Martin Luther King was allegedly killed because the Ku Klux Klan put a 100,000 dollars prize on his head, according to a book quoted by the Daily Mail.

Many speculations appeared over time according to which Martin Luther King was killed in 1968 as part of an extended conspiracy, but according to “The Awful Grace of God”, written by U.S. historians Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock, the reality might prove to be somewhat different.

They claim that the assassin, James Earl Ray, who was convinced for many felonies, including theft, was in a Missouri prison in 1967 when he heard about the prize offered by the Ku Klux Klan on Martin Luther King’s head.

The book suggests that, with the 100,000 dollars prize in his mind, Ray tried to plan the assassination, he escaped from prison and he shot Martin Luther King in an hotel in Memphis, Tennessee in April, 1968.

James Earl Ray  was arrested after two month and he died in prison in 1998 at the age of 70.

The two historians talked to Donald Niessen, who was an inmate at the Levenworth penitentiary in Kansas, at the same time as Ray. He said that he heard about the prize form another inmate who was connected to the Dixie mafia, a group of criminals located in Mississippi.