Dragging defandant testifies
Saturday, September 18, 1999
Bryan, Texas - Lawrence Russell Brewer took the stand in his own defense Friday and blamed the brutal dragging death of a black man on a co-defendant. Sobbing, the former leader of a racist prison gang told the jury: "I didn't mean to cause his death." It was the first testimony by one of the three men charged with killing James Byrd Jr.
Brewer admitted he was in the pickup truck with co-defendants Shawn Berry and John William King when Byrd was dragged to his death in June 1998. But he said it was Berry who slashed Byrd's throat, then chained him to the back of the truck and dragged him for three miles along a bumpy country road, shredding and dismembering his body.
Berry, 24, is still awaiting trial. King, 24, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in February.
"I didn't mean to cause his death," Brewer said. "I had no intentions of killing nobody."
As the defense began its case Friday, Brewer, 32, testified that Byrd was riding with the three defendants in the pickup when Berry stopped to take some steroids. King lit a cigarette, he said, and Byrd walked around the truck and said, "Let me smoke with you white boys."
Next, Brewer said, he heard some glass break and saw King and Byrd fighting. "I don't know what to do," Brewer testified. "When I go around the corner of the truck, I tried to kick Byrd in his side."
Brewer said he tried to break it up. "That's when I heard snapping of Shawn's knife. He popped it open.. Shawn came around and I guess cut his (Byrd's) throat. Everything stood still just a moment. Byrd slid down the side of the truck."
Brewer said Berry chained Byrd to the truck and kicked the body several times. "We heard the chain coming out of the back of the truck, rattling, vibrating the back of the truck," he said. "Nothing was said what it was hooked to."
Brewer testified that as the truck was speeding down the road, they all were aware of the body hitting a culvert. A pathologist has testified that is where Byrd, 49, was decapitated. "I looked back," Brewer said. "I thought he had come off there. I didn't know he had lost his arm and head." I told him (Berry) to pull over and take the man off...Everyone knew something had happened because it felt like the rear end or transmission had fell off."
Brewer said Berry wanted to leave the body between a black church and cemetery at the end of the road. That was where Byrd's torso was found.
Asked by his attorney if the killing was intentional, he said: "I intended to break up the fight. If I knew the results, I would have gone to the cops."
Brewer also chronicled his burglary and drug history and the parole violation that eventually put him in prison in 1991. He said he goined a racist inmate group, the Confederate Knights of America, merely for protection. His voice shaking and trembling, he said he hid from fellow gang members that fact he ws married to a Hispanic woman and had a son.
Brewer, identified in court documents as the "exalted cyclops" of the Confederate Knights, said the group began falling apart when an inmate who had recruited him was transferred out of the prison, leaving leadership of the dozen or so members to him.
Brewer's attorney got the case Friday after four days of prosecution testimony and the presentation of DNA evidence that linked Brewer to the scene of Byrd's death and showed that Byrd's blood was found on Brewer's shoes. The defense rested following Brewer's nearly daylong testimony. Closing arguemnts were set for Monday.
Death sentence in Texas slaying
Friday, February 26, 1999
Jasper, Texas - Smirking and cursing his victim's family as he was led away, white supremacist John William King went to death row Thursday for chaining a black man to a pickup truck and dragging him to pieces.
Eleven white jurors and their elected black foreman took less than three hours to sentence King to lethal injection rather than life in prison, taking about the same amount of time they needed to convict him Tuesday of murdering James Byrd Jr. in one of the grisliest racial crimes since the civil rights era.
King becomes the first white sent to death row in Texas for killing a black person since capital punishment resumed in the 1970s. Texas has executed only one white person for killing a black - in 1854.
Byrd's relatives wiped their eyes after hearing the death sentence but declined Judge Joe Bob Golden's offer to say something to King.
Byrd's nephew Darrell Verrett held up his fingers in a V sign and said, "Everything's OK." On the courthouse lawn, women high-fived each other and exclaimed, "Justice is served!"
