The FBI had just caught James Earl Ray at Heathrow Airport in London. 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. Hoover once told a group of reporters, on the record, that King was the most notorious liar in the country., You are done: A secret letter to Martin Luther King Jr. sheds light on FBIs malice. I would not accept the fact that James Earl Ray pulled the trigger, and thats all that matters, said Young, who noted that Kings death came after the killings of John F. Kennedy and Malcolm X and just months before the slaying of Robert F. Kennedy. That claim prompted the family to push unsuccessfully for a new trial. He also bought a Redfield 2x-7x scope, which he had mounted to the rifle. His chosen profession was theft and armed robbery, and after his third felony conviction in 1959, he was sentenced to 20 years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. Historical figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. tend to be the subject of complicated conspiracy theories, particularly when they are vectors for widespread societal change. 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. [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. John Campbell, who investigated the case for years in the Shelby County, Tenn., district attorneys office, said that Rays version of events kept changing. His office issued a report in 1998 saying Ray was responsible. Pepper said the CIA could have fabricated the records. Nor have any of the conspiracy theories advanced in the last 30 years, including the Jowers and the Wilson allegations, survived critical examination. 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. Kershaw convinced Ray to submit to a polygraph test as part of an interview with Playboy. She was also a guest speaker for the womens branch of the KKK. Pepper wrote three books outlining the conspiracy, most recently The Plot to Kill King in 2016, which were largely ignored by the media. Convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. (19281998), Speeches, writings, movements, and protests, Initial convictions and first escape from prison, Martin Luther King Jr. assassination conspiracy theories, Interview with James Earl Ray by John Auble, United States House Select Committee on Assassinations, "James Earl Ray, 70, Killer of Dr. King, Dies in Nashville", "The assassin's brother: John Larry Ray marks time in Quincy, still trying to set the record straight", "James Earl Ray: The Man Who Killed Dr. Martin Luther King, chapter 3", "Report of laboratory, FBI headquarters to Memphis, Apr. He had entered a guilty plea on the advice of his attorney, Percy Foreman, to avoid the sentence of death by electrocution, which would have been a possible outcome of a jury trial. Rather, it appears that Jowers contrived and promoted a sensational story of a plot to kill Dr. King. In the U.S. Senate, Democrat Majority Leader, Robert KKK Byrd, was a former Grand Kleagle, a Astride all this controversy for the last 40 years has been William Pepper, a New York lawyer and civil rights activist who knew and worked with King. Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. Housed at the Missouri State Penitentiary, Ray managed to escape the facility in 1967. 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. Given the minor sum of money awarded, a jury would have little incentive to not find in favor of an account supported by both sides of a flawed case. A confirmed racist and small-time criminal, James Earl Ray began plotting the assassination of revered civil rights leader .css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Martin Luther King Jr. in early 1968. Huie investigated this story and discovered that Ray lied about some details. Kings killing sent shock waves through American society at the time, and is still And their view of the case is shared by other respected black leaders. The Democrats were furious at Lincoln and resisted Black America gaining political power. 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. The two married in 1978 and divorced in 1992. I say that in the hope of creating an awareness of how this happened, and that the involvement of government in these events may cease with respect to other leaders who will emerge.. Biden authored a crime bill that forced more black males into prison. The man denied any involvement and cooperated with Justice Department investigators in 1999, who found work records showing he could not have traveled widely to meet Ray in 1967 and 68. It pains my heart, said Bernice King, 55, the youngest of Martin Luther Kings four children and the executive director of the King Center in Atlanta, that James Earl Ray had to spend his life in prison paying for things he didnt do.. The Justice Department also found the evidence presented in the civil trial to be lacking in credibility: The evidence introduced in King v. Jowers to support various conspiracy allegations consisted of either inaccurate and incomplete information or unsubstantiated conjecture, supplied most often by sources, many unnamed, who did not testify. finds no conspiracy in King assassination", "Third Inquiry Affirms Others: Ray Alone Was King's Killer", "Autopsy confirms Ray died of liver failure". [13], He considered emigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where a predominantly white minority regime had unilaterally assumed independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. August 29, 1968 #286 One week on the list Ray was arrested at Londons Heathrow Airport on June 8, 1968, a few weeks after the crime. Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998. I believe thats exactly what happened, said Martin King III. Investigators announced that James Earl Ray, an escaped prisoner, had fatally shot King. [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?" In a time of chaos, a breakout year for black athletes, At Folsom prison, Johnny Cash found his cause. