Page 14 » Wednesday, February 24, 1999
N
EWS
Jasper jury finds white supremacist
guilty of capital murder in dragging
JASPER(AP) — A white su
premacist whose vengeful writ
ings and racist tattoos were used
to prove he despised blacks was
convicted Tliesday of chaining a
man to a pickup and dragging
him to his death in a crime that
shocked the nation.
Courtroom spectators ap
plauded and relatives of the vic
tim wiped away tears as John
William King was found guilty
of capital murder in the June 7
slaying of black Jasper resident
James Byrd Jr.
King sat expressionless
when the verdict was read. He
leaned forward, apparently try
ing to shield himself with his at
torneys from courtroom TV
cameras.
If sent to death row, the 24-
year-old would become the first
white person in Texas to be sen
tenced to lethal injection for
killing a black person since the
state resumed imposing the
death penalty in the mid-1970s.
Byrd’s daughter, Renee
Mullins, one of about a dozen
family members who braved five
days of graphic testimony,
dabbed her nose and eyes with a
tissue as she called the verdict “a
breath of fresh air.” Said his son,
Ross Byrd: “All I know is that
there’s one down and two to go.”
King, a laborer, was the first
of three white men to be tried
for the slaying. The body of the
49-year-old Byrd was torn in
two — his head and right arm
severed from his torso — when
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 as
members of the Ku Klux Klan
crimes to take us back in time.”
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said
he approved of the verdict, but
called on jurors to give King a
life prison sentence.
“We must break the cycle of
this killing,” he told the AP in a
“If these thre men saw killing a
solution to their sick state, then we in
our sober and sane state must know
kiliing is not a solution”
Rev. Jesse Jackson
and New Black Panthers de
scended on the timber town of
8,000 people about 100 miles
northeast of Houston.
The verdict also reverberat
ed among black leaders across
the country, with Kweisi
Mfume, president of the Na
tional Association for the Ad
vancement of Colored People,
saying he was gratified that it
took only 2 1/2 hours for a jury
in the South to render its deci
sion.
“The guilty verdict in the
James Byrd murder trial is a sad
victory in this the first step of a
very troubling judicial ordeal,”
Mfume said in a telephone
news conference from Balti
more. “We have come too far
for the individuals who have
committed these types of
telephone interview. “If these
three men saw killing as a solu
tion in their sick state, then we
in our sober and sane state must
know killing is not a solution.”
During the punishment
phase, the state called proba
tion and police officers who dis
cussed King’s criminal history
and his refusal to follow rules
while on probation for burglary.
King was sent to boot camps
and restitution centers at least
four times before a probation
supervisor recommended he be
sent to prison.
In closing arguments, pros
ecutor Pat Hardy outlined the
evidence against King, liken
ing Byrd’s attackers to “three
robed riders coming straight
out of hell.”
“After they dragged that poor
man and tore his body to pieces,
they dropped it right in front a
church and a cemetery, to show
their defiance to God, to show
their defiance of Christianity
and everything most people in
this county stand for.”
The evidence included a
lighter engraved with a Klan
symbol and King’s prison
name, “Possum,” that was
found along with cigarette butts
at the scene; clothes stained
with Byrd’s blood; letters in
which King wrote about orga
nizing a racist gang; and King’s
tattoos of a black man hanging
from a tree, cartoon characters
in Klan garb, Nazi-type SS light
ning bolts and Aryan power
proclamations.
King’s lawyers called only
three witnesses who testified
for less than an hour. King did
not take the stand.
In his closing, Jones ac
knowledged a “terrible, terrible
brutal horrendous death.”
He skirted the issue of
whether King participated in the
killing but focused on his con
tention that the state had not
proved Byrd was kidnapped.
Said Cribbs: “I don’t deny
he made some racial slurs. Not
that I agree with that. But that
is his right. ... You have a right
to even be a satanist, but that
is our right.”
Byrd, an unemployed man
known for his singing voice —
and also his affection for alco
hol — was on his way home
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