Pair cleared in dragging death

Murder charges were dropped at the prosecution’s request Thursday in the dragging death of a black man in east Texas, and the two white men accused of killing him were released from jail.

Shannon Finley and Charles Crostley had been charged with running over a friend, Brandon McClelland, 24, after a late-night beer run in September. Last month, a gravel truck driver gave a sworn statement acknowledging he might have accidentally run over McClelland, who authorities say got out of the car to walk home.

A judge in Paris, Texas, granted special prosecutor Toby Shook’s motion to dismiss the case, which was hampered by a lack of witnesses and physical evidence.

“After investigation, it has been determined this case should be dismissed in the interests of justice,” Shook said. “The decision is about the state of the evidence in the case as it exists today.”

Shook said the investigation would continue. The gravel truck driver is unlikely to face charges.

The dismissal was met with incredulity by civil rights activists, who had protested how authorities handled the case.

“His body was dragged, and nobody gets charged?” said Brenda Cherry, a Paris resident and president of Concerned Citizens for Racial Equality. She said the decision was “not surprising, but it’s sad. It appears that a black man’s life means nothing here in Paris.”

Finley and Crostley had been unable to post bond; they had been jailed since their arrest last year.

The racial implications of the case reminded some of the 1998 murder of James Byrd, who was chained by the ankles to a pickup and dragged to death in the east Texas town of Jasper. Three white men were convicted of killing him; two are on death row, and the other is serving a life term.