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty pleathus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentenceand was sentenced [19], Ray was soon on the road again and drove his Mustang to Birmingham, Alabama. Please attempt to sign up again. We were living in the period of assassinations,Young said. Three days after pleading guilty he recanted his confession, and for the next 28 years maintained his innocence, but by then it was too late. He had Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry and had a Catholic upbringing. Another is the shaky foundation on which the conspiracy theory rests is a matter of some nuance. By all accounts, the two main parties involved, the King family and Jowers, had disparate goals served by the civil suit's outcome; and no substantive evidence was presented to establish any of the claims made by Jowers had any merit. At that point, Hardin In December 1993, Jowers appeared on ABC's Prime Time Live and radically changed his story, claiming he participated in a plot to assassinate Dr. King. For example, he not only identified two different people as the assassin, but also most recently claimed that he saw the assassin and did not recognize him. The one thing the conspiracy rumor correctly states is a 1999 civil trial reached a verdict that cited the existence of a conspiracy to assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. What it neglects to mention is the relative worth of such a judgment: The verdict in question was civil rather than criminal, the sole named defendant was someone who stood to gain both publicity and money from repeating his claims, and the King family's motivation in bringing the suit was to validate their long-held suspicions a larger conspiracy was at play in the death of the civil rights leader. Its hard to know exactly who. By signing up you are agreeing to our, What Happened to Martin Luther King Jr.'s Last Campaigns, The 25 Defining Works of the Black Renaissance. [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. Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? The mock trial jury finally acquitted Ray. No other parties (including any branches or agents of the United States Government) were named as defendants in King v. Jowers, and no identification was provided by Jowers of the purported other parties with whom he colluded to assassinate King. I Am a Man: The ugly Memphis sanitation workers strike that led to MLKs assassination, The King family has lauded Pepper repeatedly, and he was honored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for his unceasing commitment in the pursuit of justice., I think the people of this country are entitled to know the truth, Pepper said. James Earl Ray began a record of scrapes, big and small, with the law serving terms in Joliet and Pontiac prisons in Illinois and Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. He can be emailed at mantecarepublicans@yahoo.com, Ceres a cleaner place now due to beefed up Code Enforcement staff, CUSD keeping watchful eye on declining student enrollment, City prepares for new digs for Public Works, Adamsville: Stanislaus County's short-lived & forgotten county seat, CUSD honors standout classified and confidential employees, Espinoza, Breshears represent Hawks at State, Tough draw for CHS girls in soccer playoffs, CV boys advance to Division-I semifinal round, CV grad Velasquez wraps up UC Davis soccer career, Theyre not getting away with it in Ceres. I think it was all planned.. Democrats fought a bloody civil war against Lincoln and the Republicans plan to free Black America. 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. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. Findings by federal authorities and the House Select Committee on Assassinations are confident about some things. Digital You come up with a better outcome, with evidence to support it, Ill support your theory. He remains adamant that Ray was the gunman but likely had help that should have been investigated in 1968 and was not. That thank you got her censured by Democrats to silence her as she stated Democrats have ousted her from the Democrat Party and hinder her abilities to do her job. Conspiracies have long gripped the American imagination, from JFKs assassination in 1963 to Deputy White House Counsel Vince Fosters suicidein 1993 to Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Richs slayingin 2016. 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 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. [6] Ray left school at the age of 12. In 2000, the report authored by assistant attorney general Barry Kowalski found that Jowers had changed his story repeatedly and that neither he nor the ex-FBI agent were credible. That doesnt mean there are no questions left. [10], While in Mexico, Ray, using the alias Eric Starvo Galt, attempted to establish himself as a pornographic film director. [49], Before his death, Ray was transferred to the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville, a maximum-security prison with hospital facilities. And so after 50 years, the King assassination seems destined to remain mired in controversy, the subject of infinite debate over whether Ray was a lone gunman inspired by racism, a hired assassin aided by secret government forces, or simply a patsy manipulated to kill a civil rights hero. The U.S. Justice Department concluded in June 2000 the "allegations originating with Loyd Jowers are not credible": After reviewing all available materials from prior official investigations and other sources, including the evidence from King v. Jowers, and after conducting a year and a half of original investigation, we have concluded that the allegations originating with Loyd Jowers and Donald Wilson are not credible. WebJack Kershaw. Cities were burning. I had nothing to do with killing [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.]. Ray's first conviction for criminal activity, a burglary in California, came in 1949. He has claimed that while in Montreal he met a man named Raul, of varying physical descriptions over the years, who enlisted him in several small gunrunning schemes, and instructed him to buy a rifle in Birmingham, Ala. On the afternoon of April 4, Ray checked into a boardinghouse in Memphis, with a bar called Jims Grill on the first floor. Rays lawyer J.B. Stoner was a known white supremacist, and Ray who also made clear his admiration for Hitler had done volunteer work for the 1968 presidential campaign of Alabamas former segregationist Governor George Wallace, who had gone head-to-head with King in Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery. Name: James Earl Birth Year: 1928 Birth date: March 10, 1928 Birth State: Illinois Birth City: Alton Birth Country: United States Gender: Male Best Known For: James James Lawson, a Memphis pastor and civil rights institution who helped mentor King, said he began visiting Ray in the Memphis jail in 1969 when Ray complained After this, Ray was on the run and was captured in the UK. Ray was born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, the son of Lucille Ray (ne Maher) and George Ellis Ray. Since his television appearance, Jowers and his attorney have given additional statements about the assassination to the media, the King family, Ray's defenders, law enforcement personnel, relatives, friends, and courts. 