On April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST, Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights activist, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead with mortal injuries at 7:05 p.m. at age 39.
The assassin, James Earl Ray, an escaped convict from the Missouri State Penitentiary, was arrested on June 8, 1968, at London's Heathrow Airport, extradited to the United States and charged with the crime. On March 10, 1969, Ray pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. He later made many attempts to withdraw his guilty plea and to be tried by a jury, but was unsuccessful, before he died in 1998.
The King family and others believe that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy involving the U.S. government, the Mafia, and Memphis police, as alleged by Loyd Jowers in 1993. They believe that Ray was a scapegoat. In 1999, the family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jowers for the sum of $10 million. During the trial, both sides presented evidence alleging a government conspiracy.
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