On April 4, 1968, just after 6 p.m., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside of his second story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN. Dr. King was in Memphis supporting a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet suddenly struck him in the jaw, while he was on the balcony (Day). The bullet struck him in the right jaw, severed his spine and came to rest in his shoulder blade. Approximately one hour after being shot, Dr. King was pronounced deceased at the St. Joseph Hospital at 7:05 p.m. ("The Truth About Martin Luther King Jr.'S Assassination"). Shortly following the shooting of Dr. King, a bundle was dropped near the door of Canipe’s Amusement Company, and a white Ford Mustang was seen speeding away. Memphis police officers found the bundle to obtain a .30-06 rifle, ammunition, a pair of binoculars, and several other items. The rifle was registered after purchase in Birmingham, AL to a Mr. Harvey Lowmeyer. This name was later found to be one of several aliases used by James Earl Ray (Maryferrell.org, 2017). Over the next several weeks following the assassination of Dr. King, eyewitness statements along with fingerprint evidence from the items found in the bundle, pointed towards James Earl Ray as the suspect. In May 1968, a massive manhunt began for his capture (Day). The Federal Bureau of …show more content…
Justice Department. All the investigations ended with the same conclusion: James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. The House Committee acknowledged that a low-level conspiracy might have existed involving one or more accomplices to James Earl Ray, but uncovered no evidence to prove this theory. James Earl Ray died in prison in 1998