I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.. 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. Cities were burning. Ray was given a 20-year sentence at MSP. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. They want to tease Black America just enough to have them turn out to vote and then see them again in four years. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. [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. James Earl Ray did not have cancer. 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. Im certainly clear that there has been a conspiracy, from the government down to the mafia there had to be more than one person involved in all of this. On July 19, he returned to U.S. and the following March he pleaded guilty to murdering King. Biden sought support from follow segregationists in the fight against desegregated busing. In the years following Ray's arrest, questions arose about his exact involvement in King's murder. 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. Then Loyd Jowers, the owner of Jims Grill, began claiming publicly that he was involved in a conspiracy to kill King. An FBI Because Ray suddenly pleaded guilty in 1969, less than a year after the shooting, there was no trial. 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. 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. Lawson assisted Pepper and the King family over the years in their investigation, during which Dexter King and Andrew Young participated in interviews with witnesses. The year women refused to stay silent, tossed their bras and redefined poli To fight the status quo, the activists of 1968 harnessed the power of fashi MLK was dead. 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. What was milliard fillmore's The rear of the boardinghouse faced the Lorraine Motel across Mulberry Street. In 1959, he was caught stealing $120 in an armed robbery of a Kroger store in St. 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. 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. For both our family and the nation, Coretta King said after the verdict, we had to get involved, because the system did not work.. He confessed to the crime on March 10, 1969, his 41st birthday,[34] and after pleading guilty he was sentenced to 99 years in prison.[35]. The family wasnt seeking money, just information. [21], After purchasing the rifle and accessories, Ray drove back to Atlanta. .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. Jones responded, Turn the lights off, I have left the plantation., According to Biden and those Democrats who cannot enslave Black Americans anymore, You aint black., Frank Aquila is president of the San Joaquin Stanislaus Conservative Patriots and author of the book, Sarah Palin Out of Nowhere. At that point, Hardin Pepper first visited Ray in prison in 1978 along with Ralph Abernathy, one of Kings closest associates. The screen from the bathroom window was found on the ground below. [7], Ray committed a variety of crimes prior to the murder of King. 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. 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. [32][33], Airport officials noticed that Ray carried another passport under a second name. 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. Findings by federal authorities and the House Select Committee on Assassinations are confident about some things. The rifle Ray had purchased in Birmingham was found near the front of the boardinghouse with Rays fingerprints on it. 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 want to hold onto their plantation and if anyone from Black America balks, they will put that black person back in their chains. 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. He had Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry and had a Catholic upbringing. In 1955, he was convicted of mail fraud after stealing money orders in Hannibal, Missouri. Joe Biden recently stated to Black America if you arent voting for me, you aint black. This arrogant comment is a reflection of how Biden and the Democrat Party feel about Black America. And their view of the case is shared by other respected black leaders. 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. Fifty years later, some questions linger about why exactly the civil rights leader was targeted and whether the shooter acted alone. 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 He then grabbed some belongings in a blanket, stashed the rifle in it, left the building and dropped the bundle in the doorway of a nearby building. Ray's first conviction for criminal activity, a burglary in California, came in 1949. Yes, the President is part of the political party. He escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1967 by hiding in a truck transporting bread from the prison bakery. 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. 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. Experts have also studied Rays movements leading up to the assassination, including a mysterious trip to New Orleans that March and a move to Atlanta, the funding and logistics of which raise questions. Magazines, Digital In the U.S. Senate, Democrat Majority Leader, Robert KKK Byrd, was a former Grand Kleagle, a [12] His chief interest, however, was the George Wallace presidential campaign. On October 10, 1959, Ray and James Owens, an ex-convict, held up a Kroger store in St. Louis. [23][24][25], Ray fled to Atlanta in his white Ford Mustang, driving eleven hours. In the mock trial, the prosecutor was Hickman Ewing. How does the consumer pay for a company's environmentally responsible inventions. But five years later, Randall defended a man who, authorities I had nothing to do with killing [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.]. Not everyone in the Kings circle agrees with the full extent of Peppers investigation, but they agree that Ray was framed. He is the one who sits in leadership and is the most powerful person of a country. 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. The most serious of those came in 1959, when Ray, on parole for an earlier theft, robbed two St. Louis grocery stores, as well as another in Alton. 1995 - 2023 by Snopes Media Group Inc. 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, 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. [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. He was sentenced to 99 years at the State penitentiary. Did the news media, led by Walter Cronkite, lose the war in Vietnam? I dont believe James Earl Ray killed my father. Andrew Young, the former U.N. ambassador and Atlanta mayor who was at the Lorraine Motel with King when he was shot there, agrees. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles. 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. The verdict presented by the parties and adopted by the jury is incompatible with the weight of all relevant information, much of which the jury never heard. 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. 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. 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. Pepper said Dexter King asked Ray, Did you kill my father? and that Ray answered, No, I didnt. He said Dexter King told Ray, We will do everything in our power to see that justice prevails.. He was sentenced to 90 days in prison, but the lockup did little to reform him. His claim was that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy of the otherwise unidentified man named "Raul who was a blond Cuban. Ray was born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, the son of Lucille Ray (ne Maher) and George Ellis Ray. After shooting King, Ray immediately fled, setting off a manhunt that would last more than two months and cover five countries. 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. Recy Taylors gang rape was horrific. The photo still haunts us with what was lost. 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. 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. He escaped from the prison in April 1967, and some believe he had help from prison authorities, as part of the opening stanza of the conspiracy. Assassination Conspiracy Trial", "The Execution of Martin Luther King William Pepper (ONE of TWO)", "The Execution of Martin Luther King, William Pepper (TWO of TWO)", "Justice Dept. In the U.S. Senate, Democrat Majority Leader, Robert KKK Byrd, was a former Grand Kleagle, a recruiter, for the KKK and opposed every policy benefiting Black America. No one saw the actual shot fired. Jowers stashed the rifle behind the bar and said it was later picked up by Raul and tossed in the Mississippi River. 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. 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. An avid newspaper reader, Ray passed his time reading The Atlanta Constitution. Campbell said Jowers had been recorded saying that he would tailor his story for financial gain. Why did James Earl Ray have cancer? 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? [36] However, Ray spent the remainder of his life unsuccessfully attempting to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a jury trial. A package was abandoned close to the site that included a rifle and binoculars, both found with Ray's fingerprints. That doesnt mean there are no questions left. Ray struggled to adapt to military life and was eventually discharged for ineptitude and lack of adaptability in 1948. Blakey said recently he had tried to prove a conspiracy but could not. During a rainstorm on February 1, 1968, two black sanitation workers in Memphis lost their lives when the trucks compactor [13], He considered emigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where a predominantly white minority regime had unilaterally assumed independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. Most black families lacked fathers with policies encouraging the breakdown of the family through welfare programs. Even a 1978 special congressional committee said there was the "likelihood" that Ray did not act alone. Finally, on July 19, 1968, the FBI caught up with Ray in London and extradited him to the United States. He broke out of prisons so many times that he earned the nickname the Mole.. 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. 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. His body was cremated and his ashes were flown to Ireland, the home of his maternal family's ancestors. According to Wikipedia: James Earl Rays chief interest was the George Wallace [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace ] Democratic presiden I do think [Ray] had help, but I never found any proof that a group helped him, says Sides. He also bought a Redfield 2x-7x scope, which he had mounted to the rifle. In a time of chaos, a breakout year for black athletes, At Folsom prison, Johnny Cash found his cause. , less than a year after the shooting, there was the `` likelihood '' that Ray not! 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