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. Please try again later. 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. He was believed to have been en route to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which was at the time a haven for white supremacists. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. [16] On March 18, 1968, Ray left Los Angeles and began a cross-country drive to Atlanta, Georgia. Some witnesses, including then-New York Times reporter Earl Caldwell, said they saw a man moving in the thick bushes behind Jims Grill, below the bathroom. At the same time, the misconduct of Hoover and the FBI was coming to light. Thats quiet an assumption. James Earl Ray was in and out of prison before he committed murder so he wasnt allowed to vote. He thought the democrat 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. Those are about the only facts that arent in dispute. Was James earl ray white? On October 10, 1959, Ray and James Owens, an ex-convict, held up a Kroger store in St. Louis. So, despite 50 years of evidence fingering James Earl Ray and a consensus about his role among most scholars who study King, some people remain unconvinced. Pepper became convinced of Rays innocence and continued to investigate the case even after Ray died. Today, Planned Parenthood is predominately in the black community with half of all black pregnancies ending in an abortion. King was then assassinated by James Earl Ray, a Democrat. In summary, we have determined that Jowers' claims about an alleged conspiracy are materially contradictory and unsubstantiated. Then Loyd Jowers, the owner of Jims Grill, began claiming publicly that he was involved in a conspiracy to kill King. Inspired by the failed jail break by James Earl Ray, the man convicted for the assassination of civil rights activist Martin Luther King and serving a 99-year sentence, 23, 1998, at the age of 70. The Democrat Party and Biden are no longer slave owners to Black America as they have a right to make an independent and educated decision. According to the criminal justice system of the state of Tennessee, James Earl Ray fired the shot from the second-floor bathroom of the boardinghouse. Ray died at Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 23, 1998. Among those who could have been pardoned was James Earl Ray, who just a decade before had assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. But nothing changed afterward. James Earl Ray, the man who confessed to killing Martin Luther King Jr. later recanted and insisted he was set up by a man named "Raul." Later, in the early 1990s, he suggested a conspiracy involving the government had been behind the assassination. But he didnt have the FBI, the CIA, the Memphis police or the mafia.. Finally, on July 19, 1968, the FBI caught up with Ray in London and extradited him to the United States. In March 1960 Ray started a 20-year sentence for the crimes. He was constantly in and out of prison so he never voted. He was a segregationist but neither a Republican or a Democrat. [52], Ten years later, Ray's other brother, John Larry Ray, co-authored a book with Lyndon Barsten titled Truth At Last: The Untold Story Behind James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.[39]. WebJames Earl Ray was an American assassin convicted for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. After his conviction, he spent all his life in prison. Im in the car business. Recordings and photos of King having sex with women other than his wife were offered to reporters and government officials, often by Hoover himself, and sent to King associates. [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. An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. In 1977, James Earl Ray, who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr., escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in the town of Petros in Morgan County, Tennessee. The photo still haunts us with what was lost. He defended Ray in a mock trial on HBO in 1993 (Ray was found not guilty), and filed and tried the Memphis civil suit that found the government liable for Kings death. Why James Earl Ray Killed Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 | Time He has spoken around the world to anyone who will listen, including recently at the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, where King was killed. And Ray even pled guilty to murdering King after he was arrested. In the years following Ray's arrest, questions arose about his exact involvement in King's murder. Martin Luther King Jr.s scorn for white moderates in his Birmingham jail letter, The determined dad who took Linda Brown by the hand and made history. Our thorough investigation, Kowalski said recently, just like four official investigations before it, found no credible or reliable evidence that Doctor King was killed by conspirators who framed James Earl Ray. 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. In 1952, he served two years for the armed robbery of a taxi driver in Illinois. [1], In February 1935, Ray's father, known by the nickname Speedy, passed a bad check in Alton, Illinois, and then moved to Ewing, Missouri, where the family changed their name to Raynes to avoid law enforcement. Ray then fired Kershaw after discovering the attorney had been paid $11,000 by the magazine in exchange for the interview and instead hired attorney Mark Lane to provide him with legal representation. Youre going to kill somebody and then drop the gun right there? Ray claimed that he had given the gun to Raul, but only Rays fingerprints were on the gun. They sued Jowers for participation in a conspiracy to murder King. After Coretta King and her family pleaded with President Bill Clinton in 1998 to reinvestigate the case, Attorney General Janet Reno assigned civil rights special counsel Barry Kowalski, who previously prosecuted the Los Angeles police officers in the Rodney King beating, to review the newest conspiracy allegations. While Biden and the Democrats feel Black America is their voting plantation, if a black man or woman thinks for themselves, as Biden stated, you aint black as if their skin color has changed. Three decades of legal machinations never succeeded in reopening the case, but they revealed new details and led to new theories of how King might have been killed. , questions arose about his exact involvement in King 's murder murder King escaped,... To kill somebody and then drop the gun was not in March 1960 Ray started a 20-year sentence the... 1990S, he suggested a conspiracy to kill somebody and then drop the gun to Raul, only! 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