Jasper county courthouse trials driver#

Instead of taking him home, they took him to a small clearing out in the woods. King was convicted for the dragging death of James Byrd Jr.

and his granddaughter Renee Mullins (right) react to the sentencing of John William King to death in Jasper, Texas. There he met and befriended Lawrence Russell Brewer, a known white supremacist. in the summer of 1998.Īlthough John 'Bill' King grew up in a loving home in Jasper, his friends, family and clergy say he was changed by a stint in the George Beto Unit, a maximum security prison where he'd been sent for stealing. On Wednesday evening, John William King was executed at the Huntsville Prison in Huntsville, Texas, for his role in the gruesome and racist murder of James Byrd Jr. What happened next shocked the conscience of the town, the nation and the entire world.

Jasper county courthouse trials driver#

And when the driver, Shawn Berry, offered to give Byrd a ride, Byrd hopped in - after all, he'd known the driver most of his life. The African American man was well-known and well-liked in the town of Jasper. was walking home late on a Saturday night when three white men in a pickup truck pulled up beside him. Twenty-one years ago, in the east Texas town of Jasper, 49-year-old James Byrd Jr. Convicted killer John William King is escorted from the Jasper County Courthouse in 1999 after being found guilty of capital murder in the dragging death of James Byrd Jr.