

Jowers owned a restaurant, Jim’s Grill, very near the Lorraine Motel, where King often stayed while in Memphis and where the assassination took place.

Jowers claimed that besides Liberto, a man named “Raoul” and several Memphis Police Department officers were also involved in the assassination planning and execution. Jowers identified Memphis Police Lieutenant Earl Clark as the shooter.

Martin Luther King Jr’s wife and children saw the interview, and sued Loyd Jowers… for $100. The trial occurred in late 1999.

William Pepper represented the King family. The three-and-one-half-week trial, referred to in U.S. government records as simply King v. Jowers, was conducted in Memphis in Shelby County Circuit Court with presiding Judge James E. Swearengen. Thousands of documents were presented; over 70 witnesses took the stand or were cited by deposition, audiotape, videotape, or by other witnesses.

Some observers commented on what they perceived as a surprising lack of American media interest in the trial. Bárbara Reis was a correspondent for the Lisbon daily Público who attended several days of the proceedings. She was quoted as saying, “Everything in the U.S. is the trial of the century. O.J. Simpson’s trial was the trial of the century. Clinton’s trial was the trial of the century. But this is the trial of the century, and who’s here?”

The jury required only one hour of deliberations to reach a unanimous verdict that King was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. They found Jowers responsible, and also found that “government agencies” were among the co-conspirators.

The King family was granted the $100 they requested in damages, and they saw the verdict as vindication.