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subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for [Music] details [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
00:01:45
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that spent
00:01:50
the weekend playing reindeer games ladies and gentlemen the man that is guiding our flying garage ship he is the
00:01:57
captain it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a
00:02:03
[Music] friend tonight we are drinking circus City IPA by Big Top Brewing Company
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garage grade 3 and 3/4 bottle caps out of five hoppy mty and smooth and I would say it's a little sweet as well 6.8 ABV
00:02:22
check out big top Brewing Company and this week's beers is brought To Us by our good friends first up we have Meg in
00:02:27
Colchester UK no and Brooklyn we have our buddy Scott next we have John and cut a hey Wisconsin John says the West
00:02:35
Memphis 3 did it well I guess everybody has an opinion next up we have now from Hayden Lake Idaho I want to give a shout
00:02:42
out to our friend Sarah P and her husband two Buckey down in Benton Kentucky and last but not least a shout
00:02:48
out a longdistance shout out to Bianca listening in Beijing China so thanks to everybody for filling up the fridge for
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this week's show if you want to help us out with next week's show go to True Crime garage and click on the Donate
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button like I said yesterday the we like your jib shirts are going fast so they're going to sell out soon so if you
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want one of those get those today at true Crim garage.com don't disrespect the captain make sure you get your shirt
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that's enough of the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:28
crime [Music] [Music] he was beating it was down this road here by the bridge and this road going
00:03:49
around here and they bought him out there and they started dragging him drug him up down the road and lost his keys
00:03:57
down there that's where they got all these circles was in the road and lost piece of Flesh there
00:04:07
and all down this road all way to the graveyard and that's where they unhooked me
00:04:13
at they lost the head before you got to the gray yard on the right that's all I see well I didn't see
00:04:23
that but I saw the little flesh out there [Music] on Saturday June 6th 1998 49-year-old
00:04:51
James Bird Jr he spent the day hanging out with his friends and family he attended two different parties and after
00:04:58
the second party he left there quite late that night about 1 to 1:30 a.m. that evening now he was walking home his
00:05:06
apartment was on the other side of town and this is when he encountered three men in a pickup truck who had offered
00:05:14
him a ride the next day at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday his body was found located on the
00:05:21
road and in very bad condition his head and his shoulder were found almost a mile away way where we left off we were
00:05:31
in the middle of the investigation and they were getting ready to bring in the FBI and this is
00:05:38
when they are talking to Shawn Barry now Barry was one of the three men believed
00:05:44
to have been in the pickup truck that evening James Bird Jr had been spotted by eyewitnesses in a pickup truck matching
00:05:53
that description well when the sheriff's department when they have Shawn Barry and the other two men in custody and
00:06:00
they're talking with them remember we said that we they were probably trying to get them to turn on one another right
00:06:06
it was it was becoming clear to the to the sheriff that these three men were very likely involved in this murder and
00:06:14
that they had committed it together if you can get these guys to start turning on each other you're going to get
00:06:19
information that can help you put together a case and take these dirt bags to trial yeah and they believe that this
00:06:25
was a hate crime and that's why they wanted to get the FBI involved and and once once they started telling the
00:06:31
suspects that that's when we get Shawn Barry who gets the encouragement that he needed to tell us what he what happened
00:06:40
according to him his side of the story as to how this murder took place well Barry states that they saw he was
00:06:49
traveling with the other two men Bill King and Russell Brewer and that they had saw James Bird walking that night
00:06:59
and this this was like we said in the early morning hours this would be about 1:30 2 a.m. right and he was heading
00:07:05
across town back to his apartment sha Barry says that it was he in fact that had offered James bird a ride James Bird
00:07:15
accepts the ride there's a little bit of the communication between the two that seems a little strange to me um the way
00:07:22
that Barry puts this years later is that he offered he said hey do you want us to
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drive you home mhm and to which he says James Bird Jr said well I'll ride around
00:07:34
with you guys for a while and we talked about James and his character and who he
00:07:38
was he was he was a happy guy he was in a good mood he liked to socialize with people he was known for being kind of a
00:07:45
good timing guy right and sometimes you you have individuals you're you're one such individual that sometimes when you
00:07:53
get going mhm in your party mode you're not going to stop you know so it could have been as simple as yeah you could
00:08:01
