November 14, 2024 • 61 mins
Today we discuss the disturbing events that took place the night of James Byrds' death. Please be advised that not all content is appropriate for younger listeners. We urge listeners to regard the trigger warnings at the beginning of the video before continuing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Crime and Passion, the channel where we deep dive into the dark and thrilling
(00:12):
world of true crime cases.
And also book reviews, mostly focusing on SMUD.
On Mondays we will turn up the heat with our candid reviews of the latest in SMUD, or any
genre.
And Thursdays we'll unravel the mysteries behind some of the most notorious crimes.
I'm Destinee.
And I'm Allison.
So sit back, grab your popcorn, or your coffee, as we take you on this thrilling journey.
(00:43):
So today's true crime case is one that I hold very near to my heart.
My mom is from around this area and I lived, actually Dest and I both lived close to this
area growing up.
This case is actually the case that got me started being interested in true crime.
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I will warn you, this is a very brutal case.
It's gruesome.
Very gruesome.
And it's very heartbreaking for sure.
There are quite a few trigger warnings.
The first one, and I feel like one of the most important, is racism.
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That is actually the main reason this case is even a case.
The next being dismemberment.
I want to say torture because what was done to this poor man was most definitely that,
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for sure.
It's horrible.
And the last being SA.
Not pertaining to our victim, but it is mentioned in this story.
This case is the case of James Byrd.
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He was born on May 2, 1949 in Jasper County, Texas.
He is the third of nine children to Stella Mae Sharp and James Byrd, Sr.
His mother was a Sunday school teacher and his father was a deacon at the Greater New
Bethel Church.
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Byrd graduated from Jasper Row High School in 1967, the last segregated class.
After graduating from high school, he married and had three children, Renee Ross and Jamie.
He worked as a vacuum salesman.
Byrd was the cousin of Danetta Lyle's King, who this is also a famous case.
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She was married to Rodney King.
She was his first wife.
It's crazy how they're related.
It's sickening.
It's like the whole family was targeted.
They couldn't get away from it.
Exactly.
It's just...
This case makes me sick to my stomach.
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Especially at a time when segregation and racism were both now illegal and this was
still happening and this one family is just living in hell.
Taking all the hits.
Yes.
It makes me so angry.
I think that's why I honestly got into true crime because I knew about Rodney King growing
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up.
That was big on every news station possible back in the day.
So I already kind of knew about that.
But then growing up and kind of being able to hear a little bit more of gruesome crimes,
not in details, but knowing what happened.
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My heart goes out to this family.
It breaks my heart.
And I think that's why I got into true crime because stuff like this needs to be more known.
People need to know that this kind of stuff was going on.
Yeah.
I agree.
So Ross Byrd, the only son of James, had been involved with the Murder Victims' Families
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for Reconciliation, an organization that opposes capital punishment.
He campaigned to spare the lives of those who murdered his father and appeared briefly
in the documentary Deadline.
These people essentially tortured his father and he tried to spare their lives.
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He's a bigger person than I am because I don't have that much forgiveness in me because what
they did to his father was just purely evil.
It's just unforgivable.
I feel like...
I feel like the only person willing to forgive somebody like that would have to be God himself
because...
Exactly.
I don't understand how anybody else could.
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So this is where we get into the crime itself.
I want to warn everybody.
If you are like a queasy person or sensitive to certain topics, now might be the time to
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probably click out of this because this does get pretty gruesome.
It's triggering for sure.
If you've experienced any kind of heavy abuse, this is maybe not the video for you.
Maybe check out a different video.
Johnstown is brutal but not as detailed and brutal as this.
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So I just want to put that out there before we get on with this.
Johnstown was more psychological.
This is definitely physical torture.
This is pure evil.
This is the devil himself on the face of this earth.
(06:31):
On June 7th, 1998, James Byrd, aged 49, accepted a ride from Sean Berry, aged 23, Lawrence
Brewer, aged 31, and John King, aged 23.
Sean Berry, who was driving, was acquainted with Byrd from around town.
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Instead of taking Byrd home, the men took Byrd to a remote county road out of town,
beat him severely, spray painted his face, urinated and defecated on him, chained him
by his ankles to their pickup truck before dragging him for three miles on Huff Creek
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Road, which is also known as County Road 278.
Brewer later claimed that Byrd's throat had been slashed by Berry before he was dragged.
However, forensic evidence suggests that Byrd had been attempting to keep his head up through
(07:46):
halfway along the route.
So for a mile and a half, this poor man was trying to hold his head up and then eventually
succumbed to the torture.
His right arm and his head were severed as his body hit a culvert.
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While almost all of Byrd's ribs were fractured, his brain and skull were found intact, further
suggesting that he maintained consciousness while he was being dragged.
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It breaks my heart and it also makes me so mad because people don't deserve this.
He did absolutely nothing wrong and paid a horrible price for it.
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Because of racism.
And this was back in the 90s when people were supposed to have been more tolerant.
It just makes me sick.
I can reread this case 10 million times and every time it's going to make me sad just
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like it did the first time I heard it.
It's just sickening that people can be that evil.
Nobody deserves that.
He did nothing wrong.
He just wanted to ride home.
That's all he wanted.
He was literally just existing.
And three men decided, eh, let's just do some horrible shit.
(09:54):
I guess what really even makes me think about it even more, two of those three men were
younger than we are.
Yeah.
It was Sean Barry, the man who was driving, and then John King.
They were 23 years old.
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And you know, if you want to go with the route that, you know, people are young and dumb,
okay, Brewer was 31.
He was a full grown adult.
He should have known better.
He should have been the voice of reason with his maturity.
But no, the people are young and dumb.
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I feel like pertains to, oh man, you were on the beach and you got caught with a beer
or something like that.
Young and dumb to me is not taking somebody's life away from them.
I wasn't making the argument that they were.
No, no, no.
I'm just saying other people cannot use that excuse.
That's not young and dumb.
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That is young and evil.
Demented.
I could come up with a million words to describe these people and none of them are nice.
It's definitely a real problem.
And that is why I want to bring it to light.
I want people to know this brutal case to know these things were going on.
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And it wasn't all that long ago, which I mean, a little sister would suggest that it was
forever ago because she's still a teenager.
She wasn't even thought of.
She wasn't even thought of.
But for us, this was not that long ago.
I mean, this was like late 90s.
Like 26 years ago.
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Not that long ago.
Not in my opinion.
It's really not.
I mean, that's my entire life.
I was born the year that this happened.
That's my life.
That's not that long ago.
It was two years away from the 21st century.
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People really should have not.
It shouldn't have been a problem.
It still shouldn't be a problem.
There's people still out there that treat people of a different race this way.
And it's sickening.
Not a lot's changed.
I mean, there's been some progression, but people just not enough at hiding things.
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Not enough has changed.
There's not been enough progression in 26 years.
In my opinion, because this isn't the only case where something like this has happened
in the last 26 years.
Nope.
So moving forward in the case, after all of that is said and done, Barry Brewer and King
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dumped the...
I can't even consider it to be remains because of how badly it was damaged.
But Bird's Body, they dumped it in front of an African American cemetery on Huff Creek
Road.
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Then...
Then they leave and go to a mother effing barbecue.
That is what they did after this horrible crime.
They immediately just dumped Bird's Body and attended a barbecue.
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Nothing happened.
Nothing was wrong.
They just quite literally destroyed a man's life.
Horrible.
A motorist found Bird's severed remains the following morning.
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So all night long, his remains were just out there and one random person happened to see
it passing by.
Along the area where Bird was dragged, police found a wrench that had Barry written on it.
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And they also found a lighter that was inscribed with the name Possum, which was King's prison
name.
The police found 81 places where portions of Bird's remains were found.
81.
He was dragged by this truck so horribly.
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It was so aggressive that there were 81 places where they found pieces of him.
Since Brewer and King were well known white supremacists, it was determined by the state
law enforcement that the murder was indeed a hate crime.
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Because of this, they called the FBI less than 24 hours after the discovery of Bird's
remains.
The special agent in charge of the Houston FBI office said that they were assisting because
the case's extreme circumstances.
It was so horrific that the FBI had to be involved.
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They couldn't look away.
That shouldn't have been the reason they got involved, but I mean they should have gotten
involved because a man was dead.
But I mean hey, they got involved somehow and that made the case even bigger.
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If you were over a certain age and you were from the East Texas area, if you lived there
at any point in your life, this case is so well known, I feel like you could live hours
from where this happened at and you still would have heard about it.
