James Byrd Jr. /// Part 1 /// 163 | Forensic Files

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98 the 7th of June in Jasper Texas after breakfast people walk to work or the church to get a pass this message on a
road called hook Creek about a tough to speak because what they saw left them gasping and breakfast the broken body of
bird and surely probably heard the story is rather gory and if you follow the words you can somewhat get a picture but
can you really picture been chained up into a pickup truck and Drug until the street ripped your arm off and
decapitation and the ones who perpetrated this act for the simple fact that you were black that had to hate you
mad at nature cause she made you beautiful and that's irrefutable like the back the cracked Street
Pharmaceuticals is genocide the blacks and although this attack on birds left the whole world Disturbed a theory was
back it was common and not unusual for other brothers to get done like that and irony of it all y'all this bird was
often heard saying that he would come Jazz the taxes on the map but Jasper Texas put him on the map figuratively
and literally despite the insanity of the Calamity his family refused to respond bitterly and consider the
circumstances what riddles me is we rallied to save The Killers but who rallied to save bird
oh foreign this week's case takes place back in 1998 in the small town of Jasper the
city's website says Jasper is located in deep east Texas so Jasper is about 130 miles north east of the city of Houston
and it's pretty close to the Louisiana border the town is named after William Jasper a
war hero from the American Revolution he was killed when attempting to plant the
American flag at the storming of Savannah in 1779. the town is only about 10 square miles
and back in 1998 about 8 000 people lived there Jasper calls itself The Jewel of the forest James Byrd Jr was
born in Beaumont Texas back in 1949. so in 1998 bird was 49 years old James was part of a large family
including James there were nine kids in his family and Jamesburg Jr was named after his father in 1967 bird was in the
last segregated class to graduate from Jasper High School uh before it was Consolidated with
Jasper High as part of the desegregation plan he married in 1970 he had three children
uh his children's names were Renee Ross and Jamie so two girls and one boy before divorcing in 1993.
between 1969 and 1996 James bird was incarcerated a couple of times for various small time offenses including
theft forgery and violation of parole James Byrd was described as a fixture in Jasper someone that most people of the
Town knew either by name or because he often could be seen walking around the town James Bird he did not drive because
of a disability he suffered from seizures which would not allow him to operate a vehicle yeah I think every
town has the Walker or the runner or the bicycle guy yeah we had uh in our small
town growing up there was the it wasn't a tricycle but it was like a it was adult
tricycle well it's it's technically a tricycle even though it's made for yeah yeah but it was a grown person it wasn't
like a big wheel was it was this a basket and a flag yeah in every I mean the fully outfitted tricycle yeah that
was the guy in our town growing up he was like everywhere and when I lived in Richmond Indiana we had the runner it
was just this guy that just ran everywhere like super fast and then when when he was at like a traffic light
waiting to cross the street he'd still run in place it was like probably in the best shape of anybody in the history of
the world now I live in North Columbus so a lot more people so a lot more Runners there's not just the one Runner
guy there's not just the you know the one Walker guy uh there's Bunches of them however there's a couple of what I
would call quote-unquote bicycle guys and there's one guy that I've learned a tendency that he has like he doesn't
it because the Sidewalk Ends does not mean that's where he's going to stop so he will he will like pull up and he'll
he'll keep going just past the curb and so he's out in the street um you know just partially out into the
street so when people are driving when I'm riding shotgun and I see that bicycle guy I have to point out like be
careful if you're going to turn here because he will be in the street yeah and I don't think he knows any better
not to get hit by the car that's that's approaching well I'm bringing this up is
just to prove the point that a town can really know somebody uh or somebody could be very popular in the town just
because he's known as all that James Bird he's the guy you always see out walking right right yeah yeah and that's
how that's how he was I mean he became a fixture of Jasper people either knew him
by name or they knew him from seeing him out walking around and he was known as like a happy dude he's a happy guy uh
known as a musician and singer James played the piano at church when he was growing up uh he played the trumpet in
school and as an adult he loved to attend parties where he would often sing in front of small crowds at these
parties he fancied himself like a like an Al Green type singer and several people say purple rain must have been
one of James bird's favorite songs because he was always singing it uh so known as a music man and for his singing
and dancing it's a great song it's one of my bar songs I like to put it on because it's a little sad you know kind
of brings down the party and it's fun also to look around at the Sea of people wondering who put this song on well and
if you play it late enough a lot of people start singing along to that so no I like to play it at like nine okay like
where everybody's like what this is too early we're not ready for it this is like four
hours too early so back in 1998 James Bird Jr would have been 49 years old and as we said Captain he's like a man about
town you know he's the guy that everybody would have known him by name or by seeing him around town and happy
guy good-natured guy very sociable very sociable I that that's the exact phrase that we should have used right there
