This photograph shows an unidentified man using a blanket to cover Martin Luther King Jr.’s body after he was shot while he was standing on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
He was struck in the face at 6:01 pm by a single bullet fired from a Remington Model 760 rifle. The bullet entered through King’s right cheek, breaking his jaw and several vertebrae as it traveled down his spinal cord, severing his jugular vein and major arteries in the process, before lodging in his shoulder. The force of the shot ripped King’s necktie off. King fell backward onto the balcony, unconscious.
Shortly after the shot was fired, witnesses saw a man, later believed to be James Earl Ray, fleeing from a rooming house across the street from the Lorraine Motel. Ray had been renting a room there. Police found a package dumped close to the site, which included a rifle and binoculars, both with Ray’s fingerprints. Ray had purchased the rifle under an alias six days earlier. A worldwide manhunt was triggered, which culminated in the arrest of Ray at London’s Heathrow Airport two months later.
Andrew Young, a colleague from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who reached the scene first believed King was dead, but found he still had a pulse.
King was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where doctors opened his chest and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He never regained consciousness and died at 7:05 p.m. His autopsy revealed that despite being aged just 39, his heart was in the condition of a 60-year-old man, which was attributed to the stress of his 13 years in the Civil Rights Movement.
He was struck in the face at 6:01 pm by a single bullet fired from a Remington Model 760 rifle. The bullet entered through King’s right cheek, breaking his jaw and several vertebrae as it traveled down his spinal cord, severing his jugular vein and major arteries in the process, before lodging in his shoulder. The force of the shot ripped King’s necktie off. King fell backward onto the balcony, unconscious.
Shortly after the shot was fired, witnesses saw a man, later believed to be James Earl Ray, fleeing from a rooming house across the street from the Lorraine Motel. Ray had been renting a room there. Police found a package dumped close to the site, which included a rifle and binoculars, both with Ray’s fingerprints. Ray had purchased the rifle under an alias six days earlier. A worldwide manhunt was triggered, which culminated in the arrest of Ray at London’s Heathrow Airport two months later.
Andrew Young, a colleague from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who reached the scene first believed King was dead, but found he still had a pulse.
King was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where doctors opened his chest and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He never regained consciousness and died at 7:05 p.m. His autopsy revealed that despite being aged just 39, his heart was in the condition of a 60-year-old man, which was attributed to the stress of his 13 years in the Civil Rights Movement.