The FBI had strong evidence against James Earl Ray, the man sent to prison for killing Martin Luther King Jr. Just after shots rang out in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, witnesses saw a man matching Ray's description running nearby. He dropped a bundle along the way. King had been killed by an assassin's bullet moments before. The bundle held a rifle with Ray's fingerprints on it.
Ray kept running. He was finally caught in London, England, two months later and admitted to killing King. Ray was convicted and ordered, without a trial, to spend 99 years in prison. Three days later, Ray said he didn't really assassinate King. But his change of heart came too late. Ray has been imprisoned in Tennessee ever since.
That may sound like the end of the story. But now the King family wants to open the book once again.
"In the name of truth and justice, our family is calling for a trial, a trial James Earl Ray never had," King's son Dexter King told the New York Times last week.
The New Chapter
Why in the world would King's family want to give Ray, now 68, a chance to be heard? The Kings do not believe Ray's claim that he didn't kill their beloved husband and father. But they hope a trial will bring more facts to light.
In 1968 the FBI concluded that Ray acted alone in the crime. But how, others wonder, did the unemployed Ray get the money to run away to Atlanta, Georgia, then on to Canada, Portugal and Britain? And how did he know exactly where and when to fire at King? Doubters point out that Ray was not the world's smartest guy: police once caught him climbing back through a window into a place he had just robbed. Many say the poor, undereducated man had help in the crime from one or more of King's enemies.
Ray is in very poor health. The Kings fear he will die and take the truth about the assassination to his grave. They want to hear it now.
"If there is something worth knowing, it is important for history," Dexter King said, as he explained the family's wish for a trial. "At least...we will know more than we do now."