well I mean it comes from a very small town but he also comes from a big family so let's listen to a clip of his mother
Stella talking about James it was uh you know he was around and so he missed very much that's something we haven't
had any more family reunions because just a pottery just missing I guess it always
uh would be like that I just had two boys and all rich the girls and so he was the third child
and the girls and most of all the just looked up to him for different things because he was the
Big Brother of the sisters and he would just keep your life and he just he just liked peoples and most
musicians whether I mean not all musicians like people uh but no some locked themselves in closets yes
but known to do that um but you become social and you get you get good at social skills you know so
there's a lot of times that if there's a big crowd of people some people will come up to me and say hey you're pretty
good at this it's like but but I've been doing it forever so you you play your set and then in between your sets you're
you're mingling with people shaking hands and and having some drinks so he James very active with his family you
know a good Big Brother very you know stayed close with his parents and with his uh siblings and like you hear his
mother saying you know he just liked people he liked it he liked everyone um and yeah and I think happy-go-lucky
kind of dude uh he he was a musician that still had some Big Dreams and some pretty big goals and even though he was
49 it was almost like he didn't let that block his vision or block his goals he would always state that he was going to
put Jasper Texas on the map and doing so through his music now we have to talk about some other guys here unfortunately
but we could not tell the whole story without introducing some guys and giving a little background first we have Sean
Allen Berry born February 12 1975 so in 1998 he would be 23 years old and we have an old friend of his John William
King John William King went by Bill so to make it easy on me that's that's what I'll call him so Bill king would have
been 23 years old as well in 98. bill as a child he was diagnosed as a manic depressive uh by 98 these two had known
each other for over well for about 10 years in fact they went to school together so this is a lengthy uh
friendship between these two so Sean Berry his father died when he was just a kid and he dropped out of
school in the eighth grade it's believed that about this time that he went and he
was living somewhat on the streets uh he wasn't close to his mother so we after we see his father passing away we see
his family life just I mean it's just gone we have Bill King who dropped out of school in the 10th grade
the two actually got into trouble together in 1991 the two broke into a warehouse they were caught and they were
sent to a boot camp style to be uh sent off to this boot camp type of thing to be reformed
both completed this boot camp both received probation afterwards Jerry Springer style right yeah yeah so Sean
Berry he had little to no trouble with following the rules and doing what was expected of him while on probation Bill
King well not so much Bill King violated his probation he gets caught with drugs
and so he so he ends up in prison and Bill is the one that was diagnosed with manic depression correct so maybe
possibly self-medicating yeah yeah very likely Bill gets caught with these drugs he goes to prison and
while he's in prison he met this guy named Lawrence Russell Brewer he just goes by Russell okay so Russell Brewer
is about eight years older than Bill Brewer is one of these always in and out of prison kind of dudes you know so a a
real winner Brewer had been in and out out of prison for a little more than 10 years he had
served a prison sentence for drug possession and burglary he was paroled in 1991 after violating
his parole conditions in 1994 Brewer was returned to prison according to Brewer while he was in prison he joined a white
supremacist gang with Bill King in order to safeguard himself from other inmates
Brewer and king became friends in the uh what's called the Beto Unit Prison this
is this is supposed to be a pretty um it's rumored to be a very tough prison right you see this a lot in
Hollywood movies where if if you ever watched American History X for example but where you you have to team up with
somebody um and so that's kind of what his cop-out is as well we only teamed up with the white supremacist for
protection yeah I mean there's no secret that there's the white gang and there's the
Latino gang and there's the African-American gang um so yeah he's he's teaming up or
getting involved in this group to you know to protect himself is what he claims right now Bill King claimed that
he had been gang raped in prison uh at some point during his stay by African-American inmates so is this
before or after he joined the white supremacist all right this is going to sound crazy but I came across this
newspaper article and I have to talk about this to kind of because you know when we research these cases you take in
a lot of information and if sometimes if you don't if you don't push that information out it gets stuck with you
and it stays with you and I don't know how the Washington Post knows this information but today Captain you're
going to be my you're going to be my therapist and I'm going to lay this on you so I don't have to carry it around
with there's not enough booze in this garage so according to the Washington Post article that I read last night
the way that this went down is Bill King he would have been fairly Young when he
entered the prison system okay uh he was a smaller dude like about 140 uh 140 pounds according to this Washington Post
article what they say in this article is that the the inmates had managed to kind of
divvy themselves up like you had said into their different gangs and they kind of occupied different portions of the
prison not really segregated but kind of self-segregation uh people staying away