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It's just so brutal.
It's hard to think that somebody is capable of such a horrible act.
And not just the dragging of him down a stretch of highway.
Things they did to this poor man before they even attached the chains to his ankles.
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Exactly.
What were they even thinking?
That's a human being.
Evil.
Evil.
That's why I don't understand why the son could advocate for them because...
That shows you that the son is a very good man.
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Better than them, that's for sure.
100%.
They didn't deserve that.
I would have been rooting for a hanging.
You'll be rooting for what you're going to hear here in a little bit, trust me.
Okay.
I gotta refocus on it.
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This case just breaks my heart.
I'll say it a million times.
King had several racist tattoos.
These tattoos are just as sick as this man is.
Nazi symbols, the words Aryan pride, the patch for a gang of white supremacist inmates known
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as the Confederate Knights of America, and the worst one is a black man hanging from
a tree.
He was very open about what a disgusting human being he was.
In a jailhouse letter to Brewer that was intercepted by jail officials, King expressed pride in
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the crime and said that he realized while committing the murder that he might have to
die.
Quote, Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history.
Death before dishonor.
And I don't even care to say the racist slogan that he said, honestly.
(19:07):
Yeah, he made a...
I don't even...
He made a tribute to Hitler.
So if you know what the saying was, then you know the salute, but...
I don't even want to give that kind of...
No.
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I'm not even gonna do that.
I'm not gonna...
I don't feel like it's deserved to be heard, not in this situation, maybe if we were talking
about the history of it, sure, but not in this situation.
I don't want to.
Speaks volumes to what kind of man he was.
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Yes, it does.
He was happy he did it.
He was proud.
Which is odd and disgusting and morbid.
An officer investigating the case also testified that witnesses said that King had referred
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to the Turner Diaries after beating Bird.
Care to tell us what the Turner Diaries are?
Yes.
I was looking at it.
I thought it was at the top of those notes.
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We can do this real quick.
So it is a book.
Not really telling me too much about it.
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The only picture that I have found of it says this book contains racist propaganda.
So I'm sure we can only imagine what this book is.
Yeah, say no more.
I think we get the gist of what the book is about.
But he made a reference to it.
Yes.
So we see where his head was.
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I mean if the tattoos and the saying didn't give it away.
So this is after the fact.
After everything has happened.
Obviously it wasn't too hard to find the perpetrators.
I mean they were stupid enough to leave behind things that had their names on them.
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Thank God though.
Made it real easy to find them so I'm happy for that.
You gotta love a dumb criminal.
Yeah you got to.
Now we're going to go into what happened to these perpetrators after the fact.
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Sean Berry, one of the 23 year olds.
During his trial, the prosecution conceded that he was not a white supremacist.
But they argued that he was just as responsible for Bird's murder as the other men and suggested
that he might have just been a thrill killer.
Wasn't about race.
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He just… liked to kill.
I mean there's those people out there, you know.
Not everything, not every murderer is motivated by race or gender.
Some of them just are in it for the thrill.
Which is sickening and horrible.
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100%.
Berry claimed that Brewer and King were almost entirely responsible for the crime.
He said he tried to stop them from attacking Bird until Brewer threatened to do the same
thing to him.
Brewer, however, testified that Berry had cut Bird's throat before he was even tied
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to the truck.
The jury decided that minimal evidence supported this claim.
Berry was also one of the three to show any degree of remorse.
The only one of the three to show remorse.
I feel like I needed to say that again.
It makes you think though, if he claims that it wasn't a race thing for him and he did
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show some remorse and Berry is saying, or Brewer is saying that Berry slit his throat
before the chains were attached, maybe he was trying to put him out of his misery before
the worst could happen.
I mean, if he was in it for the thrill of it, maybe he just wasn't okay with the torture
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of it.
Maybe he just wanted to get it over with and didn't want him to suffer through being dragged
down a stretch of highway.
I would love to think that except for the fact that the poor man was still allowed through
half of it.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not defending him in any manner because still a horrible, sickening human
being.
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Yeah.
I'm just saying that's, I'm not going to give.
Yeah.
I mean, I, I'm not giving none of these dudes benefit in the town.
I'm just saying it's a line of thought.
No, I get it.
They all did.
They all deserve to be put to death.
Yeah.
I'm very biased though, because I'm like knowing what they did growing up, like that has stuck
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with me.
And so I'm like, these dudes deserve worse than what they did.
My thing with these cases or any case is that I, I like to know motive and I like to know
why they did what they did, what made them into that.
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Right.
Like I want to get inside their head.
I want to know what it was that drove them to do these horrible acts, which the other
two we understand is, you know, purely from racism and they state that a lot clear, but
Mary, if it's not for racism, then what was it for?
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And why would he cut his throat before the real torture could begin?
If it was purely about the kill, then why would he try to create some mercy within this
horrible act?
My brain just wants to know the answers to the questions that pop up, not depending on
anybody.
No, I know.
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I feel like maybe he, the, the throat cutting thing was a, I want to be the one that takes
the life.
Like, is he supposedly a thrill killer?
Wouldn't the thrill be doing the killing yourself?
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I mean, there's so many different ways to look at it.
Makes sense too.
I mean, what if, I lost my train of thought.
I had a question, but I lost it.
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And we still got two people to read about.
So if it comes to you, we got time to listen and I can answer.
This is going to happen a lot for any viewers watching or listening.
My brain does not always compute cause it's got 30 different tabs opened.
So, and I don't know how to close any of them.
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It's buffering at the moment.
So we'll continue.
Okay.
I'll just keep, I'll keep reading about Mary.
So, as a result, Barry was sentenced to life in prison rather than death.
As of 2020, Barry was living in protective custody at the Texas Department of Criminal
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Justice's Ramsey Unit, and he will be eligible for parole in June 2038.
By that time, he will be 63 years old.
He now spends 23 hours a day in an eight by six foot cell with one hour for exercise.
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He also married Christy Markentel by proxy.
23 to one.
There's a documentary on Netflix about prisoners at a 23 in one prison.
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That is that right there, I think might be better than putting him to death because that
is miserable.
They literally do not come out but one hour a day.
The only way you can get out for longer is if you're doing work at the prison, like you're
the one handing out the meals.
I mean, that's unfortunate, but it's like solitary confinement.
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He deserves it.
He deserved it.
He probably going crazy.
In my opinion, I'd rather be put to death than be put in a 23 to one prison.
My brain cannot do it.
I don't want to spend that much time alone with myself.
Even if I had a bunkmate, like I do not want to be locked in a cell with another person
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for 23 hours a day.
That would be my personal hell and I feel like that is what he deserved because I feel
like death would have been too easy.
That right there is miserable.
I want to say that some of the things that happened in the other two are pretty deserving.
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For sure.
I hope so.
For sure.
Let's see.
Yeah, so the next one, the real mastermind of it all.
I feel like that's giving him a lot of credit.
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Well, he's the oldest, so I want to say he's the ringleader of it.
Okay.
Lawrence Russell Brewer was an obvious white supremacist who prior to Byrd's murder had
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served a prison sentence for drug possession and burglary.
He was paroled in 1991 and then after violating his parole in 1994, he was returned to prison.
According to his court testimony, he joined a white supremacist prison gang with King
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in order to safeguard himself from the other inmates.
This is when Brewer and King became friends in the Beto Unit Prison.
A psychiatrist testified that Brewer did not appear repentant for his crimes.
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During the trial, the prosecution labeled him a racist psychopath.
Brewer was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death.
Brewer was on death row at the Polinsky Unit, but he was executed in Huntsville Unit on
September 21, 2011.
The day before his execution, Brewer expressed no remorse for his crime.
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He told KHOU 11 News in Houston,
As far as regrets, no, I have no regrets.
No, I'd do it all over again to tell you the truth.
Before his execution, this man did not deserve any of this.
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Okay.
I'm getting mad at him already and I'm not even talking about what made me mad.
Okay.
Brewer ordered a large and extensive last meal that prompted the end of last meal requests
in Texas.
So not only did he take this man's life, he took away last meal rights from any kind
of inmate in Texas on death row.
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Get ready for this list.
Two chicken fried steaks with gravy and sliced onions.
A triple patty bacon cheeseburger.
A cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and jalapenos.
A bowl of fried okra with ketchup.
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One pound of barbecued meat with a half a loaf of white bread.