drive me home or what are you guys up to so Shawn Barry said that he had stopped
00:08:05
and offered the ride to bird early reports speculated that uh James bird and Mr Barry may have known each other
00:08:13
because I guess they had the same parole officer the Associated Press reported that this was a possibility now Sheriff
00:08:21
rolls I believe it was he that that said at one point that the two could have seen each other at you know when they
00:08:27
have to go visit their parole officer mhm um according to sha Barry he claims that he did not know James Bird but he
00:08:37
did in fact recognize him as someone who frequently walked around the town of Jasper
00:08:43
Texas Bill king after James bird is in the truck Bill king became upset and be he began cursing so bill is upset with
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Shawn for giving James bird a ride mhm the men sto stopped at a convenience store and this is when Bill King is
00:09:03
going to take over the driving so he drives the men down a dirt road all four men are back in the truck
00:09:12
at this point during this short drive Bill King says to Barry that he is about to scare
00:09:20
Mr James Bird so instead of taking James Bird Jr home Barry Brewer and King they drove
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East out of Jasper and they stopped at a small clearing in the woods now this is
00:09:34
where investigators believe that there was some kind of fight in this clearing because of the upturn grass the
00:09:39
Disturbed dirt the broken beer bottles right according to Shawn Barry Bill King and Russell Brewer opened up James
00:09:48
Bird's door and they were trying to pull him out of the truck James was hanging on to the door with both hands trying to
00:09:57
keep himself inside the truck right I won't repeat all that was said according to Shawn Barry as far as you
00:10:06
know what what the other two men were saying at this time but at some point Bill King has announced to the group
00:10:14
that he would like to kill James Bird right the group according to sha Barry's story at this point should be well aware
00:10:22
of what very likely could happen next and even more horrifying and terrifying is that James bird is now aware of what
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this guy's intentions are mhm Barry says that he was he was horrified and he was
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helpless and he sat there and he watched as the two men pulled James bird from the truck once James was out of the
00:10:48
truck sha Barry he got he got between Bill King and James Bird telling Bill King to stop what they were doing Bill
00:10:59
King then threatens sha Barry's life sha Barry says that at this point in the story James bird is very intoxicated
00:11:10
he's he's very drunk the other two men took James Bird to the back of the truck sha Barry says there was no problem
00:11:18
getting bird to the back of the truck I mean he's once they get him out he's being overpowered by two people and
00:11:26
according to Barry James bird is very intoxicated so this this would make sense that
00:11:31
they're able to easily overpower the man Shawn Barry does not explain how the men
00:11:38
got James Bird to the ground I don't think he knows for certain but he does say it was no trouble for the men to get
00:11:46
him to the ground so there's a possibility it's not just two onone it's it's a good possibility there's three on
00:11:53
one and we're just not getting the full story so James bird is now he's on the ground now
00:11:59
and Bill King is stomping him and we have Russell Brewer is kicking him like straight on right and sha Barry says the
00:12:11
two men are laughing while they are doing this James bird was now trying to get he's attempting to get up so he's
00:12:20
like on all fours but he's still down and Russell Brewer got a can of spray paint out of the back of the
00:12:28
pickup truck he then sprayed James bird in the face with it James Bird said nothing when this
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happened he he almost didn't even react to it right Russell Brewer then kicked him in the head very hard and it was at
00:12:44
this point that Shawn Barry says that this was the last time that he saw James Bird move sha Barry says he was
00:12:55
petrified to the point that he wet his pants this next part is a bit unclear but at
00:13:02
this point either one of two things happened and and I'll explain this Shawn Barry is either inside the truck or sha
00:13:12
Barry had run off but for whatever reason he is not he's not in a location where he can
00:13:21
see what's going on at this point in his story right this is again what he is claiming yes this is what he's telling
00:13:29
the investigators so he says that he at this point this is when they must have chained James Bird up to the truck
00:13:38
because he for whatever reason did not see this take place so let's go through this statement
00:13:46
a little bit here um not not this direct one but but all parts of it okay so so this statement is backed up with some of
00:13:55
the evidence that we spoke about with some of the evidence that was found you we spoke about in the clearing the
00:14:01
investigators found several items that could have um let's say fallen out of a truck maybe while someone was trying to
00:14:09
be pulled out of that vehicle right um we also saw evidence of a struggle that took place so Shawn sha Barry does tell
00:14:19
us these things in his story and some of the evidence that was found backs portions of this story up and we also
00:14:28
have the witness statements saying that they saw James bird in the truck as well okay so at this
00:14:36
