Unfathomable Crime, Unlikely Figure
But they figured it would be something dumb, something little, not
something mean. They never dreamed he would be charged, along with two other
white men, with dragging a black man to death behind Mr. Berry's primer-gray
pickup, a crime so cruel it sickened people across the country.
That is what Mr. Berry and his court-appointed lawyer maintain: that he
was an unwilling accomplice to the June 7 murder of James Byrd Jr., 49.
Those who know Mr. Berry, a 23-year-old part-time mechanic, theater manager
and failed burglar, want to believe him, because they do not want to think
that so evil a crime has a familiar face.
In Jasper, where almost half the population is black and memories are
long, people understand prejudice. But few of them, black or white,
understand what could happen in a life that would make a man hate with such
intensity. As they look back on the lives of the three accused, they find
clues, but not answers.
In a statement given to investigators, Mr. Berry has implicated the two
other suspects, both friends: John William King, 23, a onetime schoolmate
here in Jasper who became his partner in the bungled burglary that landed
both in a prison boot camp in 1992, and Lawrence R. Brewer, 31, a day
laborer from the Sulphur Springs area who had just completed a seven-year
prison term for cocaine peddling when Mr. Byrd was murdered.
By the account of Mr. Berry, who had given Mr. Byrd a lift, Mr. King
forced him to accompany the two other men on the ride of death and
dismemberment after they had chained the victim to the rear bumper. Mr.
Brewer and Mr. King, both linked to prison hate gangs, say they did not
murder anyone.
People who know the three suspects, either here in Jasper or in Cooper,
Mr. Brewer's tiny hometown, describe them alternately as good boys and
small-time criminals. Mr. King often used racial slurs, but that did not set
him apart here.
All three men were born in East Texas, where racism can be almost a
recreation -- in 1993, white supremacists in Vidor, some 50 miles from
Jasper, succeeded in driving out of town the several blacks who lived there
-- but Jasper had not seen such meanness in decades, people here say. The
mayor, the hospital administrator, the superintendent of education and other
political and civic leaders are black. The country club has black members.
''Things have changed a lot in the past 20, 30 years,'' said District
Attorney Guy James Gray, who has lived here for 48 years. Certainly, blacks
and whites alike say, racism is alive in Jasper, but it is a thing of
lingering resentment and hurtful words, not threats or violence.
A lot of people here believe that the suspects' time in prison, where
inmates tend to split off into gangs by color for their own protection,
intensified racial prejudice that had been part of their culture, and set
the stage for an abomination. State prison officials say that Mr. King and
Mr. Brewer were both members of the Confederate Knights of America, a racist
group linked to the Ku Klux Klan, and that both have tattoos that mark them
as white supremacists.
But this crime was so evil, so widely denounced, that Texas klaverns of
the Klan have denounced it, too. A small group of Klansmen, 10 to 20, have
applied for a permit to march here this weekend or the next, not in support
of the suspects but to disavow any connection with them.
In any case, friends of Mr. Berry say they are certain that when he
offered Mr. Byrd a ride that fateful night, he did so as a kindness.
Mr. Snelson, who owns Jasper Tire, where Mr. Berry worked off and on for
about three years, said Mr. Berry's mentor there was an old black man who
was dying of cancer.
''Shawn went with me to the funeral,'' Mr. Snelson said. ''He was crying
like a baby.''
Dustin Wood, 21, a worker on offshore oil rigs who has known Mr. Berry
for years, echoes what many say about him: People liked to like him. He made
dumb mistakes, but he did not seem to have a mean streak.
''I never heard Shawn say anything racist,'' Mr. Wood said. ''I have a
lot of black friends. He has a lot of black friends. All this news has just
shocked me and everyone he knows.''
Mr. Berry drank beer, mostly on the weekends; shot pool, and got tattoos,
''but there's nothing racist about tattoos,'' Mr. Wood said. ''He had a
Playboy bunny, a Grim Reaper and a cow skull, if I remember right.''
He also had a child by a young woman in Jasper and, friends say, was
planning to marry her.
''For the circumstances he was raised in,'' Mr. Snelson said, ''he was a
good kid.''
His father died when he was a teen-ager, and he quit school in the eighth
grade. ''He never did talk much about his mother,'' said Mr. Wood, one of a
number of acquaintances who say Mr. Berry and his mother were never close.
''He was raised on the street,'' Mr. Snelson said. ''I tried to help the
kid because I felt sorry for him,'' although ultimately ''I had to let him
go because he was not dependable.''
In 1992, Mr. Berry and Mr. King, his friend from school, committed a
burglary in Jasper and were sent to the boot camp, a detention center where
guards used military-like discipline to try to turn around the lives of
young offenders. It seemed to work for Mr. Berry, who came home and got a
job at the movie theater. (The night of the killing, he had just finished
showing ''Godzilla.'')
But for Mr. King, boot camp proved to be only preparation for two more
years in custody. He violated parole so often that the state sent him to
Beto One, a tough prison in the town of Tennessee Colony. He came out a much
different person, by the account of friends and relatives, who say prison
taught him to hate.
Unlike Mr. Berry, of whom people speak well even as they shake their
heads, Mr. King seems abandoned by Jasper. Even his father, Ronald King, has
conceded his guilt, in a letter to reporters. ''It hurts me deeply,'' the
elder Mr. King wrote.
While people here acknowledge knowing John King, they refuse to have
their names attached to any recollection about him, if they talk about him
at all.
They remember a mannerly boy, quiet around grown-ups. His family was
blue-collar Baptist. The only vice he had as a boy was snuff.
He dropped out of school in 10th grade and did manual labor. Like Mr.
Berry, he was just one of the sunburned young men who cruised town in ragged
pickups, a six-pack from trouble. If he was overtly racist then, the people
who remember him say they do not recall.
But in Beto One, he met Mr. Brewer, who had been in and out of jail for
drug and burglary convictions much of his adult life. Like Mr. King, the new
acquaintance came from a solid, hard-working Texas family, ''real respected
people,'' said Mr. Brewer's hometown sheriff, Benny Fisher.
''Everybody liked him,'' said Mr. Brewer's grandfather, Morris Gillham,
76, a retired electrician. ''I don't know what to say. He didn't have that
makeup,'' as a boy, to do the things the prosecutors say he did to Mr. Byrd. Relatives say Mr. Brewer too learned to hate in prison. Both he and Mr.
King joined the Confederate Knights of America, a loosely organized prison
gang for white supremacists, although his lawyer, Bill Morian Jr., says Mr.
Brewer joined the gang for protection.
''If you don't join,'' Mr. Morian said, ''you become someone's wife.''
Texas prisons have powerful black and Hispanic gangs, in particular one
called the Mexican Mafia. They, and their white counterparts, espouse racial
hatred.
''The level of racism in prison is very high,'' said Mark Potok, a
spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center. ''The truth is, you may go in
completely unracist and emerge ready to kill people who don't look like
you.''
''Maybe,'' said a former employer, Bill Snelson, ''he just got mixed
up in the wrong crowd.''
Organizations mentioned in this article:
Related Terms:
You may print this article now, or save it on your computer for future reference. Instructions for saving this article on your computer are also available.
Page Top