Three fully loaded fajitas and a meat lover's pizza.
One pint of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream, a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts
on top, and three root beers.
But when this meal was presented, he said he wasn't hungry and so he ate none of it.
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The entire meal had to be discarded, which prompted state Senator John Whitmire to ask
Texas prison officials to end the 87-year-old tradition of giving last meals to condemned
inmates.
The prison's agency executive director responded by stating that the practice had been terminated
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effective immediately.
What in the hell?
Because like, yeah, a lot of people on death row are horrible people, but I also personally
feel like a lot of people slip through the cracks.
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I believe there's innocent people on death row for sure.
And, I mean, if they're going to be condemned for a crime that they didn't commit, they
should still at least get a last meal.
Nope.
Not because of Brewer.
Or people who sat on death row forever and ever and changed their lives, turned it around,
you know, became better and good people, but they're still on death row.
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They deserve a last meal.
He's lucky he was executed because I feel like a lot of people on death row would have
written the cell.
Can you imagine the disappointment in the cell the day that they told the inmates it
(34:15):
was terminated?
They probably wanted to kill him, but it was too late.
Can you imagine the outrage in the cells?
I imagine like screaming.
I would have been screaming and yelling and hitting the bars.
At that point, just limit them to how much they get to order for their last meal.
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You get one meal, that's it.
You don't get chicken and ribs and pizza and ice cream and fudge.
You don't get all that.
You get a drink and a meal.
Drink and entree, two sides.
And dessert.
And a dessert.
That's not too much.
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Pretty sure the men would devour that kind of stuff.
I mean, it's reasonable because then nothing gets wasted, but they still get their last
meal that they will ever eat.
Yeah.
With the next perpetrator, the beginning of this, I feel like we kind of figure out why
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John King did this, but also this gives no excuse as to doing it exactly.
Yeah.
He was accused of beating Bird with a bat and then dragging him behind the truck until
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he had died.
But prior to the murder, he had been released from a Texas prison where he had slammed.
He had been repeatedly gang raped in prison by African-American inmates.
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He was found guilty and sentenced to death for his role in Bird's kidnapping and murder
and was on the death row at the Polinsky unit on December 21, 2018.
King's execution by lethal injection was scheduled for April 24, 2019.
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On April 22, his appeals to both the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the Texas Board
of Pardons and Paroles were denied.
He was executed at the Huntsville unit on April 24, 2019.
So the only one that was not put on death row was the only one that was not killing
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because of race, allegedly.
Could have been his way to get out of it as well, but you know, I understand why King
may have had some hatred in his heart because of what happened to him when he was in prison
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the first time, but that had nothing to do with James Bird.
Bird was not the one in prison who did that to him.
And my guess would also be, in prison, everything is segregated.
You choose a side, he probably chose his side, and that's probably what happened.
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There is no telling what prompted the raping that happened.
Not saying that that is okay, because it's not, it shouldn't have happened, but if there's
anything I've learned throughout the years, there's always two sides to every story.
Well, my thing is also, because I read back a little bit to Brewer's little story, they
(38:27):
joined a white supremacist gang in prison together.
So could that have possibly been the reason that he was getting raped?
I'm sure, because I'm sure he assumed that his group would have his back if he went and
(38:48):
ran his mouth, as they do in prison.
A lot of the times that's what happens.
Somebody will say something, you say something back, and then it just pops off.
Not to say that what happened to him was okay, because it's never okay.
Right.
But we also don't know the full story, and it also doesn't give him a right to do what
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he did to Bird.
Because Bird was an innocent man.
He never did anything like that.
Now given, and I will say, I wasn't even going to bring this up, the first thing whenever
you look up Bird is the fact that he did have a criminal background.
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I intentionally left that out because I feel like for a majority of people, that is what
they would be drawn to.
They would not be drawn to the fact that this man lost his life in a brutal, just sickening
way.
It would focus on the fact that he had a criminal background.
(39:58):
Criminal background or not, he never did anything to these three men.
Exactly.
See, and that's why I wanted to leave it out.
Because there are people out there that would use that against him.
I wanted people to focus more on the murder than his background.
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Whether he did things that landed him in cuffs or not, he didn't do anything to these men.
He didn't steal from them in his past or offend them in any type of way other than just having
the wrong color on his skin.
That's all it came down to.
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It had nothing to do with his criminal past because they didn't know about his criminal
past.
They just didn't because he was a different color.
Twenty, thirty years younger, forty years younger than this man.
Twenty years younger than this man.
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It's just sickening.
This man just simply needed a ride back home.
That's all he needed.
That's all he asked for.
This is a tragic, tragic case that should have never occurred.
(41:30):
Shouldn't have.
The only thing that I can think of that may have come from this case is that two big time
racists are no longer here with us.
They can't hurt anybody else.
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And the third one, he's still in prison.
And a man had to lose his wife life in the most, one of the most brutal ways possible
for that.
And it's just, it's so sad.
(42:12):
I don't understand why people just can't love one another and just accept each other.
Because it's people like that that cause the problems today.
Even if you don't have it in your heart to love everybody and accept everybody, can we
at least agree to just mind your own damn business?
Right.
(42:32):
Like just go about your day.
If somebody is not interrupting your life or personally bothering you, there is no reason
at all to bother them.
What does it have to do with you in your life?
Even asking for a ride is not bothering somebody's life.
(42:55):
If you don't want to give them a ride, just don't give them a ride.
Exactly.
If you're that racist that you would not give somebody a ride because of their skin color,
just say no and drive off.
Let him walk home.
It might have taken him a little while, but at least the man would have made it home to
his family.
(43:15):
Honestly, I get that not everybody has the capacity to love everybody.
It's not realistic to assume that everyone in this world is capable of loving everyone
regardless.
But at the very least, just mind your own business.
Stay in your lane, live your own life and ignore everyone else.
(43:42):
Most people aren't trying to be in your life.
Right.
And you cannot like somebody and coexist with them.
You can be civil with people that you do not like.
You know how much on a daily basis that I have to or you have to deal with people that
we don't particularly favor?
But we're not mean to them.
We're not brutal.
(44:03):
We just are civil.
It's called being an adult.
It's called coexisting.
Because I mean, I'm the first to admit I do not like a lot of people, not because of race
or sex or social class.
I don't give a shit about any of that.
(44:23):
I'm just not fond of people.
Well, you also have good reasons not to like certain people as well.
I don't like most people just because I don't trust most people.
Yeah.
But I mean like for you, it's people- you don't dislike people that you don't know.
(44:46):
You dislike people that have done you wrong.
I dislike people because I know them a little too well.
It's not me judging their outward appearance.
No.
It's just I know them a little too well and yeah, I don't like what I see.
(45:07):
But I can still coexist with them.
I mean, nobody can tell me that they didn't have a job where they worked with somebody
that they just could not stand.
But you still worked with them.
You still coexisted with them.
You were still civil.
Yeah.
It's called being a freaking grown up.
Get over yourself.
(45:27):
Let people live their lives and do what they want as long as they're not hurting anybody.
And that's all James Bird was doing.
Exactly.
Don't cause harm to people that aren't causing harm to you.
If you-
Do unto others.
Yeah.
The golden rule in pretty much every religion.
(45:48):
See, I feel like I was gonna go too deep into it.
Well, I mean, it's not just in Christianity.
It's in a lot of religions.
Yeah.
You treat people how you want to be treated.
Even in philosophical theories.
Like if you don't abide to religion, but you abide to philosophy, it's still there to treat
people how you want to be treated.
(46:09):
Simple as that.
We learned that in first grade, people.
Come on.
Right?
Pretty sure I remember a lion teaching me the golden rule.
Oh, you dug up a memory.
A little cartoon lion.
(46:30):
All of that is to say that what happened to James Bird was completely unnecessary, unprovoked,
and he did not deserve that.
And at least at the end of the day after this case, there was justice that was done.
The people who did this to him were caught and put in prison because a lot of the times
these cases go unsolved.
(46:52):
Race cases go unsolved.
They are sometimes buried or deemed to not be a racist crime, even though they clearly
are and nobody's ever put away for it.
But in this case, it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I also want to say this too with these small towns.
(47:15):
There are a few neighboring towns to Jasper, Texas that are very, very, very, very well
known to be full of racist people.
Yeah.
I don't know how I want to say it.
(47:39):
I just.
With a lot of racist crimes, I don't want to I don't want to say this in it.