point the unfortunately James bird is has been he's been beat up and he's been chained to the back of this truck mhm
00:14:47
they started dragging him down a dirt road now Shawn Barry says that the truck was so loud that he didn't hear anything
00:14:57
so so now he's back in the truck with the other two individuals correct he says that at one point Russell Brewer
00:15:05
looked back behind the truck and he said look he's rolling and he said look he's bouncing
00:15:14
up and down referring to James Bird behind the truck right Sha Barry says that the other two
00:15:21
men seem to be having fun at pointing out what was going on he said the the truck then greened
00:15:29
around a bend and James B Bird's body swung off the road this must be when it when his body struck the the Ragged edge
00:15:39
of this Culvert this is what severed his his right arm his shoulder his neck and
00:15:46
head from his body sha Barry says that King continued to drive for a little ways and then he
00:15:54
stopped the truck he got out of the vehicle and and he untied Bird's lifeless body he then threw the chain in
00:16:03
the back of the truck mhm so James Bird Jr he was dragged to um Huff Creek Road which would be roughly about 3
00:16:16
miles approximately from the location where police belied that this this fight had it had ensued MH so we have King
00:16:26
Barry and Brewer they they dumped James Bird's mutilated remains and apparently they went to a
00:16:34
barbecue of some sort I don't know if this was at the the girlfriend of um Bill Kings you know at her house or what
00:16:43
but this would be pretty late yes well or early depending on how you look at it but so they they go to a party
00:16:51
afterwards yeah this this could be you know you never know with with some of these stories you may when when you have
00:16:58
somebody say yeah they showed up here at 4: in the morning right well what was it
00:17:03
well it was a barbecue at one point or it was a party at one point and now it's just 4 in the morning leftover you know
00:17:10
flops on the floor right well okay so there was a lot of questioning going on early in this investigation at this
00:17:19
point in the investigation one it was not known how long James bird was alive during the dragging but Brewer claimed
00:17:28
that Bird's throat had been slashed before he was tied to the truck and then dragged later we would learn that for
00:17:38
forensic evidence suggests that bird had been attempting to keep his head up um when he was being dragged trying to keep
00:17:46
his head up off of the road uh an autopsy suggested that James bird was alive for much of the dragging
00:17:54
and died only after his head shoulder and right arm were severed from his body from hitting the Culvert at this
00:18:02
point you know the the investigators are not only shocked at what they've heard but it's also backing up kind of what
00:18:12
their theory was from early in the investigation as to how this went down not no not necessarily that um sha Barry
00:18:22
you know he didn't participate in this thing he just happened to be there in P his pants not that part of it it's just
00:18:28
backing up their thought that these three are the ones that are in fact responsible for this horrible crime yeah
00:18:35
and these three alone well with that information now they're going to have Shawn Barry lead
00:18:42
them to the chain he will take them that day on that Monday to find the chain that was used to tie James Bird Jr to
00:18:51
the back of that truck right the one that the possum King put back into the truck yes and I guess they find this
00:18:57
chain in the in someone's backyard that they must have they must have drove around afterwards and dumped it
00:19:03
somewhere right um but he with his help they are able to locate this chain so think about this for a second here
00:19:11
Captain we have James Bird Jr 49 full of life out with friends and family on Saturday a
00:19:22
good a good guy just regular good dude walking home gets offered a ride and within hours his body's found you're
00:19:33
talking about 700 a.m. on Sunday morning people were getting up and they're they're starting their day they're
00:19:38
cooking breakfast they're they're going getting dressed and going off to church you know they're starting their day and
00:19:45
people people found this body people found his body these people that were getting up to start their day the last
00:19:52
day of their weekend well right and if if James doesn't get in that truck maybe he's waking up and getting uh going to
00:20:00
church himself and just and just within hours of the location of this of finding
00:20:07
the body MH we have our first suspect rounded up his two idiot friends are are gobbled up by police quickly after that
00:20:16
right they're interrogated for quite some time which they we have a bunch of evidence at the scene yes we've located
00:20:23
a bunch of evidence and then by Monday morning we have a confession and by by I believe it must have been around noon on
00:20:33
Monday one of the suspects took them to find the chain so this is happening very
00:20:39
quickly right which but that's the murder weapon basically yeah and this is why you know I was I you know in in the
00:20:46
last episode I kept saying how much I like this Sheriff rolles um and this is why he is dealing
00:20:54
with think about this for a second small town yeah small Sheriff's Department according to his interview this might
00:21:02
have been only his second murder investigation in his tenure right you know these things murders don't happen
00:21:11
very often in this town this type of crime doesn't happen that often in the entire nation yeah in the world yeah and
00:21:21
so we're talking about a guy that really could have you know when you want to when you want to talk about experience
