Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. And the International Hunt for His Assassin

46 I CAN'T THINK RIGHT

ON THE MORNING of June 8, Anna Thomas knocked on Ramon Sneyd's room and found that her tenant had packed up and taken off. The room was clean, except for the newspapers sprawled everywhere. He'd left behind a Cold War spy thriller, Tangier Assignment, whose lurid yellow cover promised a story "seething with international intrigue, Mafia villainy, and freebooting contrabandists." In the sink, crammed down the drain, Thomas found a plastic syringe.

She was quite glad to see her tenant go. "He was so neurotic,⁷¹⁰ such a strange fellow," Thomas recalled. "I felt sorry for him, but he was so obviously a troubled man that he gave me the creeps."

AS THOMAS CLEANED the room, Sneyd was sitting in a taxicab, making his way to Heathrow Airport, where he planned to take British European Airways Flight 466 to Brussels, Belgium. The plane was scheduled to leave at 11:50 a.m.

On the strength of Ian Colvin's suggestion, Sneyd had bought a one-way economy ticket the day before. Now, at Heathrow's Terminal 2, he presented the voucher to a clerk at the departures desk and then checked in his one bag. He turned and walked toward customs and immigration. He wore a sport jacket, gray pants, and a long beige raincoat. Under his raincoat, in his right trouser pocket, he could feel the cool metal mass of his loaded pistol.

"Passport please,"⁷¹¹ a young immigration officer named Kenneth Human said when Sneyd approached the window.

Sneyd fished his wallet out of a coat pocket. From an inside fold, he retrieved a dark blue Canadian passport, which the officer opened and studied. Officer Human glanced at Sneyd, and then back at the passport photo. Nothing seemed untoward: the same man, the same glasses, everything matched.

Then Human saw another passport, peeking from Sneyd's billfold. "May I see that other one?" he asked.

Sneyd handed the officer the second passport, which was clearly stamped "Canceled."

"Why are the names different?" Human asked, noting that one said "Sneyd" and the other said "Sneya."

Sneyd explained that his original passport, issued in Ottawa, had contained the misspelling--simply a clerical error--but that he'd had it corrected as soon as possible while in Portugal.

Officer Human appeared to be buying Sneyd's explanation. But at this point, a Scotland Yard detective materialized--a slender, fastidious man with blue eyes and a trim mustache named Philip Birch.⁷¹² While Sneyd and the customs officer continued talking about the passport, Birch studied the Canadian's face and movements. He had an "absentminded professorial air" about him, Birch thought, but something about the traveler looked familiar. He seemed to recall seeing the man's photograph in the pages of the Police Gazette.

Birch ran his finger down a list of names typed on an official Scotland Yard document that was labeled "Watch For and Detain." Under the heading "All Ports Warning," the Canadian's name jumped off the page: Ramon George Sneyd.

Detective Birch tapped Sneyd on the shoulder. "I say, old fellow," he later recalled telling the subject. "Would you mind stepping over here for a moment? I'd like to have a word with you."

Seemingly more annoyed than alarmed, Sneyd glanced at his watch. "But my plane's leaving soon."

"Oh, this will only take a moment," Birch assured him in a chipper tone. "May I see those passports, please?"

Two policemen joined Birch, and the three men escorted Sneyd across the busy terminal toward a police administrative office. Sneyd believed this was all just a routine passport mix-up, and so he remained grudgingly cooperative. Should things turn dicey, there was always the loaded revolver in his pocket. As far as he could see, this friendly trio of officers did not carry weapons.

When they arrived at the office, Birch turned and faced Sneyd. "Would you mind if I searched you?" he asked. Sneyd raised his arms and offered no protest.

Carefully patting him down, Birch quickly discovered the revolver: a Japanese-made .38-caliber Liberty Chief--its checkered walnut stock wrapped with black electrical tape. Birch spun the revolver and found five rounds of ammunition.

"Why are you carrying this gun?" Birch asked in an even tone.

"Well," Sneyd replied. "I'm going to Africa. I thought I might need it. You know how things are there." For the first time, a note of alarm had edged into his voice.

Birch handed the revolver to one of the other policemen and continued frisking the suspect. In Sneyd's pockets, Birch found a little booklet on rifle silencers and a blank key, of the sort that a locksmith might carry. Sneyd had a small amount of money--less than sixty pounds--on his person.

"I have reason to believe you have committed an arrestable offense," Birch said, and told Sneyd he was being detained. Now he would be missing his flight. Sneyd slumped in his chair.

The officer got on the phone and tried to have Sneyd's bag pulled from the plane--but it was too late, the jet was already easing back from the gate. Then Birch called Scotland Yard headquarters and informed his superiors that just two days after being placed on the "All Ports Warning," Ramon George Sneyd was now in police custody.

AN HOUR LATER, Detective Chief Superintendent Thomas Butler arrived⁷¹³ at Heathrow, accompanied by Chief Inspector Kenneth Thompson of the Interpol office. After briefly conferring with Philip Birch in an anteroom, Butler stepped into the office with the suspect and assumed command of the questioning. The poker-faced Butler was known throughout Scotland Yard as a master interrogator, adept at modulating his voice so that a suspect had no idea what he was thinking. Inspector Thompson sat in, but Butler did all the talking.