And me come off as a horrible person with a lot of crimes that are hate crimes, whether
it be race or sexual preference, whether they are straight, not straight, any kind of hate
(48:08):
crime.
A lot of times in these small towns, it is swept under the rug because the racists are
well known and they are well liked throughout the town or have all the money.
Exactly.
Because in a small town, if you've got money, you've got it made, especially these towns.
(48:35):
So I am very, very happy that these men were caught and brought to justice.
I absolutely hate that James had to lose his life at all, but especially in such a brutal
and horrific manner.
(48:56):
It wasn't quick.
He was very conscious through half of it.
And it just it breaks my heart.
And I just want to say this, my condolences and my deepest, deepest sympathies go out to
any and all of his relatives, his wife, his children.
(49:21):
And there is no disrespect meant towards anyone in his family or him.
We do want to give him the most respect telling everyone about his case.
We just wanted to kind of bring it to light and let people know, like, hey, this stuff
is really going on.
(49:44):
And it did go on and something's got to happen.
Yeah.
I don't think anybody can find the way you spoke about this disrespectfully, just purely
for the fact that you cried talking about it.
(50:05):
Trying to reiterate what happened, you were almost bawling your eyes out.
You were struggling to not let the tears fall on your face.
They were there.
You can clearly see them in the camera.
I just want to let that be known because I feel like race crimes are a very sensitive
topic.
They are.
(50:26):
I never, ever, ever in any way want anyone to think that we agree with that outlook because
we do not at all whatsoever.
I do not promote racism at all whatsoever.
(50:46):
I wish that that did not even exist.
I think it's a ridiculous notion because when we were kids, none of us paid attention to
skin color.
We were all friends.
We all sang kumbaya on the freaking playground and we were happy to play with each other.
And then somewhere along the way, somehow we all started to notice skin color.
(51:12):
I can remember seeing a video of two little boys.
It was a white boy and African American boy and they wanted the same haircut so they could
confuse their teacher.
I saw that video.
That was so freaking sweet.
Why can't we all be like that?
We do not have to see skin color.
We all bleed red.
(51:33):
We're all the same on the inside.
I don't see what skin color matters.
It's a color.
It doesn't.
We're not going to judge somebody because of the color hair they have or because they
choose to wear black every day or white every day.
So why am I going to choose to judge them by their skin color?
(51:53):
I'm not judging them for any other colors on their body.
That's the way I see it.
Because people are sick and twist.
I can't even put into words.
Can't even begin to.
It's just...
I don't get it.
(52:15):
In my opinion, I don't care what you look like.
I don't care who you sleep with.
I don't care how much money you have.
As long as you're good to me.
As long as you're not a shitty person who does shitty things.
We can be friends.
We can be cool.
Just don't be a shitty person.
(52:37):
That's literally all I care about.
Care less what you look like.
Exactly.
As long as you put good into the world, all that matters.
I feel like...
You can be a purple dragon for all I care.
Just don't fire breathe on me.
I think that would be pretty cool to have a dragon as a friend.
(53:00):
The comment that I said we would come back to, I feel like this case has inspired certain
things in media.
Not social media, but like film media.
It was actually a couple of weeks ago I was watching Supernatural in the episode of...
(53:24):
How do I explain it?
Not having to go through the whole episode.
There was a guy.
He was kind of an awkward guy, whatever, but he was a ghost and they were trying to figure
out why he was a ghost.
Because in Supernatural that's what they do.
They hunt supernatural things.
(53:49):
They found out the story that happened through local lore.
It was that this guy, before he was a ghost, he was kind of an awkward guy that worked
at a factory.
He became really good friends with one of the girls in the office.
The girl's husband...
(54:13):
I can't remember if she unalived herself or if she ran away.
I can't remember what her deal was, but the husband blamed the awkward guy.
And him and his buddies chained him by his ankles and drug him down the strut while he
was alive.
So I feel like this case does influence media the same way that a lot of other cases have
(54:42):
influenced media.
I mean, you've got Ed Gein who inspired Psycho.
He inspired Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs.
And that one, he inspired both Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill.
So I mean, a lot of real stories inspire movies and media to keep the stories alive.
(55:07):
And I feel like the same thing has happened with this.
Because I swear there's been another instance where I saw the same thing happen to somebody
in a movie.
And I do remember it happening specifically in Supernatural.
I feel like it's still being kept alive.
James Byrd may not be as prominent of a name as it was when it happened.
(55:32):
The story is still being kept alive through film.
And I feel like that's important.
Yeah, I just wish people knew where it came from.
Yeah, I agree.
And what really happened, because in the show it wasn't a race thing.
Yeah.
I just feel like he deserves for everyone to know who he was.
(55:54):
I completely agree with that.
But since I knew about the case when I watched the episode, that's where my mind went.
Which made it all the more horrific to watch that episode.
That's the thing about these true crime cases.
We'll learn about them and then we'll start seeing things in shows that go with the stories
(56:21):
that we're telling.
I think we tend to forget that in film, the people writing the script and creating the
films are not sadistic people who are coming up with just random things.
Pretty much all of them get inspiration from real life cases.
(56:44):
They're not just randomly picking this up off the wall.
Now I'm never wrong, there's a couple out there that's a little iffy.
Stephen King.
So I was supposed to go somewhere around that with a clown and you know exactly which one
I'm talking about because you said you're not scared of him, but I am.
(57:05):
Terrifier.
Yeah, that's sadistic.
What true crime case?
I still can't freak myself to watch.
I mean some of that he may have pushed the limits himself, but I guarantee you the underlying
(57:25):
inspiration direct came from-
No, don't even say that because I don't want to go lay down in bed tonight and think that
somebody that looks like that is gonna come get me because it happened somewhere on this
earth.
I'm not saying like the clown effect.
I'm just meaning like the things that he did I'm sure were drawn from inspiration from
(57:49):
real life cases because people are sadistic.
People are psycho.
I don't like the thought of that at all.
I don't either, but there are some sick mother effers out there.
Obviously we had we read about three of them today.
One of them was actually deemed a psycho.
(58:11):
A racist psycho.
A racist psycho.
So that's a double whammy.
But once again before we cut this all off and in the video, I do want to say again our deepest
(58:33):
sympathies and condolences to any and all of James Bird family and all of the respect
to James Bird.
Especially the family because James Bird was not their only loss to racism in their family.
(58:54):
They also lost Rodney King and that is horrible to not just have it happen once, but twice.
So that family has been through the wringer and I hope they're doing okay today because
I don't know that my family would have survived it.
(59:15):
I have a lot of respect for them especially the son for him going through that twice and
requesting clemency.
It just shows you what a good person this man was.
If somebody did that to my father.
(59:36):
What a good father James Bird must have been to raise him.
Exactly.
He got that mindset from somewhere.
And that brings me back to I want to say this.
We were talking about the young and stupid thing.
How could anyone jump and I guess I should have put it in there because we could have
(59:56):
referred back to it.
James Bird being in jail when he was younger could also fall back on the young and stupid.
Very well could have been a very good man.
He just made some dumb decisions when he was younger.
Plenty of people do.
Just because you find yourself in handcuffs doesn't always mean you're just a horrible
(01:00:18):
person.
No.
People make mistakes.
A lot of people make mistakes.
He was told by my father the worst mistake is the one that you don't learn from.
So they're only mistakes if you don't learn from them.
At that point they're just lessons.
(01:00:40):
And James Bird had to have been a very good man for his son to have grown up and had the
compassion and just to be able to forgive the men that so brutally murdered his father.
It just shows you.
He's a good man.
(01:01:00):
I agree.
As always, thanks for listening and we'll see you on Monday on Crime and Passion.
When we discuss our next book, Flock by Kate Stewart.
Don't forget to check out our podcast channels for more of our true crime retellings.
You can find our link in the comments.
(01:01:21):
Be sure to like and follow us on social media and hit that subscribe button before you go.
We'll see you all soon.
Welcome to Crime and Passion, the channel where we deep dive into the dark and thrilling
(00:12):
world of true crime cases.
And also book reviews, mostly focusing on SMUD.
On Mondays we will turn up the heat with our candid reviews of the latest in SMUD, or any
genre.
And Thursdays we'll unravel the mysteries behind some of the most notorious crimes.
I'm Destinee.
And I'm Allison.
So sit back, grab your popcorn, or your coffee, as we take you on this thrilling journey.