"For once, I'm proud to be from Jasper. For once, justice has been served in Jasper," said Ethel Parks, a black woman wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Byrd beneath the words, "Love, Peace and Harmony."
Spectators taunted King, yelling "Bye! Bye, King!" as he was led from the courthouse.
When asked if he had anything to say to Byrd's family, King said "Yeah" and muttered an obscenity.
"I wouldn't expect for him to 'God bless the Byrd family,'" said Byrd's sister Mary Verrett. "It just sums up the personality of this young man. He has no remorse, even in the face of death."
Through his attorney, King released a statement saying: "Though I remain adamant about my innocence, it's been obvious from the beginning that this community would get what they desire; so I'll close with the words of Francis Yockey. 'The promise of success is with the man who is determined to die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.'"
Yockey, who died in 1960, was an author of Nazi doctrine.
Prosecutors had urged the jury to sentence the 24-year-old King to death, arguing that he would be a menace even behind bars. A life sentence in Texas carries the possibility of parole after about 40 years.
"By giving Mr. King a life sentence, you're giving him at least 40 years to catch a black guard, a black nurse, a black doctor, a Jewish guard, a Jewish nurse, a Jewish doctor, or anybody else," prosecutor Pat Hardy said. "You're giving him a chance to catch anybody who doesn't believe in his satanic, racist views."
The jury rejected a tearful plea for mercy from King's father, Ronald, who is in a wheelchair and uses an oxygen tube to ease his emphysema. "We've invested a lot of love in that boy," the father said. "I'd hate to think we're going to lose him."
Michael Graczyk, Associated Press writer
Jury weighs penalty for supremacist
Execution possible in Texas dragging death
Wednesday, February 24, 1999
Jasper, Texas - A white supremacist was convicted of murder Tuesday and could get the death penalty for chaining a black man to a pickup truck and dragging him until his body was torn to pieces in a crime that shocked the nation with its savagery.
The jury of 11 whites and one black took less than 2 1/2 hours to reach a verdict against John William King in the slaying last June of James Byrd Jr. Courtroom spectators applauded, and the victim's relatives broke into tears.
The jury then heard evidence on whether the 24-year-old laborer should get the death penalty or life in prison for one of the grisliest racial crimes in the United States since the civil rights era. The penalty phase was expected to continue this morning.
"I am relieved," said Stella Brumley, Byrd's siter. "That's all we wanted, was justice."
His son, Ross Byrd, said: "All I know is that there's one down, and two to go."
King was the first of three white men to go on trial in the slaying, which prosecutors said he carried out because he wanted "something dramatic" to gain credibility for a racist group he was organizing.
King leaned forward when the verdict was read, shielding himself from cameras, then sat back in his chair with his fingers on his chin.
One of his lawyers said King was not surprised by the verdict and considered himself the victim of a conspiracy.
"I hope he received life without parole," Rev. Jesse Jackson said from New York. "If these three men saw killing as a solution in their sick state, then we in our sober and sane state must know killing is not a solution."
NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said the case "clearly shouts across the world for the urgent need of this Congress to move quickly to strengthen and to pass anti-hate legislation."
President Clinton said nationwide expressions of outrage over Byrd's death "demonstrate that an act of evil like this is not what our country is all about." He added: "Our work for racial reconciliation and an end to all crimes of hatred in this country will go on."
Byrd's head and arm were found torn off after he was pulled nearly three miles while tied by his ankles with a 24 1/2-foot logging chain.
The murder thrust Jasper into a national spotlight that many in the half-black timber town of 8,000 contended was unfair. Members of the Ku Klux Klan and New Black Panthers descended on Jasper, about 100 miles northeast of Houston, to demonstrate.
"Three robed riders coming straight out of hell - that's exactly what there was that night," prosecutor Pat Hardy said in closing arguments Tuesday.
"After they dragged that poor man and tore his body to pieces, they dropped it right in front of a church and a cemetary, to show their defiance to God, to show their defiance of Christianity and everything most people in this county stand for."
His attorneys appeared to have conceded the conviction and planned to try to save his life in the punishment phase.
