Please attempt to sign up again. Martin Luther King Jr. was a scholar and minister who led the civil rights movement. (biography.com) He admitted that he killed Martin Luther King, so he . [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. Among the evidence was a recording of Jowers in which he suggested he was interested in fabricating his story for financial gain. 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). Ray struggled to adapt to military life and was eventually discharged for ineptitude and lack of adaptability in 1948. font size decrease font size increase font size; . Finally, on July 19, 1968, the FBI caught up with Ray in London and extradited him to the United States. He was trying to depart the United Kingdom for Angola, Rhodesia, or apartheid South Africa[30] using the falsified Canadian passport. Check here if you would like to receive subscription offers and other promotions via email from TIME group companies. [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. At the time, it was said to be the FBI's most expensive and biggest investigation in its history. In 1999, James Earl Ray was found innocent of killing Martin Luther King Jr. in the same way O.J. Rays unreliability has meant the only way to find out what might have motivated him is to study the people he associated with and admired. He shot and killed King in Memphis on April 4, 1968, confessing to the crime the following March. It didnt take long for investigators to determine a suspect. He was believed to have been en route to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which was at the time a haven for white supremacists. No I didn't." He shot. Most famously, in 1997 a dying Ray told Dexter King, his victims son, that he didnt do it. Over the next several years, Ray embarked on a number of small crimes, serving various jail times. Somehow, Ray managed to escape from prison on two different occasions. James Earl Ray, a career criminal who had briefly served in the U.S. Army, shot the advocate of non-violent resistance. Ray Kroc was an American entrepreneur best known for expanding McDonalds from a local chain to the worlds most profitable restaurant franchise operation. Soon, they seemed to have their answer. On July 19, he returned to U.S. and the following March he pleaded guilty to murdering King. James Earl Ray was an American criminal with a Danish background, convicted of the assassination of civil rights and anti-war activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ray was convicted on March 10, 1969, after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Both Ray and King arrived in Memphis in early April. 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. Whether anybody helped him indirectly has yet to be determined. 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. [10], While in Mexico, Ray, using the alias Eric Starvo Galt, attempted to establish himself as a pornographic film director. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty pleathus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentenceand was sentenced to . On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Ray was convicted on his 41st birthday after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. James Earl. And Ray even pled guilty to murdering King after he was arrested. They quickly found the rifle with Rays fingerprints on it. [citation needed]. ), where he secured a second Canadian passport (May 16), and back to London (May 17?). He was 70. His sister Marjorie died in a fire as a young child in 1933. Evidence does suggest that Ray had little stomach for the integration policies that were sweeping the country. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. 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. Speech of Senator Robert C. Byrd, Senate Journal, Appendix Two, March 29, 1968. He spent much of his time in Los Angeles volunteering at the Wallace campaign headquarters in North Hollywood. [6] Ray left school at the age of 12. Ray dropped out of school around the age of 12 but had trouble making anything stick. Martin Luther King Jr. giving his last speech, Ive Been To The Mountaintop, on April 3, 1968. An international manhunt led to his capture in June 1968 at Heathrow Airport in London, where he was caught carrying two fake Canadian passports. He said that a Memphis police officer was the one who had actually killed King and that Jowers had stashed the gun. Bettmann/Contributor via Getty ImagesMartin Luther King Jr. giving his last speech, Ive Been To The Mountaintop, on April 3, 1968. A courtroom artist, Sandhu drew Ray during his trial for a prison escape attempt. James Earl Ray's FBI wanted poster featured 1960 booking shots and a list of nine aliases. He left school when he was 15 and later joined the US Army towards the end of World War II but he struggled to adapt to . James Earl Ray in 1977. Menu. There was one week in 1968 when much happened. Ray was born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, the son of Lucille Ray (ne Maher) and George Ellis Ray. [12] His chief interest, however, was the George Wallace presidential campaign. Omissions? Ray was spotted at the scene and, almost immediately after the killing,. [37] A year was added to Ray's previous sentence, increasing it to 10 decades. I Do Understand Racism'. Description. Ray's first conviction for criminal activity, a burglary in California, came in 1949. On April 2, 1968, Ray packed a bag and drove to Memphis. Investigators announced that James Earl Ray, an escaped prisoner, had fatally shot King. A guilty. 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 . 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. Later, in the early 1990s, he suggested a conspiracy involving the government had been behind the assassination. [13], He considered emigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where a predominantly white minority regime had unilaterally assumed independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. His spouse is Anna Sandhu Ray (m. 1978-1993). For some 50 years, the federal government has maintained that James Earl Ray was the gunman who assassinated King that day. 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. [38] The tests ultimately proved inconclusive. "I . Later in life his pleas for a trial were encouraged by some civil-rights leaders, notably the King family. Joseph Blakeney Brown Jr. (born July 5, 1947), known as Judge Joe Brown, is a former American lawyer and television personality. In 1933, Ray suffered his first real tragedy when his four-year-old sister died after playing with matches and setting herself on fire. Shortly after the shot was fired, witnesses saw Ray fleeing from a rooming house across the street from the motel where he had been renting a room. 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. But officials dont believe Jowerss story. Was James earl ray white? 2023 TIME USA, LLC. 