from one another if that makes sense Okay so there was an area that was predominantly
African-American um and according to the article it's African-American gang um area in this prison
the white supremacist group had some kind of involvement with the guards or some form of relationship with
the guards that they were able to manipulate the system when a when a young white guy small white guy like
Bill King came into the prison right [ __ ] later they would they would influence the guards in some way that
they could put that young man with either the Latino gang area or the African-American gang area right
probably hand jobs and cigarettes uh well I I don't I I don't know how it came about but this is according to the
Washington Post this could all be complete [ __ ] for all I know because it's it's it's a strange story it's it's
like a double-crossed weird psychological story here so the white supremacist put this young white dude
with a different group with the African-American group with with the purpose that he would be abused in some
fashion by these guys and that would influence him to come running to want to join their silly little club that they
have right according to the Washington Post that's how this whole thing went down so it would have been he would have
been attacked uh and according to the article it was multiple times and then eventually he ended up with this white
supremacist group all right so what happens next with these uh losers uh could would you mind terribly if we
circled the wagons back there and and talked about that newspaper article the reason being is that the reason why
I kept saying according to the Washington Post it's a horrific story but you know you referenced Hollywood
movies earlier and how they portray prison and it sounds to me like a very kind of Hollywood version of what could
be going on in this prison I'm not saying that none of this stuff happened right but what I'm what I question when
I read that article is where are they getting this information from because I don't know who it out of any
of those groups that were mentioned in the article that would come forward with that information right maybe they're
getting this from Bill King himself and if so it's you know it's this excuse that's all it is but well I get I get
that it's an excuse and maybe it did come from Bill King but then isn't that like
because Bill King is like he's proud to be a racist and he's proud to be in this
white supremacist group right okay but this group according to the story double crossed you and made you a victim so
that you would join their group it seems like the last group you would want to join if that's how they create their
members yeah but he's he's a [ __ ] he needed somebody to protect him no no no no I I get that portion of it what I'm
saying is that that I I don't trust the story because I don't know how they would have got this
information because no matter who would tell you this story out of any of those groups they're putting themselves
in a horrible light you know what I mean they're putting themselves as being the
bad guy there is no good guy in that story so where did I don't know where they got the information right and I
think even talking about it more than we should is is giving some uh you know justification for for him to think these
horrible thoughts and to be racist so while in prison both Brewer and King they got in this white supremacist group
uh while still locked up Bill King started to write letters to his old buddy Sean Berry who was on the outside
as they say in these letters Bill used a lot of prison slang some that Sean Berry
says he was familiar with and some that he was not but in these letters that Sean would
shot this is where Sean would learn of what he calls a change in his longtime friend uh Bill's Behavior Bill started
talking about his white supremacy uh Bill spoke of his hatred for African Americans and Jewish people Sean said
that bill sent him four letters while he was in prison and he would end up he would end these letters by referring to
Sean Berry as his Aryan brother and I thought you're going to say he like you know did some kissy faces or something
well this this one seems silly he he would also say things like like uh stay White
uh so yeah I felt sorry I know this is not really a case where we should be laughing but no but I mean hey stay
white seems like a dorky thing to say stay white um I woke up today and again I'm white
stay white Sean Sean says that he didn't care much for that kind of talk uh stating that he did not write uh back to
Bill King he didn't send Bill King any return letters he didn't do any kissy faces or yeah send it send it or stay
white stay white back at you right back reply with an update uh regarding his whiteness
um eventually Bill gets out of prison and he goes back to Jasper Texas and when he returns he starts hanging out
with his old buddy Sean Berry this is another weird thing it's like okay you got this guy writing you all these
letters saying all these things that you don't care for yet when he returns to town you're like hey how's it going
let's hang out it's just another excuse and a horrible um trying to explain away what what you
are so Sean Berry says that once bill got back uh he made it bill made it pretty
well known that he did not like African Americans Jewish people or Asian people Bill King was also supporting some it
seems like his hatred keeps growing well his possible now he hates Asians his possible uh friendship pool just got a
lot smaller right so Bill King is also sporting some racist tattoos as well I'm sure those look amazing and I know
are they on his face you can no no they're on mostly like his chest and arms and some on his back and you can
find them online um no nobody needs there's a there's a lot of pictures of them I don't care
really to describe them here but then eventually Lawrence Russell Brewer uh Russell Brewer gets out of prison and he
goes to Jasper as well so now we have the Jasper 3. so by now it's almost the middle of the year of 1998.
