James Earl Ray was serving a 20-year sentence for robbery at the Missouri State Penitentary when he escaped on April 23, 1967. While on the lamb, he traveled extensively in North America, briefly residing in Chicago, Montreal, Puerto Vallarta, Los Angeles and Atlanta. A white supremacist with a strong prejudice against African Americans, Ray volunteered for the George Wallace presidential campaign in early 1968, attracted by Wallace's segregationist platform. While in Los Angeles, he is thought to have begun plotting the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

Arriving in Atlanta on March 24, he began tracking King's movements, buying a map of the city on which he circled the locations of King's church and residence. On March 30, he traveled to Birmingham and purchased a Remington .30-06 Gamemaster rifle, using an alias. Learning that King would be returning to Memphis in support of a strike by that city's sanitation workers, Ray arrived there on April 2, taking a room in a boarding house next to the Lorraine Motel, where King and his entourage were staying. On the morning of April 4, King was assassinated as he stood on the second-floor balcony. Ray narrowly managed to flee the scene, leaving the rifle and a knapsack behind.

On April 17, Attorney General Ramsey Clark announced that the FBI was seeking one "Eric Galt" for the murder. When fingerprints were compared with FBI records, J. Edgar Hoover announced that "Galt and Ray are identical." On May 7, the Shelby County Criminal Court named James Earl Ray in an indictment for the murder of King. An international manhunt culminated with Ray's capture at Heathrow Airport, London, on June 8. Following extradition proceedings in England, he was returned to the United States on July 19. Ray pleaded guilty and on March 10, 1969 was sentenced to 99 years without parole. He briefly escaped in 1977, was recaptured, and died in prision in 1998.

Rare, original wanted poster for one of the most notorious political assassins in U.S. history.