♪ ♪ (siren wailing) ♪ ♪ (crowd clamoring) ♪ ♪ MAN: At 3:48, Shelby County Sheriff's Department received into its custody James Earl Ray, the accused slayer of Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

DAN RATHER: The second before his arrest, James Earl Ray was the most wanted man in the United States, one of if not the most wanted suspects in the world.

JOHN CAMPBELL: This was like assassinating a president in some ways.

King, by '68, was the face of the civil rights movement.

He was an international figure.

GERALD POSNER: When a public official the magnitude of King gets killed in the prime of their life, we can't quite imagine that.

You've got this young, charismatic preacher pulling together a movement with so much potential for the future.

On the other hand, you have a four-time loser, James Earl Ray, pulling off the assassination; it doesn't make sense.

Do you have anything you'd like to say right now at this time?

HARRIS WOFFORD: The greatest single blow to my spirit was the assassination of Martin Luther King.

A shudder went through the American people.

JOE SWEAT: I think it made America wake up.

You had people saying, "Golly, is this... "is this division we have with the blacks, has it come to this, do we actually shoot people down?"

SAMUEL KYLES: Martin Luther King was so convinced that the only way we could win the battle was nonviolently.

And he had made up his mind with all of the risk involved.

He wouldn't turn around.

He wouldn't give up.

ROGER WILKINS: There were black people who were saying that the magic was gone.

They were saying, "Well, he's always talking "about this peace stuff.

"That's not... that's not how the cracker is.

"The cracker's got guns and he's going to kill us and we got to have guns."

RATHER: The assassination speaks to what a dangerous time it was for the country, particularly for those who tried to give voice to our difficulties and the hope for a better day.

When James Earl Ray was arrested, the questions just flowed.

Is he really the slayer?

If he is the killer, what motivated him?

Why did he do it?

♪ ♪ POSNER: In 1967 James Earl Ray is sitting inside Missouri State Penitentiary, what's called Jeff City.

He's a career criminal.

He has committed dozens of crimes-- robberies of grocery stores, robberies of paycheck stores, taxicabs, office buildings, whatever else that he gets away with.

Finally he gets caught in robbing a grocery store with a gun and he gets sent to Jeff City.

He's done time already at two other prisons that aren't easy.

But Jeff City is different for him.

He tried to plan to escape from his second year in there.

Ray wanted out.

RADIO REPORTER: Civil disobedience drive in Washington.

Dr.

King said Congress has dragged its heels in efforts to uplift the economic levels of the poor.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

(radio): Now, this has brought about a great deal of bitterness, anger.

HAMPTON SIDES: There's rumors swirling around Jeff City about a bounty for the head of Martin Luther King.

Some said it was $50,000, some said it was $100,000.

POSNER: A lot of the white inmates of Jeff City had straight racist views.

There was in fact an operating equivalent of a Klan operation inside.

So, if you were a white inmate who hated blacks in Jeff City, you might sit around and say, "Too bad we're in here.

"There's over 50,000 for somebody who can put a bullet in that preacher out there."

SIDES: It was early in the morning, and Ray was working in the bakery.

This was the morning that he was going to escape.

He went down to a loading dock area where the bread from the bakery was being cooled and got into one of these boxes that the bread was going out on and had a false bottom placed on top of him.

The box is placed inside a truck and the truck is waved on and goes out of the prison.

When the truck comes to a stop, he just jumps off the truck and takes off down the railroad tracks.

It's important to understand this was a maximum-security prison.

This is not an easy place to spring from.

It shows something about Ray's personality that he's very patient, he plans months ahead.

RATHER: He had a lot of street smarts, a lot of jail and prison smarts.

A cunning mind.

No one would call him brilliant, but it would be a mistake to think that he was dumb.

SIDES: When he escapes, he doesn't have very much on his person, but one particular artifact that he will have with him for the next year is his prison radio, a transistor radio.

(indistinct radio chatter) Ray was a news junkie.

He was fascinated by the news.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: Partly cloudy, chance of showers late this afternoon... CAMPBELL: I think he thought that he was a much bigger fish than he was.

He thought when he escaped from prison that he was going to be all over the news, that J. Edgar Hoover would be on TV saying, you know, "James Earl Ray's escaped.

We need your help to find him," kind of thing.

SIDES: Ray hoped to be on the F.B.I.

's Most Wanted list, and lo and behold, he didn't make it.

WAYNE FLYNT: Instead of being elated at escaping, he's actually disappointed, because what he wanted more than the anonymity of escape was the notoriety of publicity, of recognition.

SIDES: After Ray escapes, he goes to Chicago and has a rendezvous with his brothers, Jerry and John.

The Rays were pretty tight.

They all were involved in petty crimes of one sort or another and they trusted each other.

They talk about what they're going to do.

They talk about the porn business.

Ray's kind of interested in-in porno.

He thinks there's money to be made there.

They also talk about kidnapping as a possible way to make some money and various other lowlife schemes.

But then, finally, the subject of Martin Luther King comes up.

For Ray, yeah, he doesn't like King, but the main thing is there's money to be made.

He feels confident that he can connect with the right individuals and that this is a way that he can, as a free man, finally make a living.

The brothers were a little bit taken aback by that.

Too big an operation, too ambitious, too dangerous, too risky, but it was in keeping with Ray's personality.

In the family lore, in the family mythology, James was the smart one, he was the ambitious one.

He was the one that was going to do big things.