(00:43):
So today's true crime case is one that I hold very near to my heart.
My mom is from around this area and I lived, actually Dest and I both lived close to this
area growing up.
This case is actually the case that got me started being interested in true crime.
(01:06):
I will warn you, this is a very brutal case.
It's gruesome.
Very gruesome.
And it's very heartbreaking for sure.
There are quite a few trigger warnings.
The first one, and I feel like one of the most important, is racism.
(01:31):
That is actually the main reason this case is even a case.
The next being dismemberment.
I want to say torture because what was done to this poor man was most definitely that,
(01:54):
for sure.
It's horrible.
And the last being SA.
Not pertaining to our victim, but it is mentioned in this story.
This case is the case of James Byrd.
(02:14):
He was born on May 2, 1949 in Jasper County, Texas.
He is the third of nine children to Stella Mae Sharp and James Byrd, Sr.
His mother was a Sunday school teacher and his father was a deacon at the Greater New
Bethel Church.
(02:35):
Byrd graduated from Jasper Row High School in 1967, the last segregated class.
After graduating from high school, he married and had three children, Renee Ross and Jamie.
He worked as a vacuum salesman.
Byrd was the cousin of Danetta Lyle's King, who this is also a famous case.
(03:01):
She was married to Rodney King.
She was his first wife.
It's crazy how they're related.
It's sickening.
It's like the whole family was targeted.
They couldn't get away from it.
Exactly.
It's just...
This case makes me sick to my stomach.
(03:24):
Especially at a time when segregation and racism were both now illegal and this was
still happening and this one family is just living in hell.
Taking all the hits.
Yes.
It makes me so angry.
I think that's why I honestly got into true crime because I knew about Rodney King growing
(03:49):
up.
That was big on every news station possible back in the day.
So I already kind of knew about that.
But then growing up and kind of being able to hear a little bit more of gruesome crimes,
not in details, but knowing what happened.
(04:12):
My heart goes out to this family.
It breaks my heart.
And I think that's why I got into true crime because stuff like this needs to be more known.
People need to know that this kind of stuff was going on.
Yeah.
I agree.
So Ross Byrd, the only son of James, had been involved with the Murder Victims' Families
(04:38):
for Reconciliation, an organization that opposes capital punishment.
He campaigned to spare the lives of those who murdered his father and appeared briefly
in the documentary Deadline.
These people essentially tortured his father and he tried to spare their lives.
(05:01):
He's a bigger person than I am because I don't have that much forgiveness in me because what
they did to his father was just purely evil.
It's just unforgivable.
I feel like...
I feel like the only person willing to forgive somebody like that would have to be God himself
because...
Exactly.
I don't understand how anybody else could.
(05:27):
So this is where we get into the crime itself.
I want to warn everybody.
If you are like a queasy person or sensitive to certain topics, now might be the time to
(05:48):
probably click out of this because this does get pretty gruesome.
It's triggering for sure.
If you've experienced any kind of heavy abuse, this is maybe not the video for you.
Maybe check out a different video.
Johnstown is brutal but not as detailed and brutal as this.
(06:11):
So I just want to put that out there before we get on with this.
Johnstown was more psychological.
This is definitely physical torture.
This is pure evil.
This is the devil himself on the face of this earth.
(06:31):
On June 7th, 1998, James Byrd, aged 49, accepted a ride from Sean Berry, aged 23, Lawrence
Brewer, aged 31, and John King, aged 23.
Sean Berry, who was driving, was acquainted with Byrd from around town.
(06:57):
Instead of taking Byrd home, the men took Byrd to a remote county road out of town,
beat him severely, spray painted his face, urinated and defecated on him, chained him
by his ankles to their pickup truck before dragging him for three miles on Huff Creek
(07:24):
Road, which is also known as County Road 278.
Brewer later claimed that Byrd's throat had been slashed by Berry before he was dragged.
However, forensic evidence suggests that Byrd had been attempting to keep his head up through
(07:46):
halfway along the route.
So for a mile and a half, this poor man was trying to hold his head up and then eventually
succumbed to the torture.
His right arm and his head were severed as his body hit a culvert.
(08:14):
While almost all of Byrd's ribs were fractured, his brain and skull were found intact, further
suggesting that he maintained consciousness while he was being dragged.
(08:43):
It breaks my heart and it also makes me so mad because people don't deserve this.
He did absolutely nothing wrong and paid a horrible price for it.
(09:03):
Because of racism.
And this was back in the 90s when people were supposed to have been more tolerant.
It just makes me sick.
I can reread this case 10 million times and every time it's going to make me sad just
(09:26):
like it did the first time I heard it.
It's just sickening that people can be that evil.
Nobody deserves that.
He did nothing wrong.
He just wanted to ride home.
That's all he wanted.
He was literally just existing.
And three men decided, eh, let's just do some horrible shit.
(09:54):
I guess what really even makes me think about it even more, two of those three men were
younger than we are.
Yeah.
It was Sean Barry, the man who was driving, and then John King.
They were 23 years old.
(10:17):
And you know, if you want to go with the route that, you know, people are young and dumb,
okay, Brewer was 31.
He was a full grown adult.
He should have known better.
He should have been the voice of reason with his maturity.
But no, the people are young and dumb.
(10:39):
I feel like pertains to, oh man, you were on the beach and you got caught with a beer
or something like that.
Young and dumb to me is not taking somebody's life away from them.
I wasn't making the argument that they were.
No, no, no.
I'm just saying other people cannot use that excuse.
That's not young and dumb.
(11:00):
That is young and evil.
Demented.
I could come up with a million words to describe these people and none of them are nice.
It's definitely a real problem.
And that is why I want to bring it to light.
I want people to know this brutal case to know these things were going on.
(11:22):
And it wasn't all that long ago, which I mean, a little sister would suggest that it was
forever ago because she's still a teenager.
She wasn't even thought of.
She wasn't even thought of.
But for us, this was not that long ago.
I mean, this was like late 90s.
Like 26 years ago.
(11:46):
Not that long ago.
Not in my opinion.
It's really not.
I mean, that's my entire life.
I was born the year that this happened.
That's my life.
That's not that long ago.
It was two years away from the 21st century.
(12:12):
People really should have not.
It shouldn't have been a problem.
It still shouldn't be a problem.
There's people still out there that treat people of a different race this way.
And it's sickening.
Not a lot's changed.
I mean, there's been some progression, but people just not enough at hiding things.
(12:37):
Not enough has changed.
There's not been enough progression in 26 years.
In my opinion, because this isn't the only case where something like this has happened
in the last 26 years.
Nope.
So moving forward in the case, after all of that is said and done, Barry Brewer and King
(13:04):
dumped the...
I can't even consider it to be remains because of how badly it was damaged.
But Bird's Body, they dumped it in front of an African American cemetery on Huff Creek
Road.
(13:25):
Then...
Then they leave and go to a mother effing barbecue.
That is what they did after this horrible crime.
They immediately just dumped Bird's Body and attended a barbecue.
(13:47):
Nothing happened.
Nothing was wrong.
They just quite literally destroyed a man's life.
Horrible.
A motorist found Bird's severed remains the following morning.
(14:09):
So all night long, his remains were just out there and one random person happened to see
it passing by.
Along the area where Bird was dragged, police found a wrench that had Barry written on it.
(14:30):
And they also found a lighter that was inscribed with the name Possum, which was King's prison
name.
The police found 81 places where portions of Bird's remains were found.
81.
He was dragged by this truck so horribly.
(14:57):
It was so aggressive that there were 81 places where they found pieces of him.
Since Brewer and King were well known white supremacists, it was determined by the state
law enforcement that the murder was indeed a hate crime.
(15:20):
Because of this, they called the FBI less than 24 hours after the discovery of Bird's
remains.
The special agent in charge of the Houston FBI office said that they were assisting because
the case's extreme circumstances.
It was so horrific that the FBI had to be involved.
(15:45):
They couldn't look away.
That shouldn't have been the reason they got involved, but I mean they should have gotten
involved because a man was dead.
But I mean hey, they got involved somehow and that made the case even bigger.
(16:11):
If you were over a certain age and you were from the East Texas area, if you lived there
at any point in your life, this case is so well known, I feel like you could live hours
from where this happened at and you still would have heard about it.
(16:33):
It's just so brutal.
It's hard to think that somebody is capable of such a horrible act.
And not just the dragging of him down a stretch of highway.
Things they did to this poor man before they even attached the chains to his ankles.
