2. King vs. Loyd Jowers and conspirators unknown. 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. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. 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 . [49] On June 9, 2000, the United States Department of Justice released a 150-page report rejecting allegations that there was a conspiracy to assassinate King, including the determination of the Memphis civil court jury. But what do you know about James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King? Dedicated to the political vision and legacy of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., . 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. The House Assassinations Committee examining evidence in the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images). There are records of Ray receiving plastic surgery in Los Angeles about a month before Kings murder in Memphis. Using their logic, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. should be attributed to a Democratic U.S. [8] He was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. But not everyone was convinced that the story stopped there in part because Rays guilty plea stopped a trial from proceeding. [28] He stayed briefly in Lisbon, Portugal, and returned to London. Ray fled to Toronto, secured a Canadian passport through a travel agency, flew to London (May 5), then to Lisbon (May 7? Most famously, in 1997 a dying Ray told Dexter King, his victims son, that he didnt do it. . Whether he was guilty or innocent, James Earl Ray led an eventful life from behind bars. That claim prompted the family to push unsuccessfully for a new trial. He escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1967 by hiding in a truck transporting bread from the prison bakery. When Kings son, Dexter, visited Ray in prison, Dexter asked Ray point-blank: Did you kill my father?. Yes, the President is part of the. It was a theory she maintained until her death in 2006 that has so far never been proven. Updates? Indeed, Ray seemed to struggle from the start. Ray was born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, the son of Lucille Ray (ne Maher) and George Ellis Ray. Investigators announced that James Earl Ray, an escaped prisoner, had fatally shot King. No I didn't." Take a look below for 27 more strange and bizarre facts about James Earl Ray. Ex-wife of MLK assassin James Earl Ray charged with animal cruelty in Tennessee June 23, 2021 11:30am Updated Madison County Jail More On: The ex-wife of assassin James Earl Ray, who. 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. Who that James earl ray? FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. It didnt help that Rays story kept changing. And Ray even pled guilty to murdering King after he was arrested. [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. 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 died at Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 23, 1998. 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. 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. Ray, was found by bloodhounds about eightmiles away from the prison shortly after the escape attempt. 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. U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, Martin Luther King Jr. Records Collection Act, King: A Filmed Record Montgomery to Memphis, The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, Joseph Schwantner: New Morning for the World; Nicolas Flagello: The Passion of Martin Luther King. 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. He was sentenced to 90 days in prison, but the lockup did little to reform him. Born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, was the eldest of George and Lucille Ray's nine children. [43] [44], Coretta Scott King said, "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. Soon, they seemed to have their answer. 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). 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. On April 2, 1968, Ray packed a bag and drove to Memphis. The first time he tried to steal from someone, he left behind his identification. On April 4, 1967 a year to the day prior to Kings assassination King delivered his Beyond Vietnam speech at Riverside Baptist Church in New York City. In 1933, Ray suffered his first real tragedy when his four-year-old sister died after playing with matches and setting herself on fire. He pleaded guilty to murder on the advice of his attorney in order to avoid a jury trial. His brother said that Ray admired Hitler and that Ray had said that he would make the U.S. an all-white country, no Jews or Negroes. Ray was also known to have been a supporter of George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama running for president, according to the Los Angeles Times. Frustrated with his results and jilted by the prostitute with whom he had formed a relationship, Ray left Mexico on or around November 16, 1967, [11] arriving in Los Angeles three days later. "I . 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. Using mail-ordered equipment, he filmed and photographed local prostitutes. After his assassination, he was memorialized by Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Author weaves memoir with fictional account of MLK's killer on the lam. The drifter left after a 45-minute session and never came back. Some believe the facts are just as history . Whether he was guilty or innocent, James Earl Ray led an eventful life from behind bars. [37] A year was added to Ray's previous sentence, increasing it to 10 decades. 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. Three days later, Ray recanted his confession. https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/james-earl-ray. . Anyone who remembers the looks on their faces, their resolve and their anger would have to concede that it would have required nothing short of cold hard facts. 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. Ray was spotted at the scene and, almost immediately after the killing, his fingerprints were found on the gun. [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?" He said his lawyers were incompetent, and that proved false. 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. Then, Raoul threw it in the Mississippi River. (2009), Gridiron Gang (2006) and The Lazarus Effect (2015). His home life was no better. What were James earl rays political views? 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. Dexter told Ray that he, along with the rest of the King family, believed Ray, and the family also urged publicly that Ray be granted a new trial. 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. YouTube James Earl Ray in 1977. 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. Three months later to the day, the man in Von Koss' office whose actual name was James Earl Ray fatally shot King on the . He shot and killed King in Memphis on April 4, 1968, confessing to the crime the following March. Please try again later. James Earl Ray has 7 siblings in His family: John Larry Ray, Suzan Ray, Melba Ray, Marjorie Ray, Franklin Ray, Jerry Ray . According to Harding, King had already severely angered Johnson by delivering that speech, which could have made Johnson quite receptive to Byrds sentiment. A courtroom artist, Sandhu drew Ray during his trial for a prison escape attempt. 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. [citation needed]. And he began to tell an unsettling story. Later, though, he claimed he left the prints to gain international notoriety. Ray said he wasnt in the room when King was shot, but he was unable to consistently explain where he had been, or keep other important details in his story straight. In King vs. Loyd Jowers and conspirators unknown, there were 70 witnesses called; twelve jurors found in favor of the King family, which held a press conference after the verdict. 