Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray. On April 4, 1968, Ray fired a single shot from a Remington Model 760 rifle from a bathroom window of a rooming house across the street from the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where King was standing on the balcony. King was struck in the face and died shortly after at the hospital

. James Earl Ray was an escaped convict who had fled the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1967. After the assassination, he fled the country but was arrested on June 8, 1968, at London's Heathrow Airport. He pleaded guilty on March 10, 1969, and was sentenced to 99 years in prison

. Although Ray later recanted his confession and claimed a conspiracy, no conclusive evidence has overturned his conviction