They Dragged A Black Man Behind A Truck To His Death
By: Max Ngamla
Tags: Murder, Crime, History, True Crime, Justice

They Dragged A Black Man Behind A Truck To His Death

A Racially-charged Cold-blooded murder

Photo Source: Dallasnews

John William King, one of America’s most notorious killers. His case rose to fame in 1998 when, along with two other cronies, committed the terrible crime of James Byrd Jr., an African American who for no other reason than the color of his skin was brutally beaten by these cronies until he was badly injured. they chained Byrd to a pickup truck and dragged him for more than five kilometers down the road until his death.

It all happened on June 7, 1998, in Jasper, Texas, USA. John King, Shawn Berry, and Lawrence Brewer walked by the street when they began to insult and disrespect James Byrd, a black man who was going to his house.

The insults continued, the disrespect from the three white men led to Byrd confronting them. Prompting a fight in which this group, led by King, gave him a brutal beating that left him seriously injured.

With no strength left to define himself, the three men tied his legs with chains and, in turn, tied him to the rear part of a ‘pick up’. After doing so, they started driving speeding through town, with Byrd still alive, suffering very serious torture.

After two kilometers, having lost his right arm, he lost his life when his body was cut in two after colliding with a sewer. The young men threw away what was left of Byrd's body in front of a church.

Two days later, King, Berry, and Brewer were located by the authorities and were tried for a hate crime. When they were arrested, King did not hesitate to confess that he was the leader of the group, revealing the reason for such a terrible crime: “I hate black people” he said.

He soon explained to the authorities that he was a racist and convinced that what he had done was for the good of the country, which led to a trial that had a clear result: he was sentenced to capital punishment.

While King and Brewer were sentenced to death, only Berry was sentenced to life imprisonment, after the court confirmed that he did not share the white supremacist ideas of his peers, which could even allow him to have his first parole permit in the year 2038.

Brewer was executed by lethal injection on September 21, 2011. King filed multiple appeals to a Texas court but they were all rejected.

The brutal murder with which Byrd lost his life marked a before and after in the United States. It was the most notorious hate crime in the modern history of the country, which led to the taking of important measures. In fact, the brutality of the acts and the reasons for committing them caused the start of a fight in Congress for passing a federal law against hate crimes.

Police: “Do you have something to say before you are executed? No,” was King’s last answer.

On April 24, 2019, two decades after a murder that shocked the United States, John William King was executed in the Huntsville Penal. One of Byrd’s sisters was present on the other side of the glass during the performance, but a great part of the family of the cruelly murdered African American gave a true lesson in humanity:

“We didn’t want him executed, we preferred that he spend the rest of his life in prison. Can’t fight crime with more crime, “ she said.