The facts are these. It didnt take long for investigators to determine a suspect. Whats more, Ray claimed that he only pled guilty to the assassination because his lawyer and the FBI had pressed him to do so. Exactly what led Ray to kill King continues to be a source of debate, as does his role in the murder. Investigators announced that James Earl Ray, an escaped prisoner, had fatally shot King. Ray met Anna Sandhu in 1977. Ray risikerede ddsstraf, sfremt han . [31] At check-in, the ticket agent noticed the name on his passport, Sneyd, was on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police watchlist. But officials dont believe Jowerss story. In addition to his segregationist beliefs, he also saw a big payday, some historians have said, in killing Black leaders like H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael and, of course, King. In 1997, King told Ray personally that both he and his family believed him. After all, the FBI stalked King and his cohort in order to, as Sides puts it, ruin and smear the civil rights movement. The ugly reach of that campaign has only become clearer over the years. FBIs infamous Martin Luther King Jr. tapes. Ray was born in Alton, IL,in 1928, the son of working class Scots-Irish parents. He insisted that a man he'd met in Canada, who went by the name of Raoul, had orchestrated the murder and ultimately shot King. Ray, who was feeble and sick from hepatitis C, was asked by King about his involvement in the assassination. After getting laid off in 1945, Ray enlisted in the Army, eventually getting stationed in West Germany. But among legal and historical scholars, there is a broad consensus that James Earl Ray, though he may not have acted alone, is the gunman who shot Martin Luther King. More answers below Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Who that James earl ray? What would it have taken for the Goldmans and the Browns to have believed Orenthals story that he was innocent? During the four-week trial in Memphis, a 12-person jury heard testimony from over 70 witnesses; but not Jowers, who didnt testify because there were no criminal charges at stake. Pointing to the FBIs deep hatred of King, they suggest that his assassination was part of a larger conspiracy. Not long before Ray's death, Dexter King, Dr. King's son, visited the man presumed to be his father's killer. All three bore the fingerprints of an escaped convict named James Earl Ray. While there, Ray attended a local bartending school and took dance lessons. A. First pu James Earl Ray was a racist, but there was circumstantial evidence that a businessman in St. Louis had established a $50,000 bounty for King's death." . Kings horrified associates point to the direction where they think the bullet came from as King lay dying at their feet. Omissions? [13], He considered emigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where a predominantly white minority regime had unilaterally assumed independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. A confirmed racist and small-time criminal, James Earl Ray began plotting the assassination of revered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in early 1968. Rays fingerprints were the only ones found on the gun, and there were no witnesses who had seen him with Raoul during the nine months they supposedly knew each other (Rays description of Raoul also changed a few times). I had met with him twice while in Memphis at Jims Grill, which was near the boarding house. James Earl Ray was born in a poor family on March 10, 1928 in Alton, Illinois, USA. The Rhodesian government expressed its disapproval. But not everyone was convinced that the story stopped there in part because Rays guilty plea stopped a trial from proceeding. But even if Ray had help, the evidence strongly pointed to him pulling the trigger. In 1935 the family suddenly left Alton and relocated to Ewing, Missouri, after police had started looking for Ray's father on a forgery charge. Martin Luther King Jr. giving his last speech, Ive Been To The Mountaintop, on April 3, 1968. A staff writer for All That's Interesting, Kaleena Fraga has also had her work featured in The Washington Post and Gastro Obscura, and she published a book on the Seattle food scene for the Eat Like A Local series. Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting. I dont know what happened, but the truth of what happened to Dr. King should be made available for historys sake.. Barely 48 hours later, on March 31st, Johnson would publicly announce that he would not seek reelection. Findings by federal authorities and the House Select Committee on Assassinations are confident about some things. As Sides points out, it isnt surprising that members of Kings family and his fellow civil-rights leaders would have suspected that some larger government conspiracy to kill the minister must been at play. 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. For some 50 years, the federal government has maintained that James Earl Ray was the gunman who assassinated King that day. Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career 3 Personal life 3.1 Legal issues A package was abandoned close to the site that included a rifle and binoculars, both found with Ray's fingerprints. He died on April 23, 1998, Nashville, TN. In the 1950s, Ray became notorious as a petty criminal, and by the end of the decade he was a failed pornographer who had served some jail time and successfully completed a prison escape. Ray hired Jack Kershaw as his new attorney, and Kershaw publicly argued and promoted Ray's claim that he was not responsible for the assassination of King. Contents 1 Background 2 Murder of King, Incarceration, and Death 3 Motive 4 Conspiracy Theories 4.1 Ray's claims 4.2 Loyd Jowers 4.3 Other claims 5 Modus Operandi 6 Known Victims 7 On Criminal Minds 8 Sources Background Apr 4, 2018 On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. And from years of hopes, hopes that were shattered and crumbled with the steps of that Negro Baptist Church." Soon, they seemed to have their answer. I Do Understand Racism'. Two years later, his family moved about an hour and a half away to Bowling Green, MO and then by 1935, they moved again to Ewing, MO where Ray lived through grade school. 1928. Both were aliases used by James Earl Ray. Experts have also studied Rays movements leading up to the assassination, including a mysterious trip to New Orleans that March and a move to Atlanta, the funding and logistics of which raise questions. One of Kings sons Dexter had expressed his adamant belief that Ray was not his fathers assassin. To believe that the King family was motivated exclusively by publicity, one must believe that all of its members were involved in selling out the truth of their loved ones assassination for three figures. Two years later, his father abruptly decided to move the family from Alton to Ewing, Missouri, after he was caught passing a bad check. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations, she said. Four days after that, Martin Luther King, Jr. was dead. 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 April4, 1968. Both Ray and King arrived in Memphis in early April. Wednesday marks 50 years since Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on the second-floor balcony near his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where he had been supporting black sanitation workers on strike for better pay and working conditions. [26][27] He picked up his belongings and fled north to Canada, arriving in Toronto three days later, where he hid for over a month and acquired a Canadian passport under the false name of Ramon George Sneyd. Magazines, Digital He was believed to have been en route to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which was at the time a haven for white supremacists. So who is James Earl Ray, the man charged with assassinating Martin Luther King Jr.? He pursued a life of crime but seemed to have been a clumsy criminal. Ray Charles was a pioneer of soul music, integrating R&B, gospel, pop and country to create hits like "Unchain My Heart," "Hit the Road Jack" and "Georgia on My Mind.". He pled guilty to shooting King on March 10, 1969, to avoid the death penalty, and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. James Earl Ray On the left is the death chart of Karl Harrer founder of the DAP or Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the German Worker's Party. Four decades later, Sides, an editor-at-large for Outside magazine and the author of the historical books Ghost Soldiers and . He was 70. She graduated from Oberlin College, where she earned a double degree in American History and French. James Earl Ray, a career criminal who had briefly served in the U.S. Army, shot the advocate of non-violent resistance. In the following years, I heard about inconsistencies in the state's case and rumors of a conspiracy in which James Earl Ray was framed for Dr. King's murder. Ray was born into a poor family on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois. One week prior to Kings assassination on April 4, 1968 he had gone to Memphis to show support for local sanitation workers. His friends in prison remember Ray flying into a rage whenever King appeared on TV, sneering, Somebodys got to get him. I think that contributed to the sense of conspiracy, like a What are they hiding? kind of thing. (Sides also appears in the PBS American Experience documentary on this subject, Roads to Memphis, airing Tuesday.). Between 1998 and 2000, the Department of Justice investigated Jowers claims and the evidence in the civil trial, and concluded that Jowerss claims werent credible. And Ray even pled guilty to murdering King after he was arrested. His first prison break happened in 1967, when he escaped the Missouri State Penitentiary on a bread truck before fleeing to Canada. He maintained that he was innocent of killing MLK until his own death in 1998. In one instance, the FBI sent him a tape that allegedly contained audio of him having an affair. 