4 april 1968: Martin Luther King vermoord. R.I.P.

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, 39, was assassinated while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. James Earl Ray (d.1998) confessed and pleaded guilty in Mar, 1969, but later tried to recant and said he was a fall guy. In 1993 Lloyd Jowers (d.2000), a Memphis businessman, said on ABC-TV that he had hired King's killer as a favor to an underworld figure who was a friend. Jowers said he received $100,000 from Memphis produce mercahnt Frank Liberto to arrange King’s murder. In 1997 Ray identified an arms smuggler named “Raoul as the real killer. In 1998 a former FBI agent produced documents from Ray’s car with the name Raul. In 1999 a civil trial jury in Memphis ruled that the 1968 killing of Rev. Martin Luther King was a conspiracy. The jury concluded that Lloyd Jowers, a former café owner, had conspired with elements of the Memphis Police Dept., the federal government and organized crime to kill King. In 2000 a Justice Dept. report rejected allegations of conspiracy. In 2002 Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson (61) said that his father, Henry Clay Wilson (d.1990), had shot King.

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