(16:59):
Exactly.
What were they even thinking?
That's a human being.
Evil.
Evil.
That's why I don't understand why the son could advocate for them because...
That shows you that the son is a very good man.
(17:21):
Better than them, that's for sure.
100%.
They didn't deserve that.
I would have been rooting for a hanging.
You'll be rooting for what you're going to hear here in a little bit, trust me.
Okay.
I gotta refocus on it.
(17:45):
This case just breaks my heart.
I'll say it a million times.
King had several racist tattoos.
These tattoos are just as sick as this man is.
Nazi symbols, the words Aryan pride, the patch for a gang of white supremacist inmates known
(18:13):
as the Confederate Knights of America, and the worst one is a black man hanging from
a tree.
He was very open about what a disgusting human being he was.
In a jailhouse letter to Brewer that was intercepted by jail officials, King expressed pride in
(18:41):
the crime and said that he realized while committing the murder that he might have to
die.
Quote, Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history.
Death before dishonor.
And I don't even care to say the racist slogan that he said, honestly.
(19:07):
Yeah, he made a...
I don't even...
He made a tribute to Hitler.
So if you know what the saying was, then you know the salute, but...
I don't even want to give that kind of...
No.
(19:27):
I'm not even gonna do that.
I'm not gonna...
I don't feel like it's deserved to be heard, not in this situation, maybe if we were talking
about the history of it, sure, but not in this situation.
I don't want to.
Speaks volumes to what kind of man he was.
(19:49):
Yes, it does.
He was happy he did it.
He was proud.
Which is odd and disgusting and morbid.
An officer investigating the case also testified that witnesses said that King had referred
(20:10):
to the Turner Diaries after beating Bird.
Care to tell us what the Turner Diaries are?
Yes.
I was looking at it.
I thought it was at the top of those notes.
(20:33):
We can do this real quick.
So it is a book.
Not really telling me too much about it.
(20:54):
The only picture that I have found of it says this book contains racist propaganda.
So I'm sure we can only imagine what this book is.
Yeah, say no more.
I think we get the gist of what the book is about.
But he made a reference to it.
Yes.
So we see where his head was.
(21:18):
I mean if the tattoos and the saying didn't give it away.
So this is after the fact.
After everything has happened.
Obviously it wasn't too hard to find the perpetrators.
I mean they were stupid enough to leave behind things that had their names on them.
(21:42):
Thank God though.
Made it real easy to find them so I'm happy for that.
You gotta love a dumb criminal.
Yeah you got to.
Now we're going to go into what happened to these perpetrators after the fact.
(22:05):
Sean Berry, one of the 23 year olds.
During his trial, the prosecution conceded that he was not a white supremacist.
But they argued that he was just as responsible for Bird's murder as the other men and suggested
that he might have just been a thrill killer.
Wasn't about race.
(22:27):
He just… liked to kill.
I mean there's those people out there, you know.
Not everything, not every murderer is motivated by race or gender.
Some of them just are in it for the thrill.
Which is sickening and horrible.
(22:50):
100%.
Berry claimed that Brewer and King were almost entirely responsible for the crime.
He said he tried to stop them from attacking Bird until Brewer threatened to do the same
thing to him.
Brewer, however, testified that Berry had cut Bird's throat before he was even tied
(23:14):
to the truck.
The jury decided that minimal evidence supported this claim.
Berry was also one of the three to show any degree of remorse.
The only one of the three to show remorse.
I feel like I needed to say that again.
It makes you think though, if he claims that it wasn't a race thing for him and he did
(23:43):
show some remorse and Berry is saying, or Brewer is saying that Berry slit his throat
before the chains were attached, maybe he was trying to put him out of his misery before
the worst could happen.
I mean, if he was in it for the thrill of it, maybe he just wasn't okay with the torture
(24:05):
of it.
Maybe he just wanted to get it over with and didn't want him to suffer through being dragged
down a stretch of highway.
I would love to think that except for the fact that the poor man was still allowed through
half of it.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not defending him in any manner because still a horrible, sickening human
being.
(24:25):
Yeah.
I'm just saying that's, I'm not going to give.
Yeah.
I mean, I, I'm not giving none of these dudes benefit in the town.
I'm just saying it's a line of thought.
No, I get it.
They all did.
They all deserve to be put to death.
Yeah.
I'm very biased though, because I'm like knowing what they did growing up, like that has stuck
(24:49):
with me.
And so I'm like, these dudes deserve worse than what they did.
My thing with these cases or any case is that I, I like to know motive and I like to know
why they did what they did, what made them into that.
(25:13):
Right.
Like I want to get inside their head.
I want to know what it was that drove them to do these horrible acts, which the other
two we understand is, you know, purely from racism and they state that a lot clear, but
Mary, if it's not for racism, then what was it for?
(25:33):
And why would he cut his throat before the real torture could begin?
If it was purely about the kill, then why would he try to create some mercy within this
horrible act?
My brain just wants to know the answers to the questions that pop up, not depending on
anybody.
No, I know.
(25:54):
I feel like maybe he, the, the throat cutting thing was a, I want to be the one that takes
the life.
Like, is he supposedly a thrill killer?
Wouldn't the thrill be doing the killing yourself?
(26:18):
I mean, there's so many different ways to look at it.
Makes sense too.
I mean, what if, I lost my train of thought.
I had a question, but I lost it.
(26:42):
And we still got two people to read about.
So if it comes to you, we got time to listen and I can answer.
This is going to happen a lot for any viewers watching or listening.
My brain does not always compute cause it's got 30 different tabs opened.
So, and I don't know how to close any of them.
(27:04):
It's buffering at the moment.
So we'll continue.
Okay.
I'll just keep, I'll keep reading about Mary.
So, as a result, Barry was sentenced to life in prison rather than death.
As of 2020, Barry was living in protective custody at the Texas Department of Criminal
(27:24):
Justice's Ramsey Unit, and he will be eligible for parole in June 2038.
By that time, he will be 63 years old.
He now spends 23 hours a day in an eight by six foot cell with one hour for exercise.
(27:46):
He also married Christy Markentel by proxy.
23 to one.
There's a documentary on Netflix about prisoners at a 23 in one prison.
(28:06):
That is that right there, I think might be better than putting him to death because that
is miserable.
They literally do not come out but one hour a day.
The only way you can get out for longer is if you're doing work at the prison, like you're
the one handing out the meals.
I mean, that's unfortunate, but it's like solitary confinement.
(28:28):
He deserves it.
He deserved it.
He probably going crazy.
In my opinion, I'd rather be put to death than be put in a 23 to one prison.
My brain cannot do it.
I don't want to spend that much time alone with myself.
Even if I had a bunkmate, like I do not want to be locked in a cell with another person
(28:50):
for 23 hours a day.
That would be my personal hell and I feel like that is what he deserved because I feel
like death would have been too easy.
That right there is miserable.
I want to say that some of the things that happened in the other two are pretty deserving.
(29:14):
For sure.
I hope so.
For sure.
Let's see.
Yeah, so the next one, the real mastermind of it all.
I feel like that's giving him a lot of credit.
(29:35):
Well, he's the oldest, so I want to say he's the ringleader of it.
Okay.
Lawrence Russell Brewer was an obvious white supremacist who prior to Byrd's murder had
(29:55):
served a prison sentence for drug possession and burglary.
He was paroled in 1991 and then after violating his parole in 1994, he was returned to prison.
According to his court testimony, he joined a white supremacist prison gang with King
(30:17):
in order to safeguard himself from the other inmates.
This is when Brewer and King became friends in the Beto Unit Prison.
A psychiatrist testified that Brewer did not appear repentant for his crimes.
(30:41):
During the trial, the prosecution labeled him a racist psychopath.
Brewer was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death.
Brewer was on death row at the Polinsky Unit, but he was executed in Huntsville Unit on
September 21, 2011.
The day before his execution, Brewer expressed no remorse for his crime.
(31:06):
He told KHOU 11 News in Houston,
As far as regrets, no, I have no regrets.
No, I'd do it all over again to tell you the truth.
Before his execution, this man did not deserve any of this.
(31:27):
Okay.
I'm getting mad at him already and I'm not even talking about what made me mad.
Okay.
Brewer ordered a large and extensive last meal that prompted the end of last meal requests
in Texas.
So not only did he take this man's life, he took away last meal rights from any kind
of inmate in Texas on death row.
