Initial Convictions and First Escape From Prison
He was convicted of his first crime, a burglary in California, in 1949. In 1952 he served two years for armed robbery of a taxi driver in Illinois. In 1955, he was convicted of mail fraud after stealing money orders in Hannibal, Missouri, and then forging them to take a trip to Florida. He served three years at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. In 1959 he was caught stealing $120 in an armed robbery of a St. Louis Kroger store. Ray was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. He escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1967 by hiding in a truck transporting bread from the prison bakery.
Read more about this topic: James Earl Ray
Famous quotes containing the words initial, convictions, escape and/or prison:
“For those parents from lower-class and minority communities ... [who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“The most noticeable weakness of Congressmen is their timidity. They fear the use to be made of their “record.” They are afraid of making enemies. They do not vote according to their convictions from fear of consequences.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders our view. Too great length and too great brevity of discourse tends to obscurity; too much truth is paralyzing.... In short, extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“They are sworn enemies of lyric poetry.
In prison they accompany the jailer,
Enter cells to hear confessions.
Their short-end comes down
When you least expect it.”
—Charles Simic (b. 1938)