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Although most murders are brutal, the wickedness of Byrd's murder has shocked the world. NBA star Dennis Rodman has come forward to pay for Byrd's funeral. Filmmakers produced several documentaries. Artists such as Geto Boys, Drive-By Truckers and Will Smith have referred to the violent saga in their songs. The Maryland poet laureate Lucille Clifton wrote an ode to Byrd.
King has long maintained his innocence, once sending the Dallas Morning News a letter that would later be used against him. He stated that the evidence presented in his case was circumstantial and that Berry was solely responsible for Byrd's death.
"I do not think justice has been done," she told CNN. "Lawrence Brewer just had the opportunity to take drugs in his arm and go to sleep." My dad did not see this option, he was brutally tortured over a distance of 3 miles, It is dismembered. "
A modern lynching
It is difficult to describe what happened to Byrd as anything other than a modern lynch mob: King, Brewer and Berry took him away and drove him to an isolated place where they l & # 39; beat and painted his face before tying a chain of logs around his ankles and dragging him behind a van for nearly 3 miles.
Police found most of Byrd's body on Sunday, June 7, 1998 in front of a church outside Jasper, Texas, about two hours north-east of Houston, not far from downtown. border of Louisiana. The church housed a black cemetery. The remains of the court indicate that the rest of Byrd's body was found about a mile away.
"The death and dismemberment of Byrd were caused, according to the medical examiner, when he was hooked to a culvert on the side of the road," according to the records.
A trail of blood led the investigators to a field that showed signs of fighting. Police found a lighter bearing the inscription "KKK" and "Possum", cigarette butts, a button from Byrd's shirt, a baseball cap and a key bearing the name "Berry".
Byrd's acquaintances told the police that he saw Byrd at a party on the night of June 6, that he had left around 2 am and was then seen rolling into bed. A van with three white men in the taxi.
After arresting Berry for a traffic violation on June 8, 1998, the police found a set of tools matching the key, blood splatters under the truck and a rust stain on the ground. ;chain. The blood was like Byrd's, and the Berry truck's tires matched those on the runway.
The cigarette butts contained King's DNA and the police learned that his nickname was Possum. The investigators also discovered a 24-foot forest chain in a covered hole in the woods behind a house owned by King & # 39; s friend and Brewer.
Another damning piece of evidence was a wall in King's cell, where he described Berry, who had confessed and cooperated with the police, as a "traitor to the cookie".
"We did history and we will die of memory"
Although the motive was never stated, race was a theme of King's trial. Prosecutors presented evidence that King had been an "exalted Cyclops" of the Confederate White Knights of White Supremacy and had regularly drawn lynching scenes.
Among his tattoos were an inflamed cross, Schultzstaffel's double insignia, Adolf Hitler's paramilitary, a Ku Klux Klansman in costume, a swastika, the words "Aryan Pride" and a black man. hanging on a tree.
The gang experts said that King was recruiting other people to defend his cause – a total racial war – and that leaving Byrd's body in front of the church, rather than hiding it, "showed that the crime was supposed to sow terror.
Prosecutors also presented a note that King had attempted to smuggle Brewer into jail, according to court records.
"Seriously, my brother, no matter the outcome, we have marked history and we will die if we remember it proudly," wrote King, signing it, "A lot of Aryan love … Possum."
Black detainees, Nolan said, have been repeatedly raped by King.
"That's exactly what the white gang wanted," he wrote. "Filled with hate, King was easily recruited into their group to protect himself.For the rest of his sentence, they filled King's head with hatred against blacks.When he was released, John King set off this hidden hatred against James Byrd. "
Brewer, whom King met in prison, also joined the Confederate Knights of America to protect himself, according to court records. Both men were released in mid-1997, a few months before Byrd's murder.
King has never confessed to murder
King never confessed his crimes and he did not testify at his 1999 trial, although a letter he sent to the Dallas Morning News was presented as evidence. In this document, he described Berry as "a ridiculous alcoholic and volatile person" and claimed that after a night drinking beer and vandalizing mailboxes, Berry had asked Byrd to negotiate a bargain. steroids.
Berry then brought King and Brewer home, where they gave him a beer fountain and a bottle of bourbon, King said. Berry left with Byrd and King went to bed, he wrote.
"I can not rightly say that's what happened next," King wrote before referring to Berry as the likely killer. "Russell Brewer and I are stereotyped and persecuted because of our differences in appearance, our criminal history and the pride we openly express for our race."
At his trial, Brewer stated that he had only been a bystander and that King and Berry had perpetrated the murder.
"I did not want to cause her death," said Brewer in tears. "I had no intention of killing anyone."
Jasper County General Counsel Guy James Gray, however, told the jury, "In this situation, if you do not give this man the death penalty, he will kill again."
King must be executed Wednesday at 18h. (7 pm ET) at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. He will be the third prisoner executed in Texas this year, after murderer Robert Mitchell Jennings and triple murderer Billie Wayne Coble.
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