James Earl Ray escapes from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee. He is recaptured three days later.

James Earl Ray was an American fugitive who was convicted of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. After the assassination, Ray fled to London and was captured there. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty plea—thus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentence—and was sentenced to 99 years of imprisonment.

Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, last named Brushy Mountain Correctional Complex, was a maximum-security prison in the community of Petros in Morgan County, Tennessee, operated by the Tennessee Department of Correction. It was established in 1896 and operated until 2009.

Petros is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Morgan County, Tennessee, United States, located on State Route 116. Its population was 459 at the 2020 census. Petros has its own post office, with the ZIP code 37845.