Public Access America

National Archives and Records Administration - ARC 43297, LI 233-MLK-150170 - INTERVIEW OF JAMES EARL RAY BY JOHN AUBLE, KST-TV ST LOUIS - DVD Copied by Ann Galloway. U.S. House of Representatives. Select Committee on Assassinations. (09/17/1976 - 01/03/1979). James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998) assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968. Ray was convicted on his 41st birthday after entering a guilty plea to forgo a jury trial. Had he been found guilty by jury trial, he would have been eligible for the death penalty. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later recanted his confession and tried unsuccessfully to gain access to a retrial. In 1998, Ray died in prison of complications due to chronic hepatitis C infection. He had served 29 years in prison at the time of his death. Martin Luther King was felled by a single bullet fired from a Remington 760 Gamemaster .30-06 rifle on April 4, 1968, while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in M