On April 4, 1967 a year to the day prior to Kings assassination King delivered his Beyond Vietnam speech at Riverside Baptist Church in New York City. In an article in The New American back in 1999, John F. McManus, former publisher of this magazine and president emeritus of The John Birch Society, provided further detail about ODell association with King: In 1960, King hired one Hunter Pitts ODell to his staff. A confirmed racist and small-time criminal, James Earl Ray began plotting the assassination of revered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in early 1968. For example, if you worked in the laundry you could charge people to starch and iron their clothes. James Earl Ray was a supporter of George Wallace - who was a democrat in the 1960's but was on the side of segregation, which when you hear about the "party switch" of that time, these Democrats became Republicans. He made the FBI Most Wanted List before his recapture. As with most cases, the answer is yes. And by the way, what is that, Magistrate, sir, with due respect. So, even if I conceded the possibility that Ray had sold drugs, it would have been in small quantities, and for a brief period of time. The verdict did convict Loyd Jowers and "other parties known and unknown" for their parts in the vast US government conspiracy to assassinate King. James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty to assassinating King, was renting a room above Jower's establishment and was allegedly an unwitting scapegoat. Why did James Earl Ray have cancer? 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. After Ray was arrested for the assassination of Martin Luther King, it was widely believed that those erroneous prints were proof that the King conspiracy began in Jefferson City, and that someone employed at the prison was involved. His perceived inability to deal successfully with those problems led to an overwhelming defeat in his bid for reelection. [3] Brown has spoken about how his upbringing shaped his philosophy. After the King shooting, one person living at the rooming house where the shot was fired described the assassin as heavy set with receding hair. James Earl Ray. He was right, but he would never be that man. [16] Brown surrendered to the Shelby County Sheriff on August 27, 2015, to serve his five-day sentence at the Shelby County Corrections Facility in Memphis. According to Harding, King had already severely angered Johnson by delivering that speech, which could have made Johnson quite receptive to Byrds sentiment. When I got out the third time, I worked in the Tag Plant. Dexter King, son of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., meeting with James Earl Ray the man who confessed to killing King. Rays father forged a check and hence had to shift his family to Ewing, Missouri to escape enforcement authorities. The greatest sin a convict can commit in prison is to escape. There were half a dozen guys who rented magazines, and they hawked their wares by the yard shack (a small rock building where the guards stayed). 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. The first time I saw James Earl Ray, he had just arrived at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Also available from Amazon, With the purpose of writing about true crime in an authoritative, fact-based manner, veteran journalists J. J. Maloney and J. Patrick OConnor launched Crime Magazine in November of 1998. James. Now he is presumed to be guilty until he proves his innocence. When James Earl Ray bought the rifle that killed King, he mentioned that he was going hunting with his brother. After his escape, Early Ray was continuously on the move and travelled across USA, Canada, and Mexico. While attending law school, Brown worked as a substitute teacher. Moreover, Jerry Ray and James Earl Ray are close. Therefore, ironically, the society that King intended to bear the cost for his civil disobedience was to be ablack society. Spouse/Ex-: Anna Sandhu Ray (m. 19781993), siblings: Carol Pepper, Franklin Ray, Jerry Ray, John Larry Ray, Marjorie Ray, Melba Ray, Suzan Ray, place of death: Nashville, Tennessee, United States, See the events in life of James Earl Ray in Chronological Order, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/25196041/james-earl-ray, http://yourblackworld.net/2012/06/23/james-earl-rays-map-used-get-out-prison-being-sold-history-teacher/, https://www.ebay.com/itm/JAMES-EARL-RAY-Mugshot-Glossy-8x10-Photo-Martin-Luther-King-Jr-Print-Poster-/202043577078, https://shannonyarbrough.com/tag/james-earl-ray/, http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-james-earl-ray-the-yankee-who-shot-mlk-burning-in-hell-now. In June 1977 Ray escaped from Brushy Mountain (Tennessee) Prison and remained at large for 54 hours before being recaptured in a massive manhunt. So, are there are still remaining questions about how everything happened the day of Kings assassination? Westberg was involved in several more escape plots, but he had so much heat on him he could never personally use the routes he discovered. Brown was thrust into the national spotlight while presiding over James Earl Ray's last appeal of his conviction for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Brown was removed from the reopened investigation of King's murder due to alleged bias. All rights reserved. Ray, a hardened thief, robber and a sometimes-moody liar, assassinated the Rev. On June 11, 1977, while housed at the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, TN, Ray and five other inmates escaped. He reacted as if King's remarks were directed at him personally. A consequence of Kings alleged involvement in those riots was that it caught the attention of some powerful politicians. James Earl Ray Sirhan Sirhan Jack Ruby. Never afraid to share his political views, Grammer is known for his conservative values. On the first one he'd fallen and stunned himself; on the second he'd hidden in a ceiling. He guided King in deciding whether to accept or reject public appearances. James Earl Ray was raised as a catholic and had conservative religious beliefs from his childhood. After he was recaptured, Ray hired attorney Jack Kershaw to promote his claim that