The Trump administration has released details of the FBI investigation into Martin Luther King Jr.’s killing as his family insists James Earl Ray was not the shooter.
In President Donald Trump’s push to release previously classified records related to infamous assassinations, including the shooting of former President John F. Kennedy, the feds released more than 230,000 pages of documents related to King’s killing on Monday.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are ensuring that no stone is left unturned in our mission to deliver complete transparency on this pivotal and tragic event in our nation’s history,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a statement.
King’s assassination shocked the world in 1968, and decades later, people are still fascinated by the civil rights leader’s death.
King was shot at 6:05 p.m. on April 4, 1968. He was in Memphis, Tennessee, to support a sanitation workers’ strike. As he stood on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel, a sniper’s bullet struck him in the neck. He died about an hour later in the hospital at the age of 39.
Over two months later, the suspect in King’s assassination, James Earl Ray, was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport. Ray was a convicted robber who had been associated with racists.
Witnesses reported seeing Ray running from a boarding house near the Lorraine Motel, where prosecutors said he fired the shot that killed King, History.com reported. Ray’s fingerprints were also on the rifle he used to assassinate King, according to the feds.
On March 10, 1969, nearly a year after King was killed, Ray pleaded guilty to the murder. He later renounced his plea and maintained his innocence until he died in prison in 1998 at the age of 70.
The King family has long believed Ray was not the killer, and in a statement released Monday, they said they will look for “additional insights” in the newly released files.
The statement, which was issued by two of King’s children, Martin Luther King III and Bernice, mentioned the verdict of a wrongful death lawsuit the family filed in Tennessee in 1999.
“The jury unanimously concluded that our father was the victim of a conspiracy involving Loyd Jowers and unnamed co-conspirators, including government agencies as a part of a wider scheme,” the family’s statement read. “The verdict also affirmed that someone other than James Earl Ray was the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.”
Jowers, a former Memphis tavern owner, claimed in 1993 he participated in a conspiracy to kill King along with a Mafia figure, Memphis police officers and a man named Raoul, according to the Justice Department. Jowers claimed one of the conspirators shot King from behind his tavern. Jowers died in 2000.
The King family’s statement continued: “Our family views that verdict as an affirmation of our long-held beliefs. As we review these newly released files, we will assess whether they offer additional insights beyond the findings our family has already accepted.”
The Justice Department said it reviewed the allegations and determined in August 2023 that, “on their face, Jowers’ allegations about a plot to kill Dr. King appear to be unworthy of belief.
“The totality of the evidence suggests that Jowers fabricated his allegations, hoping to promote a sensational account of a conspiracy to murder Dr. King,” the Justice Department said.
King’s family also told the public the newly released files “must be viewed within their full historical context,” claiming the civil rights leader was “relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by” former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
“The intent of the government’s COINTELPRO campaign was not only to monitor, but to discredit, dismantle and destroy Dr. King’s reputation and the broader American Civil Rights Movement,” the King family added.
COINTELPRO was an FBI program that ran from 1956 to 1971 to “disrupt the activities of the Communist Party of the United States,” according to the agency.
The Independent has reached out to the FBI for comment.
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