Martin Luther King’s killer is stabbed 22 times by inmates in prison attack
This week in 1981, James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr, was stabbed 22 times by four of his fellow inmates at the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, Tennessee.
Ray, who was serving a 99-year prison term for the King Jr assassination, survived the murder attempt. He died in 1998, 30 years after killing the civil rights leader on a Memphis motel balcony.
Although Ray refused to identify his attackers, three African-American prisoners were later convicted of the attempt and had at least 20 years added to their prison sentences.
In other news, hundreds of train passengers were killed when seven cars of an overcrowded train fell off the tracks and plunged into the Bagmati River in India’s Bihar state.
Although initial estimates placed the death toll as high as 3,000 people, the figure would later be revised to about 800.
Back on home soil, more than 80 arrests were made during clashes between white power skinheads and black people in Coventry, where the National Front was planning to march later that month, on the same day as an anti-racist concert by The Specials.
In horse racing, Shergar won the Epsom Derby by ten lengths –the longest winning margin in the illustrious race’s history.
After Shergar’s Epsom Derby win, owner A ga Khan sold 40 shares in the horse, valuing it at £10 million.
Shergar was famously stolen from the Aga Khan’s stud farm by an armed gang on 8 February 1983.
Negotiations were conducted with the thieves, but the gang broke off communication after four days when the syndicate did not accept the proof provided that the horse was still alive.
In 1999, former IRA member Sean O’Callaghan published details of the theft and stated that it was an IRA operation to raise money for arms.
He said that very soon after the theft, Shergar had panicked and damaged his leg, which led to him being killed by the gang.