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James Earl Ray captured...
James Earl Ray captured...
Item # 561111
June 10, 1968
FITCHBURG SENTINEL, Massachusetts, June 10, 1968
* James Earl Ray captured
* Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassination suspect
This 24 page newspaper has a three line headline on the front page: "King's Accused Killer May Fight Extradition".
Tells of the capture of James Earl Ray in London, England for the murder of the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
Other news of the day. Minor spine wear, otherwise in nice condition.
wikipedia notes: James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998) was a habitual criminal convicted of the assassination of American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which occurred on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.
A little more than two months after King's death, on June 8, 1968, Ray was captured at London's Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United Kingdom on a false Canadian passport in the name of Ramon George Sneyd because he was alleged to have shot King.[2] Another passport Ray carried with a second name was sighted and made him look suspicious. Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with King's murder, confessing to the assassination on March 10, 1969, (though he recanted this confession three days later) and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.[3] On the advice of his attorney, Percy Foreman, Ray took a guilty plea to avoid a trial conviction and therefore the possibility of receiving the death penalty. He would have been electrocuted.
Ray later fired Foreman as his attorney (from then on derisively calling him "Percy Fourflusher") claiming that a man he met in Montreal, using the alias "Raoul" had been deeply involved, as was his brother Johnny, but not himself. He further asserted that although he didn't "personally shoot Dr. King," he may have been "partially responsible without knowing it," hinting at a conspiracy. He spent the remainder of his life attempting (unsuccessfully) to withdraw his guilty plea and secure the trial he never had.
Category: The 20th Century
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