On June 8, authorities captured the man that was believed to be Dr. King’s assassin, the small time criminal James Earl Ray. He was captured in London’s Heathrow Airport. Eye witnesses said they saw Ray fleeing from a house near the Lorraine Motel carrying a bundle. Prosecutors said that Ray fired the bullet that killed Dr. King from a bathroom in the building. Ray’s fingerprints were found on the rifle used to kill Dr. King, also on a scope and a pair of binoculars.
On March 10, 1969, Ray pled guilty to assassinating Dr. King and he was sentenced to ninety nine years in prison. There were no testimonies heard in his trial. It was not long after the trial that Ray recanted his confession; he said that he was the victim of a large conspiracy. Ray did later find sympathy in a place that would not seem likely, the members of King’s family. He even found a friend in Dr. King’s son Dexter, who publicly met with Ray in 1977. He began to push to reopen Ray’s case. The United States government did many investigations into the trial. Every time they came to the
…show more content…
They called him innocent and they hinted at an assassination conspiracy that involved the United States government and possibly the military. The FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was always trying to catch Dr. King doing something wrong. He thought Dr. King was under the communist’s influence. For the last six years of Dr. King’s life, he was always under constant wiretapping and harassed by the FBI before his death, Dr. King was also monitored by United States military intelligence. They may have been tasked to watch Dr. King after he denounced the Vietnam War in 1967. Dr. King called for radical economic reforms in 1968, including guaranteed annual incomes for everybody. By doing that Dr. King was making himself a target to be watched by the Cold War era United States government.