James Earl Ray, suspect in the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.
is arrested.
James Earl Ray, an escaped American convict, is arrested in London,
England, and charged with the assassination of African American civil
rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, King was fatally wounded by a sniper’s
bullet while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at
the Motel Lorraine. That evening, a Remington .30-06 hunting rifle was
found on the sidewalk beside a rooming house one block from the
Lorraine Motel. During the next several weeks, the rifle, eyewitness
reports, and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect:
escaped convict James Earl Ray. A two-bit criminal, Ray escaped a
Missouri prison in April 1967 while serving a sentence for a holdup. In
May 1968, a massive manhunt for Ray began. The FBI eventually
determined that he had obtained a Canadian passport under a false
identity, which at the time was relatively easy.
James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998)