00:21:29
and sometimes we talk about in these cases where well they they botched the investigation and they bungled the
00:21:35
investigation because they're not experienced because they're just some small town Keystone Cops M well that's
00:21:42
not the case here and that's why I love this Sheriff rolls he's dealing with something that no Town should ever have
00:21:49
to experience a crime that never should have happened and he's in there's no textbook on this and he's investigating
00:21:57
this thing and things are happening very quickly and I think they're handling it I mean this they they could write a
00:22:05
textbook on this yeah and the the problem here is if you don't get this right if you mess this up um this is
00:22:15
this is very bad if you mess this up you know it's one thing if you you know botch something here here or there but
00:22:22
this is a horrific crime these are horrific individuals and you need to make sure that you cross every te dot
00:22:30
every eye to make sure that these guys never see the light of day ever again and Sheriff rolls when asked you know
00:22:37
why did you contact the FBI he said very bluntly you know I I didn't know the definition of a hate crime right but I
00:22:45
knew this was one right he didn't have to to know that to to get the FBI involved yeah so after all this goes
00:22:52
down after the questioning and after locating the chain and the evidence that you spoke of the sheriff's department
00:22:59
they do charge Shawn Barry uh who is 23 years old Bill King who is 23 as well and Lawrence Russell Brewer 31 at the
00:23:09
time with murder now the district attorney called for adding kidnapping charges to these
00:23:16
charges this would make it a capital crime so once we have we know that chain was involved we know that they're
00:23:23
chaining a man up and they're taking him away that's kidnapping and now we have it we
00:23:30
have the situation where we have kidnapping and murder charges facing these three
00:23:46
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hp.com garage explore today's must have Trends and Innovative Styles at Mrs B's clearance and outlet shop one-of aind
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finds in today's musab Trends explore wall to- wall deals Furniture flooring mattresses Home Accents seasonal
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favorites and more discover unique new home decor pillows accessories and more there's something perfect for your style
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and budget there's new inventory every day at up to 80% off suggested retail discover the style and savings of Mrs
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rosettastone.com now and save 50% all right we're back cheers mates cheers Captain well holding three
00:25:56
capital murder trial is a costly Endeavor for any County but keep in mind we're talking about a small County in
00:26:04
this particular case yeah this forced officials to raise local property taxes by
00:26:13
12% that's a that's a huge hike when you think about that well this results in Mr
00:26:20
Bill King's lawyers asking that his trial be moved arguing that the tax increase would make it impossible
00:26:27
possible to draw an impartial jury Bill King is going to be the first of these three guys that is brought to
00:26:36
trial regarding the James BG Jr murder possum King and it was Judge Joe Bob golden of State of the State District
00:26:46
Court that ordered that the trial go ahead that that we're not going to move it to another venue there's not going to
00:26:51
be a change of venue we're going to continue with it here in this County and the prose uters they said publicly that
00:26:59
they were confident that they would be able to get an impartial panel uh of jurors that could be found for this
00:27:06
trial mhm they were able to come up with a jury of 12 this ended up being seven men and five women and it was 11 of
00:27:17
these members were white the sole black member of the jury was a corrections officer and in fact strange thing here
00:27:25
is he would have been about the same age as Bill King and I believe that they may
00:27:31
have attended um one of the same schools together at some point in their lives here's a weird thing here captain
00:27:40
and I don't know that it I don't know that it weird is the right term it's more that just I think this is something
00:27:47
that's lesser known MH or maybe lesser accepted there's no way of me saying this without getting somebody sending me
00:27:55
a rotten email but um I'll send you one look here's the thing I'll send you a nice one when when we do these shows
00:28:02
when we sit here in the garage and we and we retell these stories when we when we pull together all this information
00:28:08
and we're telling you about these cases about these real life events that happened uhhuh we can't sit here worried
00:28:16
about whether what's how it's going to be received what we say we can't sit here and worry about okay somebody's
00:28:23
going to come down upon us for saying this or they're going to come down upon us if we say this way so really what you
00:28:30
just do is you just report the truth okay so when you send a rotten email keep in mind that we're reporting the
00:28:37
truth to you first of all and second of all these are not the captain and I did not drive to jper Texas interview a
00:28:45
bunch of people and put this story together to report it back to you no we are piecing the story together through
00:28:52
you didn't want to go with me so we're piecing the story together through Court documents as well as newspaper articles
00:29:01
