James Earl Ray, the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King Jr and the central figure in the conspiracy talk that haunted the crime ever since, died yesterday, prison officials said.
The 70-year-old Ray was pronounced dead at Memorial Hospital in Nashville where he had been taken for treatment of the final stage liver disease, a condition that had left him near death a number of times since late 1996.
His death, reported by the Tennessee Department of Correction, closed one of the last windows on the April 4th, 1968, assassination of the preacher and civil rights leader. Ray pleaded guilty to the crime and signed a court stipulation that constituted a broad confession but recanted almost immediately, saying he did not kill King but was duped as part of a larger plot.
He repeatedly but unsuccessfully sought the trial that his guilty plea had foreclosed, a quest that members of King's family had backed in the last two years. The family issued a statement saying they were saddened by his passing and regretting that the country will never see a trial that would have shed light on the crime and alleged conspiracy.
"This is a tragedy, not only for Mr Ray and his family but also for the entire nation. America will never have the benefit of Mr Ray's trial which would have produced new revelations about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr as well as establish the facts concerning Mr Ray's innocence," Ms Coretta Scott King said in a statement on behalf of the King family.