"THE MAN WHO KILLED A DREAM: JAMES EARL RAY AND THE ASSASSINATION OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR."

0:03 Callarogu Shark Media. Good morning, I'm reed Carter Monday, January nineteenth, twenty twenty six. Martin Luther King Day fifty eight years ago. On April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, doctor Martin Luther King Junior stepped onto the balcony of Room three six at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. It was six oh one in the evening. He was getting ready for dinner at the home of a local minister. One hundred feet away, across Mulberry Street, a man stood in the bathtub of a shared bathroom at Bessie Brewer's rooming house. He studied a Remington game Master rifle on the windowsill, lined up the scope, and fired one shot. The bullet entered Doctor King's right cheek, shattered his jaw, traveled down his spinal cord, and severed his jugular vein. He fell backward onto the concrete balcony, never spoke again. Pronounced dead at Saint Joseph's Hospital at seven o five pm. Martin Luther King Junior was thirty nine years old. Nobel Peace Prize winner, leader of the Civil rights movement, apostle of nonviolence, shot down by a high school dropout and career criminal named James Earl Ray. Ray fled Memphis that night, drove to Atlanta, then Canada, then London, then Portugal, then back to London.

1:27 The largest manhunt in fby history tracked him across four countries and two continents. June eighth, nineteen sixty eight, sixty five days after the assassination, Scotland Yard arrested him at Heathrow Airport as he tried to board a flight to Brussels. March tenth, nineteen sixty nine, his forty first birthday, James Earl Ray stood in a Memphis courtroom and pleaded guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King Junior. Sentenced to ninety nine years in prison. Three days later, he recanted, claimed he was innocent, claimed a mysterious man named Raoul was the real killer. Spent the next twenty nine years trying to get a trial. He died in prison on April twenty third, nineteen ninety eight. Never got his trial, but by then even the King family believed he didn't act alone. I'm reed Carter today on Martin Luther King Day.

2:24 The man who killed the dream James Earl Ray a petty criminal who became America's most infamous assassin, the international manhunt that caught him, the guilty plea that haunted him, and the conspiracy theories that persist to this day. This is celebrity trials. James Earl Ray was born on March tenth, nineteen twenty eight, in Alton, Illinois, working class town on the Mississippi River. The eldest of nine children. His parents, George and Lucille Ray, struggled to keep the family fed. When Ray was seven, the family fled Alton. His father was wanted on forgery charges. They moved to Ewing, Missouri, population barely a few hundred, rural poverty, no indoor plumbing, no prospects. Ray's childhood wasn't tragic in a way that explains murder. It was mundane, unremarkable. He attended a one room schoolhouse, wasn't particularly bright, wasn't particularly troubled. His father was a harsh disciplinarian. His mother drank the family scraped by At fourteen, Ray's criminal career began. Stole a patron's trousers from a brothel in Quincy, Illinois, small time stuff, testing boundaries, seeing what he could get away with In nineteen forty six, at eighteen, Ray joined the Army. Served in Germany after World War II ended. Military records describe him as a poor soldier, frequent disciplinary problems, general discharge

3:55 in December nineteen forty eight, not honorable, not dishonorable, just to sign the Army wanted him gone. After the military, Ray drifted Los Angeles, Chicago, back to Illinois, and everywhere he went he committed crimes. December nineteen forty nine, arrested in California for burglary, stole office equipment from a cafe. Three months in jail. Nineteen fifty two. Armed robbery in Chicago. Robbed a cab driver at gunpoint, two years in prison. Nineteen fifty five, mail fraud in Hannibal, Missouri. Stole money orders from the post office. Four years in federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas. Nineteen fifty nine, armed robbery again, two grocery stores in Saint Louis, one in Alton. Twenty year sentence at Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Here's the pattern.

4:48 James Earl Ray was a career criminal, but not a successful one. Every crime he committed he got caught every scheme he hatched, it failed, bungling robberies, getting arrest, going back to prison, rinse and repeat. He wasn't smart, wasn't organized, wasn't capable of complex planning. That's why the conspiracy theories would later seem so compelling. How could this bumbling, small time crook pull off the assassination of the century and evade capture for two months across four countries. But in nineteen fifty nine, James Earl Ray was just another number in the Missouri prison system, serving twenty years for armed robbery.