(31:51):
Get ready for this list.
Two chicken fried steaks with gravy and sliced onions.
A triple patty bacon cheeseburger.
A cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and jalapenos.
A bowl of fried okra with ketchup.
(32:14):
One pound of barbecued meat with a half a loaf of white bread.
Three fully loaded fajitas and a meat lover's pizza.
One pint of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream, a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts
on top, and three root beers.
But when this meal was presented, he said he wasn't hungry and so he ate none of it.
(32:43):
The entire meal had to be discarded, which prompted state Senator John Whitmire to ask
Texas prison officials to end the 87-year-old tradition of giving last meals to condemned
inmates.
The prison's agency executive director responded by stating that the practice had been terminated
(33:06):
effective immediately.
What in the hell?
Because like, yeah, a lot of people on death row are horrible people, but I also personally
feel like a lot of people slip through the cracks.
(33:28):
I believe there's innocent people on death row for sure.
And, I mean, if they're going to be condemned for a crime that they didn't commit, they
should still at least get a last meal.
Nope.
Not because of Brewer.
Or people who sat on death row forever and ever and changed their lives, turned it around,
you know, became better and good people, but they're still on death row.
(33:53):
They deserve a last meal.
He's lucky he was executed because I feel like a lot of people on death row would have
written the cell.
Can you imagine the disappointment in the cell the day that they told the inmates it
(34:15):
was terminated?
They probably wanted to kill him, but it was too late.
Can you imagine the outrage in the cells?
I imagine like screaming.
I would have been screaming and yelling and hitting the bars.
At that point, just limit them to how much they get to order for their last meal.
(34:39):
You get one meal, that's it.
You don't get chicken and ribs and pizza and ice cream and fudge.
You don't get all that.
You get a drink and a meal.
Drink and entree, two sides.
And dessert.
And a dessert.
That's not too much.
(35:01):
Pretty sure the men would devour that kind of stuff.
I mean, it's reasonable because then nothing gets wasted, but they still get their last
meal that they will ever eat.
Yeah.
With the next perpetrator, the beginning of this, I feel like we kind of figure out why
(35:35):
John King did this, but also this gives no excuse as to doing it exactly.
Yeah.
He was accused of beating Bird with a bat and then dragging him behind the truck until
(35:55):
he had died.
But prior to the murder, he had been released from a Texas prison where he had slammed.
He had been repeatedly gang raped in prison by African-American inmates.
(36:23):
He was found guilty and sentenced to death for his role in Bird's kidnapping and murder
and was on the death row at the Polinsky unit on December 21, 2018.
King's execution by lethal injection was scheduled for April 24, 2019.
(36:44):
On April 22, his appeals to both the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the Texas Board
of Pardons and Paroles were denied.
He was executed at the Huntsville unit on April 24, 2019.
So the only one that was not put on death row was the only one that was not killing
(37:14):
because of race, allegedly.
Could have been his way to get out of it as well, but you know, I understand why King
may have had some hatred in his heart because of what happened to him when he was in prison
(37:36):
the first time, but that had nothing to do with James Bird.
Bird was not the one in prison who did that to him.
And my guess would also be, in prison, everything is segregated.
You choose a side, he probably chose his side, and that's probably what happened.
(37:59):
There is no telling what prompted the raping that happened.
Not saying that that is okay, because it's not, it shouldn't have happened, but if there's
anything I've learned throughout the years, there's always two sides to every story.
Well, my thing is also, because I read back a little bit to Brewer's little story, they
(38:27):
joined a white supremacist gang in prison together.
So could that have possibly been the reason that he was getting raped?
I'm sure, because I'm sure he assumed that his group would have his back if he went and
(38:48):
ran his mouth, as they do in prison.
A lot of the times that's what happens.
Somebody will say something, you say something back, and then it just pops off.
Not to say that what happened to him was okay, because it's never okay.
Right.
But we also don't know the full story, and it also doesn't give him a right to do what
(39:10):
he did to Bird.
Because Bird was an innocent man.
He never did anything like that.
Now given, and I will say, I wasn't even going to bring this up, the first thing whenever
you look up Bird is the fact that he did have a criminal background.
(39:33):
I intentionally left that out because I feel like for a majority of people, that is what
they would be drawn to.
They would not be drawn to the fact that this man lost his life in a brutal, just sickening
way.
It would focus on the fact that he had a criminal background.
(39:58):
Criminal background or not, he never did anything to these three men.
Exactly.
See, and that's why I wanted to leave it out.
Because there are people out there that would use that against him.
I wanted people to focus more on the murder than his background.
(40:24):
Whether he did things that landed him in cuffs or not, he didn't do anything to these men.
He didn't steal from them in his past or offend them in any type of way other than just having
the wrong color on his skin.
That's all it came down to.
(40:45):
It had nothing to do with his criminal past because they didn't know about his criminal
past.
They just didn't because he was a different color.
Twenty, thirty years younger, forty years younger than this man.
Twenty years younger than this man.
(41:06):
It's just sickening.
This man just simply needed a ride back home.
That's all he needed.
That's all he asked for.
This is a tragic, tragic case that should have never occurred.
(41:30):
Shouldn't have.
The only thing that I can think of that may have come from this case is that two big time
racists are no longer here with us.
They can't hurt anybody else.
(41:50):
And the third one, he's still in prison.
And a man had to lose his wife life in the most, one of the most brutal ways possible
for that.
And it's just, it's so sad.
(42:12):
I don't understand why people just can't love one another and just accept each other.
Because it's people like that that cause the problems today.
Even if you don't have it in your heart to love everybody and accept everybody, can we
at least agree to just mind your own damn business?
Right.
(42:32):
Like just go about your day.
If somebody is not interrupting your life or personally bothering you, there is no reason
at all to bother them.
What does it have to do with you in your life?
Even asking for a ride is not bothering somebody's life.
(42:55):
If you don't want to give them a ride, just don't give them a ride.
Exactly.
If you're that racist that you would not give somebody a ride because of their skin color,
just say no and drive off.
Let him walk home.
It might have taken him a little while, but at least the man would have made it home to
his family.
(43:15):
Honestly, I get that not everybody has the capacity to love everybody.
It's not realistic to assume that everyone in this world is capable of loving everyone
regardless.
But at the very least, just mind your own business.
Stay in your lane, live your own life and ignore everyone else.
(43:42):
Most people aren't trying to be in your life.
Right.
And you cannot like somebody and coexist with them.
You can be civil with people that you do not like.
You know how much on a daily basis that I have to or you have to deal with people that
we don't particularly favor?
But we're not mean to them.
We're not brutal.
(44:03):
We just are civil.
It's called being an adult.
It's called coexisting.
Because I mean, I'm the first to admit I do not like a lot of people, not because of race
or sex or social class.
I don't give a shit about any of that.
(44:23):
I'm just not fond of people.
Well, you also have good reasons not to like certain people as well.
I don't like most people just because I don't trust most people.
Yeah.
But I mean like for you, it's people- you don't dislike people that you don't know.
(44:46):
You dislike people that have done you wrong.
I dislike people because I know them a little too well.
It's not me judging their outward appearance.
No.
It's just I know them a little too well and yeah, I don't like what I see.
(45:07):
But I can still coexist with them.
I mean, nobody can tell me that they didn't have a job where they worked with somebody
that they just could not stand.
But you still worked with them.
You still coexisted with them.
You were still civil.
Yeah.
It's called being a freaking grown up.
Get over yourself.
(45:27):
Let people live their lives and do what they want as long as they're not hurting anybody.
And that's all James Bird was doing.
Exactly.
Don't cause harm to people that aren't causing harm to you.
If you-
Do unto others.
Yeah.
The golden rule in pretty much every religion.
(45:48):
See, I feel like I was gonna go too deep into it.
Well, I mean, it's not just in Christianity.
It's in a lot of religions.
Yeah.
You treat people how you want to be treated.
Even in philosophical theories.
Like if you don't abide to religion, but you abide to philosophy, it's still there to treat
people how you want to be treated.
(46:09):
Simple as that.
We learned that in first grade, people.
Come on.
Right?
Pretty sure I remember a lion teaching me the golden rule.
Oh, you dug up a memory.
A little cartoon lion.
(46:30):
All of that is to say that what happened to James Bird was completely unnecessary, unprovoked,
and he did not deserve that.
And at least at the end of the day after this case, there was justice that was done.
