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June 10th
1977: James Earl Ray escapes
James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., escaped from a maximum security prison in Tennessee today along with five other prisoners. It was the third time he tried to flee from his 99-year sentence.
"The prisoners went over the wall about 8 p.m. EDT using a makeshift ladder made of a metal conduit. Prison officials said the escape was covered by a mock fight between two prisoners in the yard of Brushy Mountain State Prison, the state's maximum security facility," reported the Oakland Tribune on June 11, 1977.
NOTE: Three days later, two bloodhounds found Ray hiding beneath a pile of leaves within 10 miles of the state prison. According to newspaper reports from 1977, he surrendered without a struggle once he was spotted.
2004: Ray Charles dies
Legendary musician Ray Charles died of acute liver disease today in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 73. "Blind by age 7, and an orphan at 15, the gifted pianist and saxophonist spent his life shattering any notion of musical categories and defying easy definition," explained the Gettysburg Times on June 11, 2004.
1985: Socialite Claus von Bulow is acquitted
A jury in Providence, Rhode Island, found Danish-born socialite Claus von Bulow innocent of trying to kill his heiress wife, Martha 'Sunny' von Bulow, with insulin injections today. Von Bulow was on trial for a second time as his wife laid in an irreversible coma in a New York hospital. "After their 1966 marriage in an intimate chapel ceremony, Claus and Martha von Bulow seemed to have everything money could buy – palatial homes, limousines, servants and a reigning spot in the whirl of high society," informed The Post Standard on June 11, 1985. "But they became one of the world's best known couples because of their private unhappiness."
1945: Eisenhower receives Order of Victory
General Dwight D. Eisenhower and British Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery were presented with the Soviet Order of Victory today. "It was the first time that Soviet Russia's highest award had been presented to any but Russians. Eisenhower was the eighth person to receive the award, and the British field marshal, the ninth," reported The Lowell Sun on June 11, 1945.
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