5:28 Forgotten by everyone except his brothers, who visited occasionally. He tried to escape twice November nineteen sixty one March nineteen sixty six, both times caught, both times punished, sent to the state hospital for psychiatric evaluation. After the second attempt, doctors found nothing remarkable, just a persistent, not particularly bright criminal who wanted to be free. April twenty third, nineteen sixty seven, Ray finally succeeded. He hid in a box of bread in the back of a delivery truck lee the prison bakery, Crouched among the loaves, held his breath as guards checked the vehicle. They missed him. The truck drove through the gates. James Earl Ray was free. He'd served seven years of his twenty year sentence. Now he was an escaped convict with no money, no plan, and no future, or so it seemed. What happened over the next eleven months remains the subject of intense speculation. Ray traveled extensively Saint Louis, Chicago, Canada, Mexico, Los Angeles, Birmingham, Atlanta.

6:30 He rented apartments, bought cars, took dance lessons, got rhinoplasty, a nose job in California. Lived relatively well for a man with no visible income. Where did the money come from? Who was funding him? Ray would later claim a mysterious man named Raoul recruited him in Montreal for a gun running operation, gave him money, gave him instructions, set him up as the fall guy for King's assassination. Investigators never found Raoul, never confirmed he existed. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in nineteen seventy eight that Ray was likely assisted by someone, but couldn't identify who. The FBI maintained he acted alone. The truth we may never know, but by March nineteen sixty eight, James Earl Ray was on the move and Martin Luther King Junior was in his cross hairs. King in Memphis. Eight minutes February first, nineteen sixty eight, Memphis, Tennessee, two garbage collectors, Echaul Coal thirty six and Robert Walker twenty nine, climbed into the back of a malfunctioning garbage truck to escape a rainstorm.

7:36 The compactor activated crushed them both to death. They were black men doing the dirtiest job in the city, paid sixty five cents an hour, no overtime, no benefits. When it rained, they sheltered in the truck because the city wouldn't provide them rain gear, and that day the truck killed them. Eleven days later, thirteen hundred black sanitation workers walked off the job. The Memphis Sanitation strike had begun. Their demands were simple recognition of their union, better wages, safer working conditions, dignity. They marched through downtown Memphis carrying signs that read I Am a man. Simple declaration, radical statement.

8:17 In nineteen sixty eight, in the segregated South, a black garbage collector asserting his humanity was an act of defiance Mayor Henry Loebe refused to negotiate, called the strike illegal, brought in strike breakers. The standoff continued for weeks. Enter Martin Luther King Junior. By nineteen sixty eight, King was exhausted, depressed under constant surveillance by the FBI, receiving death threats daily. The Vietnam War had divided the nation and divided the civil rights movement. His advocacy for peace had cost him allies. His Poor People's Campaign and ambitious plan to bring poor Americans of all races to Washington to demand economic justice, was struggling to gain traction, but Memphis needed him. Reverend James Lawson, a local minister and longtime King, ally, asked him to come support the sanitation workers. King saw the strike as a perfect example of what he'd been preaching the intersection of racial and economic justice. March eighteenth, nineteen sixty eight, King spoke to twenty five thousand people at Mason Temple in Memphis, largest indoor gathering the civil rights movement had ever seen. Whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth. King told them all, labor has dignity. He promised to return and lead a march through downtown Memphis March twenty eighth. King led the march,

9:50 but it descended into chaos. Young militants broke windows, looted stores. Police responded with teargas and batons. One sixteen year old, Larry Pane, was shot and killed by police. King was devastated his philosophy of nonviolence was being tested. Critics pounced, called him a failure, said he couldn't control his own movement. The FBI used the violence to further discredit him, but King refused to give up on Memphis, refused to let the sanitation workers fight alone. On April third, he returned that night despite a severe thunderstorm. Thousands packed Mason Temple. King was exhausted, running a fever, sent Ralph Abernathy in his place, but Abernathy called him from the church. The crowd wanted King, so King came spoke without notes extemporaneously.

