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. 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. In fact, the idea that there had been a conspiracy to kill King that, even if Ray fired the gun, he did so at the behest of larger forces began to spread right away, and not without some reason. 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. 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. [15], On March 5, 1968, Ray underwent a rhinoplasty, performed by physician Russell Hadley. 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. Within days, Ray filed a motion to withdraw his plea, claiming he had been coerced by his attorney and the FBI. Investigators announced that James Earl Ray, an escaped prisoner, had fatally shot King. 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." 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. Even the reference of aint is racist as to say those in Black America are not educated. 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. Officially: Case closed. His body was cremated and his ashes were flown to Ireland, the home of his maternal family's ancestors. Who killed Bobby Kennedy? ", 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. Was James earl ray white? 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. 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. Pepper wrote three books outlining the conspiracy, most recently The Plot to Kill King in 2016, which were largely ignored by the media. 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.). King was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine outside room 306 when a single rifle bullet was fired into his lower jaw at 6:01 p.m. 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. [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. 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. We found no reliable evidence to support Jowers' allegations that he conspired with others to shoot Dr. King from behind Jim's Grill. [8] He was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. 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.. A Shelby County jury heard more than 70 witnesses over 30 days, ruled that Jowers and unknown government entities were liable, and awarded the Kings $100. 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. In summary, we have determined that Jowers' claims about an alleged conspiracy are materially contradictory and unsubstantiated. "I had nothing to do with killing your father," Ray said. After returning to Alton and moving back in with his grandmother, he blazed through a number of odd jobs. Further, he has also renounced his confessions in certain private conversations without his attorney. Pepper was sued once for defamation, by an Army soldier he accused of participating in the conspiracy, and a South Carolina judge entered an $11 million default judgment against him in 2000. 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. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. Another is the shaky foundation on which the conspiracy theory rests is a matter of some nuance. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. The U.S. Department of Justice found Jowers' claims were without merit and explained that he'd never been able to provide any support for later assertions about his involvement in King's death: When Jowers has confessed, he has contradicted himself on virtually every key point about the alleged conspiracy. Could James Brown keep Boston from erupt That stain of bloodshed: After Kings assassination, RFK calmed an angry Fifty years after Kings assassination, promise and pain on the avenue that For one musician, D.C. was the place for black entertainers. Digital There is abundant evidence, Coretta King said after the verdict, of a major, high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband. The jury found the mafia and various government agencies were deeply involved in the assassination. Martin Luther King Jr. met Malcolm X just once. [29] Ray was then arrested at London Heathrow Airport attempting to leave the United Kingdom for Brussels. A part of his life was shaped by tragedy. 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. Kings killing sent shock waves through American society at the time, and is still 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. And their view of the case is shared by other respected black leaders. 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. I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. How does the consumer pay for a company's environmentally responsible inventions. However, the verdict was of no real significance given that virtually nothing was at stake (this was not a criminal trial, and the defendant was only being sued for a mere $100 and thus had little motivation for vigorously defending himself), allowing the King family to present a mostly unopposed version of events and guide the jury to return the verdict they desired. Ray was born in 1928 and grew up outside St. Louis. Why James Earl Ray Killed Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 | Time After getting laid off in 1945, Ray enlisted in the Army, eventually getting stationed in West Germany. 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. [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 shot and killed King in Memphis on April 4, 1968, confessing to the crime the following March. After this, Ray was on the run and was captured in the UK. 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. By the 1960s, Democrats like Governor George Wallace and Bull Conner fought against civil rights and turned hoses on black protesters. Not everyone in the Kings circle agrees with the full extent of Peppers investigation, but they agree that Ray was framed. A bunch of self- centered people trashing Target stores? Furthermore, the Justice Department's investigation determined no physical evidence whatsoever supported Jowers' multiple and conflicting accounts of his involvement in King's assassination, and Jowers stood to profit from his assertions: It was not until 1993, during a meeting with the producer of a televised mock trial of James Earl Ray, that Jowers first publicly disclosed the details of the alleged plot, including the names of the purported assassin and other co-conspirators. [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. [18] He bought a map of the city. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. 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. In 1952, he served two years for the armed robbery of a taxi driver in Illinois. Republicans introduced the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to end slavery, give citizenship, and give Black America the right to vote. It didnt help that Rays story kept changing. Hoover had ordered surveillance, wiretaps and listening devices placed in Kings rooms starting in 1963, apparently infuriated by Kings criticism of the FBI for not having black agents or investigating civil rights cases. The Rays struggled to make ends meet, and as a consequence, the family moved several times during the early part of Ray's childhood. For those lucky black children who werent aborted, Biden and the Democrats to this day block school choice for black families who want to take their children out of failing schools. For the King family and others in the civil rights movement, the FBIs obsession with King in the years leading up to his slaying in Memphis on April 4, 1968 pervasive surveillance, a malicious disinformation campaign and open denunciations by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover laid the groundwork for their belief that he was the target of a plot. 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? Consequently, Jowers has only confessed in circumstances where candor has not been required by law or where he has not been required to reconcile his prior inconsistencies. [12] His chief interest, however, was the George Wallace presidential campaign. He was constantly in and out of prison so he never voted. He was a segregationist but neither a Republican or a Democrat. I never saw those questions answered.. 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. Born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, was the eldest of George and Lucille Ray's nine children. A package was abandoned close to the site that included a rifle and binoculars, both found with Ray's fingerprints. In 1997, Dexter King went with Pepper to meet Ray in prison, and was photographed shaking Rays hand. Did the news media, led by Walter Cronkite, lose the war in Vietnam? His claim was that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy of the otherwise unidentified man named "Raul who was a blond Cuban. Among those who could have been pardoned was James Earl Ray, who just a decade before had assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. He had consistently denied any knowledge of the case for a quarter-century, but now he alleged the gunman was a Memphis police officer who fired from the bushes behind the grill, then handed Jowers the murder weapon. The verdict came as the Justice Department was reinvestigating the case because of Jowerss claims and those of a former FBI agent who said he had found evidence in Rays car in 1968 linking him to Raul but had withheld it until 1997. He later joined the U.S. Army at the close of World War II and served in Germany. Biden authored a crime bill that forced more black males into prison. It is a great victory for truth itself. [10], While in Mexico, Ray, using the alias Eric Starvo Galt, attempted to establish himself as a pornographic film director. 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. He was charged with drunkenness and breaking arrest, before getting discharged for ineptness and lack of adaptability in 1948. There were things in Memphis that were suspicious and raised questions in my mind, Lawson said. He is the one who sits in leadership and is the most powerful person of a country. Democrats, Biden still trying to enslave Black America. Ray met Anna Sandhu in 1977. 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. 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. [17], Arriving in Atlanta on March 24, 1968, Ray checked into a rooming house. 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. Biden befriended Byrd and shared the same policies that shackled Black America. 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 courtroom artist, Sandhu drew Ray during his trial for a prison escape attempt. 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. Your membership is the foundation of our sustainability and resilience. Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com. 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. He also bought a Redfield 2x-7x scope, which he had mounted to the rifle. .css-m6thd4{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;display:block;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.2;font-weight:bold;color:#323232;text-transform:capitalize;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-m6thd4:hover{color:link-hover;}}Idaho Murders: What Led Police to Bryan Kohberger, Adnan Syed: A Complete Timeline of His Trial, Appeal and Killing of Hae Min Lee. Ray's life outside the Army proved even less stable. Ray was given a 20-year sentence at MSP. [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. 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. Questions and speculation may always surround the assassination of Dr. King and other national tragedies. That claim prompted the family to push unsuccessfully for a new trial. 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. As noted in the New York Times' report of the verdict, the one-sided presentation of the case allowed for no other result: John Campbell, an assistant district attorney in Memphis, who was not part of the civil proceedings but was part of the criminal case against Mr. Ray, said, "I'm not surprised by the verdict. On October 10, 1959, Ray and James Owens, an ex-convict, held up a Kroger store in St. Louis. The mock trial jury finally acquitted Ray. 23, 1998, at the age of 70. To understand why Biden feels this way, you must know the history of why Biden and the Democrat Party think they own the Black America. James Earl Ray was a racist and quickly drawn to Wallaces segregationist platform. At the same time, the misconduct of Hoover and the FBI was coming to light. August 29, 1968 #286 One week on the list 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. [36] However, Ray spent the remainder of his life unsuccessfully attempting to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a jury trial. 