that were written by other people and some of them being local reporters now this is something that I have heard and
00:29:08
read before in other cases but it certainly translates to this one you know we said that they wanted to get
00:29:16
impartial jurors obviously on this panel well a problem that you have when you have a case of this magnitude and it's
00:29:26
this is a death PTY casee okay let's be very clear about that mhm what you tend to see happen is when
00:29:34
you're trying somebody and the penalty the possible penalty is death well you have to interview these potential jurors
00:29:42
and you have to decide if they fit on the panel what tends to happen in a lot of
00:29:48
these cases you know you ask well why is is 11 members of the jury white and only
00:29:54
one of them African-American well one it just May so have happened to work out that way you know we don't we don't know
00:30:00
the details but in a lot that's probably what the prosecution wanted well in a lot of these
00:30:07
cases what ends up happening is they dismiss a lot of African-American potential jurors because what tends to
00:30:16
happen is they don't they're not as um let's say enthusiastic about the death penalty as as uh white people may
00:30:28
be okay um and this could be this is due to several factors um one one it's the religious aspect and two um
00:30:40
unfortunately in this country predominantly when we see somebody that is has been charged and convicted
00:30:47
wrongfully of a crime it tends to be African-American people so they they have a better understanding that it's
00:30:57
not a perfect system it doesn't work 100% 100% of the time therefore unfortunately you know we know this has
00:31:08
happened and it and it breaks your heart but there has been at some point some innocent person wrongly convicted and
00:31:15
then sentenced to die and They carried out that sentence right and I think that that's something that um can get lost on
00:31:23
some people and that's why you see in these death penalty cases that it tends to be a little more white people on the
00:31:33
group now the sole the sole African-American member of the panel was actually elected as the foreman of the
00:31:41
jury okay now some things that came out in trial here keep in mind this is Bill king that's being tried
00:31:47
first one thing that came out was the the forensic pathologist Tommy Brown he he brought to court and testified IED as
00:31:57
an expert witness stating that James bird was alive and writhing in pain until he was struck till he struck that
00:32:05
Culvert that decapitated him yeah um he stated that there was evidence that proved that James Bird had fought to
00:32:12
survive while he was chained by the ankles to the truck and being dragged he said this would have taken place for
00:32:19
about 2 miles along that paved Country Road stating he was attempting to keep his head off of the paved
00:32:27
and he was C he was conscious during this time now brown was the one that performed the official autopsy on bird
00:32:36
and he said that Bird's elbows and knees were Ground to the bone as he tried to prop himself up off of the road he
00:32:45
stated that the victim would have been very tired uh very worn out trying to do a lot of things trying to keep the pain
00:32:52
from being so severe he probably would have been SW spping one portion of his body for another trying to get pressure
00:33:02
off of other areas bird's head and right arm and shoulder were torn from his torso when
00:33:08
he struck that concrete drainage covert as the truck swerved from side to side the path pathologist said it's his
00:33:17
opinion that bird was alive up until that point so one thing I want to point out here that the pathologist said
00:33:25
they're dragging this guy and they're they're they're weaving this truck as they're doing this going down this
00:33:33
street they found remains of James bird in 81 places along that stretch of road Bill King's
00:33:42
defense well it was a little different than the other two defendants that would later have their trial dates his defense
00:33:49
was basically that he wasn't there that this crime went down and it was not committed by him because he was not
00:33:56
there his evidence to prove that is he states that there was a phone call he was during this time that James Bird Jr
00:34:05
was killed that he was on the phone with his girlfriend making arrangements so that he would end up there later that
00:34:12
that you know we keep saying later but it's so early in the morning it's confusing
00:34:17
if if you're saying the right terms there so that's his statement um well that does not go with the evidence
00:34:26
they've that they found they determined that he was on the phone closer to around like 4 in the
00:34:32
morning and this would have been well after James Bird Jr had been killed so the timeline's not matching up to start
00:34:40
with MH other evidence against Bill King is obviously we have Shawn Barry's testimony we also have um a cigarette
00:34:51
butt that was found at the location where the body was eventually located right and that DNA DNA evidence this
00:35:00
cigarette but uh was it was Bill Kings and we have the lighter that was Bill Kings yeah the posum king lighter so his
00:35:10
defense regarding those two items was simply this one that the lighter had been stolen from him about a week before
00:35:17
the murder had been committed yeah and two that the the truck if if it was in fact Shawn Barry's truck that was used
00:35:27
and he was not present with Shawn Barry that it's likely that he had put out a cigarette at some point in Shawn Barry's
00:35:36
ashtray and that when these men were removing James bird from the truck when that struggle went down that the astray
00:35:44
