In fact, the idea that there had been a conspiracy to kill King that, even if Ray fired the gun, he did so at the behest of larger forces began to spread right away, and not without some reason. Ray was convicted on his 41st birthday after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. I went to Memphis to deliver a rifle to this man called Raoul, Ray explained to a journalist from The Tennessean. If I ever get to the streets, I am going to kill him.. No I didn't." The jury awarded the money to the estate, deciding that Kings assassination had likely beenthe result of a conspiracy that involved Jowers, not Ray, as well as ''others, including governmental agencies.''. Inside The Curious Question Of The Great Emancipator's Race, Meet Shoji Morimoto, The Japanese 'Do-Nothing Guy' Who People Can Rent Out Just For Company, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. On September 16 th 1963 a young Southern White lawyer in Birmingham Alabama spoke these words after a black church was bombed and the police attacked peaceful protesters: "from anger and despair, from frustration and empathy. 10 Disturbing and Unexplained Facts About James Earl Ray, MLK's Assassin Ryleigh Nucilli January 17, 2017 83.5k views10 items Each year, the third Monday in January is a celebration to commemorate the life and accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr., the tireless civil rights activist who was gunned down in Memphis, TN, in 1968. James Earl Ray made several trips to Montreal, Canada in the 1960's where he was hypnotically programmed by MK-ULTRA Dr. Ewen Cameron, who worked at Allen Memorial Hospital out of McGill University. Ray Kroc was an American entrepreneur best known for expanding McDonalds from a local chain to the worlds most profitable restaurant franchise operation. Ray was sentenced to a 99 year sentence, with another year added after his escape in 1977. On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Actor: Fired Up!. Soon, they seemed to have their answer. The first time he tried to steal from someone, he left behind his identification. Unbeknownst to Ray, however, under the de facto moratorium in place since 1967 and following Furman v. Georgia, a death sentence would have been commuted as unconstitutional. Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Top 250 TV Shows Most Popular TV Shows Most Popular Video Games Most Popular Music Videos Most Popular Podcasts. On June 11, 1977, while housed at the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, TN, Ray and five other inmates escaped. He is a former Shelby County, Tennessee Criminal Court judge and a former arbiter of the arbitration-based reality court show Judge Joe Brown . A part of his life was shaped by tragedy. Free shipping for many products! James Earl Ray (1928-1998) Some of us may have heard of Dr. Pepper's efforts, as attorney for the King Family, to defend James Earl Ray (the man wrongly imprisoned for the assassination of Dr. King) as part of an effort to bring the actual killers to justice. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations, she said. During the 1950 and 60s, the FBI surveilled and harassed King, his family and his associates. But until the day he died of liver disease and kidney failure on April 23, 1998, he never again admitted to killing Martin Luther King Jr. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Tennessee Waltz : The Making of a Political Prisoner by James E. Ray (Hardcover) at the best online prices at eBay! In the book, "The Making of an Assassin: The Life of James Earl Ray," George McMillan details Ray's background; He came to love German politics. He pleaded guilty to murder on the advice of his attorney in order to avoid a jury trial. Simpson was found guilty of killing his wife Nicole and Ron Goldman - in a civil trial. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old convicted armed robber who had escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Mo., on April 23, 1967, pleaded guilty on March 10, 1969, in Shelby County (Tenn.) Criminal Court to the first degree murder of Dr. King. He at first fled to Canada but, unable to get on a ship and flee overseas, he returned to the U.S. and made his way to first Alabama, then Mexico, and later Los Angeles. Toward the end of his life, Ray, whose sentence had been extended to 100 years after he escaped from prison in 1977, had the support of an unexpected ally: the King family. James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 - April 23, 1998) was an American fugitive convicted for assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.After this, Ray was on the run and was captured in the UK. We strive for accuracy and fairness. Rendering their verdict on December 8 of that year, the jury found that Jowers and others, including government agencies, had conspired to murder King, and he was therefore legally liable to pay compensation to the King family. In 1959, he