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 Rather, it appears that Jowers contrived and promoted a sensational story of a plot to kill Dr. King. What was milliard fillmore's I think there was a major conspiracy to remove Doctor King from the American scene, said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a 78-year-old civil rights icon. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. 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 confessed to shooting King and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. His son RFK Jr. doesnt believe it was Sirhan Sir How the assassinations of 1968 led the NRA to become the lobbying force it Two sprinters gave the black-power salute at the Olympics. Jowers stashed the rifle behind the bar and said it was later picked up by Raul and tossed in the Mississippi River. Ray's first conviction for criminal activity, a burglary in California, came in 1949. James Earl Ray, a career criminal who had briefly served in the U.S. Army, shot the advocate of non-violent resistance. The rear of the boardinghouse faced the Lorraine Motel across Mulberry Street. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. 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. Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? [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. 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 The NAACP sent Rosa Parks to investigate. 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? * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. [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]. What Political Party was James Earl Ray part of? 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. Is this who we now are? You can unsubscribe at any time. 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. On 2nd April, 1968, Ray packed a bag and drove to Memphis. Three days later, Ray recanted his confession. In 2000, even after reviewing the results of the 1999 civil trial in Memphis, Kowalski concluded that Ray was guilty and that there was no government conspiracy. [19], Ray was soon on the road again and drove his Mustang to Birmingham, Alabama. Top of Page Many leaders like Candace Owens in the black community have begun to spread the message of #Blexit, a movement that encourages Black America to leave the Democrat Party. Ray pleaded guilty to the murder of King on March 10, 1969. Indeed, compelling evidence including Rays fingerprints on the rifle that was later determined to be the murder weapon seemed to point to him. Using mail-ordered equipment, he filmed and photographed local prostitutes. During a rainstorm on February 1, 1968, two black sanitation workers in Memphis lost their lives when the trucks compactor 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. [37] A year was added to Ray's previous sentence, increasing it to a full century. I have no stake in our outcome, Blakey said. Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law. Pepper and his investigators worked for years to locate Raul and eventually they identified an autoworker from Yonkers, N.Y., as the man they believe manipulated Ray. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors did not seek the death penalty and Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison. 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. The family wasnt seeking money, just information. WebJames 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 the party switch of that time, He broke out of prisons so many times that he earned the nickname the Mole.. The FBI had just caught James Earl Ray at Heathrow Airport in London. They sued Jowers for participation in a conspiracy to murder King. That weapon was not the weapon, Martin Luther King III said. Dexter King called his family together, his brother Martin said in an interview, and urged them to file a civil suit against Jowers as a means of seeking the truth. Recy Taylors gang rape was horrific. 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. Karen Whitsett, a black state senator from Michigan, simply said, Thank you to President Trump for saving her life through the treatment of hydroxychoroquine. 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 Kim LaCapria is a former writer for Snopes. The latter (King vs. Jowers) was a civil suit brought by agents of King's estate (including his widow, Coretta Scott King) against a man named Loyd Jowers, who claimed to have taken part in a conspiracy to assassinate King. 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. Im in the car business. And he asserted that he did not "personally shoot Dr. King," but may have been "partially responsible without knowing it," hinting at a conspiracy. 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. Ray struggled to adapt to military life and was eventually discharged for ineptitude and lack of adaptability in 1948. Even those who believe that Ray, who died in prison in 1998, killed King tend to think that he received assistance from someone, whether it was his two brothers or the FBI or the mafia. King was murdered in Memphis on April 4, 1968, and the FBI seized the car the following day in Atlanta. (Video: The Washington Post). He then repudiated his claims when required to testify to them under oath: At the time of the assassination, Loyd Jowers owned and operated Jim's Grill, a tavern below the rooming house where James Earl Ray rented a room on April 4, 1968. The full transcript of the trial remains posted on the King Centers website. 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. 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