Racist Asked to Testify at Next Jasper Trial

A white supremacist sentenced to die for dragging a black man to his death behind a pickup truck has been asked to testify later this year in the trial of another man charged with the same killing.

Dist. Atty. Guy James Gray said Friday he asked John William King to testify at the trial of Shawn Allen Berry and describe in his own words how the victim, James Byrd Jr., died.

Gray told Reuters that King, 24, had not yet responded to his request, adding that he will probably not subpoena King as a witness if he is unwilling to testify voluntarily.

“I’d like him to set out the facts as they happened out there. Mr. Berry admits he was present but denies any involvement, and I’d just like to see what King would say about it,” he said.

Gray said that if King is forced to appear in court as a witness, he cannot be certain that he would tell the truth.

King, Berry and a third man, Lawrence Russell Brewer, were all charged with capital murder for killing Byrd, 49, in the small East Texas logging town of Jasper last June.

Prosecutors said at King’s trial last month that Byrd’s death appears to have been an initiation ritual linked to plans to set up a white supremacist group in Jasper.

The next trial is set to start on May 17, but it is not yet clear whether Berry, 24, or Brewer, 31, will be the next defendant.

Berry signed a statement last year in which he incriminated his companions but minimized his own role in the killing.

But Gray said forensic evidence shows this is not true. “I believe all three of them equally participated,” he said.