[15], On March 5, 1968, Ray underwent a rhinoplasty, performed by physician Russell Hadley. A Democratic Senator from West Virginia delivered an extremely incendiary speech on the Senate Floor that was directed specifically at President Lyndon Johnson, also a Democrat. Read an Excerpt. 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. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. 23, 1998, at the age of 70. He briefly escaped from prison in 1977 and survived a murder attempt in 1981. His father's name was George Ellis Ray and his mother's name was Lucille. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. Ray told Huie that he purposefully left the rifle with his fingerprints on it in plain sight at the crime scene because he wanted to become a famous criminal. 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. 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. Who that James earl ray? He broke out of prisons so many times that he earned the nickname the Mole.. They said he lacked credibility and seemed largely motivated by financial gain. [38] The tests ultimately proved inconclusive. James Earl Ray walked through the gates of Brushy Mountain for the first time March 21, 1970, one year into a 99-year sentence and not quite two years since the death of King, gunned down by a . Most remember that he was an avowed racist who did the deed, fled the country, eventually confessed, was sentenced to 99 years, recanted, and spent the rest of his . Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty pleathus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentenceand was sentenced to . James Earl Ray, Playboy Interview - A Candid Conversation About Conspiracy and Escape, September 1977 Written by Kennedys&King. During the 1950 and 60s, the FBI surveilled and harassed King, his family and his associates. 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. He later joined the U.S. Army at the close of World War II and served in Germany. The Rays struggled to make ends meet, and as a consequence, the family moved several times during the early part of Ray's childhood. 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. In fact, Kings family was as convinced of Rays innocence as the families of Nicole and Ron were convinced of Simpsons guilt. 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. . Dr. King was killed while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, and police determined that James Earl Ray had shot him with a rifle from the window of a rented room across the street. I went to Memphis to deliver a rifle to this man called Raoul, Ray explained to a journalist from The Tennessean. [38], In 1997, King's son, Dexter, met with Ray at the prison and asked him, "I just want to ask you, for the record, did you kill my father?" Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? But not everyone was convinced that the story stopped there in part because Rays guilty plea stopped a trial from proceeding. He made the FBI Most Wanted List before his recapture. James Earl Ray, (born March 10, 1928, Alton, Illinois, U.S.died April 23, 1998, Nashville, Tennessee), American assassin of the African American civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Ray had been a small-time crook, a robber of gas stations and stores, who had served time in prison, once in Illinois and twice in Missouri, and received a suspended sentence in Los Angeles. James Earl Ray was a racist.. Ray dismissed Foreman as his attorney and thereafter derisively called him "Percy Fourflusher." FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Dexter King, son of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., meeting with James Earl Ray the man who confessed to killing King. Barely 48 hours later, on March 31st, Johnson would publicly announce that he would not seek reelection. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. One week prior to Kings assassination on April 4, 1968 he had gone to Memphis to show support for local sanitation workers. James Earl. For the first 25 years after Kings death, Jowers did not claim any involvement in the murder. If I ever get to the streets, I am going to kill him.. But Ray soon proved to be an inept criminal. Ray was spotted at the scene and, almost immediately after the killing,. In June of 2008, Harding spoke at Stanford University and said the following: Many people within the movement said, Martin, you cannot raise your voice against Johnsons war because Johnson is our man and if you raise your voice against Johnsons war, Johnson being Johnson, is not going to like it.'. In the mock trial, the prosecutor was Hickman Ewing. This organization would later morph into the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei better known as the NAZI party. A member of the Republican Party, White was first elected in District 12 in 2010, which then included Angelina, San Jacinto, Trinity, and Tyler counties.He left office on August 11, 2022. James Earl Ray was the assassin of American Baptist minister and civil rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr . 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. 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. YouTube James Earl Ray in 1977. font size decrease font size increase font size; . They laid out the evidence before he entered his plea, and he said, OK,' explained G. Robert Blakey, a law professor who previously served as the chief counsel for the House Assassinations Committee. Louis. [18] He bought a map of the city. YouTubeJames Earl Ray in 1977. And he asserted that he did not "personally shoot Dr. King," but may have been "partially responsible without knowing it," hinting at a conspiracy. Share Background Report Background Report Overview of James Earl Ray Lives in: Northville, Michigan Phone: View phone number Gender: Male A. A part of his life was shaped by tragedy. James Earl Ray, fdd 10 mars 1928 i Alton, Illinois, dd 23 april 1998 p Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary nra Petros, Tennessee, var en amerikansk brottsling dmd fr mordet p Martin Luther King den 4 april 1968 i Memphis, ett dd som gav 99 rs fngelse. The verdict did convict Loyd Jowers and "other parties known and unknown" for their parts in the vast US government conspiracy to assassinate King. 