10:42 What came out was prophecy. We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop the crowd roared, and I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a peace we'll get to the Promised Land. His voice broke, tears streamed down his face. He stumbled to his seat. Those who were there said they'd never seen anything like it. Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Abernathy. They all noticed. It was the last speech Martin Luther King Junior ever gave. Less than twenty four hours later he was dead. We'll be right back with April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, The assassination, the evidence, and the two month manhunt across four countries that ended at Heathrow Airport.

11:44 April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray checked into Bessie Brewer's rooming house at four hundred twenty two and a half South Main Street around three point thirty in the afternoon. Used the name John Willard, paid eight dollars and fifty cents for a week room five B, small dingy overlooking the back of the building. Across the street and one block down sat the Lorraine Motel Black owned, where black travelers stayed in the segregated South, where Martin Luther King Junior was staying in Room three oh six. Ray had been stalking King for weeks, followed him from city to city Atlanta, Selma, Los Angeles, Memphis, kept newspaper clippings about King's movements, circled locations on maps, planned, and waited.

12:37 Around four pm, Ray walked to the York Arms Sporting goods store bought a pair of Bushnell binoculars for forty one dollars and fifty five cents. Returned to the rooming house. The bathroom at the end of the hall had a window with a direct line of sight to the Lorraine Motel balcony. King spent the day in meetings planning the next march, talking strategy. Around six p d he stepped onto the balcony to head to dinner at the home of Reverend Billy Kyles. Several people were in the courtyard below, Jesse Jackson Ben Branch, a musician who was going to perform at that night's rally. King called down to Branch asking him to play take my hand, precious Lord at the meeting. Play it real, pretty, King said. Those were his last words. Six o'clock one pm. One shot. Ray stood in the bathtub of the shared bathroom, steadied his Remington seven to six to zero Gamemaster rifle on the windowsill, aimed through the scope, squeezed the trigger. The bullet traveled approximately two hundred feet hit King in the face. He crumpled backward. Ralph Abernathy rushed to his side cradled him.

13:46 King's eyes were open but unseeing. Within minutes, police found a bundle on the sidewalk near the rooming house, a Remington rifle, Bushnell binoculars, a radio, toiletries, all bearing James Earl Ray's fingerprints. Ray had fled immediately after the shot. Witnesses saw a white man running from the rooming house. A white Ford Mustang Rai's car was seen speeding away. By seven h five pm, Martin Luther King Junior was pronounced dead at Saint Joseph's Hospital. He was thirty nine years old. Within hours, America erupted the Holy Week uprising. More than one hundred cities burned Washington, d C, Chicago, Baltimore, Kansas City, Detroit, Newark, forty three people killed, more than three thousand injured, twenty seven thousand arrested, fifty thousand federal troops deployed, the largest domestic military operation since the Civil War.

14:44 In Washington, flames rose within blocks of the White House. President Lyndon Johnson ordered the eighty second Airborne to guard the Capitol. Machine gun nests on the steps of the building where Congress met. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley ordered police to shoot to kill any arsonist and shoot to maime or cripple anyone looting. Eleven people died in Chicago alone. The man who had preached nonviolence his entire life was mourned with violence. The irony was not lost. On anyone April ninth, Atlanta, more than one hundred thousand people followed a mule drawn wagon carrying King's casket through the streets. World leaders attended, presidents, past and future, civil rights icons, ordinary citizens who just needed to say goodbye. At Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King had co pastored with his father, they played a recording of his drum major sermon from two months earlier. King had asked that when he died, no one mentioned his awards or honors, just say he tried to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, love, and serve humanity. Meanwhile, the largest manhunt in history was under way.

