[16] On March 18, 1968, Ray left Los Angeles and began a cross-country drive to Atlanta, Georgia. 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. All three bore the fingerprints of an escaped convict named James Earl Ray. Ray was sentenced to a 99 year sentence, with another year added after his escape in 1977. 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. He shot dead the minister as he was standing on a motel balcony. The other people involved in this conspiracy, Jowers said, included Memphis police officers, a Mafia member and the infamous Raoul. [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 escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary on April 23, 1967; and in Memphis, Tennessee, nearly a year later, on April 4, 1968, from a window of a neighbouring rooming house, he shot King, who was standing on the balcony of a motel room. The paper reported King's planned return trip to Memphis, Tennessee, which was scheduled for April 1, 1968. He maintained that he was innocent of killing MLK until his own death in 1998. His father's name was George Ellis Ray and his mother's name was Lucille. Then, Raoul threw it in the Mississippi River. 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. Months later, he recanted his confession, without effect. On the map, the locations of the church and residence of Martin Luther King Jr. were circled. "I . This organization would later morph into the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei better known as the NAZI party. And teachers at his school where Ray often showed up barefoot and in ragged clothes noted that he violated all regulations. 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. In March 1960 Ray started a 20-year sentence for the crimes. In 1999, James Earl Ray was found innocent of killing Martin Luther King Jr. in the same way O.J. But despite having a suspect in mind, it took investigators much longer to actually track him down. James Earl is known for Fired Up! 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.. 1. 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. Digital James Earl Ray was a racist.. Ray struggled to adapt to military life and was eventually discharged for ineptitude and lack of adaptability in 1948. [19], Ray was soon on the road again and drove his Mustang to Birmingham, Alabama. Over the decades, the story twisted and turned. James Earl Ray has 7 siblings in His family: John Larry Ray, Suzan Ray, Melba Ray, Marjorie Ray, Franklin Ray, Jerry Ray . Hardcover, 480 pages. YouTube James Earl Ray in 1977. On June 10, 1977, Ray and six other convicts escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee. Ray was spotted at the scene and, almost immediately after the. The two married in 1978 and divorced in 1992. Pointing to the FBIs deep hatred of King, they suggest that his assassination was part of a larger conspiracy. Over the next several years, Ray embarked on a number of small crimes, serving various jail times. James. FBIs infamous Martin Luther King Jr. tapes. The drifter left after a 45-minute session and never came back. Barely 48 hours later, on March 31st, Johnson would publicly announce that he would not seek reelection. 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. If this self-seeking rabble-rouser is allowed to go through with his plans here, Washington may well be treated to the same kind of violence, destruction, looting, and bloodshed.1. [8] He was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. The day after the trial ended, Coretta King held a press conference in Atlanta to praise the decision. Take a look below for 27 more strange and bizarre facts about James Earl Ray. 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. While there, Ray attended a local bartending school and took dance lessons. [7], Ray committed a variety of crimes prior to the murder of King. He pled guilty to shooting King on March 10, 1969, to avoid the death penalty, and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Not long before Ray's death, Dexter King, Dr. King's son, visited the man presumed to be his father's killer. James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. Ray died at Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 23, 1998. Magazines, Digital 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. 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. While there, he started a new life of crime. 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. 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. Public DomainJames Earl Rays mugshot from 1955. The Rhodesian government expressed its disapproval. Actor James Earl Jones perhaps best known as the melodious, mellifluous voice of Darth Vader (or Mufasa, depending on your generation and general geekitude) was . 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. FBI investigators at the time traced the shot to a rooming house across the street, and witnesses directed them to a large bundle dropped on the sidewalk after the shooting. He spent much of his time in Los Angeles volunteering at the Wallace campaign headquarters in North Hollywood. 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. 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 Menu. In 1933, Ray suffered his first real tragedy when his four-year-old sister died after playing with matches and setting herself on fire. James Earl Ray, Playboy Interview - A Candid Conversation About Conspiracy and Escape, September 1977 Written by Kennedys&King. Dedicated to the political vision and legacy of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., . Who that James earl ray? 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 . He also bought a Redfield 2x-7x scope, which he had mounted to the rifle. His claim was that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy of the otherwise unidentified man named "Raul who was a blond Cuban. 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. 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. He shot and killed King in Memphis on April 4, 1968, confessing to the crime the following March. Ray had continued using the Galt alias after his stint in Mexico, but when he made this purchase, he gave his name as Harvey Lowmeyer. His sister Marjorie died in a fire as a young child in 1933. The magazine reported that the test results showed "Ray did, in fact, kill Martin Luther King Jr. and that he did so alone." King and his associates came to town on April 3 and checked into the Lorraine Motel. 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. Despite a stint in prison, Ray continued on this path into the 1950s. But while at the Missouri State Penitentiary, Ray took a fateful step. James Earl Ray would have fit in just perfect with MAGA Before all the MLK quotes begin in a couple of weeks remember; MLK, didn't end racism. Exactly what led Ray to kill King continues to be a source of debate, as does his role in the murder. Eventually, Ray drifted west to Los Angeles. There is an important flaw in that logic as well; the defendant was only sued for $100, which he was ordered to pay. 