Three Name Assassins

I just commented on this to DH (his degree is in Radio-TV-Film, N Texas State U, 1975) & he said it is because journalists wanted to identify the person as completely as possible so that they couldn't be confused with any other, say "Lee Oswald", "Harvey Oswald", or whatever.

Many people don't know this but MLK, Jr. was nearly killeed by a black woman (failed assassin) named Izola Curry.
She used a letter opener.

en.wikipedia.org...

Everybody knows about James Earl Ray's successful assassination attempt on Martin Luther King Jr. But history often forgets that he was stabbed in the chest a decade earlier. The weapon? A letter opener. The criminal? The flamboyantly-named Izola Curry. Rumour has it that if King had sneezed during the time it took him to get to hospital, his life - and with it much of the civil rights battle - would have been over.

source: timesonline.typepad.com... t-memorable-aspec.html

I think we don't hear about this because (a) she failed and (b) she is black and (c) she is a woman.
People (or the mass media) just seems more interested in white male assassins, regardless of the importance of the assassinated.