2nd Dragging Murderer Sentenced to Die

A jury decided Thursday that racist ex-convict Lawrence Russell Brewer should pay with his life for the dragging death of a black man, sending him to death row to join a buddy who also took part in the crime.

After 14 hours of deliberations over two days, the jury rejected arguments that a life sentence would be adequate punishment for Brewer, 32.

“I’m not a death penalty fan, but this is a situation where if you don’t give the death penalty to this man, he’ll hurt and kill again,” Jasper County Dist. Atty. Guy James Gray said.

Brewer’s former prison buddy, John William King, 24, is already on death row, convicted in February in the murder of James Byrd Jr.

Byrd, 49, was chained at the ankles to a pickup truck and dragged to a grisly death in the East Texas town of Jasper last year.

A third man, Shawn Allen Berry, 24, goes on trial next month.

Prosecutors said Brewer and King were organizing a white supremacist group and wanted to do something dramatic to give it publicity. Brewer later bragged about the crime in jailhouse letters.

Brewer showed little reaction to the verdict, pursing his lips slightly. His mother, Helen, who along with her husband had pleaded with the jury to spare his life, dabbed her face with a handkerchief.

The jurors, who convicted Brewer on Monday, told the judge they would not discuss the case with reporters.

Brewer testified that he only tried to kick Byrd as Byrd and King fought. He said Berry slit the man’s throat with a knife, and he didn’t realize at first that Berry had chained Byrd to the bumper.

In jailhouse letters, Brewer referred to the murder and boasted about “rolling a tire,” which prosecutors said was a derogatory term for assaulting a black person.

“Well, I did it,” Brewer wrote. “And no longer am I a virgin. It was a rush, and I’m still licking my lips for more.”