um we as we said Brewer two Brewer is covered in these racist tattoos as well on the face
um none on the face if you're going to go for it you know put it right on the face
yeah if you're going to be an idiot just put it right on your face yeah I mean so
hide it June of 1998 these three guys are sharing an apartment Sean Berry Bill King and Russell Brewer and this goes
down like this so it's it's technically Bill King's apartment okay Sean Berry had a girlfriend that he at this time
would have uh had at least one child with maybe two but I think it was one of those one you know has one kid and one
on the way situation Sean and his lady friend were having some trouble and they were on the outs
so Sean goes to stay with Bill King Sean Berry at this time is working as a manager at a movie theater then we have
Russell Brewer he is just fresh out of prison it's like the last week or second to
last week of May that he got out of prison and he headed out to Jasper to catch up with Bill King and stay there
with him for a while now Bill King wants to organize a white supremacy chapter or
group in Jasper Texas this is the Texas Rebels Soldier division of the Confederate Knights of
America and Russell Brewer is going to be the first member or hold a high rank I'm not really sure how that stuff works
it sounds like these three idiots living together in this apartment it's pretty much like a loud drunk three-man party
every night because at some point the landlady had got sick of the noise in the late drunken nights and Bill King
was facing an eviction from his apartment let's get right back to The James Bird case right after this quick
beer break foreign cheers mates on Saturday June 6 1998 James Bird Jr he spent the day drinking
and socializing with friends and family in Jasper Texas he was at his niece's bridal shower this
celebration was being held at Bird's parents house after the bridal shower James walked to
a friend's house for an anniversary party so this is a good Saturday Captain a long day filled with three of my
favorite things Friends food and drinks and at the party James was just being James you know he was seen laughing and
joking around with everyone singing and dancing he sounds like a good timing man that
you know happy go lucky and ready to put everyone in a good mood yeah one thing that a lot of people don't know about
the colonel is the colonel likes to dance after a couple drinks do the old kernel Shuffle
um so so his friends so his at his friend's home this would have been across town from James's apartment
it sounds like he would have left his friend's house quite late that night there's some varied accounts of what
time this would have been but it was it was late sometime after 1am you know so we have people who've been partying all
day there's no wonder that there's a little bit of a question as to what time Mr bird left the party
now roughly at about the same time we have Bill King Russell Brewer and Sean Berry
they had spent the evening at a party as well but not any of the same parties as
James Byrd right I'm not really sure how these guys are getting invited to a party but anyway
that's that's what they were doing so apparently they left this party uh because a young African-American woman
arrived at that same party and this it's reported that bill and Russell got upset
at seeing the new guest at the party and became enraged angered and very loud so
they probably stormed out of this party from there they spent some time drinking
and driving so Sean Berry had an old gray pickup truck and they were driving around in his
pickup truck drinking beers and you know looking to pick up women I guess yeah I'm probably holding hands and stuff
so James Bird left and he's going to be walking home and now we have these three
guys driving around in the pickup truck drinking their beers somewhere along James's walk home a truck with these
three guys and it pulls up and they offer him a ride so from my understanding having never been there
but the way that I believe Jasper is laid out is that you have the east side and the west side which is divided by
Highway 96 and remember we said he was James bird was at an event taking place on one side of town and across the other
side of town was his apartment so at some point James had a walk along Highway 96 to get to his apartment
that's where he encountered Sean Berry Bill King and Russell Brewer in the primer gray pickup truck right and this
is not a good thing I mean this is not going to be good for James Byrd because one he doesn't know that he's getting
offered a ride by three white supremacists he doesn't know that these white supremacists were at some party
and left because a black woman showed up yeah he doesn't know who who he's getting in the truck with they offer him
a ride James Bird accepts the offer and as you said Captain he gets in the truck
with Bill King Russell Brewer and Sean Berry now Bill King and not Russell but Sean Berry Sean Berry they are from
Jasper yes so there's a very good chance that they know who James bird is or at least know him as oh this is the guy
that you see walking a lot very likely they have seen him before now about 7 A.M on Sunday June 7th a
call goes out to police there is a body that has been found in the road near a cemetery
the early belief was this was a hit and run type situation the responding officer quickly noticed dark marks on
the road as he got near the location of where the body was found the officer this is a sheriff rolls he says he
