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An avid newspaper reader, Ray passed his time reading The Atlanta Constitution. 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. Among those who could have been pardoned was James Earl Ray, who just a decade before had assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. On October 10, 1959, Ray and James Owens, an ex-convict, held up a Kroger store in St. Louis. Not everyone in the Kings circle agrees with the full extent of Peppers investigation, but they agree that Ray was framed. Until 1993, Jowers maintained in several public statements that he was merely serving customers in his tavern when Dr. King was shot. In summary, we have determined that Jowers' claims about an alleged conspiracy are materially contradictory and unsubstantiated. Also at issue is the difference between Ray's guilty plea in 1969, which avoided his undergoing a criminal trial, and the case cited by the rumors, which was a civil trial heard in 1999. 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. Then, at 6:01 p.m., she will lead a bell-ringing at the exact moment of the shooting, 39 times for every year of her fathers life, certain that the person who killed him has never been caught. ", And Gerald Posner, whose recent book, "Killing the Dream" made the case that Mr. Ray was the killer, said, "It distresses me greatly that the legal system was used in such a callous and farcical manner in Memphis. Ray began to claim that the man he knew only as Raul was present in Memphis on April 4, and that Ray himself was at a nearby gas station when the shot was fired. 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. President Lyndon B. Johnson sold them into the Democrat plantation stating, These Negroes, theyre getting pretty uppity these days and thats a problem for us since theyve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppitiness. He did not claim any involvement in the assassination or significant knowledge about it. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. He continued to visit Ray until his death and presided over his funeral. Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. v. CBS, Inc. Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), African American founding fathers of the United States, Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (Pueblo, Colorado), Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, San Francisco. 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. Those are about the only facts that arent in dispute. Ray struggled to adapt to military life and was eventually discharged for ineptitude and lack of adaptability in 1948. Using mail-ordered equipment, he filmed and photographed local prostitutes. One is rudimentary research would confirm the claim's basics (i.e., the verdict in a wrongful death civil action did allow that "government agencies" participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King), leading readers to believe the entirety of the rumor was factual. 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. More to the point, however, Jowers (who didn't even testify) was the only named party in the civil suit brought by the King family, and the judgment awarded in that case was a paltry $100, widely described as a token award to mark the trial's outcome. Among those who could have been pardoned was James Earl Ray, who just a decade before had assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. During a rainstorm on February 1, 1968, two black sanitation workers in Memphis lost their lives when the trucks compactor Questions and speculation may always surround the assassination of Dr. King and other national tragedies. We were living in the period of assassinations,Young said. He broke out of prisons so many times that he earned the nickname the Mole.. We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,contact us! 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. 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 April 4, 1968. Republicans introduced the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to end slavery, give citizenship, and give Black America the right to vote. All of this is therefore a very slender thread on which to hang the claim that the "U.S. government was proved responsible for King's assassination." At the time, it was said to be the FBI's most expensive and biggest investigation in its history. Im satisfied beyond a shadow of a doubt, Lawson said, that James Earl Ray neither pulled the trigger nor plotted to kill Martin Luther King.. 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. JFK conspiracy theories: The grassy knoll, Umbrella Man, LBJ and Ted Cruzs dad, Dave Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of King, said that the King children are part of a larger population of American people who need to believe that the assassination of a King or a Kennedy must be the work of mightier forces rather than victims of small-fry, lifetime losers., People need to see something of a balance between effect and cause, Garrow said. For example, in an impromptu, recorded conversation with a state investigator, Jowers characterized a central feature of his story that someone besides Ray shot Dr. King with a rifle other than the one recovered at the crime scene as "bullshit." 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. Pepper said the CIA could have fabricated the records. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our. As well, the gravity of the trial's supposed conclusion, when contrasted with the relatively little public discussion of that addendum to King's life, has lent credence to the belief the trial in question and its outcome were deliberately omitted from the news. We are going to continue our conversation about the King assassination. The Democrats opposed all Amendments. Biden authored a crime bill that forced more black males into prison. That some Americans didnt trust and still dont trust the governments conclusion on Kings murder says a lot about what was going on in America in the 1960s and 70s, when the Vietnam War and Watergate torpedoed Americans trust in government. Loyd Jowers was a Memphis restaurant owner who inserted himself into the narrative about King's death in the course of a 1993 television interview during which he claimed to have been party to a larger conspiracy to assassinate King. I believe thats exactly what happened, said Martin King III. WebJames Earl Ray deceased in prison; was a U.S. prisoner, and a British prisoner, apprehended June 8, White was arrested after a citizen recognized him from an article in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat newspaper. Important information from the historical record and our investigation contradicts and undermines it. Is this who we now are? Pepper first visited Ray in prison in 1978 along with Ralph Abernathy, one of Kings closest associates. After returning to Alton and moving back in with his grandmother, he blazed through a number of odd jobs. Born in a poor family, Ray had a difficult childhood as his father could not support his family. And contrary to the rumor's assertion, the 1999 civil case involving Jowers was widely reported by major news outlets at the time (including, as referenced above, the New York Times). Ray himself countered that he was not the only one involved in the crime. The largest government investigation, led by the House Select Committee on Assassinations under chief counsel Robert Blakey, theorized in 1979 that Ray committed the killing in the hope of collecting a $50,000 bounty offered by supporters of then-presidential candidate George Wallace in St. Louis, where Rays brothers lived. Furthermore, according to these rumors, the reason this relatively new information (King was murdered on 4 April 1968) comes as a surprise to many is the "mainstream media" intentionally suppressed it after the government's role in King's death was exposed: It's common for exaggerated claims to contain a few elements of truth, and that factor comes into play in this conspiracy theory rumor for a few reasons. He spent many hours volunteering at the campaign headquarters in North 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 Ray was given a 20-year sentence at MSP. Asked about the King familys suspicions, an FBI spokesman responded in a statement that the government has revisited the assassination four times: Findings from these reviews support the FBIs conclusion that James Earl Ray, acting alone, fired a rifle once, fatally wounding Dr. King on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel.. The rear of the boardinghouse faced the Lorraine Motel across Mulberry Street. If the King family wanted a rubber stamp of their own view of the facts, they got it.". They started the Ku Klux Klan as their league of fear to keep Black America in their place through terror, murdering black Republicans and implementing segregation, Jim Crow Laws, and Black Codes. [29] Ray was then arrested at London Heathrow Airport attempting to leave the United Kingdom for Brussels. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. 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. WebJames Earl Ray was the assassin of American Baptist minister and civil rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ray was born in on March 10, 1928 in a poor Irish-American family Pepper became convinced of Rays innocence and continued to investigate the case even after Ray died. "Memphis Jury Sees Conspiracy in Martin Luther King's Killing" With rates currently down to half that in 2018 (18%), these theories seem unlikely to go away any time soon. 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. In 1952, he served two years for the armed robbery of a taxi driver in Illinois. However, dont expect the Democrats to give in without a fight. We found no reliable evidence to support Jowers' allegations that he conspired with others to shoot Dr. King from behind Jim's Grill. Who killed Martin Luther King Jr.? That claim prompted the family to push unsuccessfully for a new trial. Pepper wrote three books outlining the conspiracy, most recently The Plot to Kill King in 2016, which were largely ignored by the media. They were recaptured on June 13. Whitsett responded, Im not going to be silenced and has since sued the Michigan Democrat Party. 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. 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. James Earl Ray did not have cancer. For over 25 years following the assassination, James Earl Ray, his defenders, and others consistently referred to the man who allegedly framed Ray as Raoul. In the years following Ray's arrest, questions arose about his exact involvement in King's murder. I dont believe James Earl Ray killed my father. He later joined the U.S. Army at the close of World War II and served in Germany. Im just going to try to sell it and make a buck, Red Strickland, an independent automobile dealer from Memphis, said at an auction Thursday after buying the Mustang once driven by James Earl Ray. Did the news media, led by Walter Cronkite, lose the war in Vietnam? [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. Ray died at Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on April 23, 1998. 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. 