Jerry Ray was J.B. Stoner's campaign manager when Stoner ran for Governor of Georgia against Jimmy Carter. and other allegedly exculpatory evidence are not worthy of belief. But, having tried to escape from the maximum-security prison, we both had joined a small list of convicts who would be watched at all times by the guards. King was visiting Memphis to settle a strike by garbage workers. Findings on Martin Luther King, Jr. He filmed local prostitutes during their work hours in pursuit of his cinematographic dream, but he eventually left Puerto Vallarta after being jilted by his girlfriend who, coincidentally, was also one of the prostitutes he filmed. When I tried to mail my review to The Star, the prison officials refused to allow it to leave the prison. There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta King said at a press conference in 1999, according to The King Center. The Ray brothers, however, are too unsophisticated to have pulled off the assassination of King, and Ray's subsequent escape to England. He is the one who sits in leadership and is the most powerful person of a country. He might have eked out enough money to meet his basic needs (he didn't smoke), but not much more than that. Hunter Pitts ODell, former National Committee member of the CPUSA, was employed by SCLC. Brown has spoken about how his upbringing shaped his philosophy. Brown claimed that the sentence was excessive, and that he should have only been fined; Dan Michael, the Shelby County Juvenile Court chief magistrate that found Brown in contempt, responded that "This is not Hollywood. No new evidence has been presented in the King killing since then. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. the result of a conspiracy that involved Jowers, not Ray, as well as ''others, including governmental agencies. However, immediately following King's killing, U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark announced that the killing was the work of a lone assassin. But after HBO conducted a televised mock trial about the assassination in 1993in which Ray gave his first public testimony and was found not guiltyJowers declared that hed been part of a conspiracy to kill King, and that Ray had been set up to take to fall. The jury awarded the money to the estate, deciding that Kings assassination had likely beenthe result of a conspiracy that involved Jowers, not Ray, as well as ''others, including governmental agencies.''. A two month long manhunt spanning five countries was launched by the law enforcement agencies to nab him. Early life [ edit] It got so that the very sight of King would galvanize Ray. James Earl Ray lowers his head as State Safety commissioner Greg O'Rear, white hat, and Highway Patrol Maj. Mickey McGuire, dark glasses, lead him to prison in Nashville, Tenn., March 11, 1969. In June 1977 Ray escaped from Brushy Mountain (Tennessee) Prison and remained at large for 54 hours before being recaptured in a massive manhunt. Almost everyone felt sure the government would want to avoid a never-ending search for conspirators in the King case, and would accomplish that by presenting its evidence at Ray's trial. The massive publicity surrounding Benny's capture caused Gold Medal Books to contact him and ask him to write 20,000 words of autobiographical data, so they could bring out an "instant" paperback book about him. In the early 1990s, he started suggesting that the government might be behind the assassination. ''. The murder of Lee Harvey Oswald had closed the door to an open trial that might have answered the question of whether Oswald acted alone, or was part of a conspiracy. Brown then said, "OK, OK, I'll tell you what. On the night of April 4, 1968 50 years ago now James Earl Ray killed the Rev. Kershaw and Ray approached the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations and got approval for the conduct of ballistics tests. If you saw the movie Boyz n the Hood, that was the way I grew up. The facts are these. It wasn't until November 9, 1970--years after Ray escaped from Jefferson City--that inmates were allowed to purchase small black-and-white television sets, which they could keep in their cells. That was a bunch of baloney. "Excuse me, on what authority do you sit by the way? Weeks before Kennedy was killed an informant quoted an NSRP member saying it would happen, and providing details that coincide with what did happen in Dallas. Whether anybody helped him indirectly has yet to be determined. Benny and I studied programming together, and in 1966 we worked in the programming office together. After several days, the prison officials concluded that Ray had actually escaped, and they put out an alarm. I first met Benny Edmondson at the Algoa Reformatory in 1956, where he was teaching typing at the school. But a restaurant owner from Memphis was brought to the civil court in the year 1999 for being a part of the murder