Was James Earl Ray Martin Luther King's Killer? Doubts Remain

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King was assassinated in 
Memphis, Tennessee, 40 years ago on 4 April 1968.

A year later, James Earl Ray admitted to being the assassin. 
Because of that guilty plea there was no full trial. But Ray 
changed his story almost at once and until his death in 1998 
insisted he did not murder Dr King. So was he the killer? And if 
so, did he work alone?

Who was James Earl Ray? When he died in 1998, CNN posted a 
series of biographical information and interviews with Ray's 
attorney William Pepper.

He died of liver failure at 10:36 a.m. CDT (11:36 a.m. EDT) at 
Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital, a statement from the 
Tennessee Department of Correction said.

Ray, who fought without success to have his name cleared, spent 
his last days in a coma at a Nashville hospital. He had been in 
and out of intensive care for more than a year with cirrhosis, a 
chronic liver disease.

Martin Luther King's family believed Ray was not the killer. In 
1997 Ray met with King's son, Dexter to talk about the murder:

Ray came as close as he ever would to being absolved in King's 
assassination in a March 1997 meeting with one of the civil 
rights leader's sons, Dexter King.

"I had nothing to do with shooting your father," Ray told King.

Later, King asked Ray directly, "I want to ask for the record: 
did you kill my father?"

"No, I didn't, no, no," Ray said.

"I believe you, and my family believes you, and we will do 
everything in our power to see you prevail," King replied.
Many believe King's assassination was a government conspiracy. 
Crime Library collects the theories.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson says it's a plot: "I have always believed 
that the government was part of a conspiracy, either directly or 
indirectly, to assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.," he wrote 
in the forward to James Earl Ray's autobiography Who Killed 
Martin Luther King Jr.? Former U.S. Ambassador to the United 
Nations and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young believes the government 
was responsible for King's death, as well.

"I've always thought the FBI might be involved in some way," he 
said. "You have to remember this was a time when the politics of 
assassination was acceptable in this country. It was during the 
period just before Allende's murder. I think it's naïve to 
assume these institutions were not capable of doing the same 
thing at home or to say each of these deaths (King and the two 
Kennedys) was an isolated incident by 'a single assassin.' It 
was government policy."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/04/was-james-earl-ray-
martin_n_95030.html
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