15:53 James Earl Ray had vanished. Ray fled Memphis within minutes of the shooting. Drove his white Mustang south then east, eleven hours of driving through back roads, avoiding highways. By early morning April fifth, he was in Atlanta. He abandoned the Mustang in a housing project parking lot. Police found it six days later inside more fingerprints, more evidence linking Ray to the crime, but by then Ray was gone. April eighth, Ray arrived in Toronto, Canada, rented a room, obtained a Canadian passport under the name Ramon George Snead, a real person whose identity Ray had stolen. May sixth, Ray flew from Toronto to London on a British Overseas Airways flight. May seventh, London to Lisbon, Portugal, tried to obtain passage to Africa Rhodesia, specifically the white minority regime that had declared independence from Britain. Ray apparently believed he'd be safe there, a white paradise where they'd celebrate the man who killed Martin Luther King. The Rhodesian government, informed of Ray's interest, publicly stated they wanted nothing to do with him. May seventeenth, Ray returned to London, running out of options, running out of money. June eighth, nineteen sixty eight, Heathrow Airport, Ray was attempting to board a British European Airways flight to Brussels. The ticket agent noticed his name, Ramon George Snaide was on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police

17:27 watch list. Scotland Yard officers arrested him in the departure lounge, in his pocket a loaded revolver. He'd been free for sixty five days. The FBI had identified Ray as the prime suspect within two weeks of the assassination. His fingerprints were everywhere, on the rifle, on the binoculars, in the rooming house, in the Mustang. This wasn't a criminal mastermind covering his tracks. This was a bumbling crook who left evidence at every turn. But he'd still managed to evade capture for over two months. Crossed international borders, obtained fake identity documents, traveled across four countries. For a high school dropout who'd failed at every crime he'd ever attempted. It was remarkable, too remarkable, His defenders would later argue, someone must have helped him, someone with resources, someone with a plan, someone who wanted Martin Luther King Junior dead, and James Earl Ray to take the fall. July nineteenth, nineteen sixty eight, Ray was extradited to the United States, flown to Memphis, held in Shelby County Jail under maximum security. The state of Tennessee prepared to seek the death penalty. Percy Foreman, a legendary Texas defense attorney who'd won acquittals in more than seven hundred murder cases, agreed to represent Ray. Foreman spent hours interviewing his client, reviewing the evidence. Then he gave Ray the bad news. The case was hopeless, the evidence was overwhelming, a jury would convict Tennessee would executed him.

19:00 Foreman advised Ray to plead guilty, avoid the electric chair, take the ninety nine years. On March tenth, nineteen sixty nine, Ray's forty first birthday, he stood before Judge Preston Battle and admitted killing Martin Luther King Junior. Are you entering this plea of guilty to murder in the first degree in this case because you killed doctor Martin Luther King under such circumstances that it would make you legally guilty of murder in the first degree under the law as explained to you by your lawyers. The judge asked, yes, legally yes, Ray replied. He was sentenced to ninety nine years in prison. Three days later, he recanted everything. James Earl Ray spent the next twenty nine years insisting he was innocent, changed his story multiple times, blamed lawyers who pressured him to plead guilty, blamed a mysterious man named Raoul who recruited him for a gun running operation and set him up as the patsy. The Raoul story went like this. Ray met the man in Montreal in August nineteen sixty seven, shortly after escaping from prison. Raoul was a blond Cuban, or maybe a blonde Latino, or maybe something else. The description varied. Raoul gave Ray money thousands of dollars, instructed him to buy a rifle to travel

20:31 to Memphis to rent a room near the Lorraine Motel. Ray claimed he didn't know what the plan was, didn't know King was the target, delivered the rifle to Raoul at the rooming house, then went to a bar downstairs and drank beer until he heard the shot came upstairs to find Raoul fleeing. Panicked, drove away, realized too late that he'd been framed. Investigators never found Raoul, never confirmed his existence, searched FBI files, CIA files, military intelligence files. Nothing but the conspiracy theories persisted, and not just among fringe groups. Nineteen seventy six, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reopened the case, spent two years investigating, concluded that Ray fired the shot that killed King, but also found substantial evidence that he did not act alone. The committee identified a fifty thousand dollars bounty allegedly offered by white supremacists in Saint Louis for King's death, suggested Ray may have been hired to collect it. The committee couldn't prove a conspiracy, but it couldn't rule one out either. Nineteen ninety seven, the King family shocked the world by publicly supporting Ray's call for a new trial. Dexter King, doctor King's son, visited Ray in prison, looked into the eyes of the man convicted of killing his father, asked him directly, did you kill my father? No, No, I didn't, Ray replied,

22:02 I believe you, Dexter said, and shook his hand The King family became convinced that Ray was a patsy, that the real conspirators, perhaps elements of the FBI or organized crime or both, had never been brought to justice. Coreta Scott King called for a new trial, so did Martin Luther King the Third. Nineteen ninety nine, a civil trial in Memphis found a conspiracy did exist. Lloyd Jowers, owner of Jim's Grill below the Rooming House, was found civilly liable for King's death. The jury concluded that Jowers and others, including governmental agencies, were part of a conspiracy to kill King.

