Some investigations and the King family have claimed that there was a conspiracy involving others besides James Earl Ray.

While the official investigations concluded that James Earl Ray acted alone, the King family has long believed otherwise. In 1999, a wrongful death civil lawsuit filed by the King family found that there was a conspiracy involving multiple parties, including government agencies. Lloyd Jowers, a local restaurant owner, claimed involvement in the assassination plot, alleging that the fatal shot was fired by someone else. Subsequent government investigations, however, found Jowers’s claims unsubstantiated, but the debate over a wider conspiracy persists among historians and activists.