followed that Mark for the entirety of the crime scene thinking you know while he's checking
this out he's thinking to himself this is going to be the easiest hit and run case that we have ever had because he
was going to be able to follow what he believed to be tire marks all the way to the guilty party's house or to at least
the location of the vehicle that was involved the officer had followed the tracks for
about two miles he and the other officer started to notice that this was not tire
marks like they had thought this was a brown what they refer to as a brown-like substance
when they got to the end of the March the officers found shoes a tank top dentures and a billfold
in the billfold they found the ID card of one James Bird Jr Sheriff rolls is pretty he's now pretty
aware that this is not a hit and run that he is dealing with this is a murder case and the victim had
been he could tell by what he was seeing captain that because the original thought is that whoever the victim was
which turns out to be James Byrd right he would maybe he was crossing the street and somebody didn't see him they
hit him and the Damage Done to the body that they found would have occurred being having rolling underneath the
vehicle as it passed over top of him right or you've seen cases um with you know even like um state
troopers or Highway Patrol where they get hit by a car but they actually get locked into that car and and they're
dragged for a little bit Yeah well but but their initial thought is that that this person was run over there was
initial damage from being rolled underneath the vehicle as the vehicle passed over them and then left the
remains there right however as they're following these tracks and as they're starting to piece this thing together
they're finding evidence that it's that it is this person was dragged they weren't
they weren't hit and then and then the person took off right they're seeing evidence that this person had actually
been pulled behind a vehicle and dragged to death along this stretch of road while they are checking out the items uh
that they have located all of which they believed to belong to the victim a woman
comes forward at and tells the sheriff and his officer that she has found a head and an arm near her home
so the head and arm were found about one mile from where the Torso was located the head was in such bad condition and
so destroyed from the dragging that they had to use fingerprints to identify the
body and after checking the fingerprints they confirmed that this is this was in fact
the body of 49 year old James Bird Jr so law enforcement is going to find some items from James Bird they're also going
to find some other items yeah this is at a small clearing in in the woods which is just right off of off of the road if
anybody's watched any videos or seen uh the the road that was traveled in Jasper
Texas I mean there's trees along both sides of the road this is a small thin country road that we're talking about
here but in a small clearing the investigators believed that there was a fight in this clearing because of
upturned grass Disturbed dirt and broken beer bottles so they are seeing signs of
what they believe to be a struggle in the clearing the investigators also found several items so this is evidence
and this evidence includes cigarette butts the beer bottles like we had said a wrench with the word Berry inscribed
on it we also have a lighter that's inscribed with the word possum in some kind of KKK
symbol they also found some eyewitnesses so Witnesses came forward reporting having
seen James Byrd Jr riding in the bed of a gray or light colored pickup truck with two or three men in the cab between
2 30 and 2 45 a.m this is some stuff that I love here Captain here is some small town good old-fashioned police
work an officer tells the sheriff hey Sean Berry has a light gray colored pickup truck
right well they found you know they have the wrench with the word Berry on it they have witnesses seeing a light
colored pickup truck this is just when when you live in a small town like this like you said most people knew James
bird from having seen him walking a lot of people knew each other everybody kind
of knows what's going on you find a couple couple clues you put two and two together and you got somebody to talk to
right away right again Jasper is a town of maybe 10 miles yeah and then when you
have a crime that you know that whatever went down is one of the most horrific crimes maybe ever uh definitely ever in
Jasper as law enforcement I think your your initial fear is that you need to have this solved and quickly uh
fortunately for them there is a bunch of evidence that is left now talking about
about you know good old-fashioned police work we have Sheriff roles he's the one
that's heading the investigation and you talked about it being a small town and one of the worst murders ever I don't
know how many years as Sheriff rolls had under his belt by 98. he comes off in in
interviews that I've seen with him is a pretty seasoned um police officer a pretty seasoned
Sheriff an investigator at that as well but in one interview you know he's asked
is is this the most horrific murder you've ever seen and he said well you know in my time in Jasper first of all
every murder is horrific however in his time he had only worked two murder cases up to this point right
and he said if I had to pick the murder of James Byrd Jr would be the worst one that I've ever seen
so well easily for him but like I said I mean I think it did it did it goes past those boundaries
