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

On March 31, King gave his last sermon in Washington, DC. He reminded his audience that the fight for racial equality was closely linked to the fight against poverty and spoke about the injustice of the Vietnam War. That same night, President Johnson made a televised address and announced that he would not seek reelection. Presiding over the controversial Vietnam War had “driven him from the presidency” (113). These two events made March 31 “a momentous day”; no one remembered James Earl Ray buying a rifle the day before.

Ray was still waiting for King to return to Atlanta but was getting impatient. He was also fine-tuning his plan and perhaps realized that he might have trouble escaping if he shot King in his neighborhood or at church. When Ray learned that King would return to Memphis, he followed him. He left Atlanta on April 2. King spent the evening with his family and the Abernathys, enjoying dinner before flying to Memphis the next day. It was his last evening with his family.

On April 3, Abernathy and King flew to Memphis. The plane was briefly delayed because of a possible bomb threat, and King joked to Abernathy about surviving the trip. In Memphis, King was driven to his hotel where his entourage greeted him. Together, they strategized for the upcoming march. The city opposed the protest because of the violence in the previous march, and King met with his lawyer to make a plan to fight the court order.

That night, as a huge storm broke, King was supposed to speak at a public rally at Mason Temple. King was tired and unwell. He was “at a low point in his life,” worried that he was no longer “a worthy or effective leader of the movement” (121). He asked Abernathy to speak for him, and his friend hesitated but finally agreed.

However, when Abernathy arrived at the rally, more than 3,000 people were waiting for King, along with news crews ready to broadcast the leader’s speech across the country. Abernathy called King and urged him to come. He finally arrived late, at 9 pm. King addressed the crowd, beginning with talk of the sanitation workers’ strike and its importance to the civil rights movement. Then, King remembered how “lucky he was to be alive” (122) and began to tell the crowd about the attempt on his life back in 1958. He told the crowd that the letter opener he was stabbed with rested so close to his aorta that he would have died if he had sneezed. He recalled a letter he had received in the hospital from a young white girl, telling him she was “so happy that [he] didn’t sneeze” (123).

King told the crowd that he was glad he hadn’t sneezed and detailed the many things he would have missed seeing and doing if he had died that day. Then, King “confided that he relished life” (124) but referred to the Old Testament story of Moses, who saw the Promised Land and led his people there but could not enter himself. King insisted his followers would reach the Promised Land, even if he did not accompany them. This speech, King’s last, became one of his most famous.

Swanson writes that King, more than any other controversial figure, faced a “continuous threat of violence” (126). Although King bravely faced the danger, he often wondered when his time would come.

Meanwhile, James Earl Ray had arrived in Memphis and taken shelter from the storm in a motel. Possibly, he watched King’s speech on television, but if so, it had no effect. Ray decided that the next day he “would begin hunting Martin Luther King” (126).

The next day, Ray read a newspaper article about King’s planned march on April 8. The article included a photo of the Lorraine Motel, where King was staying, and his room number, 306, was clearly visible. Ray drove by the motel and spotted a boarding house across the street. He stopped and asked about renting a room. The first room the woman showed him faced the wrong way, but the next room offered a view of the Lorraine, including room 306. The window offered a poor angle for aiming the rifle, but Ray quickly discovered he could arrange a clear shot from the window in the shared bathroom down the hall. 

It was a “risky” plan. Ray didn’t know when King would be coming and going from his room, and he couldn’t lock himself in the bathroom for hours without raising suspicion from the other boarders. He decided to keep a lookout for King from his own room and move to the bathroom when he saw his opportunity. That afternoon, Ray bought a pair of binoculars. He also had to sneak the rifle into his room without raising suspicion. He waited until there was no one around, then carried the rifle inside. 

Meanwhile, King spent most of April 4 in meetings, including one with the young activists who disrupted the previous march. King found the young men “disrespectful and threatening” and failed to reason with them. Around the time Ray was smuggling his rifle into the boarding house, King learned that the city had lifted the court order prohibiting the march, and they could go ahead with their plans. The men in King’s room were “giddy” at the news and “began a spontaneous pillow fight” (135).

As James Earl Ray watched from across the parking lot, King and Abernathy went to room 306 to prepare for dinner. Although he “put on a somber, serious face” in public (136), King was known for his sense of humor and laughter among his friends. He was looking forward to relaxing and celebrating the success of the previous night’s speech. 

At 5:50 pm, three police cars holding officers from Tactical Unit 10 pulled into a fire station a block from the Lorraine Motel to take a break. Ready for dinner, King stood on the balcony outside his room and talked to his friends who had assembled below. He called to Abernathy, who replied that he needed to put on his cologne. King waited for him on the balcony. Meanwhile, Ray watched from his window. He took the rifle and hurried into the bathroom. Someone knocked on the door, but Ray ignored it. He looked through the scope until he found King’s face and took aim. 

At the firehouse a block away, a police officer was looking at King’s balcony through his binoculars. He announced that King was preparing to leave, and one of the firemen asked to have a look. At that moment, Ray pulled the trigger. A mere third of a second later, the bullet hit King in his right cheek, the force of it landing him on his back. The sound of the gun’s firing followed a fraction of a second later. The fireman watching through the binoculars was the first to sound the alarm. He shouted to the police officers on break, who ran toward the motel. 

Abernathy heard the explosion from the motel room. He hurried outside and saw King lying on the ground. He knelt by his friend and tried to comfort him as he waited for the ambulance to arrive, and chaos consumed the Lorraine Motel. 

Across the parking lot, Ray seized the rifle and his suitcase and left the building. He worried about being seen by the other residents and hurried by anyone he saw. He was almost in his car when he noticed the police cars parked at the firehouse. This frightened him, and he decided to leave the gun and his suitcase in the doorway to the nearby Canipe Amusement Company. The owner heard the sound of the suitcase hitting the door, and when he went out to investigate, he noticed Ray’s white Mustang driving away. Ray was gone less than five minutes after firing the shot that killed King.