"We are police officers," Butler began, in a formal, courteous tone. "I understand you had in your possession two passports."

Sneyd seemed glad to see a fresh face to whom he could register his indignation. "I can't understand why I'm here," he said.

Butler would not dignify Sneyd's concern with a reply. "What is your name, sir?"

"Sneyd--my name is Sneyd!"

Butler produced the two passports and shuffled them in his hands like a deck of cards. He tapped them, opened them, and shuffled them again. He screwed up his face into a pained expression. "Both of these passports show that you are a Canadian citizen born in Toronto on October 8, 1932. Are these details correct?"

"Of course they're correct." Sneyd's frustration was palpable.

Then Butler produced the Liberty Chief pistol and held it in his palm. His pained expression returned. "This .38 revolver with five rounds of ammunition in its chambers was found in your hip pocket when you were first questioned. Is this your gun?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to tell us, Mr. Sneyd, why you are carrying a gun at all?"

"I was going to Brussels."

"Why should you want to take a gun to Brussels?"

Sneyd stammered. "Uh, well. I'm really thinking of going on to Rhodesia and things aren't too good there just now."

Butler traded glances with Inspector Thompson, then studied the revolver some more, knitting his eyebrows for effect. He was deliberately drawing things out, trying to make the suspect sweat. "In this country," he said, "one has to have a firearms certificate to own a gun--even to have ammunition in one's possession. Have you a firearms certificate issued by the competent authority?"

Sneyd shook his head. "No," he said, "I haven't got a certificate."

More pregnant pauses, more scowls and grimaces. "Then I must inform you, Mr. Sneyd, that you are under arrest for possession of a gun without a permit. I must also caution you that anything you say may be held against you."

SHORTLY THEREAFTER, SNEYD was transported to Cannon Row jail, a redbrick and granite cell block inside Scotland Yard, less than a hundred yards from the Houses of Parliament. There he was placed inside a large empty cell and detained until Butler and his Yard men could scramble together more information. The iron gates of the compound were guarded by a pair of tall London bobbies. With each passing quarter hour, immured in this gray dungeon, Sneyd could hear, could almost feel, the resonant chime of Big Ben, reminding him that he had not made it to the empire's extremities--only to the empire's central police station. Nearby, an armed guard stood vigil.

Scotland Yard detectives at Heathrow had succeeded in retrieving Sneyd's bag from the returning Brussels flight, and around 3:00 p.m. Chief Inspector Kenneth Thompson brought the suitcase to Sneyd's cell. "Is this your luggage?" he asked.

Yes, Sneyd said, it was.

The contents of the suitcase were quickly inventoried--and, in the words of one Scotland Yard official, "proved most enlightening." Among other items, investigators found a map of Portugal, a guidebook to Rhodesia, two books on hypnotism, and a well-marked paperback titled Psycho-Cybernetics. There was also a jacket with a label bearing the name Mr. Eric Galt. Wedged inside the battery housing of his transistor radio was a folded sheet of paper scribbled with the names of several mercenary groups in Angola.

A policeman appeared and told Sneyd to remove his clothes; he was to put on prison garb and turn in his present attire to Scotland Yard. Sneyd balked at this indignity--"I don't know what you're doing this for. It's no good for the lab boys, if that's what you think"--but then he did as he was told. The clothes were placed in a cellophane bag and entered into evidence.

A few minutes later Detective Chief Superintendent Thomas Butler entered Sneyd's cell and sat across from the prisoner, now in his jailbird uniform. Butler wasted no time in picking up where he'd left off at Heathrow. "As a result of inquiries⁷¹⁴ made since you were detained," he said, "we have very good reason to believe that you are not a Canadian citizen, but an American."

Sneyd averted his eyes and seemed to be struggling with the implications of what he'd just heard. Then he nodded and mumbled, "Oh well, yes I am."

Sensing vulnerability, Butler aggressively pressed his case. "I believe your name is not Sneyd," he said, "but James Earl Ray, also known as Eric Starvo Galt and other names." Butler let that sink in, and then continued. "And that you are wanted at present in the United States for serious criminal offenses, including murder in which a firearm was used."

Sneyd was devastated. He collapsed onto a nearby bench and cradled his head in his hands. "Oh God," he said. "I feel so trapped."

Despite all the dire things Butler had just said about the detainee, the two charges Scotland Yard was now filing against Sneyd alias Galt alias Ray seemed puny indeed: traveling on a forged passport and carrying a firearm without a permit. But that was enough to stop the world's most wanted man and end his sixty-five-day flight from Memphis. He would soon be sent off to London's storied Brixton prison, to await extradition hearings.

"I should caution you again," Butler said, "that anything you say may be held against you."

Sneyd stared at the floor, his blanched face a mask of worry. "Yes, I shouldn't say⁷¹⁵ anything more now. I can't think right."