Article: Who murdered King? // 20 years later, Ray insists he's innocent, and some believe it

MEMPHIS, Tenn. It is the evening of April 4, 1968. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. leans over a balcony railing at the Lorraine Motel. The crack of a single shot from a high-powered rifle shatters the air.

Suddenly, he's gone.

This much is clearly documented. But who killed the 39-year-old civil rights leader and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize?

James Earl Ray, the small-time thief who pleaded guilty, has spent the past 20 years trying to prove he didn't do it. He talks of a shadowy "Raoul."

Other principals in the case hold widely varying opinions: Ray's attorneys disagree on whether he was the triggerman; the prosecutor acknowledges he wasn't confident about the case; the ...

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