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. [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]. By the 1960s, Democrats like Governor George Wallace and Bull Conner fought against civil rights and turned hoses on black protesters. Jowers also abandoned his initial allegation that he received $100,000 with which he hired a hit man to kill Dr. King, claiming instead that he merely held the money for the conspirators. Her family filed a civil suit in 1999 to force more information into the public eye, and a Memphis jury ruled that the local, state and federal governments were liable for Kings death. [8] He was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. Idaho Murders: What Led Police to Bryan Kohberger, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: James Earl, Birth Year: 1928, Birth date: March 10, 1928, Birth State: Illinois, Birth City: Alton, Birth Country: United States. Im in the car business. Please attempt to sign up again. "I believe you," Dexter responded and shook his hand. After getting laid off in 1945, Ray enlisted in the Army, eventually getting stationed in West Germany. This article was published more than4 years ago. Why do you assume he was a Democrat? By that time, the Dixiecrats were rapidly becoming Republicans - so if he WAS a registered democrat, it was ju This case overlooked so much contradictory evidence that never was presented, what other option did the jury have but to accept Mr. Pepper's version? James Earl Ray was a racist and quickly drawn to Wallaces segregationist platform. James Earl Ray was a supporter of George Wallace - who was a democrat in the 1960s but was on the side of segregation, which when you hear about t Jowers also reported that he hired a hit man to shoot Dr. King from behind Jim's Grill and received the murder weapon prior to the killing from someone with a name sounding like Raoul. [23][24][25], Ray fled to Atlanta in his white Ford Mustang, driving eleven hours. This material may not be reproduced without permission. But five years later, Randall defended a man who, authorities The NAACP sent Rosa Parks to investigate. Something triggered something in him, Sides says, but exactly what that trigger was is unclear. Huie investigated this story and discovered that Ray lied about some details. (Video: The Washington Post). With Biden, Democrats had a friend whose policies oppressed Black America. 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. Further, he has also renounced his confessions in certain private conversations without his attorney. 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. For this, he was imprisoned for four years in the federal United States Penitentiary Leavenworth. Georgia Democrat State Representative Vernon Jones also received backlash from Georgia Democrats for endorsing President Trump. In the mock trial, the prosecutor was Hickman Ewing. In a criminal trial the guilt of the defendant must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but in a civil suit the plaintiff need only support his claim with a preponderance of evidence to prevail. I dont know, but Im not assuming anything, and Im not going to make up a conspiracy, which seems to be a popular thing these days. A part of his life was shaped by tragedy. [37] A year was added to Ray's previous sentence, increasing it to a full century. 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. Was James Additionally, Jowers has been inconsistent about other aspects of the alleged conspiracy, including his role in it, Raoul's responsibilities, whether and how Memphis police officers were involved, and the disposal of the alleged murder weapon. Is that your verdict? In recent years,Pepper has tracked down witnesses in Memphis who support his theory of the case: that J. Edgar Hoover used his longtime assistant, Clyde Tolson, to deliver cash to members of the Memphis underworld, that those shadowy figures then hired a sharpshooting Memphis police officer, and that officer not Ray fired the fatal shot. [6] Ray left school at the age of 12. After Johnson successfully maneuvered Black America into the Democrat plantation, they became a strong voting bloc just as a young Joe Biden joined the U.S. Senate in 1973. Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. 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. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Kim LaCapria is a former writer for Snopes. 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. A courtroom artist, Sandhu drew Ray during his trial for a prison escape attempt. 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." Ray was arrested at Londons Heathrow Airport on June 8, 1968, a few weeks after the crime. I never saw those questions answered.. Indeed, compelling evidence including Rays fingerprints on the rifle that was later determined to be the murder weapon seemed to point to him. James Earl Ray was white. But he found it difficult to adapt to the military's strict codes of conduct. The screen from the bathroom window was found on the ground below. Coretta King and Abernathy, aware of the FBI campaign, immediately suspected FBI involvement after Kings death. He was constantly in and out of prison so he never voted. He was a segregationist but neither a Republican or a Democrat. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. Digital Moreover, Jowers' repudiations, even under oath, his failure to testify during King v. Jowers, his refusal to cooperate with our investigation, his reported motive to make money from his claims, and his efforts along with his friends to promote his story all suggest a lack of credibility. 