HUNTSVILLE, Texas — White supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed Wednesday evening for the infamous 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas.
Byrd, 49, was chained to the back of a pickup and pulled to his death along a bumpy asphalt road in one of the most grisly hate-crime murders in recent Texas history.
Brewer, 44, was asked whether he had any final words, to which he replied: “No. I have no final statement.” He glanced at his parents watching through a nearby window, took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. A single tear hung on the edge of his right eye as he was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m., 10 minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing into his arms, both covered with intricate black tattoos.
Byrd’s sisters also were among the witnesses in an adjacent room.
“Hopefully, today’s execution of Brewer can remind all of us that racial hatred and prejudice leads to terrible consequence for the victim, the victim’s family, for the perpetrator and for the perpetrator’s family,” said Clara Taylor, one of Byrd’s sisters.
She called the punishment “a step in the right direction.”
“We’re making progress,” Taylor said. “I know he was guilty, so I have no qualms about the death penalty.”
Appeals to the courts for Brewer were exhausted, and no last-day attempts to save his life were filed.
Besides Brewer, John William King, now 36, also was convicted of capital murder and sent to death row for Byrd’s death, which shocked the nation for its brutality. King’s conviction and death sentence remain under appeal. A third man, Shawn Berry, 36, received a life sentence in prison.
“One down and one to go,” Billy Rowles, the retired Jasper County sheriff who first investigated the horrific scene, said. “That’s kind of cruel, but that’s reality.”