They insisted that the racist writings did not prove the case against King and that the convicted burglar covered himself in racist tattoos as protection from blacks in prison.
After the verdict, Sheriff Billy Rowles blew a kiss to Byrd's family and gave a thumbs-up to Clara Taylor, Byrd's sister. Several of Byrd's family members cried, as did King's father, Ronald.
A few blocks from the courthouse, Craig Johnson, owner of the World of Sounds music store, suggested a punishment for King. "He needs to go the same way that man did."
Terri Langford, Associated Press writer
Gruesome testimony from pathologist as state rests
Tuesday, February 23, 1999
Jasper, Texas - Dragged along a bumpy road by a chain around his ankles, James Byrd Jr. shifted from side to side to ease the excruciating pain and was alive until his head was torn off by a concrete drainage duct, a pathologist testified Monday.
Dr. Tommy Brown was the last of 43 prosecution witnesses to take the stand at the trial of John William King, one of the three white men accused of killing Byrd last June because Byrd was black.
The defense also rested Monday, after presenting just three witnesses. Closing arguments were scheduled to begin today.
Prosecutors need to prove Byrd was alive when he was dragged in order to prove kidnapping and murder, which together would expose the white supremacist to the death penalty.
"It's my opinion, while being dragged, Mr. Byrd was conscious and was attempting to relieve the pain and injuries he was receiving," said Brown, who explained how Byrd's heels and limbs were ground to the bone.
"I think we all know how much brush burn abrasions, like if you fall and slide on a surface with your hands - that's very painful - and this would have been very painful to him. He would probably swap one portion of his body for the other, trying to get relief as he was being dragged."
While the pathologist spoke, the jury of 11 whites and one black followed his descriptions with 14 crime-scene photographs delivered to them individually in black folders.
Some jurors were tight-lipped. One tried to suppress a facial twitch, glancing back and forth between the photos and King, who sat emotionless, his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand.
Prosecutors say Byrd was walking home from a party early last June 7 when he got a ride from the three white men and scuffled with them. Brown said Byrd's fatal injury occurred about two miles into the grisly journey, when his head, shoulder and right arm were torn off by a concrete drain pipe at the foot of a driveway.
The pathologist said there was no way to determine whether Byrd was still conscious when his head hit the culvert.
King's father and a female relative of Byrd left the courtroom even before the pathologist testified. Some of Byrd's family members who stayed cried.
Hours later, the defense rested after calling three witnesses who testified for less than an hour. King did not take the stand.
The defense witnesses included a convicted burglar and sexual offender, John Mosley, who made some of the tattoos on King's body that prosecutors say are evidence of his racial hatred. Mosley said the tattoos "looked cool, that's all."
Another defense witness, Dennis Symmack, was called to show that King was a good employee and a hard worker. But Symmack, King's former supervisor for construction work, said he fired King after an argument and that King was educated about the Klan and didn't like blacks.
Before defense lawyers began their side of the case, the jury watched a silent 11-minute video authorities made the day after Byrd's body was found. The video retraced the nearly three-mile dragging route.
Also Monday, a Jasper County jail administrator, Mo Johnson, said authorities intercepted a letter written by King and intended to be smuggled to one of his alleged accomplices, Lawrence Brewer, in which he expressed pride in the crime and said he realizes he might have to die for it.
"Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history," King said in the note, which he signed with a Ku Klux Klan symbol and Nazi salute.
Detective Clifton Orr testified that King scratched his prison name, "Possum," on the door of his jail cell along with a Nazi lightning bolt "SS" as part of the signature, and also inscribed: "Shawn Berry is a snitch-ass traitor."
Berry gave a statement when he was arrested that led to the arrests of his friends King and Brewer. Berry and Brewer will be tried later.
A lighter engraved with "Possum" and three interlocking K's was found along with Byrd's wallet on a logging road where Byrd was beaten.
