The Nation: THE QUESTION OF CONSPIRACY

James Earl Ray, the bungling petty gunman and burglar whose life of crime has been mostly one fizzle after another, was back where he had always longed to be: at the center of national attention. With his renewed prominence, painful memories—and nagging questions—flooded back concerning his slaying of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on a Memphis motel balcony on April 4, 1968.

Now all the little questions within the big question—Did he really conceive and carry out the assassination of King alone?—would loom large once more. Where did this inept criminal get the money...