According to Richard Sprague in the 10th chapter of his book, The Taking of America, operatives trained in the covert science of assassination have at their disposal a range of weapons and techniques the average person would find impossible to believe.
Of the more conceivable ones, categories include the “accidental” death, mock suicides, and those designed to undermine autopsies—if not by interference, by inducing death in ways that reveal a misleading cause or none at all. In the same chapter, Sprague names 100 conspirators or witnesses associated with the deaths of JFK, RFK, and MLK who appear to have been silenced accordingly.
The fact that Gary Revel was never added to this list is a bona fide miracle.
Over the course of his investigation, several attempts were made on his life. On the way to visiting Ray at Brushy Mountain for the second time, he pulled out onto a busy freeway and lost control of his car, somehow avoiding a fatal collision. Evidently, someone had loosened a tire during the night.
On another visit to Ray, the two were out walking in the prison yard when a crazed inmate lunged at Gary with a knife. Thankfully no harm was done except to the assailant, who was jabbed in the face and then subdued. And now, Gary’s knack for combat was to become useful for a third time.
Several hours after arriving to his mother’s house in Florida, the hitmen who killed his brother in fact made their anticipated return. In the interest of time, suffice it to say that Gary and Martha came up with a plan for their intrusion, and it worked. As the thugs lay incapacitated, Gary searched their pockets for useful information. A matchbox turned up from the Town and Country Motel—one of several New Orleans businesses Marcello used for money laundering.
On August 16th, 1977, friends and family gathered in a Jacksonville cemetery to bid farewell to Gary's cherished younger brother (by a different father), Cecil Fillingame. Days later another funeral was held for Ivan, their cousin, who did not survive in the showdown with Marcello’s thugs. At both ceremonies the torrent of emotion for Gary was…unique.
On top of the grief, there was the guilt and self-loathing for what he had brought upon his family. And on top of that, there was the fear, of facing more deaths of this kind before his own. All things considered, it was hard thus far in the youth's journey for him to not look back on it and ask himself:
What if, just what if, he had said yes to Marcello's offer?
Going back in time now—to that 3 month period the investigation was on hiatus— a well-connected friend helped Gary set up a meeting with Carlos Marcello, which was no easy thing. He was the Sicilian mafia's godfather over most of the Southern tier of the United States.
Supposedly, the meeting's purpose was to make a music-related pitch. Marcello owned the Jefferson Music Company and its nationwide distribution of juke boxes. The meeting's real purpose, however, was to make good on the “life insurance” Cousin Billy had advised. This needed to be done whether or not Gary returned to the investigation.
Due to sensitivities around the issue, I have promised Gary not to reveal the individual who helped him arrange this, but the plan involved Gary's checking in to the Town and Country Motel. He was instructed to wait there for one of Marcello's taxis to come and pick him up.
After his first experience of being frisked by a cab driver, he was shuttled to a downtown restaurant which Marcello also owned. Ushering him inside, the driver showed Gary to a booth where he was greeted by Roxy, an especially beautiful waitress. As if to appear flirtatious, she slid into the booth and cozied up next to him, within range to whisper:
“You know, Gary, you remind me of that New York Times reporter, William Sartor. He’s dead because of what John McFerren told him. I imagine its the same thing he told you. I'd be careful.”
She also remarked on the unsolved questions around the journalist's death. The 35 year old was almost finished with the first draft of his book on King’s assassination when he made plans to visit McFerren in Tennessee for an interview. But that trip never happened.
After going out for drinks one night at a bar in Waco, TX, Sartor came home and went to bed never to wake up in the morning. Two official autopsies failed to reveal the cause of his death, and if Gary did not leave King's assassination alone, his could be a similar fate. At least, that's what Roxy seemed to be communicating so that her boss wouldn't have to.
Having done her job, she departed and the cab driver appeared again, ushering Gary to a private room in the back. At its table sat the 67-year old "Mafia Kingfish," his 5 foot 2 frame looking its size next to his bodyguards. It was a less public setting than Gary hoped for so he cut to the chase.
“I want you to leave my family alone. I have an insurance policy.”
