HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS – A Texas man was executed today for the dragging death of a black man almost 18 years ago.
On June 7, 1998, during the nighttime hours, 23-year-old John William King and co-defendants, Lawrence Brewer and Shawn Allen Berry, murdered James Byrd Jr., a 49-year old black male, by dragging the victim behind their 1982 gray Ford pickup truck, located on Huff Creek Road, in Jasper, Texas. The subject and the co-defendants picked the victim up while he was hitchhiking in Jasper.
King was executed Thursday, April 25, 2019. Lethal injection consists of single drug protocol of Pentobarbital.
King offered no oral statement, but left a written statement, which read, “Capital Punishment: Them without the capital get the punishment.”