conspiracy. . FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. While taking dancing classes, he was attracted to the presidential campaign of George Wallace. Happy 300th Birthday, Richard Price! Laster made several more desperate attempts to escape, including one attempt to saw out of death row (during which a guard captain was blinded). One thing never mentioned about Ray's time in Jefferson City is the fact he had a nearly exemplary conduct record, with the exception of the two escape attempts. But within Martin Luther Kings family, there remains a persistent belief that Ray is innocent, and was set up to take the fall. Senator) that an investigation be conducted into the allegations. The bureau wiretapped his phone and monitored his movements, taking advantage of times when he seemed particularly upset or depressed. Meanwhile, William Bradford Huie, gathering information for his book, They Slew The Dreamer, had taken an interest in George Ben Edmondson. Undercover Agent, was an undercover agent for the FBI in the Cleveland area. He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. After Kings violent death, and the sealing of most government files related to King, the natural tendency of people to not want to speak ill of the dead set in. Over the years, parties other than Ray have filed additional lawsuits related to the assassination. Over the years, as book after book has been published on the King case, numerous conspiracy theories have been advanced: that the FBI was involved; that the CIA feared King would come out in opposition to the Vietnam War; that rival black leaders felt King's non-violent approach was a hindrance to black progress; that white supremacists wanted him out of the way for obvious reasons. it from Birmingham, Ala., to Memphis, Tenn., where he rented a room at 422 1/2 South Main Street, and moments after the assassination, he dropped Absence of witnesses to corroborate Raoul's existence, Rental of room 5-B at Bessie Brewer's roominghouse, Irreconcilable conflicts of interest of Foreman and Hanes, Foreman's failure to investigate the case, Coercion by Foreman and the Federal Government, Ray's belief a guilty plea would not preclude a new trial, How to File a FOIA Request for Archival Records. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law, and it was first recognized three years later. There was, however, some question in our minds about Ray's coordination. He volunteered for Wallaces campaign and was very disappointed when Wallace could not win the campaign. And, although the FBI later claimed to have interviewed every convict in Jefferson City who had served time with Ray, they never tried to interview me, or Davis, or Laster, or Westberg or anyone I knew. He edited most of the chapters of Kings book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? I have respect for the King family, however, as thousands of people converge on Memphis and in other places on Wednesday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of MLKs death, the King family is dead wrong. He escaped from the prison hiding in a truck that was transporting bread from the prison bakery. James Earl Ray, (born March 10, 1928, Alton, Illinois, U.S.died April 23, 1998, Nashville, Tennessee), American assassin of the African American civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Ray had been a small-time crook, a robber of gas stations and stores, who had served time in prison, once in Illinois and twice in Missouri, and received a suspended sentence in Los Angeles. But a check by United Press International found him still employed by Kings organization. My review took issue with many assumptions in the book, such as those centering on Ray's involvement with drugs in prison, and how he escaped from Jefferson City. King still tried to hide ODell in his organization until July, 1963, when he accepted ODells resignation. As King put it, ODells release was not because of connections between ODell and the CPUSA but because of the emotional public response. and condition of the Q64 bullet. King was shot by Earl Ray when the former was standing in the balcony of his motel room. Therefore, ironically, the society that King intended to bear the cost for his civil disobedience was to be ablack society. The next section of the FBI paper was subheaded Strong Communist Influence. It pulled no punches in stating: Another complicating factor in the picture is the degree of communist influence on King. His body was cremated and his ashes were flown to the land of his forefathers, viz. During the 1950 and 60s, the FBI surveilled and harassed King, his family and his associates. His prints were found all over the hotel room in Memphis where the shots that killed King were thought to have come from, and they covered the murder weapon -a Remington hunting rifle he purchased in Birmingham, AL. It was then learned he'd been the site engineer for the West German Pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal. As an indication of just how much Robert Welch, the Founder of The John Birch Society, was on top of Kings communist connection, he wrote the following words for May 1968 John Birch Society Bulletin just two months after the FBI report, which had been classified as secret: During this career of a brief dozen years, [King] was constantly surrounded by, and associated with, Communists. King's convicted killer, James Earl Ray, pled guilty to his murder, received a life sentence, and died in prison of natural causes 29 years later. When ODells position as a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party was revealed in 1961, King supposedly fired him. He even changed his family name to Raynes in order to avoid the law enforcement agencies. After buying the rifle, he came back to Atlanta where he came to know that King was planning a return trip to Memphis, Tennessee. It would later be learned that Ray's classification card contained erroneous fingerprints, which were initially distributed nationally. The 20-page paper, which was classified as. The House Assassinations Committee examining evidence in the killing of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images). No vehicle traffic would have been allowed in or out until he was found. This should have been driven home years ago when a surreptitious tape recording was made of J.A. A year before, hed escaped from Missouri State Penitentiary while serving a 20-year sentence, and was on the lam at the time King was shot. "[21], Brown was warned that he would be held in contempt before these comments. Although it is often. She told a congressional subcommittee that while she was a member of the Communist Party, she knew Martin Luther King to be closely connected with the Communist Party. Brown joined The American Opinion Speakers Bureau, and while on the lecture circuit, she told audiences that King was the hero of Americas Communists. 1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272, The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection, John McAdams (The John F. Kennedy Assassination Information Center), Evidence of Ray's contact with his brothers, 1967-68, Motive with respect to John and Jerry Ray, The backgrounds of Kauffmann and Sutherland, How to File a FOIA Request for Archival Records. Although Benny was eventually released from prison and returned to work for the engineering firm he'd been employed by at the time of his arrest in Canada, interest in him by then had died out, and the book was never published. He believed that King was a serious threat to the dominance of white people in the USA and wanted to stop him through any means. The scandal was so bad it led to the downfall of Warden Nash, who then shot himself.). James Earl Ray was white. I've always had trouble accepting Ray as an assassin. King's killing sent shock waves through American society at the time, and is still regarded as a landmark. He guided King in deciding whether to accept or reject public appearances. In King vs. Loyd Jowers and conspirators unknown, there were 70 witnesses called; twelve jurors found in favor of the King family, which held a press conference after the verdict. [4] While on the bench he was known for his sometimes unusual sentences, such as, sentencing a child molester to confess to his church congregation and ordering a drug trafficker to apologize in a newspaper letter.[5]. The cells that I was associated with in Cleveland were continually being asked to raise funds for Martin Luther Kings activities. She also said, Mr. It seems clear to me that there was a conspiracy to murder King, and that James Earl Ray was involved. He later joined the American army at the end of the Second World War and served in Germany. He said that another person he met in Canada by the name Raoul was the actual person who plotted the murder and ultimately pulled the trigger. The incident was incredibly damaging to the cause of King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). [13], Brown is twice divorced and has two sons from his first marriage.[14]. Although Ray had been sentenced from St. Louis, he was not part of the St. Louis "crowd.". When ODell was again exposed, King went through the same routine of announcing his dismissal. James Earl Ray Sirhan Sirhan Jack Ruby. It stated that King had allied himself with black nationalist groups that planned to seize the initiative and escalate the nonviolent demonstrations into violence. It continued: King has met with black nationalists and attempted to solicit their support. Some people had trouble, for example, believing Ray had arranged his international escape all by himself, since he had a track record of getting caught for more minor crimes. The US will celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr on Monday, January 18, 2021, remembering all of the tremendous strides the