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. For all Joe Biden's talk about "semi-fascist" and "un-American," "ultra-MAGA" Republicans, it is the Democratic Party that has far more radically changed. He left Toronto in late May on a flight to England. Both were aliases used by James Earl Ray. The incident was incredibly damaging to the cause of King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). 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. Somehow, Ray managed to escape from prison on two different occasions. Please attempt to sign up again. James Earl Ray is the man who shot and killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. James. 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. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. "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. Most of the public . Ray was born into a poor family on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois. Both Ray and King arrived in Memphis in early April. James Earl Ray's FBI wanted poster featured 1960 booking shots and a list of nine aliases. He shot dead the minister as he was standing on a motel balcony. 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. On June 10, 1977, Ray and six other convicts escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee. James Earl Ray is the disturbed man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. While some speculate this was an attempt to hide his identity before killing King, others point to Ray's lack of care about disguising himself in other elements of the assassination plot. Ray struggled to adapt to military life and was eventually discharged for ineptitude and lack of adaptability in 1948. FBI agents later found this map when they searched the room in which he was staying. He spent much of his time in Los Angeles volunteering at the Wallace campaign headquarters in North Hollywood. 1. 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. 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. Dexter King, son of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., meeting with James Earl Ray the man who confessed to killing King. He drifted around the Midwest, committing more crimes. Doubleday. He was believed to have been en route to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which was at the time a haven for white supremacists. These claims led Kings estate to sue Jowers in 1999 for a symbolic $100 in a wrongful death civil action. But that biography doesnt explain why or how Ray moved from committing property crime and supporting racists, to killing a national icon. In 1999, James Earl Ray was found innocent of killing Martin Luther King Jr. in the same way O.J. But Ray offered no motive himself. 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. Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998. Read an Excerpt. Said Byrd: Yesterday, Mr. President, the Nation was given a preview of what may be in store for this city by the outrageous and despicable riot that Martin Luther King helped to bring about in Memphis, Tenn. 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. [50], Ray died on April 23, 1998, at the age of 70, at the Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital from complications related to kidney disease and liver failure caused by hepatitis C.[51] His brother, Jerry, told CNN that his brother did not want to be buried or have his final resting place in the United States because of the way the government had framed him for murder. He made the FBI Most Wanted List before his recapture. He pursued a life of crime but seemed to have been a clumsy criminal. Ray was spotted at the scene and, almost immediately after the killing,. Surprisingly, it is indeed possible that officials recovered the wrong gun at the scene. First pu That year, Kings son Dexter Scott King visited Ray in prison to draw attention to the familys push to appeal his case. In 1955, he was convicted of mail fraud after stealing money orders in Hannibal, Missouri. [42], In 1998, and continuing into 1999, Pepper represented the King family in a wrongful death civil suit against Memphis restaurant owner Loyd Jowers, whose restaurant was near the Lorraine Motel. Yet given the way the bureau had treated her and her family, her suspicion of the FBI and its conclusions about her husbands killer came from a very reasonable place, says John McMillian, a history professor at Georgia State University. Indeed, the House Select Committee on Assassinations later speculated that Ray had killed King in order to collect a $50,000 bounty offered by Wallace supporters in St. Louis who wanted the civil rights leader dead. 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." . Peanut farming, talk of politics, and devotion to the Baptist faith were . He briefly escaped from prison in 1977 and survived a murder attempt in 1981. 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. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Magazines, Digital 2023 Biography and the Biography logo are registered trademarks of A&E Television Networks, LLC. James Earl Jones thinks he knows makes the tea party tick: racism. "Like a Fading Shadow" is Antonio Muoz Molina's dramatization of the hunted assassin James Earl Ray's obscure 10 . [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. Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom . On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. His first prison break happened in 1967, when he escaped the Missouri State Penitentiary on a bread truck before fleeing to Canada. But within Martin Luther Kings family, there remains a persistent belief that Ray is innocent, and was set up to take the fall. Ray pleaded guilty to the murder, something he'd spend the rest of his life trying to reverse, and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Was James earl ray white? He had Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry and had a Catholic upbringing. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty pleathus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentenceand was sentenced to . 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. But while at the Missouri State Penitentiary, Ray took a fateful step. 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 arrested at Londons Heathrow Airport on June 8, 1968, a few weeks after the crime. JAMES EARL RAY WANTED POSTER Rare original wanted poster, 10 1/4" x 16", issued by the FBI on April 19, 1968, seeking information leading to the arrest of JAMES EARL RAY (1928-1998), the assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. on charges of "Civil Rights - Conspiracy - Interstate Flight - Robbery". James Earl Ray in 1977. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty pleathus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentenceand was sentenced to . In 1959, he was caught stealing $120 in an armed robbery of a Kroger store in St. In 1961, Russian spy Gordon Lonsdale used a false Canadian passport for his espionage activities in England, as did his associates in the British naval . 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. Considered one of the greatest boxers of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson held the world welterweight title from 1946 to 1951, and by 1958, he had become the first boxer to win a divisional world championship five times. Bread truck before fleeing to Canada avoid a jury trial and the Biography are. Images ), almost immediately after the escape attempt Gang ( 2006 ) and the Biography logo are trademarks... 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