Whether he was guilty or innocent, James Earl Ray led an eventful life from behind bars. By Jerry B. Jenkins . A package was abandoned close to the site that included a rifle and binoculars, both found with Ray's fingerprints. 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. In 1933, Ray suffered his first real tragedy when his four-year-old sister died after playing with matches and setting herself on fire. A man named Vincent Harding is credited with writing most of it. Had he been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty. In the years following Ray's arrest, questions arose about his exact involvement in King's murder. James Earl Jones was the voice of Darth Vader What political part was Hitler part of? 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. 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. Please try again later. Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998. What Political Party was James Earl Ray part of? Top of Page He also bought a Redfield 2x-7x scope, which he had mounted to the rifle. James. He shot and killed Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. He was charged with drunkenness and breaking arrest, before getting discharged for ineptness and lack of adaptability in 1948. Two years later, his father abruptly decided to move the family from Alton to Ewing, Missouri, after he was caught passing a bad check. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. After reading about James Earl Ray, learn about the first and only time that Martin Luther King Jr. met Malcolm X. I Do Understand Racism'. James Earl Ray was a racist and quickly drawn to Wallace's segregationist platform. At one point, he claimed a person named Raul told him to kill King, but theres no convincing proof of such an idea, according to Sides. . 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. He was of Irish, Scots, and Welsh ancestry. James Earl Ray is the man who shot and killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. 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. 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. For some 50 years, the federal government has maintained that James Earl Ray was the gunman who assassinated King that day. Soon, they seemed to have their answer. Over the next several years, Ray embarked on a number of small crimes, serving various jail times. 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. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Trending. 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.). Carter, who has rarely used his full name-James Earl Carter, Jr.-was born October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. 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. [12] His chief interest, however, was the George Wallace presidential campaign. 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. 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. Ray was convicted on his 41st birthday after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Finally, on July 19, 1968, the FBI caught up with Ray in London and extradited him to the United States. The bureau wiretapped his phone and monitored his movements, taking advantage of times when he seemed particularly upset or depressed. ''. Those prints were already among the FBIs records for wanted individuals. [17], Arriving in Atlanta on March 24, 1968, Ray checked into a rooming house. Omissions? James Earl Ray, Playboy Interview - A Candid Conversation About Conspiracy and Escape, September 1977 Written by Kennedys&King. He shot and killed King in Memphis on April 4, 1968, confessing to the crime the following March. Kennedy's political opponents are believed to have received support from wealthy tycoons and the CIA agents in executing his assassination (Hald-Mortensen 75). Kings horrified associates point to the direction where they think the bullet came from as King lay dying at their feet. Ray was born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, the son of Lucille Ray (ne Maher) and George Ellis Ray. Most famously, in 1997 a dying Ray told Dexter King, his victims son, that he didnt do it. He is a former Shelby County, Tennessee Criminal Court judge and a former arbiter of the arbitration-based reality court show Judge Joe Brown . Speech of Senator Robert C. Byrd, Senate Journal, Appendix Two, March 29, 1968. Even a 1978 special congressional committee said there was the "likelihood" that Ray did not act alone. He spent much of his time in Los Angeles volunteering at the Wallace campaign headquarters in North Hollywood. 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. The facts are these. I went to Memphis to deliver a rifle to this man called Raoul, Ray explained to a journalist from The Tennessean. James Earl Ray tilstod drabet under den efterflgende retssag. [23][24][25], Ray fled to Atlanta in his white Ford Mustang, driving eleven hours. 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. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our. His father's name was George Ellis Ray and his mother's name was Lucille. Most of the public . He pursued a life of crime but seemed to have been a clumsy criminal. And he asserted that he did not "personally shoot Dr. King," but may have been "partially responsible without knowing it," hinting at a conspiracy. 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. 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. A consequence of Kings alleged involvement in those riots was that it caught the attention of some powerful politicians. He died on April 23, 1998, Nashville, TN. Findings by federal authorities and the House Select Committee on Assassinations are confident about some things. Huie investigated this story and discovered that Ray lied about some details. 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. But officials dont believe Jowerss story. First pu 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. Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting. But almost immediately after her husbands assassination, she suspected that the FBI, which had investigated the murder, was involved in it. James Earl Ray, a career criminal who had briefly served in the U.S. Army, shot the advocate of non-violent resistance. That year, Kings son Dexter Scott King visited Ray in prison to draw attention to the familys push to appeal his case. 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. [37] A year was added to Ray's previous sentence, increasing it to 10 decades. He broke out of prisons so many times that he earned the nickname the Mole.. Neither party made his goals part of their platform. James Earl Ray was born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, IL. But within Martin Luther Kings family, there remains a persistent belief that Ray is innocent, and was set up to take the fall. 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. 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. 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. On the map, the locations of the church and residence of Martin Luther King Jr. were circled. Born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, was the eldest of George and Lucille Ray's nine children. [32][33], Airport officials noticed that Ray carried another passport under a second name. 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. Maybe you would like to learn more about one of these? 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. [13], He considered emigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where a predominantly white minority regime had unilaterally assumed independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. The drifter left after a 45-minute session and never came back. According to The History Channel, Ray had two fake Canadian passports and an apparent plan to settle in Rhodesia, an unrecognized state ruled by a white minority in modern-day Zimbabwe. [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?" 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 died while that campaign was ongoing, but though the King family did win $100 in a 1999 wrongful death suit after the man charged as being part of a conspiracy didnt show up to the trial an official inquiry reiterated that the evidence against Ray was overwhelming and that there was no credibility to various theories that anyone else had been involved. But while at the Missouri State Penitentiary, Ray took a fateful step. 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. The Nazi party Is the president part of the political party? Investigators announced that James Earl Ray, an escaped prisoner, had fatally shot King. The rifle with Rays fingerprints didnt create tell-tale grooves on bullets, which ballistic tests usually use to match a gun to a bullet. 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. Ray dropped out of school around the age of 12 but had trouble making anything stick. 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. The King familys belief in Rays innocence was partly influenced by the strange case of Loyd Jowers, whod owned the restaurant below Rays rented room in Memphis. He maintained that he was innocent of killing MLK until his own death in 1998. 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. 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. Evidence does suggest that Ray had little stomach for the integration policies that were sweeping the country. 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. 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.". 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. 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. He carried a picture of Hitler, his idol. On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He is a male registered to vote in Wayne County, Michigan. His home life was no better. I dont know what happened, but the truth of what happened to Dr. King should be made available for historys sake.. He briefly escaped from prison in 1977 and survived a murder attempt in 1981. 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