Mystery Unsolved Inc True Crime

The Assassination of MLK Jr.

"Today we're going to be talking about the true story of the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr."

"Along with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, this is one of the most highlight examples of state corruption and conspiracy in all of American history."

"So I thought that we would take a look at the information today, and I can tell you why I myself, as well as the family of Martin Luther King, do not believe James Earl Ray was the shooter."

"And furthermore, why in 1999, the King family sued the government for a wrongful death and conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King Jr., and won."

"To make sure we're all on the same page, I'm going to start by giving the FBI's account of what happened and then after that, I'll explain why it's all a lie. For starters Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights leader who was not only an effective speaker and leader within the Civil Rights movement but also no stranger to death threats. As a matter of fact, in 1958, he was stabbed in the chest and nearly killed. And in 1963, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he told his wife, 'This is what's going to happen to me also. I keep telling you, this is a sick society.'  King would often travel with others members of his organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and go to different cities across the U.S where King would speak at different rallies and protests. In 1968, King along with a group of members from that association, came to Memphis, Tennessee as part of a sanitation worker's rally. Now there have been a long history of black city workers within Memphis, Tennessee being unpaid and put in harsh labor conditions. However, the event that sparked this particular rally was the death of two sanitation workers who died while on the job and their family was not given any insurance payout for their death. So King led a march In Memphis on March the 28th, and then planned to lead another march after that during the following week. On April 3rd, King stood in front of the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee and gave his famous 'I've Been To the Mountaintop' speech."

"The next day on April the 4th of 1968, King was staying In room 306 of the Lorraine Motel. Another pastor who traveled with King, a man by the name of Ralph Abernathy, said that they stayed In that specific room so often whenever they visited Memphis, that to was nicknamed the King-Abernathy suite. The group was getting ready to go to dinner before King was set to deliver another speech that night, and his final words officially at least were to the musician Ben Branch, in which King said 'Ben make sure you play Take My Hand, Precious Lord in the meeting tonight, play it real pretty.' King then leaned over the balcony on the second floor of the Lorraine Motel to speak to Jesse Jackson who was standing in the parking lot beneath. At that moment, at 6:01PM, a shot rang out which struck King in the right cheek. It immediately broke his jaw and several vertebrae while severing the veins and arteries in his neck. King was immediately knocked out, however, one of his colleagues who was holding his head as he was bleeding found that he had a pulse and he was immediately taken to the Saint Joseph's Hospital. However, there Martin Luther King was officially declared dead at 7:05PM on April the 4th of 1968. The police were quick to arrive on scene and concluded that the shot had been fired from the bathroom window of a boarding house across the street from the Lorraine Motel."

"Immediately next to the boarding house, the police found a bed sheet which contained someone's personal clothing and a sort of overnight bag, as well as a Remington 760 Gamemaster rifle within the pump action 30.6 was an empty rifle casing. Indicating that someone had fired the gun and not ejected the old casing. The rifle as well as the belongings in the bed sheet were covered in the fingerprints of someone identified as James Earl Ray."

"James Earl Ray was an escaped convict from Jackson City, Missouri who was arrested and serving twenty years for robbing a grocery store before he broke out of jail. Not only that, but in the aforementioned boarding house one of the rooms was being rented by James Earl Ray. He was on the run for two months before he was caught in London at the Heathrow Airport as he was trying to board a plane to Rhodesia. After his arrest on March the 10th of 1969, Ray, in order to avoid the death penalty, pleaded guilty to the first degree murder of MLK. The FBI concluded that the reason for this murder was that James Earl Ray was poor and there was a bounty put out by racist southerners for the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. In a book titled 'He Slew the Dreamer' which came out shortly after the death of MLK, the author says that James Earl Ray was a very racist and hateful person who was trying to collect a bounty from members of the KKK for the murder of MLK."