Unimpressed, Marcello responded that “in this business the only insurance is what you know,” and that it better not be cheap.
“Okay,” Gary countered. “I know that you were in contact with Jack Ruby before he shot Oswald, and in your own words to Ed Becker and Carol Roppolo:
‘The dog will keep biting if you only cut off its tail. If they hit Bobby, Jack would retaliate with the marines, but if the dog’s head were cut off, the whole dog would die.’
The statement Gary had just quoted was from a phone call the FBI had bugged and transcribed in the early sixties. (Hoover kept tabs on friend and foe alike.) In the same transcript, Marcello tells Becker not to worry about ‘that little Bobby son-of-a bitch… He is going to be taken care of."
It was one of several wiretaps in which gangsters like Sam Giancana, Johnny Rosselli, Santo Trafficante, Meyer Lanksy, and Marcello exposed their knowledge if not participation in plans to wack the Kennedy brothers. Gary could go on quoting them from memory but did not have to.
The little bit he did relay covered the “premium.”
As a peace offering of sorts, Marcello offered for one of his showgirls to escort Gary back to his motel. After declining—on moral grounds, yes, but also knowing this as the oldest trick in the book of blackmail—Gary returned by himself and enjoyed a good night’s sleep. He had Marcello's assurance his family would be safe.
In the morning, however, two of the bodyguards came to his door. “Boss is inviting you to breakfast,” one of them said. It was clear there was no choice in the matter.
Riding weaponless in the backseat of the car, Gary had over 70 minutes to wonder if that day might be his last. They were bound for Churchill Farms in Jefferson Parish, Marcello’s three thousand acre retreat south of New Orleans.
When they arrived, pulling up next to a shack on the edge of a swamp in the middle of nowhere, Marcello was already there.
Gary's chaperons went up to the shack and watched from there, allowing him and Marcello to confer in private. Something about the 67 year old’s manner suggested he was vexed but trying to play it cool.
“I hear you’ve been recording songs in the same studio as Elvis,” he began. “But who do you think runs the music business at top?”
For psychological effect, Marcello allowed the question a moment to register, but he knew good and well the struggling musician was familiar with his label, Jefferson Music Company, and its distribution of jukeboxes.
“We’ll have your songs playing in every jukebox and radio station in America," came the offer. "All you need to do is get smart and hand over those files I know you have.”
Stunned by what he had just heard, Gary’s first instinct was to deny knowing what Marcello meant by "the files." Panicked, however, he made the mistake of responding that he “would have to think about it.” This was like putting a match to Marcello’s fuse.
The hot-tempered mafioso was reputed to lose control at times and say more than he needed to. This was one of them. He told Gary he had “two f*cking minutes” to come to his senses, adding that he best forget about guys like McFerren and start thinking about his own family. “You don’t want know any suicides or accidents to happen!”
It was at this moment he left Gary’s side, which brings us to the point where story began in chapter one, and to where our twenty eight year old struggling musician is at a crossroads, facing one of the most important decisions of his life.
Deciding that he did not trust the Devil, no matter how appealing the offer, the young man glanced over at the cabin, into which Marcello and his henchmen were out of view for the moment.
Seeing this as his one chance, Gary slipped into a den of foliage hugging the shoreline, choosing to take his chances with its creatures instead. After a four-hour hike through a shallow terrain of thick marsh, he found the city’s edge and then a taxi, hoping it was not among those owned by the man he had just escaped.
Zorro: The Unveiling of the Killing of King by Patrick Wood brings the hidden details of the 1977 Gary Revel investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King JR. to light. He is writing and publishing the story in chapters in a way that brings to life the intimacy of Gary's dangerous quest of finding the truth and more. To begin your own personal journey Click Here to Read.
Zorro: The Unveiling of the Killing of King by Patrick Wood brings the hidden details of the 1977 Gary Revel investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King JR. to light. He is writing and publishing the story in chapters in a way that brings to life the intimacy of Gary's dangerous quest of finding the truth and more. To begin your own personal journey Click Here to Read.
|Page 2|Page 3|Page 4|Page 5|Page 6Gary Revel found links to those responsible for the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, John Lennon and the attempted killing of President Ronald Reagan.