that it goes past the the city limits of Jasper I get you I get you so we have this officer that brings up
that information to the sheriff we have Sean Berry he has a light gray colored truck so they go pick up Sean Berry that
afternoon that's right they find the victim at approximately 7 A.M on that Sunday and it's by that afternoon that
they've picked up a guy and they're already hitting him with some hard questions they actually arrest him on
some type of traffic violations he must have had outstanding speeding tickets or
parking tickets God knows what but they pick him up on these traffic violations then according to the police well he had
an outstor standing warrant for being a douchebag police they got some info from some
women in these guys lives so at about four or five a.m the three guys um Sean Berry Bill King Russell Brewer
they showed up at uh Bill Kings I'm guessing his girlfriend's house her place I'm unclear as to the details of
the relationship but the two had a child together okay uh baby mama yes and when
the sheriff's department when they go to talk with her she identifies the lighter
that they found the lighter that has the word possum in the KKK thing on it uh as
Bill's lighter and she tells them that the three men showed up at her place like we said
about four or five a.m in the morning and they stayed there that night right and and the thing about the possum is
that that was Bill's nickname is because he was king of Bill King they called him
possum King okay that makes sense so she identified the lighter as belonging to bill so now they're going
to have all three of these guys in custody and they're not they're not charging them with anything yet because
they don't really fully know what's gone down or if these guys are in fact guilty
of anything when they rounded these guys up this is another weird part of this story that you come across
they found that the the guys were in possession of some form of stolen property so they're going to kind of
hold that over their heads and use that for means to hold them as long you know longer so they can speak with these guys
and figure out what happened well and all these guys have a record they're just I mean there's they're small time
criminals is what they truly are I mean until this point in the story but they're they're bad at it like they're
not they're not smart they don't get away with anything you know what I mean like well you can tell I mean they're
they're racist and and by definition that makes them ignorant people yeah but they can't even be good at committing
crime I mean they get picked up for all these small time things and then this possession of stolen property what we're
talking about here is there was a restaurant that was broken into uh days before this event happened okay and when
when they were going through these men's belongings after having arrested them and speaking with them they found them
to be in possession of of stolen frozen meat that was from that location so they
I mean they couldn't prove that they had broke into the restaurant but it looks like yeah it's not like if you went into
my freezer right now and he said man there's a bunch of Wendy's patties in here where did you get those oh that
happened I bought them at the store I'm good friends with Wendy they probably said uh why do you guys have all this
meat here and they said well you know we need some extra money so we could get our our sheets together so we could cut
some holes in them to make some Ku Klux Klan hats that's what we want to do so they're holding these guys they're
holding them and questioning all three of them obviously separately trying to figure out what had happened that night
or maybe and this is what they're probably really trying to do Captain you know this I
know this a lot of the listeners out there know this what they're probably trying to do is to
get these guys to start turning on one another right well Barry Sean Berry ends up giving the sheriff permission to
search his truck he didn't have to you know he could have said nope can't search my truck you have to come back
with probable cause or or a warrant well he gives him permission to search the truck and the sheriff's department
they find Blood on the underside of the truck they also find tools in the truck and
these tools they you know we mentioned that wrench earlier other than the three gentlemen yeah
well uh just like that wrench that they had found earlier these tools are inscribed with the word or the name
Berry on them right so it's looking like that wrench came from this you know was
is the missing piece from this set that they find in the truck yeah because it's
one thing for law enforcement to find you know a wrench that says Berry we would all assume where it came from but
you can't do that when you're in the court so by finding these other tools with inside the truck then that's that's
your connection that's where that's kind of uh Undisputed evidence well yeah it takes a p it takes a piece of evidence
that was a little loosey-goosey and now it's some pretty hardcore substantial evidence right and then on top of that
you have the blood evidence underneath the truck at some point and I'm I'm unclear who
this was I believe it may have been Sean Berry though but I do want to point out
that I'm I'm a little unclear who who did this but at some point during the questioning one of these guys says the
n-word to sheriff roles okay so at that point the sheriff sheriff rolls and Sheriff rolls is a white guy yeah yeah
oh yeah yeah but I guess we should point that out but they're not directing it towards him they're just saying it