The people who did this to him were caught and put in prison because a lot of the times
these cases go unsolved.
(46:52):
Race cases go unsolved.
They are sometimes buried or deemed to not be a racist crime, even though they clearly
are and nobody's ever put away for it.
But in this case, it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I also want to say this too with these small towns.
(47:15):
There are a few neighboring towns to Jasper, Texas that are very, very, very, very well
known to be full of racist people.
Yeah.
I don't know how I want to say it.
(47:39):
I just.
With a lot of racist crimes, I don't want to I don't want to say this in it.
And me come off as a horrible person with a lot of crimes that are hate crimes, whether
it be race or sexual preference, whether they are straight, not straight, any kind of hate
(48:08):
crime.
A lot of times in these small towns, it is swept under the rug because the racists are
well known and they are well liked throughout the town or have all the money.
Exactly.
Because in a small town, if you've got money, you've got it made, especially these towns.
(48:35):
So I am very, very happy that these men were caught and brought to justice.
I absolutely hate that James had to lose his life at all, but especially in such a brutal
and horrific manner.
(48:56):
It wasn't quick.
He was very conscious through half of it.
And it just it breaks my heart.
And I just want to say this, my condolences and my deepest, deepest sympathies go out to
any and all of his relatives, his wife, his children.
(49:21):
And there is no disrespect meant towards anyone in his family or him.
We do want to give him the most respect telling everyone about his case.
We just wanted to kind of bring it to light and let people know, like, hey, this stuff
is really going on.
(49:44):
And it did go on and something's got to happen.
Yeah.
I don't think anybody can find the way you spoke about this disrespectfully, just purely
for the fact that you cried talking about it.
(50:05):
Trying to reiterate what happened, you were almost bawling your eyes out.
You were struggling to not let the tears fall on your face.
They were there.
You can clearly see them in the camera.
I just want to let that be known because I feel like race crimes are a very sensitive
topic.
They are.
(50:26):
I never, ever, ever in any way want anyone to think that we agree with that outlook because
we do not at all whatsoever.
I do not promote racism at all whatsoever.
(50:46):
I wish that that did not even exist.
I think it's a ridiculous notion because when we were kids, none of us paid attention to
skin color.
We were all friends.
We all sang kumbaya on the freaking playground and we were happy to play with each other.
And then somewhere along the way, somehow we all started to notice skin color.
(51:12):
I can remember seeing a video of two little boys.
It was a white boy and African American boy and they wanted the same haircut so they could
confuse their teacher.
I saw that video.
That was so freaking sweet.
Why can't we all be like that?
We do not have to see skin color.
We all bleed red.
(51:33):
We're all the same on the inside.
I don't see what skin color matters.
It's a color.
It doesn't.
We're not going to judge somebody because of the color hair they have or because they
choose to wear black every day or white every day.
So why am I going to choose to judge them by their skin color?
(51:53):
I'm not judging them for any other colors on their body.
That's the way I see it.
Because people are sick and twist.
I can't even put into words.
Can't even begin to.
It's just...
I don't get it.
(52:15):
In my opinion, I don't care what you look like.
I don't care who you sleep with.
I don't care how much money you have.
As long as you're good to me.
As long as you're not a shitty person who does shitty things.
We can be friends.
We can be cool.
Just don't be a shitty person.
(52:37):
That's literally all I care about.
Care less what you look like.
Exactly.
As long as you put good into the world, all that matters.
I feel like...
You can be a purple dragon for all I care.
Just don't fire breathe on me.
I think that would be pretty cool to have a dragon as a friend.
(53:00):
The comment that I said we would come back to, I feel like this case has inspired certain
things in media.
Not social media, but like film media.
It was actually a couple of weeks ago I was watching Supernatural in the episode of...
(53:24):
How do I explain it?
Not having to go through the whole episode.
There was a guy.
He was kind of an awkward guy, whatever, but he was a ghost and they were trying to figure
out why he was a ghost.
Because in Supernatural that's what they do.
They hunt supernatural things.
(53:49):
They found out the story that happened through local lore.
It was that this guy, before he was a ghost, he was kind of an awkward guy that worked
at a factory.
He became really good friends with one of the girls in the office.
The girl's husband...
(54:13):
I can't remember if she unalived herself or if she ran away.
I can't remember what her deal was, but the husband blamed the awkward guy.
And him and his buddies chained him by his ankles and drug him down the strut while he
was alive.
So I feel like this case does influence media the same way that a lot of other cases have
(54:42):
influenced media.
I mean, you've got Ed Gein who inspired Psycho.
He inspired Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs.
And that one, he inspired both Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill.
So I mean, a lot of real stories inspire movies and media to keep the stories alive.
(55:07):
And I feel like the same thing has happened with this.
Because I swear there's been another instance where I saw the same thing happen to somebody
in a movie.
And I do remember it happening specifically in Supernatural.
I feel like it's still being kept alive.
James Byrd may not be as prominent of a name as it was when it happened.
(55:32):
The story is still being kept alive through film.
And I feel like that's important.
Yeah, I just wish people knew where it came from.
Yeah, I agree.
And what really happened, because in the show it wasn't a race thing.
Yeah.
I just feel like he deserves for everyone to know who he was.
(55:54):
I completely agree with that.
But since I knew about the case when I watched the episode, that's where my mind went.
Which made it all the more horrific to watch that episode.
That's the thing about these true crime cases.
We'll learn about them and then we'll start seeing things in shows that go with the stories
(56:21):
that we're telling.
I think we tend to forget that in film, the people writing the script and creating the
films are not sadistic people who are coming up with just random things.
Pretty much all of them get inspiration from real life cases.
(56:44):
They're not just randomly picking this up off the wall.
Now I'm never wrong, there's a couple out there that's a little iffy.
Stephen King.
So I was supposed to go somewhere around that with a clown and you know exactly which one
I'm talking about because you said you're not scared of him, but I am.
(57:05):
Terrifier.
Yeah, that's sadistic.
What true crime case?
I still can't freak myself to watch.
I mean some of that he may have pushed the limits himself, but I guarantee you the underlying
(57:25):
inspiration direct came from-
No, don't even say that because I don't want to go lay down in bed tonight and think that
somebody that looks like that is gonna come get me because it happened somewhere on this
earth.
I'm not saying like the clown effect.
I'm just meaning like the things that he did I'm sure were drawn from inspiration from
(57:49):
real life cases because people are sadistic.
People are psycho.
I don't like the thought of that at all.
I don't either, but there are some sick mother effers out there.
Obviously we had we read about three of them today.
One of them was actually deemed a psycho.
(58:11):
A racist psycho.
A racist psycho.
So that's a double whammy.
But once again before we cut this all off and in the video, I do want to say again our deepest
(58:33):
sympathies and condolences to any and all of James Bird family and all of the respect
to James Bird.
Especially the family because James Bird was not their only loss to racism in their family.
(58:54):
They also lost Rodney King and that is horrible to not just have it happen once, but twice.
So that family has been through the wringer and I hope they're doing okay today because
I don't know that my family would have survived it.
(59:15):
I have a lot of respect for them especially the son for him going through that twice and
requesting clemency.
It just shows you what a good person this man was.
If somebody did that to my father.
(59:36):
What a good father James Bird must have been to raise him.
Exactly.
He got that mindset from somewhere.
And that brings me back to I want to say this.
We were talking about the young and stupid thing.
How could anyone jump and I guess I should have put it in there because we could have
(59:56):
referred back to it.
James Bird being in jail when he was younger could also fall back on the young and stupid.
Very well could have been a very good man.
He just made some dumb decisions when he was younger.
Plenty of people do.
Just because you find yourself in handcuffs doesn't always mean you're just a horrible
(01:00:18):
person.
No.
People make mistakes.
A lot of people make mistakes.
He was told by my father the worst mistake is the one that you don't learn from.
So they're only mistakes if you don't learn from them.
At that point they're just lessons.
(01:00:40):
And James Bird had to have been a very good man for his son to have grown up and had the
compassion and just to be able to forgive the men that so brutally murdered his father.
It just shows you.
He's a good man.
(01:01:00):
I agree.
As always, thanks for listening and we'll see you on Monday on Crime and Passion.
When we discuss our next book, Flock by Kate Stewart.
Don't forget to check out our podcast channels for more of our true crime retellings.
You can find our link in the comments.
(01:01:21):
Be sure to like and follow us on social media and hit that subscribe button before you go.
We'll see you all soon.
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