Magazines, Digital In March 1960 Ray started a 20-year sentence for the crimes. The day after the trial ended, Coretta King held a press conference in Atlanta to praise the decision. James Earl Ray is the man who shot and killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Some people had trouble, for example, believing Ray had arranged his international escape all by himself, since he had a track record of getting caught for more minor crimes. James Earl Ray's FBI wanted poster featured 1960 booking shots and a list of nine aliases. Hardcover, 480 pages. The two married in 1978 and divorced in 1992. The bureau wiretapped his phone and monitored his movements, taking advantage of times when he seemed particularly upset or depressed. He got a 99-year prison sentence, which he served until he died of liver failure due to hepatitis C on Apr. Description. 17, 1968, FBI headquarters Murkin file 44-38861", "Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr", "Why assassin James Earl Ray returned to Toronto", "Ramon Sneyd denies that he killed Dr King", "Log Cabin Democrat: King assassin Ray dies after lifelong legal fight 4/24/98", "1969: Martin Luther King's killer gets life", "Federal Bureau of Investigation History of Knoxville Office", "Jack Kershaw Is Dead at 96; Challenged Conviction in King's Death", "Dr. King's Son Says Family Believes Ray Is Innocent", "Ray Acquitted In Mock Trial 25 Years After King Slaying", "Memphis Jury Sees Conspiracy in Martin Luther King's Killing", "Complete Transcript of the Martin Luther King, Jr. By signing up you are agreeing to our, What Happened to Martin Luther King Jr.'s Last Campaigns, How Black Filmmakers Are Reclaiming Their History Onscreen. 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. Bettmann/Getty ImagesJames Earl Ray in 1966, two years before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. [31] At check-in, the ticket agent noticed the name on his passport, Sneyd, was on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police watchlist. Yes, the President is part of the. He confessed to the crime on March 10, 1969, his 41st birthday,[34] and after pleading guilty he was sentenced to 99 years in prison.[35]. The House Assassinations Committee examining evidence in the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images). Huie investigated this story and discovered that Ray lied about some details. What would it have taken for the Goldmans and the Browns to have believed Orenthals story that he was innocent? He escaped in 1967. Was James earl ray white? Martin Luther King Jr. giving his last speech, Ive Been To The Mountaintop, on April 3, 1968. "I think I have figured out the tea party," the actor recently said on the "Smiley and West" radio show. 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. He made the FBI Most Wanted List before his recapture. And it is committed, as Barack Obama once promised, to fundamentally transforming America. 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. The paper reported King's planned return trip to Memphis, Tennessee, which was scheduled for April 1, 1968. He had Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry and had a Catholic upbringing. List price: $28.95. Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998. 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. 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. 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. 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. The most serious of those came in 1959, when Ray, on parole for an earlier theft, robbed two St. Louis grocery stores, as well as another in Alton. American fantasy and horror author Ray Bradbury is best known for his novels 'Fahrenheit 451,' 'The Illustrated Man' and 'The Martian Chronicles.'. This organization would later morph into the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei better known as the NAZI party. He is a male registered to vote in Wayne County, Michigan. In June 1977 Ray escaped from Brushy Mountain (Tennessee) Prison and remained at large for 54 hours before being recaptured in a massive manhunt. 191 Ben Barrack 18 Jan 2011 0 In 1999, James Earl Ray was found innocent of killing Martin Luther King Jr. in the same way O.J. Four decades later, Sides, an editor-at-large for Outside magazine and the author of the historical books Ghost Soldiers and . James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 - April 23, 1998) was an American fugitive and felon convicted of assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. Check here if you would like to receive subscription offers and other promotions via email from TIME group companies. He was 70. Please attempt to sign up again. Some have indicated that King vs. Jowers was nothing more than a promotional stunt. Kennedy's political opponents are believed to have received support from wealthy tycoons and the CIA agents in executing his assassination (Hald-Mortensen 75). In the years following Ray's arrest, questions arose about his exact involvement in King's murder. [10], While in Mexico, Ray, using the alias Eric Starvo Galt, attempted to establish himself as a pornographic film director. The rifle with Rays fingerprints didnt create tell-tale grooves on bullets, which ballistic tests usually use to match a gun to a bullet. A man named Vincent Harding is credited with writing most of it. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations, she said. On April 2, 1968, Ray packed a bag and drove to Memphis. The King family started to publicly voice the opinion in 1997. 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. [6] Ray left school at the age of 12. [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. Born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, James Earl Ray came from a long line of criminals. His sister Marjorie died in a fire as a young child in 1933. 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. The incident was incredibly damaging to the cause of King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (Pueblo, Colorado), Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, San Francisco. 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. 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. As the official story goes, Ray followed through with the threat he made in prison. In renouncing his guilt, Ray raised the spectre of a conspiracy behind Kings murder but offered scant evidence to support his claim. I dont know what happened, but the truth of what happened to Dr. King should be made available for historys sake.. 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. 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. 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. And what actually happened on that terrible day in Memphis? James Earl Ray (fdt 10. marts 1928, dd 23. april 1998) var en amerikansk morder, der blev dmt for at have drbt Martin Luther King jr. den 4. april 1968, fem r efter Kings verdenskendte "I Have a Dream" tale i 1963.. James Earl Ray blev idmt 99 rs fngsel for mordet p King. [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. In Truth at Last, we read how "James met CIA asset Jules Ron 'Ricco' Kimble. His first prison break happened in 1967, when he escaped the Missouri State Penitentiary on a bread truck before fleeing to Canada. He enlisted in the U.S. Army but was discharged for ineptness and lack of adaptability to military service in 1948. 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.". When Kings son, Dexter, visited Ray in prison, Dexter asked Ray point-blank: Did you kill my father?. 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. With rates currently down to half that in 2018 (18%), these theories seem unlikely to go away any time soon. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! He pursued a life of crime but seemed to have been a clumsy criminal. Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com. [49], Before his death, Ray was transferred to the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville, a maximum-security prison with hospital facilities. 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. 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