James Earl Ray
Assassin
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on 4 April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Two months later James Earl Ray, an American with a record as a petty criminal, was captured in England and charged with killing King. Ray pled guilty to the charge in 1969 and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. However, Ray soon tried to take back his guilty plea, claiming he was innocent. By the 1990s his continued requests for a new trial had gained fresh life; a Memphis bar owner named Loyd Jowers even claimed that he participated in a plot to kill King. King's son Dexter met with Ray in 1997 and publicly supported him, and the next year Attorney General Janet Reno ordered a full review of the case. That review ended in 2000 with a finding that "no credible evidence" existed to support the claims of Jowers or the various other conspiracy theories. Ray died in prison in 1998.Two other 1960's assassins: Lee Harvey Oswald (killer of John F. Kennedy) and Sirhan Sirhan (killer of Robert Kennedy).
Blog posts mentioning James Earl Ray:
Four Good Links
Theories Behind MLK's Assassination
Infoplease recounts the accepted version plus various conspiracy theories
CNN: James Earl Ray
His 1998 obituary from the news network
Department of Justice Investigation
The full report of the DOJ's 1998-2000 investigation into King's death and Ray's role
The Crime Library: James Earl Ray
Detailed look at Ray and his crime
Vital Stats
Birth
Birthplace
Death
23 April 1998
(liver failure, age 68)
Best Known As
The man who killed Martin Luther King, Jr.
