A newly released trove of documents, ranging from notes to his family to rare black-and-white images of his booking, are shedding new light on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s convicted assassin, James Earl Ray.
According to The Associated Press, the documents were discovered around 2006 deep inside the Shelby County archives in a fading yellow folder.
County officials said the bundle contained never-before-seen photos of Ray’s booking, as well as letters to family and his attorney. Shelby County Register of Deeds Tom Leatherwood said the bundle contains hundreds of pictures, including crime scene photos, as well as notes from investigators and correspondents between Ray and his family and attorney.
Ray, who died in 1998, was accused of the April 4, 1968, assassination of King.
King, who lived in Atlanta, was visiting Memphis on behalf of striking sanitation workers, when he was shot and killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
Ray was captured in London two months after the shooting. In March 1969, he pleaded guilty instead of risking a jury trial, where he could have faced the electric chair. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
The Shelby County documents are from Ray’s eight-month stay in the Shelby County jail.
On Monday, the 43rd anniversary of King's death, Leatherwood will put the entire file on the Shelby County Register of Deeds' website at http://register.shelby.tn.us/.
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