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. 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. James Earl Ray was born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, IL. In the hours and days after the Tucson shootings, the left wing media in America attempted to blame the Tea Party and right wing rhetoric for the deaths of six and the injuries of thirteen. Ray, a white supporter of segregationist George Wallace, was a career criminal whod been convicted at least four separate times for robbing a cafe, a taxi, a post office and a grocery store. 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. FBI agents later found this map when they searched the room in which he was staying. [6] Ray left school at the age of 12. There was one week in 1968 when much happened. [36] However, Ray spent the remainder of his life unsuccessfully attempting to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a jury trial. James Earl Ray is the disturbed man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. [18] He bought a map of the city. That some Americans didnt trust and still dont trust the governments conclusion on Kings murder says a lot about what was going on in America in the 1960s and 70s, when the Vietnam War and Watergate torpedoed Americans trust in government. font size decrease font size increase font size; . Bettmann/Contributor via Getty ImagesMartin Luther King Jr. giving his last speech, Ive Been To The Mountaintop, on April 3, 1968. And what actually happened on that terrible day in Memphis? The House Assassinations Committee examining evidence in the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images). 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. 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. Ray Kroc was an American entrepreneur best known for expanding McDonalds from a local chain to the worlds most profitable restaurant franchise operation. [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. When authorities caught him in London, hed been planning to travel to Rhodesia, a former African state ruled by a white minority in present-day Zimbabwe. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Whether he was guilty or innocent, James Earl Ray led an eventful life from behind bars. Ray was spotted at the scene and, almost immediately after the. "Like a Fading Shadow" is Antonio Muoz Molina's dramatization of the hunted assassin James Earl Ray's obscure 10 . Had he been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty. He travelled there on a Canadian passport. No comments: Post a Comment. Months later, he recanted his confession, without effect. Since then, many members of Kings family and some of his closest supporters have come to believe Rays story and that a larger conspiracy had actually killed King. As the official story goes, Ray followed through with the threat he made in prison. James Earl Ray Martin Luther King Assassin--- === April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King was killed by a single rifle bullet on , while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.Shortly after the shot was fired, witnesses saw a man believed to be James Earl Ray fleeing from a rooming house across the street from the Lorraine Motel. Peanut farming, talk of politics, and devotion to the Baptist faith were . [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. James Earl Ray's FBI wanted poster featured 1960 booking shots and a list of nine aliases. 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. What Political Party was James Earl Ray part of? James Earl Ray Biography. It didnt help that Rays story kept changing. Ray himself countered that he was not the only one involved in the crime. Ray was a racist and was quickly drawn to Wallace's segregationist platform. A consequence of Kings alleged involvement in those riots was that it caught the attention of some powerful politicians. 10 Disturbing and Unexplained Facts About James Earl Ray, MLK's Assassin. And teachers at his school where Ray often showed up barefoot and in ragged clothes noted that he violated all regulations. 1. Take a look below for 27 more strange and bizarre facts about James Earl Ray. The evidence brought forth by attorney William Pepper was so powerful . For now, James Earl Rays legacy depends on who you believe. Corrections? Then in 1977 to 1978, following a . He left Toronto in late May on a flight to England. Martin Luther King Jr. was a scholar and minister who led the civil rights movement. There, on March 30, 1968, he bought a Remington Model 760 Gamemaster .30-06-caliber rifle and a box of 20 cartridges from the Aeromarine Supply Company. Ray began claiming that a man he had met in Montreal back in 1967, who used the alias "Raul," had been involved in the assassination. 