James Earl Ray: The Bumbling Fugitive Who Killed MLK

The man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. was no criminal mastermind. This episode traces the erratic, contradictory life of James Earl Ray, a habitual petty criminal whose record was a continuous loop of bungled burglaries, robberies, and fraud before April 4, 1968.We follow Ray from a childhood on the run and a military discharge for ineptitude, through a prison escape hidden in a bread truck, a bizarre fugitive year, and the meticulous stalking that ended in Memphis, to a global flight that finally collapsed at Heathrow Airport.A 20-year sentence for a 120 dollar armed robbery at a St. Louis grocery storeHis strange fugitive detours: a nose job, dance lessons, and bartending schoolVolunteering for George Wallace's campaign and dreaming of emigrating to RhodesiaDropping the rifle covered in his own fingerprints at the sceneHis recanted guilty plea and the enduring Raoul conspiracy claims