22:45 The verdict was largely symbolic. Jowers was ordered to pay the King family one hundred dollars in damages, but it gave legal weight to what many had long suspected. Two thousand. The US Department of Justice investigated the conspira claims one final time, concluded there was no credible evidence to reopen the case. Ray acted alone, end of story. But did he? Here's what we know. James Earl Ray was a racist. Prison records show he supported George Wallace, admired segregationists, dreamed of fleeing to Rhodesia. The white minority African regime. He had motive. He also had means. He bought the rifle, stalked King for weeks, positioned himself across from the Lorraine Motel, fled immediately after the shooting. His fingerprints were on everything.

23:37 But the questions persist. Where did Ray get his money? How did a bumbling criminal evade capture for two months across four countries. Why did the FBI, which had surveiled and harassed King for years, failed to protect him when threats were known. The FBI's hatred of King was well documented. J Edgar Hoover called King the most dangerous Negro in America, wire tapped his phones, bugged his hotel rooms, sent anonymous letters encouraging him to commit suicide. The FBI's counterintelligence program Cointel pro specifically targeted King and the Civil rights movement. Did the FBI conspire to kill King? Probably not? But did they fail to prevent it when they knew threats were coming? Did someone help Ray plan and execute the assassination?

24:26 Did he know people in high places who looked the other way? We may never know. James Earl Ray died on April twenty third, nineteen ninety eight, at Nashville Memorial Hospital, kidney and liver failure. Hepatitis C contracted from a blood transfusion after being stabbed in prison years earlier. He was seventy years old. He never got his trial, never got to present his conspiracy evidence to a jury, never got to confront his accusers. His body was cremated, his ashes flown to Ireland, the land of his ancestors. He'd asked not to be buried in America, said the country had treated him unfairly. The man who killed America's greatest civil rights leader died still claiming innocence. Whether he was a lone assassin or a small piece of a larger conspiracy, the truth died with him. Today is Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday since nineteen eighty six, a day to honor a man who gave his life for justice. Doctor King was thirty nine years old when James Earl Ray killed him, thirty nine younger than I am now, younger than most of us listening. He'd already won the Nobel Peace Prize, led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized the March on Washington, delivered I have a dream, Changed America forever.

25:48 And he was just getting started. In nineteen sixty eight, King was building something bigger, the Poor People's Campaign, a multiracial coalition to demand economic justice. He'd expanded his vision beyond civil rights to human rights, beyond race to class. He was becoming more radical, more dangerous to the establishment, more threatening to the status quo. Then James Earl Ray fired one bullet and silenced him forever. The sanitation workers won their strike. Twelve days after King's death. Memphis recognized their union, raised their wages, gave them the dignity they demanded.

26:28 But King wasn't there to see it. Make it make sense. A man preaches nonviolence his entire life, wins a Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment to peaceful protest, gets assassinated and a hundred cities burn in response. James Earl Ray served twenty nine years for murder, died in prison, still claiming innocence. The King family believed him. Millions of Americans believed there was a conspiracy. The truth remains buried. But here's what isn't dispute. Martin Luther King Junior changed America, transformed it bent the arc of history toward justice, and on April fourth, nineteen sixty eight. A small time crook with a rifle took that away from all of us. Today, we remember doctor King, his dream, his sacrifice, his legacy, But we should also remember James Earl Ray because evil doesn't always wear a uniform or carry a badge. Sometimes it's a high school dropout hiding in a bathtub with a rifle. Sometimes it's that simple and that devastating. Martin Luther King Junior was thirty nine years old, nobel laureate, father of four, husband, pastor, prophet. Should be here today, should have grown old, should have seen his dream fulfilled rest in peace, Doctor King. Someone has to say your name.

27:49 I'm read Carter. This is Celebrity Trials.