was sentenced to 20 years for holding up a grocery store in St. Louis. After his assassination, he was memorialized by Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Though intelligent, he was quick to anger. A man named Vincent Harding is credited with writing most of it. At the age of 16, Ray left his parents and returned to Alton, where he moved in with his grandmother and landed work in the dye room of the International Shoe Tannery. He briefly escaped from prison in 1977 and survived a murder attempt in 1981. Kershaw and his client met with representatives of the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) and convinced the committee to conduct ballistics tests that they believed would prove Ray had not fired the fatal shot. AP Photo. Since fleeing Memphis, hed gone to Canada, then London, then Portugal, before returning to the U.K. Joseph Louw/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesKings horrified associates point to the direction where they think the bullet came from as King lay dying at their feet. The King family started to publicly voice the opinion in 1997. But what do you know about James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King? Ray was arrested at Londons Heathrow Airport on June 8, 1968, a few weeks after the crime. Check here if you would like to receive subscription offers and other promotions via email from TIME group companies. Dexter King went so far as to name Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl Clark as his fathers assassin. "Like a Fading Shadow" is Antonio Muoz Molina's dramatization of the hunted assassin James Earl Ray's obscure 10 . According to Pew, the percentage of Americans who said they could trust the federal government to do the right thing nearly always or most of the time went from an all-time high of 77% in 1964 to 36% by the end of the 1970s. "[45][46][47][48], Prompted by the King family's acceptance of some of the claims of conspiracy, United States Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a new investigation on August 26, 1998. Ray struggled to adapt to military life and was eventually discharged for ineptitude and lack of adaptability in 1948. Ray had been treated for liver disease over the years and according to the Tennessee Department of Correction, he died from that and kidney failure. Ray was spotted at the scene and, almost immediately after the killing, his fingerprints were found on the gun. Somehow, Ray managed to escape from prison on two different occasions. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty pleathus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentenceand was sentenced to . [36] However, Ray spent the remainder of his life unsuccessfully attempting to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a jury trial. Speech of Senator Robert C. Byrd, Senate Journal, Appendix Two, March 29, 1968. In no uncertain terms, Byrd was calling on Johnson to stop Kings march on D.C. An international manhunt led to his capture in June 1968 at Heathrow Airport in London, where he was caught carrying two fake Canadian passports. [52], Ten years later, Ray's other brother, John Larry Ray, co-authored a book with Lyndon Barsten, titled Truth At Last: The Untold Story Behind James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.[39], Convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. (19281998), Speeches, writings, movements, and protests, Initial convictions and first escape from prison, Martin Luther King Jr. assassination conspiracy theories, Interview with James Earl Ray by John Auble, United States House Select Committee on Assassinations, "James Earl Ray, 70, Killer of Dr. King, Dies in Nashville", "The assassin's brother: John Larry Ray marks time in Quincy, still trying to set the record straight", "James Earl Ray: The Man Who Killed Dr. Martin Luther King, chapter 3", "Report of laboratory, FBI headquarters to Memphis, Apr. The incident was incredibly damaging to the cause of King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). INTERVIEW OF JAMES EARL RAY BY JOHN AUBLE, KST-TV ST LOUIS - National Archives and Records Administration 1977-11-03 - ARC 43297, LI 233-MLK-150170 - DVD Cop. MEMPHIS, March 10 In space of two and a half hours, James Earl Ray pleaded guilty today of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and was sentenced to serve 99 years in the state . Bettmann/Getty ImagesJames Earl Ray in 1966, two years before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. Read an Excerpt. At one point, the owner of the bar beneath the boarding house where Ray stayed, Loyd Jowers, claimed that he had participated in a conspiracy to assassinate King. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our. The authorities didnt catch up to Ray until June 1968, when they found him in London trying to board a plane to Belgium. But then, he filed a motion to withdraw his plea. In October 1974, James Earl Ray attempted to recant his confession for the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee. It was a theory she maintained until her death in 2006 that has so far never been proven. He drifted around the Midwest, committing more crimes. James Earl Ray. [14] The notion of living in Rhodesia continued to appeal to Ray for several years afterwards, and it was his intended destination after King's assassination. As the official story goes, Ray followed through with the threat he made in prison. And it is committed, as Barack Obama once promised, to fundamentally transforming America. [22], On April 4, 1968, Ray killed civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. with a single shot fired from his Remington rifle, while King was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Some have indicated that King vs. Jowers was nothing more than a promotional stunt. Until his last day, James Earl Ray denied the crime, saying that it was part of a larger conspiracy involving contacts from Canada and even insinuating that the U.S. government had a role in it as well. Whats more, investigators determined that a white Mustang spotted leaving the scene was registered to a Mr. Eric Galt and the gun had been purchased by a Mr. Harvey Lowmyer. Joseph Blakeney Brown Jr. (born July 5, 1947), known as Judge Joe Brown, is a former American lawyer and television personality. Newer Post Older Post Home. Then, the House Assassinations Committee spent two years and $2.5 million investigating the case., James Earl Ray did it, case closed! Surprisingly, it is indeed possible that officials recovered the wrong gun at the scene. Ray confessed to the crime on March 10, 1969 and received a 99-year prison sentence, which increased to a 100-year sentence after he briefly escaped in 1977. What We Know About Why James Earl Ray Killed Martin Luther King Jr. A courtroom artist, Sandhu drew Ray during his trial for a prison escape attempt. He even upheld his claims to the King family. As with most cases, the answer is yes. On March 28th, riots took place in Memphis and King was present; on March 29th, Democrat Senator Byrd threw down the gauntlet with Democrat president Lyndon Baines Johnson by delivering a fiery speech on the Senate Floor intended to get the president to stop Kings march; Johnson announced on March 31st that he would not seek reelection; a bullet would take the life of King days later on April 4th, one year to the day after delivering what many viewed as an incendiary speech at the time. He had entered a guilty plea on the advice of his attorney, Percy Foreman, in an effort to avoid the sentence of death by electrocution, which would have been a possible outcome of a jury trial. I do think [Ray] had help, but I never found any proof that a group helped him, says Sides. Evidence does suggest that Ray had little stomach for the integration policies that were sweeping the country. Whatever the exact details were that led him to Memphis in April 1968, Ray rented a room at a rooming house under the name Eric Starvo Galt, near the Lorraine Motel, where King was staying. It contained a pair of binoculars, a newspaper with a story about King staying at the Lorraine Motel, and a .30-06 Remington Gamemaster that had fired one shot. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren was a former California governor who also headed the commission that investigated the JFK assassination. There, James Earl Ray would cross paths with Martin Luther King Jr. By April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. had become the face of the civil rights movement. And he asserted that he did not "personally shoot Dr. King," but may have been "partially responsible without knowing it," hinting at a conspiracy. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Later, in the early 1990s, he suggested a conspiracy involving the government had been behind the assassination. In fact, King's family was as convinced of Ray's innocence as the families of Nicole and Ron were convinced of Simpson's guilt. On July 19, he returned to U.S. and the following March he pleaded guilty to murdering King. James Earl Ray being led to his cell by Shelby County Sheriff William Morris on July 19, 1968. His prints were found all over the hotel room in Memphis where the shots that killed King were thought to have come from, and they covered the murder weapon -a Remington hunting rifle he purchased in Birmingham, AL. To people whod known Ray, the answer seemed obvious. James Earl Jones thinks he knows makes the tea party tick: racism. Based on the results of a civil trial in 1999, Byrds speech would have almost necessarily have played an even more direct role if the verdict is to be accepted. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Kershaw claimed the prison escape was additional proof that Ray had been involved in a conspiracy that had provided him with the outside assistance he would have needed to break out of prison.