IT TOOK a jury in Jasper, Texas, jury a little over three hours to decide to sentence a white supremacist, John William King, to death. In one of the goriest race murders in recent memory, King was earlier convicted of killing a black man by dragging him three miles along a country road.
The 24-year-old defendant is the first white man sentenced to die for a racial murder in Texas since the mid-1970s. Legal analysts say it will be at least seven or eight years before King is actually executed by lethal injection. His lawyers are expected to appeal the death sentence.
In calling for the death penalty, prosecutors said King would be a danger to society even if he was imprisoned for life. "If he can, he will send missionaries into the world to kill again," the prosecutor said.
King and two accomplices killed Mr James Byrd (49) by chaining him behind a pick-up truck and dragging him along Huff Creek Road until he was decapitated. Prosecutors said the murder was part of King's plan to start a white supremacist group in Jasper. They dumped his body at the gates of black cemetery.
Two alleged accomplices, Mr Lawrence Russell Brewer (31) and Mr Shawn Berry (24), are also charged with capital murder in the case and will be tried later this year.
King's body is covered with tattoos, including an image of a black man hanging from a tree, a pentagram, Nazi SS lightning bolts and a horned baby Jesus.
The night before the sentencing, the father of the convicted murderer called the father of the victim to say he was sorry.
"I couldn't say, `I know how you feel,' even though I'm losing my son, too," Mr Ronald King told the Dallas Morning News. "I don't know how he feels. All I know is he's got to be hurting like the dickens. We all are. I wanted to tell him, and I think that they agree: there's no two sides to this thing. There's not a King side and a Byrd side. Everybody's on one side trying to find out why."
Mr James Byrd snr told the newspaper he was touched by Mr Ronald King's gesture. "I feel real sorry for him, really I do. You watch your kids grow up. You teach 'em and they don't do exactly what they've been taught," Mr Byrd said. "I just told him I can't hold him responsible for his son. He's grown. He's 24 years old. That father's done all he can do."