he was not the person who actually shot King. To believe that the King family was motivated exclusively by publicity, one must believe that all of its members were involved in selling out the truth of their loved ones assassination for three figures. In the course of our conversation, I pressed him for details regarding drug sales or any other illegal activities in which staff and/or inmates might have been involved. Those of us who had been involved in escape attempts did not consider Ray a joke. Charley McCracken, a friend from the St. Louis City Jail, pointed him out to me in H-Hall, where the newly arriving convicts at the maximum-security penitentiary were oriented. In my interviews with him, I've found him to be eerily unflappable. The damage to the clothing was consistent with the caliber Jimmy Carter, in full James Earl Carter, Jr., (born October 1, 1924, Plains, Georgia, U.S.), 39th president of the United States (1977-81), who served as the country's chief executive during a time of serious problems at home and abroad. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. He escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary on April 23, 1967; and in Memphis, Tennessee, nearly a year later, on April 4, 1968, from a window of a neighbouring rooming house, he shot King, who was standing on the balcony of a motel room. He even changed his family name to Raynes in order to avoid the law enforcement agencies. During the four-week trial in Memphis, a 12-person jury heard testimony from over 70 witnesses; but not Jowers, who didnt testify because there were no criminal charges at stake. 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. [6] It was during this time that Brown caught the attention of the producers of Judge Judy. Ray pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Justice on Fire is OConnors detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Milteer told the informant that a scheme was in the works to kill President Kennedy. Those who express skepticism at the results of the 1999 trial in which James Earl Ray was found innocent of assassinating King have an incredible hurdle to overcome the belief of the King family, which sides with Ray. The new trial was never granted. The manhunt was the most expensive and biggest for the FBI (at that time). 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. Wardens and guards know that an escape artist is a threat to their livelihood; more guards and wardens have lost their jobs because of escapes than for any other reason. After his capture, his sentence was extended by one more year to 100 years. Warren writes from Texas and can be reached at wmass@thenewamerican.com. He told the clerks at the Aeromarine Supply Company in Brimingham, Alabama (from where he brought the rifle) that he was going on a hunting trip with his brother. James 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 of Alton, Illinois, and was raised a Catholic. 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. The Ray brothers, however, are too unsophisticated to have pulled off the assassination of King, and Ray's subsequent escape to England. He later joined the American army at the end of the Second World War and served in Germany. I first met Benny Edmondson at the Algoa Reformatory in 1956, where he was teaching typing at the school. Some of the books written about the assassination describe him as a major drug dealer in Jefferson City, which is ludicrous. 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. 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 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. Even though he immediately pleaded guilty to the murder of King, Ray tried all his life to reverse his sentence. King said he liked the idea. He escaped from the prison hiding in a truck that was transporting bread from the prison bakery. It contained a pair of binoculars, a newspaper with a story about King staying at the Lorraine Motel, and a .30-06 Remington Gamemaster that had fired one shot. It got so that the very sight of King would galvanize Ray. But a restaurant owner from Memphis was brought to the civil court in the year 1999 for being a part of the murder conspiracy. We miss you, James. Guys told me he would hound you relentlessly if you owed him a quarter, but he wouldn't threaten you with violence. Over several decades, federal investigators have routinely concluded that Raoul doesnt exist. Ray died on April 23, 1998 at the Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital due to Hepatitis C at the age of 70. Dr. Martin . This is the real thing and as an officer of the court he should have known better. Brown was sentenced to five days in jail,[7][15] but was later released on his own recognizance. It was a theory she maintained until her death in 2006 that has so far never been proven. 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. As a loner, it would be impossible for Ray to deal large quantities of drugs, because one of the cliques would simply rob him, and there wouldn't be much he could do, alone, against a clique with a dozen members. In 1977, New Times magazine suggested that Jerry Ray and "Raoul" were one and the same. 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. I grew up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles. He knew we viewed Ray as a not-too-bright hillbilly. In that speech, none other than Robert Byrd pointed to the Memphis riots and the violent consequences as a warning to Johnson not to allow the marches King was planning on Washington in the coming weeks. [13], Brown is twice divorced and has two sons from his first marriage.[14]. He was a loner. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Early life [ edit] 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. In the year 1959, he was caught stealing $120 from a Kroger Store in St. Louis. ''. "[20] Although it is possible to live in the same prison with someone for 10 years and never speak to him, it is still an intimate atmosphere. pleaded guilty to the first degree murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Declassified FBI Paper Reveals Martin Luther Kings Sexual Aberrations, Martin Luther King Day Based on MLKs Image, Not Reality, Martin Luther King: The Celebration of a Myth. In any event, the prison officials never placed him in the same category as Davis, Laster and Westberg, who would unhesitatingly use weapons while escaping. James Earl Ray confessed to shooting King and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. Ray, whose previous history as a criminal was notable only for its ineptness, fled to Canada after the killing, assumed a new identity complete with credentials, then fled to England where he was arrested trying to fly out to another country. The President, Milteer said, would be shot "from an office building with a high-powered rifle," and a patsy would be picked up within hours . Whatever noble goals King proclaimed, the subversive company he chose to keep severely neutralizes any good he may have aspired to and creates serious doubts about the sincerity of his stated mission. In the early 1990s, he started suggesting that the government might be behind the assassination. Law enforcement agencies believe that he started indulging in criminal activities as he could not support himself financially. One of Kings principal advisors is Stanley David Levison. Speech of Senator Robert C. Byrd, Senate Journal, Appendix Two, March 29, 1968. However, the assessment of King got even worse. James Earl Ray was white. I occasionally rented magazines from Ray, but other inmates usually had a larger selection, and better quality magazines. Omissions? He is a former Shelby County, Tennessee Criminal Court judge and a former arbiter of the arbitration-based reality court show Judge Joe Brown. Later in life his pleas for a trial were encouraged by some civil-rights leaders, notably the King family. After the assassination, King's family did not trust the findings of the FBI, which had harassed the civil rights leader while he was alive. Just once, he was caught with three packs of cigarettes, a pound of coffee and a ballpoint pen. After buying the rifle, he came back to Atlanta where he came to know that King was planning a return trip to Memphis, Tennessee. He is the one who sits in leadership and is the most powerful person of a country. The explanation is much simpler. A man named Vincent Harding is credited with writing most of it. While attending law school, Brown worked as a substitute teacher. In fact, King's family was as convinced of Ray's innocence as the families of Nicole and Ron were convinced of Simpson's guilt. 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 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. 2023 www.tennessean.com. The paper quotes Kings statement explaining his strategy: To dislocate the function of a city without destroying it can be more effective than a riot, because it can be longer lasting, costly to society, and not wantonly destructive., Kings admission that the strategy he planned for Washington, D.C, would be costly to society is startling in view of a fact noted in The Urban Institute report, Our Changing City, which observed: 1950 also marked the start of the white exodus to the suburbs. 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. When I tried to mail my review to The Star, the prison officials refused to allow it to leave the prison. He is a male registered to vote in Wayne County, Michigan. The Q2 rifle-had general class characteristics of six lands and It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. Brown, who retains his law license, was reviewing a child support matter as a favor to an acquaintance. He paid for a nose job in cash. (Several authors have said it was "common knowledge" in Jeff City that you could go to England and acquire an ID the way Ray did. He edited most of the chapters of Kings book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? If you saw the movie Boyz n the Hood, that was the way I grew up. 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. There were no cellblock TVs in Jefferson City in 1963 and 1964. The scandal was so bad it led to the downfall of Warden Nash, who then shot himself.). The prison officials knew that Ray's escape, and involvement in the King assassination, would forever blemish their professional records as penologists. While he was still in Los Angeles, Ray had the desire to immigrate to Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe) where a white minority regime declared independence from England in the year 1965. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! B. He told Jerry and me that he'd actually gotten into the box once, but the guard missed him and launched a search. Ray had seven siblings. Although Ray had been sentenced from St. Louis, he was not part of the St. Louis "crowd.". For years convicts had dreamed of escaping in the bread box, but everyone assumed it was searched in the truck tunnel (that they would poke steel rods through the garbage, for example). I got to know him better when he came to Jeff City with a sentence for robbery. Brown later worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. I went to Memphis to deliver a rifle to this man called Raoul, Ray told me. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations, she said. Based on the results of a civil trial in 1999, Byrds speech would have almost necessarily have played an even more direct role if the verdict is to be accepted. Manhunt in the mountains: James Earl Ray and the Brushy Mountain Prison breakout of 1977, How The Tennessean covered Martin Luther King Jr.'s death in its pages, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. There it was once again: A belief from the Rev. He was unable to give me any specifics but just responded that "it was common knowledge.". In fact, Kings family was as convinced of Rays innocence as the families of Nicole and Ron were convinced of Simpsons guilt. He was a fervent supporter of George Wallace, the Alabama governor who notoriously gave the 1963 "Segregation Now, Segregation Forever," and he was passionate about emigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to be a part of the white minority in power there at the time. 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.. The day after the trial ended, Coretta King held a press conference in Atlanta to praise the decision. In 1997, King told Ray personally that both he and his family believed him. 