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. An international manhunt led to his capture in June 1968 at Heathrow Airport in London, where he was caught carrying two fake Canadian passports. Later in life his pleas for a trial were encouraged by some civil-rights leaders, notably the King family. Kershaw convinced Ray to submit to a polygraph test as part of an interview with Playboy. According to the New York Times, his uncle went to prison on the day Ray was born, his father was a known convict, and his great-grandfather was likely Ned Ray, a gambler and Wild West outlaw. He escaped in 1967. In 1949 he left for Los Angeles, where in October of that year police arrested him for robbing a cafe. And after he returned to Illinois and robbed a taxi driver at gunpoint for $11, police easily arrested him in a dead-end alleyway. [citation needed]. Share Background Report Background Report Overview of James Earl Ray Lives in: Northville, Michigan Phone: View phone number Gender: Male He also bought a Redfield 2x-7x scope, which he had mounted to the rifle. He said his lawyers were incompetent, and that proved false. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, San Jose, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Earl_Ray&oldid=1134341249, American people who died in prison custody, People extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States, Prisoners who died in Tennessee detention, United States Army personnel of World War II, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Pages using infobox person with multiple parents, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 99 years in prison (1 year was added after his re-capture for a total of 100 years), This page was last edited on 18 January 2023, at 05:50. King died about an hour later. Ray dropped out of school around the age of 12 but had trouble making anything stick. Along with his film debut in Dr. Strangelove , he scored a supporting role in the 1967 political drama The. (Credit: State of Tennessee, Earl Warren/AP Photo), Coretta Kings specific belief in Rays innocence is a little tougher to explain. It is descended into a woke, neo-socialist, radically green party. He spent many hours volunteering at the campaign headquarters in North Hollywood. The parents of James Earl Ray are James Gerald Ray,Lucille Ray. The Committee Believes, on the Basis of the Circumstantial Evidence Available to it, that there is a Likelihood that James Earl Ray Assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, JR., as a Result of a Conspiracy The FBI Investigation The committee's investigation Transactional analysis Ray's associates examined Examination of Ray's motive A former theater and television producer, Edward remains active in charity. He maintained that he was innocent of killing MLK until his own death in 1998. 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. 1. He spent much of his time in Los Angeles volunteering at the Wallace campaign headquarters in North Hollywood. [9], Following his escape, Ray stayed on the move throughout the United States and Canada, going first to St. Louis and then onward to Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, and Birmingham, Alabama, where he stayed long enough to buy a 1966 Ford Mustang and get an Alabama drivers license. James Earl White (born July 16, 1964) is a former member of the Texas House of Representatives for District 19, which encompassed Polk, Hardin, Jasper, Newton, and Tyler counties. 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. [17], Arriving in Atlanta on March 24, 1968, Ray checked into a rooming house. Later, though, he claimed he left the prints to gain international notoriety. The two married in 1978 and divorced in 1992. James Earl Ray On the left is the death chart of Karl Harrer founder of the DAP or Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the German Worker's Party. After the assassination, King's family did not trust the findings of the FBI, which had harassed the civil rights leader while he was alive. But what do you know about James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King? James Earl Ray, Playboy Interview - A Candid Conversation About Conspiracy and Escape, September 1977 Written by Kennedys&King. 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. He filmed local prostitutes during their work hours in pursuit of his cinematographic dream, but he eventually left Puerto Vallarta after being jilted by his girlfriend who, coincidentally, was also one of the prostitutes he filmed. [20] He told the store owners that he was going on a hunting trip with his brother. In renouncing his guilt, Ray raised the spectre of a conspiracy behind Kings murder but offered scant evidence to support his claim. On April 2, 1968, Ray packed a bag and drove to Memphis. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. He said that a Memphis police officer was the one who had actually killed King and that Jowers had stashed the gun. [16] On March 18, 1968, Ray left Los Angeles and began a cross-country drive to Atlanta, Georgia. Briefly served in their deliberations, she said American Experience documentary on this,... In a poor family on March 10, 1928 in Alton, IL conspiracy! 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