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. He then drove to Mexico, stopping in Acapulco before settling in Puerto Vallarta on October 19, 1967. Three months later to the day, the man in Von Koss' office whose actual name was James Earl Ray fatally shot King on the . A plaque made for a 2002 Martin Luther King Day celebration mistakenly thanked James Earl Ray, King's assassin, instead of actor James Earl Jones. Later in life his pleas for a trial were encouraged by some civil-rights leaders, notably the King family. While there, Ray attended a local bartending school and took dance lessons. Representative John Lewis, a civil rights activist who later became a U.S. congressman and served 17 terms before his death in 2020, agreed. Assassination Conspiracy Trial", "The Execution of Martin Luther King William Pepper (ONE of TWO)", "The Execution of Martin Luther King, William Pepper (TWO of TWO)", "Justice Dept. In one instance, the FBI sent him a tape that allegedly contained audio of him having an affair. 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. Then, Raoul threw it in the Mississippi River. 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 List price: $28.95. They might not have been involved in the murder, McMillian observes of the FBI, but I wish people knew the really shameful things that they did.. But Ray offered no motive himself. In Truth at Last, we read how "James met CIA asset Jules Ron 'Ricco' Kimble. 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. Such a conclusion must be drawn from a premise that the King family was willing to publicly, wrongfully, and unjustifiably vindicate Ray in order to accuse others simply to gain notoriety. 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. According to Wikipedia: James Earl Ray's chief interest was the George Wallace Democratic presidential campaign. James Earl Ray's FBI wanted poster featured 1960 booking shots and a list of nine aliases. Ray was a known criminal, on the lam after escaping a Missouri state prison when he committed the assassination, and had more than two dozen known aliases for himself before he was put behind bars again. The pastor-turned-activist had orchestrated boycotts, led historic marches, and spoken to hundreds of thousands of people in Washington, D.C. about his dream of a more equal country. He was of Irish, Scots, and Welsh ancestry. Dexter King went so far as to name Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl Clark as his fathers assassin. As Kings horrified associates shouted and pointed to where they thought the bullet had come from, Ray wrapped his gun in a blanket, dumped it in a doorway of a nearby building, and fled the scene. Those who express skepticism at the results of the 1999 trial in which James Earl Ray was found innocent of assassinating King have an incredible hurdle to overcome the belief of the King family, which sides with Ray. Martin Luther's goal, at least initially, was to repeal Jim Crow segregation laws where they existed. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty pleathus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentenceand was sentenced to . He was charged with drunkenness and breaking arrest, before getting discharged for ineptness and lack of adaptability in 1948. Born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, James Earl Ray came from a long line of criminals. Ray's first conviction for criminal activity, a burglary in California, came in 1949. [39][40][41] William Pepper, a friend of King during the last year of his life, represented Ray in a mock trial televised by HBO in an attempt to grant him the trial he never received. Author weaves memoir with fictional account of MLK's killer on the lam. [citation needed]. "[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. By Jerry B. Jenkins . He was trying to depart the United Kingdom for Angola, Rhodesia, or apartheid South Africa[30] using the falsified Canadian passport. He considered moving to Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe), a country with a predominantly white minority government. The bureau wiretapped his phone and monitored his movements, taking advantage of times when he seemed particularly upset or depressed. James Earl Ray, a career criminal who had briefly served in the U.S. Army, shot the advocate of non-violent resistance. All three bore the fingerprints of an escaped convict named James Earl Ray. The next day, Ray checked into a room in a boarding house just across the street from where King was staying, according to the Washington Post. Not long before Ray's death, Dexter King, Dr. King's son, visited the man presumed to be his father's killer. 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. 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. An avid newspaper reader, Ray passed his time reading The Atlanta Constitution. 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. The drifter left after a 45-minute session and never came back. There is abundant evidence of a major high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, said Coretta Scott King, Kings widow, in 1999. [21], After purchasing the rifle and accessories, Ray drove back to Atlanta. James Earl Ray hated him. CAPTION: Ray was apprehended (harnessed and handcuffed) for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968 . He escaped in 1967. 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. His first prison break happened in 1967, when he escaped the Missouri State Penitentiary on a bread truck before fleeing to Canada. "I had nothing to do with killing your father," Ray said. FBI agents later found this map when they searched the room in which he was staying. An hour later, he was declared dead. 1. James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 - April 23, 1998) was an American criminal who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty pleathus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentenceand was sentenced to 99 years of imprisonment. 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. James Earl Ray has 7 siblings in His family: John Larry Ray, Suzan Ray, Melba Ray, Marjorie Ray, Franklin Ray, Jerry Ray . James Earl Ray. 