Shortly after 6 p.m., on the evening of April 04, 1968, a shot fired from the Memphis sky from a rooming house assassinating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. while he stood on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King was standing in front of his room, 306, at the balcony railing engaged in a conversation with someone on the pavement below when hit with a bullet. James Earl Ray, FBI's two-hundred-seventy-seven most wanted fugitive, fired one shot to the front of his face killing him. The autopsy revealed that the bullet entered Dr. King's right jaw approximately an inch and a half below the mouth fracturing it. It exited the lower part of his face and reentered the body in the neck area severing numerous vital arteries. The bullet also fractured Dr. King's spine in several places causing severe damage to the spinal column before coming to a rest on the left side of the back spinal cord stopping in the shoulder blade. Dr. King was assassinated by a Remington-Peters, soft point, a metal-jacketed bullet fired from a high velocity .30-06 rifle. The rifle was recovered by police in front of Canipe's Amusement Company abandon. Ray was later identified fleeing the scene by police as a single white male in a white mustang heading north. …show more content…
He carefully selected a room in the rear of the building, 5-B, with a direct view of the Lorraine Motel. Bessie Brewer testified confirming these allegations. Ray was originally staying at the New Rebel Motel when discovering information that Dr. King was staying at the Lorraine Motel. It was lead to believe that Ray was stalking Dr. King and waiting for an opportunity to kill him. Ray purchased a pair of binoculars to closely monitor Dr. King after renting the room. This was confirmed by a sale receipt from the York Arms Company and Ray's fingerprint on the