would have been kicked and knocked to the ground leaving cigarette butts and leaving this uh evidence behind at the
00:35:51
scene right what police and what the prosecutors were able to lay out out to the jury is that there's some other
00:36:01
problems with this story because remember we said that they were at a party before they got angry about
00:36:07
somebody being at the party and they left right well people at that party said no we saw Bill King using that
00:36:14
lighter that night so he had it with him during this party so so days after he says it was stolen from him and then
00:36:23
second of all we have um Sean barries he we have his statement and we have this backed up by some other people
00:36:34
that the truck had been recently cleaned it had been recently cleaned out and sha
00:36:38
Barry's statement was that the ashtray had been emptied and cleaned out prior to that day's events right so it it'd be
00:36:47
a cigarette from at least that day yeah and here's the other thing okay let's say be let's say Bill King you were able
00:36:55
to confuse us and and convince us that you weren't there using these these other stories which we know are not true
00:37:02
right remember we said that he had been kicking James Bird Jr right and he had also walked and trampled all over the
00:37:11
the crime scene yeah they found DNA evidence they found DNA evidence of James Bird Jr on his Footwear on Bill
00:37:22
King's Footwear right so let me just go over this real quick so we have eyewitnesses putting them all three
00:37:28
together that night mhm uh just a little bit before uh James would have been picked up we have DNA evidence of the
00:37:37
cigarette butt yes uh that was found there we have the lighter that was found there um which probably has his DNA
00:37:45
evidence on it too and now we have James Bird's DNA evidence on um possum King's
00:37:53
shoes correct or boots so it only took the jury of 12 it only took them it was like 2 and a half hours mostly white
00:38:02
people yeah that decided that uh Bill King a white supremist should die by lethal injection for the murder of James
00:38:12
Bird junor so found guilty and sentenced to die and after the death sentence was
00:38:18
announced um there was a priest that had read a statement from the this is from Bill King's father okay that said please
00:38:30
pray for the bird family who have endured an unimaginable pain and loss please pray for these jurors who have
00:38:38
shouldered a terrible burden please pray for our town of Jasper a community that
00:38:44
remains strong though scarred by this unspeakable act now the younger Mr King uh Bill King
00:38:53
who was on trial also left a written statement behind and as he was taken away to
00:39:00
prison he left this statement that said though I remain adamant about my innocence it's been obvious from the
00:39:07
beginning that this community would get what they desire so I close with the words of Francis Yaki the promise of
00:39:16
success is with the man who is determined to die proudly when it's no longer possible to live proudly and it
00:39:24
was signed sincerely John W King and that was from Francis [ __ ] yeah yeah well on his way out of
00:39:34
the courthouse when they were taking Bill King out of the courthouse and onto prison um well yeah he okay so he's
00:39:42
asked by reporters if he has anything to say to the bird family at this point Bill King smirked and he responded with
00:39:50
an Obin um what did he say um I I would prefer not to say it myself if you want to you can go ahead
00:40:00
the thing is I don't know what he said well then you'll have to locate that he said something extremely rude to the
00:40:08
family of of a murder victim whether he's guilty or not okay um well St let me stop that and you tell me all right
00:40:16
we're back magic of podcast uh so what he said when ask if he had anything to say to the bird
00:40:24
family he said um you can suck my dick is what he said yeah and you know I hesitated to tell that story in its
00:40:32
entirety because because of this um look cuz you're a good boy well Bill King is
00:40:39
is a horrible man and if there if there is a hell I hope he gets there okay but the thing is Captain you know we got to
00:40:48
tell the whole story like we just said we got to tell the truth and to be perfectly clear he was in an interview
00:40:54
and I think this would have been two or three years after the crime or two or three years after he was sentenced
00:41:01
anyway during this interview he was asked why he would say that to his victim's family right and he stated that
00:41:11
he had while he had nothing nice to say to the bird family in this interview he was clearing up that that was not he was
00:41:20
not directing that comment to the bird family right they were escorting him and as they escort such a pile of dog [ __ ]
00:41:28
that people in the crowd are going to yell stuff at him yeah there the the crowd is taunting him he's just been
00:41:34
sentenced to death he's being walked off to prison and they're taunting him they're saying horrible things to him he
00:41:40
was responding with something horrible back at one of those persons to which then a reporter jumps in front and has a
00:41:48
microphone and says you got anything to say to the bird family and it that's how
00:41:52
according to Bill king that's how that went down who knows again but this this is very similar to him explaining away
00:42:01
like pieces of evidence oh just happen stance you know yeah like no you're you're a giant pile of [ __ ] well the
00:42:11
thing is if you if you want to look at it from the opposite direction and say that that's what his intentions were
00:42:16