Michael Graczyk, Associated Press Writer
Accused talked of killing for racist group: Inmate
Friday, February 19, 1999
Jasper, Texas - Dragging-death defendant John William King once talked about "taking a black out" - committing murder - as a way to get into a white supremacist gang, a former fellow inmate testified Thursday.
Convicted robber William Hoover recounted what he says King told him while they were both in prison a few years ago.
King, 24, is the first of three white men to go to trial in the slaying of James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old black man who was abducted last June, chained to a pickup truck and dragged three miles. King could get the death penalty.
Associated Press
Sheriff realized this was no hit-and-run accident
Wednesday, February 17, 1999
Jasper, Texas - A sheriff testified Tuesday that he figured pretty quickly that the accident he was investigating was no hit-and-run - especially after a lighter with three interlocking K's was found along the bloody trail left by a black man who had been dragged to his death.
"I'm a brand-new sheriff. I didn't even know the definition of a hate crime, but I knew somebody had been murdered because he had been black," Billy Rowles said. "Once we saw the KKK emblem on the cigarette lighter, that's when we started having some bad thoughts."
Rowles was the first witness as claimed white supremacist John William King went on trial Tuesday on murder charges in the death of James Byrd Jr. Byrd, 49, was chained to the back of a pickup truck June 7 and dragged for three miles as his body was ripped to pieces.
King, a 24-year-old unemployed laborer, is the first of three white men charged in the crime to stand trial. He could get the death penalty if convicted.
Prosecutor Guy James Gray said in his opening statement that King's tattoos and writings in his apartment show King was an angry racist who wanted to form a hate group and "needed to do something dramatic in order to gain in their warped world respect for his newly formed gang."
The jury consists of 11 whites and one black. Jasper County, from which the jurors were drawn, is 18 percent black.
King's lawyer, Haden "Sonny" Cribbs, made no opening statement, reserving the option to do so later. "The evidence, it appears overwhelming," he acknowledged Monday. "But you've got to prove the accused has done the offense."
Cribbs objected to evidence showing King's graphic tattoos and letters, saying they were constitutionally protected as free speech. His objections were overruled.
The sheriff, one of eight witnesses to testify Tuesday, described to jurors what he saw early in his investigation. Rowles said the evidence wasn't consistent with a routine hit-and-run accident: There were no skid marks, and the bloody trail did not run parallel to the tire tracks.
"It was going through my mind...Somebody's dragging something," Rowles said.
The lighter with three K's forming a triangle was also engraved with the word "Possum," the nickname King picked up while in prison for burglary.
An 18-year-old man who knew Byrd, Steven Scott, said he saw Byrd in the early morning hours of June 7 walking along Martin Luther King Boulevard.
"He was staggering over the road," Scott said, adding he thought Byrd was drunk. He decided to not offer the man a ride.
When he arrived home a short time later, he said he saw Byrd, seated in the back of a pickup, drive by. Three whites were in the truck cab.
The jurors were given a folder of photos of Byrd's battered remains, which an investigator said were missing a right arm, neck and head.
An 18-year-old Jasper woman, Michelle Chapman, testified that during a two-year period while King was in prison, she received 19 letters from him, some of them filled with racist venom. One included the proclamation: "White is right."
When he got out, Chapman said, King visited her in June 1997 and showed the tattoos he got while locked up, including one of a black man hanged. Gray, the prosecutor, said the tattoos also include a burning cross, a Confederate flag and Nazi swastikas.
The lighter, King's DNA on a cigarette and less than a drop of the victim's blood on King's shoes all will link King to the killing, the prosecutor said.
King showed little reaction in court, responding only with a "not guilty, your honor," when asked how he pleaded.
King's ailing father, Ronald, an oxygen tube in his nose, sat nearby, as Kylie Greeney, his girlfriend and mother of the couple's infant son.
Two other men, Lawrence Russell Brewer, 31, and Shawn Allen Berry, 23, will be tried later.
Thirteen members of Byrd's family were present when court began, but some left, including two of his children. Some burst into tears when Byrd's blackened and torn white underwear was introduced into evidence.
Terri Langford, Associated Press Writer