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 72 hours after his guilty plea, James Earl Ray stayed quiet. Simpson was found guilty of killing his wife Nicole and Ron Goldman - in a civil trial. First pu He said his lawyers were incompetent, and that proved false. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Louis. 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. The source of his money is the single biggest question.. The parents of James Earl Ray are James Gerald Ray,Lucille Ray. 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. Whether anybody helped him indirectly has yet to be determined. A consequence of Kings alleged involvement in those riots was that it caught the attention of some powerful politicians. Actor: Fired Up!. 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. 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. 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". 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. James Earl Ray in 1966, two years before the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. James Earl Rays mugshot from 1955. He shot and killed Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. YouTubeJames Earl Ray in 1977. 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. Three months later to the day, the man in Von Koss' office whose actual name was James Earl Ray fatally shot King on the . They were recaptured on June 13. Three days later, Ray recanted his confession. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. 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. He was believed to have been en route to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which was at the time a haven for white supremacists. Four decades later, Sides, an editor-at-large for Outside magazine and the author of the historical books Ghost Soldiers and . He enlisted in the U.S. Army but was discharged for ineptness and lack of adaptability to military service in 1948. It is descended into a woke, neo-socialist, radically green party. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old convicted armed robber who had escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Mo., on April 23, 1967, pleaded guilty on March 10, 1969, in Shelby County (Tenn.) Criminal Court to the first degree murder of Dr. King. 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. For the first 25 years after Kings death, Jowers did not claim any involvement in the murder. 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.". ''. I dont know what happened, but the truth of what happened to Dr. King should be made available for historys sake.. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations, she said. Back in Memphis, Ray pleaded guilty, forfeiting a trial, and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. 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. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Earl-Ray, James Earl Ray - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.: The assassin: James Earl Ray. After his assassination, he was memorialized by Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Yes, the President is part of the. . 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 . Entire books have been written about the role James Earl Ray played in the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968. 2023 Biography and the Biography logo are registered trademarks of A&E Television Networks, LLC. But even if Ray had help, the evidence strongly pointed to him pulling the trigger. Whether he was guilty or innocent, James Earl Ray led an eventful life from behind bars. And what actually happened on that terrible day in Memphis? In 1955, he was convicted of mail fraud after stealing money orders in Hannibal, Missouri. But not everyone was convinced that the story stopped there in part because Rays guilty plea stopped a trial from proceeding. Ray was spotted at the scene and, almost immediately after the killing, his fingerprints were found on the gun. He was a fervent supporter of George Wallace, the Alabama governor who notoriously gave the 1963 "Segregation Now, Segregation Forever," and he was passionate about emigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to be a part of the white minority in power there at the time. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles. The facts are these. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Bettmann/Contributor via Getty ImagesMartin Luther King Jr. giving his last speech, Ive Been To The Mountaintop, on April 3, 1968. After shooting King, Ray immediately fled, setting off a manhunt that would last more than two months and cover five countries. [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. He was 70. The evidence brought forth by attorney William Pepper was so powerful . Even a 1978 special congressional committee said there was the "likelihood" that Ray did not act alone. 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. The first time he tried to steal from someone, he left behind his identification. Carter, who has rarely used his full name-James Earl Carter, Jr.-was born October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. Those prints were already among the FBIs records for wanted individuals. His friends in prison remember Ray flying into a rage whenever King appeared on TV, sneering, Somebodys got to get him. The rifle with Rays fingerprints didnt create tell-tale grooves on bullets, which ballistic tests usually use to match a gun to a bullet. 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. Edward, Earl of Wessex is the youngest child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. And Ray even pled guilty to murdering King after he was arrested. Peanut farming, talk of politics, and devotion to the Baptist faith were . So, are there are still remaining questions about how everything happened the day of Kings assassination? This organization would later morph into the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei better known as the NAZI party. No comments: Post a Comment. [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. [2] James Earl Ray was the oldest of nine children,[3] including John Larry Ray,[4] Franklin Ray, Jerry William Ray,[5] Melba Ray, Carol Ray Pepper, Suzan Ray, and Marjorie Ray. Joseph Blakeney Brown Jr. (born July 5, 1947), known as Judge Joe Brown, is a former American lawyer and television personality. Did James Earl Ray Really Assassinate Martin Luther King Jr. Or Was He Set Up? But he found it difficult to adapt to the military's strict codes of conduct. 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. CAPTION: Ray was apprehended (harnessed and handcuffed) for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., in 1968 .
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