that he did intend to say that um you you obviously have plenty of evidence to believe that he would have said that
00:42:24
because of we've we've seen look and when we say there's some people that are hearing about this case for the first
00:42:29
time today and they're going well white supremist how do you how do you know he just said some things how do we know
00:42:36
what really happened no they found plenty of evidence in his dwelling that he was not only a white supremist but he
00:42:42
was wanting to start an organization that was going to do horrible things to African-Americans um you have tattoos
00:42:51
all over your body about it yeah there's no question of who this guy was and so when you see how dumb and ignorant he
00:42:58
must be to have those beliefs and to want to organize such a group then it's very quick and very easy to believe that
00:43:07
he would have been dumb enough as he's being carded out of court to say something that stupid to the public
00:43:13
regarding his victim's family knowing that he would have appeals to face knowing that you know what in the in the
00:43:21
end the people that that sentence you to death is the community yeah in the end and if if you upset them
00:43:29
and if you piss them off and you do a crime this bad and you show No Remorse absolute absolutely no remorse for what
00:43:38
you've done this community is going to make sure that death sentence gets carried out well and this is not the
00:43:45
sentence he should have got anyways I mean if you're going to have the death penalty right then I say go full out now
00:43:54
I don't believe in the death penalty because of the idea that there could be a innocent person that is uh tried and
00:44:03
sentenced to death and then that's carried out and just one innocent person dying from something is too much in my
00:44:10
mind but if you're going to have it it's the idea of eye for an eye and so if you're going to do that then the
00:44:20
possum King you know uh let me get some guys from Jasper or let's round up some of my buddies and let me stop and kick
00:44:30
the [ __ ] out of this guy and chain him to the back of a truck that's what should happen to this individual we
00:44:37
still have two trials to get through and as I said Bill King's defense was a little bit different than what Shawn
00:44:42
Barry's would be and Russell Brewers would be let's go over Brewers first yeah because he was actually tried
00:44:48
second so Bill King's defense was he was innocent he was not there he didn't he didn't you know right liar he didn't
00:44:56
have anything to do with this murder well Russell Brewer his statement is going to be that well yeah he was there
00:45:04
but he didn't take he didn't participate in any of the actions that led to James
00:45:09
Bird's death so he's going to be similar that he was just yeah that he was just there he was he was in a situation that
00:45:18
he couldn't control and things got out of hand and he was a witness to this not a participant right but we've heard this
00:45:25
story before haven't we yeah and so let's go let's go into that we're going to kind of mesh these other two trials
00:45:32
together because they're very similar in this sense okay Shawn Barry his defense
00:45:38
was pretty much the same thing yes he was there he was a witness to the situation he was not a participant in
00:45:45
the situation so in both trials what you end up having Captain is you have Shawn
00:45:51
Barry repeating the story that I told you earlier that he told to investigator right uh he's going to put the blame on
00:45:59
Russell Brewer and Bill King and then you want to flip that over in the other trial you're going to have Russell
00:46:05
Brewer who's going to put all the blame on Shawn Barry and Bill King right right
00:46:09
right so the only difference between the two that I noticed right away uh would be that that Russell Brewer did get a
00:46:17
change of venue for some reason um and then Shawn Barry did not so two of the trials were held in Jasper and the other
00:46:26
one was not well it could have had something to do with those two guys were Jasper res residents for a while so
00:46:32
maybe that's what it was and maybe because Brewer was from a different County he could have had a different um
00:46:39
address or something and maybe the lawyers could do some wiggling or finagling so they could get to a
00:46:45
different venue I think that in Brewer's case and I'm I'm going off of memory this didn't make it to my notes here but
00:46:53
I think in Brewer's case the reason why they were able to get the change of venue was because it was the trial that
00:46:59
immediately followed Bill Kings right where and because Bill King was guilty and very obviously guilty um I think
00:47:08
Brewers attorneys were able to present that it was going to be very tough for him to get a fair trial there now with
00:47:15
Barry's case with Shawn Barry's case I think because he was whether he's telling the 100% truth or not we will
00:47:23
probably never know however he was the one that showed some ability of helping out and
00:47:31
assisting the police in their investigation by telling them some kind of story by Leading them to the chain
00:47:38
where I think because of those actions the judge was pretty certain he was going to get a fair trial well the
00:47:44
conclusion to these trials Russell Brewer he was found guilty of murder and kidnapping and he too would be sentenced
00:47:53
to death now John Barry the jury decided that they were not going to uh they were
00:48:00
going to spare him the death penalty in his trial we had the situation where we have Russell Brewer who testified that
00:48:08
Shawn Barry had cut James Bird's throat before bird was tied to the truck right the jury decided that there was not a