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,. You would also know who had just gotten a shipment of dope. One of Kings sons Dexter had expressed his adamant belief that Ray was not his fathers assassin. Somehow, Ray managed to escape from prison on two different occasions. In subsequent disclosures, Ray said that he was not the only person involved in the murder of King. (153) It endangers the premise of the place. Read More:How The Tennessean covered Martin Luther King Jr.'s death in its pages. That year, Kings son Dexter Scott King visited Ray in prison to draw attention to the familys push to appeal his case. Davis and Laster were both shot during that attempt. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. James Earl Jones. 10 Disturbing and Unexplained Facts About James Earl Ray, MLK's Assassin. He is a male registered to vote in Wayne County, Michigan. That investigation declassified scores of memos detailing the bureaus abusive behavior, but did not reveal any evidence that the FBI had formally plotted his death. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the holiday into law, and it was first recognized three years later. Ostensibly only a New York City attorney and businessman, Levison is, in fact, a shrewd, dedicated communist. Ray watched it all on the cell-block TV at Jeff City. 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. 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. A Democratic Senator from West Virginia delivered an extremely incendiary speech on the Senate Floor that was directed specifically at President Lyndon Johnson, also a Democrat. Their goal was to cover all aspects of true crime: Read More, Contents Copyright 1998-2020 by Crime Magazine | J. Patrick O'Connor Editor | E-mail CrimeMagazine.com, Designed by Orman. He might have eked out enough money to meet his basic needs (he didn't smoke), but not much more than that. No one else I knew did either. I spent virtually all of 1962 in solitary. In 1967, he returned to the United States (Los Angeles) from Mexico and took dancing classes in a bartending school. "[11], Responding to a bar discipline complaint filed regarding the contempt incident, Brown declared himself unable to adequately defend himself as a result of health issues including type II diabetes, hypertension, and stress. Then Benny was transferred to L-Hall, an honor unit just outside the walls of the main penitentiary. Later, though, he claimed he left the prints to gain international notoriety. Read More:People died for your right to vote. The Revenge of George Wallace Since Ray's arrest for the assassination, he has become mythified. Senator in Robert Byrd. The 20-page paper, which was classified as. Mr. Kershaw was a Tennessee lawyer who argued that James Earl Ray, convicted in the 1968 assassination of the Rev. [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 bread box would have to pass through the truck tunnel, where all incoming and outgoing vehicles were searched. [2] He earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Juris Doctor from UCLA School of Law. James Earl Ray was a racist, but there was circumstantial evidence that a businessman in St. Louis had established a $50,000 bounty for Kings death.. 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. An egregious example of shoddy workmanship is the book The Making of an Assassin by George McMillan. He was first convicted for a burglary in California in the year 1949. While some speculate this was an attempt to hide his identity before killing King, others point to Ray's lack of care about disguising himself in other elements of the assassination plot. The bureau wiretapped his phone and monitored his movements, taking advantage of times when he seemed particularly upset or depressed. Hunter Pitts ODell, former National Committee member of the CPUSA, was employed by SCLC. One of the most intriguing aspects of the New Times article on James Earl Ray/Jerry Ray/J.B. 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. (Benny had taken two years of civil engineering in college.). bullet and also revealed the absence of nitrites (the presence of [17] In audio obtained by WREG[18] and an available transcript on eonline.com,[19] Brown can be heard arguing that the judge didn't have the authority to sit on the bench. The cartridge case (Q3) found in the Q2 rifle had been fired King was visiting Memphis to settle a strike by garbage workers. He employed such Communists as Bayard Rustin and Hunter Pitts ODell; and he worked closely with Carl Braden and James Dumbrowski. Because of the 1959 incident, Jerry had so much heat on him that if the guards lost sight of him for even a few minutes, they panicked. He was sentenced to 99 years at the State penitentiary. It would later be learned that Ray's classification card contained erroneous fingerprints, which were initially distributed nationally. During the 1950 and 60s, the FBI surveilled and harassed King, his family and his associates. This tribunal on a General Sessions Court's authority is insufficient to establish you. In my many discussions with people such as Laster, Westberg and Davis on the subject of escape--and how to avoid capture afterward--no one mentioned that method.). Even though he played an elitist liberal psychiatrist on "Frasier," Kelsey Grammer is a Republican in real life. The 12-person jury verdict unanimous exonerated the "patsy" James Earl Ray for any role in the assassination of MLK. Judge Horne began increasing the quantity of days Brown could be held in contempt after Brown continued disrupting the court. . He simply hounded you (not that Ray was a coward, or afraid to fight, but he wasn't the type to start the fight). James Earl White (born July 16, 1964) is a former member of the Texas House of Representatives for District 19, which encompassed Polk, Hardin, Jasper, Newton, and Tyler counties. During this period James Earl Ray was most noticeable as a guy who rented out magazines on the yard. Julia Brown, author of I Testify: My Years as an F.B.I. 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