that's okay so I think it was Sean Berry and I think when he was asked what he was doing the night before he says
something like I was just trying to stay white no he says something like we you know me and the guys were riding around
in our truck and at some point we drove this right person into town this n-word yeah
right so um yeah that's a that if that's not a red flag I I got to tell you though Captain I'm a huge fan of the
sheriff rolls guy a big fan of this dude so he quickly understands what he's dealing with right you know
it's it he has an African-American murder victim killed in one of the worst ways
imaginable tortured you have to say tortured because that's what it is and it's starting to look like he was killed
by these three guys three white guys and one of them is now using racial slurs during the questioning process so it's
now obvious to the sheriff that these guys if they did this they committed this murder simply out of hate and that these
guys killed James Byrd Jr just because he was black right so Sheriff Rawls tells tells Sean Berry
and this is why I think that word came from Barry because he's a real piece of [ __ ] well rolls is going to turn up the
heat on Barry okay and so he wants him to squirm a bit because he's what he's he's starting to see is out of these
three dudes this is the guy that that first of all we have things connecting your truck to this situation right we
got you you are already in the most heat so now you either need to tell us what happened or we're coming we're coming at
you full go and so to turn up the heat he tells Sean Berry exactly how it's going to be from
from this point on in the investigation Sheriff rolls tell Sean Berry I have called the FBI and I can guarantee you
one thing is for certain the FBI is going to be taking this thing over they're going to be taking a hard look
at you they're going to charge you with murder and you are going to be the first
one they are talking to first thing in the morning well and I think it's smart too you you come from such a small town
it's smart to turn this over to the FBI this is this is something bigger this crime is something bigger than Jasper
well once the sheriff threatens Sean Berry with getting the FBI involved and letting him know that they're going to
be speaking with him first thing in the morning right well that's all the encouragement that Sean Berry needs
because now he's going to tell them what happened and we can get into that tomorrow the the evidence of the case
the details of the case and then the trial as well and this is a very call case to cover yeah oh yeah difficult
uncomfortable um but it's this is a very important case anybody that remembers this case
back from 1998 it was I mean it was National headlines because of how horrific the nature of the crime was but
also how we thought and when I say we I mean us as a nation I've got to believe that
that most of us believed that this was something that we it's an embarrassing portion of our history
um it's a it's a part of our history that I personally am very ashamed of but I think we thought as a nation that that
we were very far past this right and it turned out that we were not so as uncomfortable and as difficult as this
case can be to report to everybody in the garage here it's something that we shouldn't shy away from it's important
to discuss these things and it's necessary foreign thanks for telling a friend and thanks
for sharing on social media we hope everybody has a good night and we will see you back here in the garage tomorrow
until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause] thank you

James Byrd Jr. /// Part 1 /// 163

Part 1 of 2

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The Crime was unspeakable: June 7, 1998; 49 year old James Byrd jr. was picked up by three white men in Jasper, Texas. They took him to the woods where they beat James and chained him by his ankles to the rear bumper of their pick up truck. He was dragged three miles along country roads. His head was severed from his torso by a roadside culvert. Tonight we discuss a horrible senseless murder that shook the nation and forever scarred an East Texas town. Beer of the Week - Circus City by Big Top Brewing CompanyGarage Grade - 3 and 3/4 bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

The episode details the brutal 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr. by three white supremacists in Jasper, Texas, highlighting racial violence and the investigation.

Key points

James Byrd Jr.'s Life. James Byrd Jr. was a well-known figure in Jasper, Texas, known for his sociable nature and musical talent.
The Troubling Background of Bill King. Bill King, diagnosed as manic depressive, had a troubled childhood and a history of crime.
Bill King's Return to Jasper. Bill King returns to Jasper, reconnecting with old friends and revealing his growing hatred.
The Night of James Byrd Jr.'s Murder. James Byrd Jr. spends a joyful day with friends before encountering danger on his walk home.
Discovery of James Byrd Jr.'s Body. Law enforcement discovers a body in Jasper, initially believing it to be a hit-and-run.
Evidence of a Gruesome Crime. Investigators find disturbing evidence indicating James Byrd Jr. was dragged to death.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's good to see you, Clarice.

A warm greeting to a friend.

0:56WatchNov 27, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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