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. Ray died at Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 23, 1998. Corrections? Ray dismissed Foreman as his attorney and thereafter derisively called him "Percy Fourflusher." Huie investigated this story and discovered that Ray lied about some details. The parents of James Earl Ray are James Gerald Ray,Lucille Ray. Fifty years later, some questions linger about why exactly the civil rights leader was targeted and whether the shooter acted alone. [8] He was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. On June 10, 1977, Ray and six other convicts escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee. With rates currently down to half that in 2018 (18%), these theories seem unlikely to go away any time soon. James Earl Ray was born in a poor family on March 10, 1928 in Alton, Illinois, USA. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband.. Second Edition, Tennessee Waltz - the Making of a Political Prisoner. James. [36] However, Ray spent the remainder of his life unsuccessfully attempting to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a jury trial. Something triggered something in him, Sides says, but exactly what that trigger was is unclear. She graduated from Oberlin College, where she earned a double degree in American History and French. He claimed that, as a fugitive, he had met a blond Cuban named Raoul or Raul. Ray said he worked for Raoul in a gun-running enterprise, and he bought a .30-06 hunting rifle for him in Birmingham, Alabama. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, the United States erupted into chaos and countless activists demanded to know who had killed the iconic civil rights leader. James Earl Ray hated him. James Earl Ray in 1966, two years before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. James Earl Rays mugshot from 1955. King vs. Loyd Jowers and conspirators unknown. [7], Ray committed a variety of crimes prior to the murder of King. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. 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. 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. Housed at the Missouri State Penitentiary, Ray managed to escape the facility in 1967. First pu 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. "I think I have figured out the tea party," the actor recently said on the "Smiley and West" radio show. In March 1960 Ray started a 20-year sentence for the crimes. 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. [21], After purchasing the rifle and accessories, Ray drove back to Atlanta. Even a 1978 special congressional committee said there was the "likelihood" that Ray did not act alone. Some have indicated that King vs. Jowers was nothing more than a promotional stunt. One of Kings sons Dexter had expressed his adamant belief that Ray was not his fathers assassin. That investigation declassified scores of memos detailing the bureaus abusive behavior, but did not reveal any evidence that the FBI had formally plotted his death. 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. Though intelligent, he was quick to anger. Each year, the third Monday in January is a celebration to commemoratethe life and accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr., the tireless civil rights activist who was gunned down in Memphis, TN, in 1968. 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 But Ray soon proved to be an inept criminal. 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. Riots erupted in Memphis; one person was killed and sixty were injured. The House Assassinations Committee examining evidence in the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images). James Earl Ray is the disturbed man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. On the map, the locations of the church and residence of Martin Luther King Jr. were circled. After shooting King, Ray immediately fled, setting off a manhunt that would last more than two months and cover five countries. Born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, was the eldest of George and Lucille Ray's nine children. James Earl Ray was a racist.. And he asserted that he did not "personally shoot Dr. King," but may have been "partially responsible without knowing it," hinting at a conspiracy. What would it have taken for the Goldmans and the Browns to have believed Orenthals story that he was innocent? Its important to note that this verdict was not a criminal conviction, as is sometimes erroneously implied when this case surfaces online. This had long been a consequence of the compromise made a lifetime earlier to end Reconstruction. [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. Ray was born in Alton, IL,in 1928, the son of working class Scots-Irish parents. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom . On April 4, 1968, Ray stood in the bathtub of the bathroom, balanced his rifle on a window ledge and shot King as the civil rights leader was standing on a balcony outside of his motel room. 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. 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. It was a theory she maintained until her death in 2006 that has so far never been proven. Digital 2. 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.). 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. His claim was that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy of the otherwise unidentified man named "Raul who was a blond Cuban. These claims led Kings estate to sue Jowers in 1999 for a symbolic $100 in a wrongful death civil action. 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 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. Neither party made his goals part of their platform. He made the FBI Most Wanted List before his recapture. 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. 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. The 12-person jury verdict unanimous exonerated the "patsy" James Earl Ray for any role in the assassination of MLK. 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. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. In renouncing his guilt, Ray raised the spectre of a conspiracy behind Kings murder but offered scant evidence to support his claim. Then, discover the true story behind the FBIs infamous Martin Luther King Jr. tapes. 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. Finally, Americans anguished over the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. had the who. But what about the why?. . 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. That year, Kings son Dexter Scott King visited Ray in prison to draw attention to the familys push to appeal his case. There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta King said at a press conference in 1999, according to The King Center. After returning to Alton and moving back in with his grandmother, he blazed through a number of odd jobs. 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. 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