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. Claim: The U.S. government was sued and found culpable for the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., but the news media refused to report it. In the mid-1990s, Ray's defenders changed the spelling to "R-A-U-L" when they believed that a man living in New York state, whose first name is Raul, was the Raoul described by Ray. The man who was charged with King's murder, James Earl Ray, confessed to the crime and pled guilty; he then recanted his confession, hinted at a conspiracy, and sought to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a trial. He signed a detailed stipulation of facts to the shooting, having had weeks to review it, asking only that a reference to his activities for Wallace be deleted. 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=1142126272, 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 28 February 2023, at 17:21. The mock trial jury finally acquitted Ray. More Memphis witnesses came forward, including a former girlfriend of Jowers, who said she saw him with the rifle shortly after the gunshot rang out, and saw him break it down and place it in the bar. He also initially sought compensation for his story, and his friends and relatives acknowledge that he hoped to make money from his account. Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.. All Rights Reserved. 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. 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. Frederick Rudolph Yokom. 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. There was a huge amount of evidence presented in Memphis that didnt see the light of day in a public forum, says Hampton Sides, an expert on this topic and author of Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin. The Rays struggled to make ends meet, and as a consequence, the family moved several times during the early part of Ray's childhood. Investigators announced that James Earl Ray, an escaped prisoner, had fatally shot King. She was also a guest speaker for the womens branch of the KKK. 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 sentenced to 90 days in prison, but the lockup did little to reform him. By 1964, Democrats knew they were losing the battle against Black America. [36] However, Ray spent the remainder of his life unsuccessfully attempting to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a jury trial. Your answer to that one is also yes. Rendering their verdict on December 8 of that year, the jury found that Jowers and others, including government agencies, had conspired to murder King, and he was therefore legally liable to pay compensation to the King family. I think it was all planned.. Fifty years later, some questions linger about why exactly the civil rights leader was targeted and whether the shooter acted alone. [50], Ray died on April 23, 1998, at the age of 70, at the Columbia 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 living. His body was cremated and his ashes were flown to Ireland, the home of his maternal family's ancestors. James Earl Ray was a career criminal, starting as far back as a 1949 conviction for armed robbery. As such, he would not have been able to vote reg He paid $8.50 for a weeks stay. In court, Ray answered the standard series of questions about whether he was knowingly and voluntarily admitting he committed murder. Please try again later. Three days later, Ray recanted his confession. Unbeknownst to Ray, however, a death sentence would have been commuted as unconstitutional under the de facto moratorium in place since 1967 and following Furman v. Georgia. 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 magazine reported that the test results showed "Ray did, in fact, kill Martin Luther King Jr. and that he did so alone." Kings killing sent shock waves through American society at the time, and is still James Earl Ray died in 1998. Intermittently, rumors have circulated on social media holding that the United States government was found guilty in 1999 of conspiring to assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr. [28] He stayed briefly in Lisbon, Portugal, and returned to London. Twenty years later, I remain absolutely convinced this well-supported finding is correct., The King family disagrees, with Martin King III adopting Peppers theory of Hoover directing the assassination. Housed at the Missouri State Penitentiary, Ray managed to escape the facility in 1967. [31] At check-in, the ticket agent noticed the name on his passport, Sneyd, was on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police watchlist. 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 Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? No. As far as I knew, he was a common bandit who suddenly tried for his 15 minutes. The biggest notoriety he had was as an escape artist. Tennessee 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. 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. What are the disadvantages of shielding a thermometer? Rather, it appears that Jowers contrived and promoted a sensational story of a plot to kill Dr. King. Our investigation of these most recent allegations, as well as several exhaustive previous official investigations, found no reliable evidence that Dr. King was killed by conspirators who framed James Earl Ray. 23, 1998, at the age of 70. A teacher walks into the Classroom and says If only Yesterday was Tomorrow Today would have been a Saturday Which Day did the Teacher make this Statement? On the map, the locations of the church and residence of Martin Luther King Jr. were circled. 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.

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