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. What We Know About Why James Earl Ray Killed Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King, Jr., original name Michael King, Jr., (born January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee), Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. Four decades later, Sides, an editor-at-large for Outside magazine and the author of the historical books Ghost Soldiers and . And he began to tell an unsettling story. King died about an hour later. For some 50 years, the federal government has maintained that James Earl Ray was the gunman who assassinated King that day. 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. They quickly found the rifle with Rays fingerprints on it. Riots erupted in Memphis; one person was killed and sixty were injured. The facts are these. 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. (biography.com) He admitted that he killed Martin Luther King, so he . The story may seem outlandish and no one has ever definitively found Raoul but Kings family and some of his most ardent supporters have come to see Rays story as the truth. After shooting King, Ray immediately fled, setting off a manhunt that would last more than two months and cover five countries. Less than a year after the assassination, Ray pleaded guilty to the crime. James. Most famously, in 1997 a dying Ray told Dexter King, his victims son, that he didnt do it. Eventually, Ray drifted west to Los Angeles. He left Toronto in late May on a flight to England. Kershaw convinced Ray to submit to a polygraph test as part of an interview with Playboy. He shot dead the minister as he was standing on a motel balcony. Its not clear when Coretta Scott King, widow of King, began to believe in Rays innocence. Over the decades, the story twisted and turned. James Earl Ray is the disturbed man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. He shot and killed Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. FBIs infamous Martin Luther King Jr. tapes. Aggie Kenny who traveled to Memphis to cover the hearing, drew Ray as he attempted to argue that he was not well-served by his previous attorney, Percy Foreman. 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. That claim prompted the family to push unsuccessfully for a new trial. Public DomainJames Earl Rays mugshot from 1955. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. The House Assassinations Committee examining evidence in the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images). He is a male registered to vote in Wayne County, Michigan. [6] Ray left school at the age of 12. On the night of the shooting, I had left the rifle with Raoul.. For 72 hours after his guilty plea, James Earl Ray stayed quiet. He pleaded guilty to murder on the advice of his attorney in order to avoid a jury trial. Edward, Earl of Wessex is the youngest child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Description. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. James Earl Ray is the man who shot and killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. 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. 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 raised as a catholic and had conservative religious beliefs from his childhood. the result of a conspiracy that involved Jowers, not Ray, as well as ''others, including governmental agencies. 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.''. A year before, hed escaped from Missouri State Penitentiary while serving a 20-year sentence, and was on the lam at the time King was shot. After his assassination, he was memorialized by Martin Luther King Jr. Day. [8] He was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. The incident was incredibly damaging to the cause of King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). James Earl Ray, the petty criminal who confessed to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr., then recanted and spent decades seeking a trial, died April 23, 1998, of liver failure. But even if Ray had help, the evidence strongly pointed to him pulling the trigger. But officials dont believe Jowerss story. In 1959, he was caught stealing $120 in an armed robbery of a Kroger store in St. He was convinced that he would escape capture because of his intelligence and cunning, and he also believed that Governor of Alabama George Wallace would soon be elected to the presidency, so that Ray would only be confined in prison for a short time, pending a presidential pardon by Wallace. Ray had seven siblings. 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. Indeed, Ray seemed to struggle from the start. Using their logic, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. should be attributed to a Democratic U.S. Ray was born to a poor family on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, the son of Lucille and George Ellis Ray. It was a theory she maintained until her death in 2006 that has so far never been proven. He had Ulster Scots and Irish ancestry and had a Catholic . Authorities say that when King stood on the balcony of the Lorraine around 6 p.m., Ray spotted him from a window at his boarding house, aimed a Remington .30-06 hunting rifle toward King, and fired a shot. His body was cremated and his ashes were flown to Ireland, the home of his maternal family's ancestors. In June 1977 Ray escaped from Brushy Mountain (Tennessee) Prison and remained at large for 54 hours before being recaptured in a massive manhunt. There are records of Ray receiving plastic surgery in Los Angeles about a month before Kings murder in Memphis. 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. Ray died at Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 23, 1998. Later, in the early 1990s, he suggested a conspiracy involving the government had been behind the assassination. With rates currently down to half that in 2018 (18%), these theories seem unlikely to go away any time soon. The day after the trial ended, Coretta King held a press conference in Atlanta to praise the decision. It didnt help that Rays story kept changing. 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