activist-led in promoting civil liberties for all Americans. Martin Luther King Jr., and there should be no question about that fact. The bread box would have to pass through the truck tunnel, where all incoming and outgoing vehicles were searched. McMillans false scenarios portray Ray as a rabid racist in prison. After this, Ray was on the run and was captured in the UK. bullet and also revealed the absence of nitrites (the presence of Godspeed." Likewise, this statement is attributed (without sourcing) to Limbaugh in 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America. But among legal and historical scholars, there is a broad consensus that James Earl Ray, though he may not have acted alone, is the gunman who shot Martin Luther King. Such a conclusion must be drawn from a premise that the King family was willing to publicly, wrongfully, and unjustifiably vindicate Ray in order to accuse others simply to gain notoriety. Could Chinas Petroyuan Give Rise to a New World Energy Order? For the television series, see, "I left the Demo Pty Plantation long ago I'm an Independent", "Voters verdict: Weirich over TV's Joe Brown", "TV's Judge Joe Brown Arrested In Tennessee", "Former TV Judge Joe Brown Stumbles In Bid To Become Tennessee District Attorney", Judge Joe Brown uncorks a shocker taunting Weirich about her sexuality Memphis Flyer Jackson Baker July 2, 2014, "District Attorney Weirich sails to victory over challenger Joe Brown", "Judge Joe Brown in Jail for Contempt of Court", "Former TV judge Joe Brown can't practice law in Tennessee", "MSCS Chairwoman Michelle McKissack considers mayoral run", "Judge Joe Brown: The rant, the mugshot, the jokes", "TV's Judge Joe Brown jailed by real judge after courtroom argument, court says", "TV judge Joe Brown begins 5-day jail term", "Judge Joe Brown: Hear What He Said That Got Him Arrested", "Judge Joe Brown Begins Jail Sentence for Contempt of Court After 2014 Courtroom Outburst", "Joe Brown loses appeal over juvenile court outburst", "After the Campaign - Memphis Daily News", "Was Judge Joe Brown's Arrest A Publicty Stunt? Then other inmates would blame Don for Ray's capture. He did not want to be buried in the USA because he considered that the American government did not treat him fairly. The Revenge of George Wallace Brown apparently raised his voice and interrupted a magistrate judge while representing a woman seeking child support in Shelby County Juvenile Court. There were no cellblock TVs in Jefferson City in 1963 and 1964. Although Ray had two attempted escapes on his record, he did not have nearly as much heat on him as Westberg. James Earl Ray was a racist, but there was circumstantial evidence that a businessman in St. Louis had established a $50,000 bounty for King's death." . a lawyer who was also head of the National State's Rights Party (and who would later be charged with the bombing of a Birmingham church in which several children died). But Westberg had been told that the guard did not open the bread box. In the 1950s, Ray became notorious as a petty criminal, and by the end of the decade he was a failed pornographer who had served some jail time and successfully completed a prison escape. Even though he immediately pleaded guilty to the murder of King, Ray tried all his life to reverse his sentence. As the paper notes: Through Levisons influence, other subversives were attracted to SCLC [The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King helped found]. rear of a roominghouse at 422 1/2 South Main Street, Memphis, Tenn. James Earl Ray purchased the rifle that was used to shoot Dr. King and transported On 30 January 1961, Dexter Scott King, the third child of Martin and Coretta Scott King, was born. All rights reserved. Under the sub-head Communist Exposed, the paper went on to reveal more about ODell: King was forced to get rid of Hunter Pitts ODell in October, 1962, when several newspaper articles exposed ODells connection with SCLC and his communist affiliations. Earl Rays family had problems with the law enforcement ever since he was a child. As a former judge here, we have a rule in the 30th Judicial Districtit says every single Magistrate Referee has to be unanimously approved by every Circuit, Chancery, and Criminal Court Judge. Ostensibly only a New York City attorney and businessman, Levison is, in fact, a shrewd, dedicated communist. On June 8 he was apprehended by London police at Heathrow Airport as he was about to embark for Brussels; the FBI had established him as the prime suspect almost immediately after the assassination. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Joseph Blakeney Brown Jr. (born July 5, 1947), known as Judge Joe Brown, is a former American lawyer and television personality. Jerry Ray told me in the 1970s he had taken pictures of the countryside around the prison and had sent them into James Earl Ray. Omissions? Two weeks later, after Kennedy had been slain in Dallas, Milteer told the same informant, "everything ran true to form," and the right wing was in the clear because Lee Harvey Oswald . Some have indicated that King vs. Jowers was nothing more than a promotional stunt. Stoner's hatred of blacks would not have been offensive to him Ray; he might have viewed it as a little extreme, but he would have admired Stoner for being a rebel and for having a network of trusted associates. Moreover, Jerry Ray and James Earl Ray are close. The day after the trial ended, Coretta King held a press conference in Atlanta to praise the decision. 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. Who Was James Earl Ray? Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an extremist Black Nationalist organization, has conferred with King. Ray, although not personally motivated by racism, comes from a rural background where blacks are not highly regarded. [3] Brown has spoken about how his upbringing shaped his philosophy. Westberg once described Ray to me as, "Kind of countryfied, but he's okay." Los Angeles was the site of Ray's first arrest, for burglary, in 1949, and he ended up serving 90 days in jail. Its not clear when Coretta Scott King, widow of King, began to believe in Rays innocence. Lee Harvey Oswald James Earl Ray Sirhan Sirhan . Speech of Senator Robert C. Byrd, Senate Journal, Appendix Two, March 29, 1968. Ray was never that type. The King family started to publicly voice the opinion in 1997. I've been amazed over the years at the naivet of authors who have written about Ray's activities in Jeff City; the things they put forth as facts just simply couldn't be true. The paper stated that King had announced that this action would disrupt the normal course of business and, in fact, close down the nations capital. Don told me later he was stunned; but he knew if he hesitated too long, a guard would catch Ray. The first time I saw James Earl Ray, he had just arrived at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Stoner had trouble getting into the case, however . Davis and Laster were both shot during that attempt. They might not have been involved in the murder, McMillian observes of the FBI, but I wish people knew the really shameful things that they did.. ), where he secured a second Canadian passport (May 16), and back to London (May 17?). There is an important flaw in that logic as well; the defendant was only sued for $100, which he was ordered to pay. During the original taped conversation, Milteer also revealed a plot against Martin Luther King, one that involved an NSRP hit man named Brown. Even after Ray died in 1998 from complications caused by hepatitis C, the family continued to assert there was, as Coretta King said in 1999, overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.. Still, Ray shot ReverendKing and if the King family wants closure in the matter they should finally accept that fact. At the Tag Plant I met Jerry Ward Davis, an Oklahoman who'd been shot in 1959 after kidnapping several guards (along with Rollie Laster and Ronnie Westberg) during an attempted escape that involved the use of zip-guns. After reading about the news in newspapers, he immediately drove to Memphis. He was of Irish, Scots, and Welsh ancestry. James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to killing Dr. King; he challenged the plea and failed. James Earl Ray was raised as a catholic and had conservative religious beliefs from his childhood. The cartridge case (Q3) found in the Q2 rifle had been fired I went to Memphis to deliver a rifle to this man called Raoul, Ray told me. Judge Brown's lawyer filed an appeal, but the appeal was refused. When the day came, Ray walked up to the bread box, got in, and asked a guy named Don to cover him. The paper then listed some of the ways Levison had supported and influenced King, as far back as 1956: He actively involved himself in fundraising drives for King. Stoner had trouble getting into the case, however, because no mainstream lawyer wanted anything to do with him. James Earl Ray, (born March 10, 1928, Alton, Illinois, U.S.died April 23, 1998, Nashville, Tennessee), American assassin of the African American civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. He is a male registered to vote in Wayne County, Michigan. For the first 25 years after Kings death, Jowers did not claim any involvement in the murder. There it was once again: A belief from the Rev. PRPhotos. One day he walked away, and it was rumored he took $5,000 of state money with him. A mock trial of Ray in which he was represented by Dr. William Pepper was later telecast on TV to criticize the government for denying him the trial. 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. At the same time I was getting more involved in art, and my thoughts were turning away from escape and toward trying to make parole. 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