Chasing King's Killer: The Hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Assassin

Swanson writes that two things happened in April 1967 that “would change the destiny of the nation, and of Dr. King” (84). On the same day that King spoke up against the Vietnam War, a man escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. 

The inmate ate a large breakfast in the prison cafeteria before changing into some clothes he had hidden away in the bread room. Then, his accomplices helped him hide in a bread box loaded onto a truck for delivery. No one searched the departing truck, and the inmate climbed out of the box when the truck stopped and ran off before the driver noticed.

For nearly a week, the inmate hid during the day and listened to the radio for news of his escape. He heard only one short story about the incident. Once he “decided the heat must be off” (86), he hopped on a train to St. Louis, where a friend drove him to Edwardsville, Illinois. From there, he took a bus to Chicago. The man’s name was James Earl Ray.

Swanson calls Ray an “insignificant” criminal: He hadn’t committed any particularly violent or gruesome crimes, and few resources were dedicated to searching for him. Although King and Ray did not know each other, Ray’s escape “set in motion the ticking of a clock that would take almost one year to wind down” (87).

Ray was born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois. From a young age, Ray was “on a precarious path” (87). His mother was just 19 when he was born, and his father was largely absent. He was the oldest of eight siblings, and his family lived in poverty. He did poorly in school and dropped out at 15 after never moving past 8th grade. Swanson calls him “exactly the kind of underprivileged child that Martin Luther King, Jr., wanted to help” (89). 

After dropping out of school, Ray worked at a tannery, but two years later he was laid off after the end of World War II. He enlisted in the Army but was discharged for repeated poor behavior and various infractions. Ray had little interest in working, so he turned to crime for money, creating “a gang of armed thieves” (89) with his brothers. For years, Ray orchestrated robberies across the United States and was in and out of jail. However, he was never known for committing racially- motivated crimes. Finally, in 1959, he robbed a Kroger with an accomplice, stealing $60 each. Caught for this crime, Ray was sentenced to 20 years in prison, based on his criminal history. 

From prison, Ray watched as the United States “was transformed by pivotal events and social movements” (91). He missed the development of the space program, the assassination of JFK, and the birth of the antiwar and civil rights movements. Ray was meant to remain in prison until 1980, which would have made him “a bystander” to “one of the most event-packed decades in United States history” (92). However, Ray escaped “into the maelstrom of the 1960s” (92). 

Ray had an “average-looking face and a flat, unremarkable personality” (92), which made committing crimes easy. Very few people remembered anything about him after the fact, and he could use this trait to live a quiet life and avoid detection from the authorities. For the rest of 1967, Ray stayed on the move to avoid being caught. He traveled across the United States and spent time in Canada and Mexico before settling in Los Angeles. In LA, Ray hoped to “reinvent himself.” He became interested in hypnosis and self-help books and dabbled in the adult film business for a while. He made no friends and “was average in every way” (95). 

On November 27, 1967, King was planning a “Poor People’s Campaign” that he hoped would unite Americans of all races in the fight for economic advancement. On the very same day, Ray began seeing a clinical psychologist to learn more about self-hypnosis. In contrast to King’s vision of uniting races, Ray read “hate literature” and supported the segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace, volunteering at his campaign offices in Hollywood. 

Ray spent Christmas and New Year alone and “seemed content to pursue life on the West Coast” (96). He had been out of prison for eight months, and nothing “suggested that he was on a collision course with Martin Luther King” (96). His focus was all on building a new life for himself in California. 

However, 1968 was a year that would change his life, along with the lives of Lyndon B. Johnson and King.