00:48:16
lot of evidence to support this claim so therefore you know like we said we have
00:48:24
each guy basically the same picture they're just taking themselves out of the picture yeah I don't know one thing
00:48:31
I could not get to the bottom of in this case Captain was was his throat actually
00:48:37
cut because this was this was kind of a big deal in the trial whether that it pointed towards more guilt by Shawn
00:48:44
Barry than than what he came forward with I couldn't find anything that definitively said that that had happened
00:48:52
now unfortunately um as as we know given the the the factors of the crime they may not have been able to determine that
00:49:02
right and I think a couple things here I think one it's possible that uh Brewers
00:49:07
defense basically just mimicked what they could get from Barry's defense mhm um and if that's the case then they're
00:49:15
just going to you know um Barry saying that the throat was cut so therefore we're going to say that it was Barry
00:49:22
yeah um who knows I would and this is going to sound awful but uh there's a part of me that doesn't want to
00:49:30
believe um and I I don't want to believe that he was alive when he was being draged right
00:49:38
right right yeah yeah it sounds awful but when you put thought into it it's it's it's a thought of Mercy in a way um
00:49:47
the thing here is they found you know whether you want to believe Barry's story or Brewer story or whatever I do
00:49:55
believe without Shawn Barry caving like he did and telling them what happened or
00:50:01
at least his version of what happened I think it would have been a little tough to would been harder yes it would have
00:50:07
been harder to get Bill King convicted it would have certainly been harder to get Russell Brewer convicted now however
00:50:15
I say that but they did find DNA evidence of all three of these guys at the crime scene and this would have been
00:50:23
on cigarette butts and and beer Bott 98 right I mean our our understanding of DNA technology was wasn't that great
00:50:33
then mhm so as far as the jury was concerned maybe they wouldn't and indict these guys they were also able to prove
00:50:41
that tire marks found in the area did in fact come from the tires on Barry's pickup truck so there's a lot of
00:50:49
evidence that that points to the guilt of these guys unfortunately we only get berries
00:50:56
version and Brewers version of what actually happened in all likelihood you know I I they did present people at
00:51:03
Barry's trial that said he wasn't a racist I don't believe that um maybe he wasn't at one point in his life I I
00:51:11
don't know how that works to be honest with you um but I think that I think all three of these guys were absolutely
00:51:20
involved in this horrible crime I think we're not getting the full story from either bear or Brewer right and King's
00:51:27
not talking I mean it's it's a mixture you know in every one of these cases that we cover Captain they they break
00:51:33
your heart okay they break your heart first and then after that they break your brain they break your brain because
00:51:40
you're trying to figure out how are people even capable of doing such horrible things to one another yeah and
00:51:47
in each one of these cases because of of the Heartbreak and because of of the pain that that that I have to take in
00:51:55
from from looking at these cases I'm looking for I'm looking for a little tidbit a little morsel of something that
00:52:03
can make me smile at some point during this case I was able to find a big one of those later and we'll talk about that
00:52:10
a little bit later but while we're on our way to that the F the the first tidbit that I found that made me smile
00:52:17
was that when Bill King was transported I don't know how many facilities actually handle the executions of these
00:52:24
inmates and it may be more than one but the facility that he was transferred to there is an
00:52:31
intake facility for all of the death penalty uh death row inmates and the name of that intact
00:52:40
um the name of that facility is James Bird Jr um it would have a different middle name but there's a little bit of
00:52:49
uh that's odd it's odd and it has the the the name has no relation to are victim um but it it kind of I don't know
00:53:00
it's it's almost a wink it's a little wink a wink and a nod yeah yeah it's almost but it's almost a little wink
00:53:06
from uh James you know in heaven looking down and and going hey I got you you know so so two of these guys were
00:53:15
sentenced to death uh one of them has actually been executed his appeals ran out um and this was Lawrence Russell
00:53:24
Brewer he was killed in September 21st of 2011 um he he is known for something else as well as committing this horrible
00:53:35
crime he listen well listen to this this is you know where we had that wink and Nod to feel good about for a second
00:53:41
there he he gave an interview shortly before he was sentenced before he was put to death and in this interview
00:53:51
Brewer expressed No Remorse for his crimes and in fact he told a Houston newspaper or Houston News Channel I'm
00:53:59
sorry that as far as any regrets I have no regrets no I'd do it all over again to tell you the truth yeah piece of [ __ ]
00:54:09
so he just took away our wink and our nod but but know that his sentence was carried out before his execution though
00:54:18
Brewer ordered a large meal you know we've talked about this before you get your last meal when you're on death row
00:54:25
and he ordered a large meal that included get ready for this I'm ready um it included two chicken fried steaks a
00:54:34
triple meat bacon cheeseburger a large bowl of fried okra a pound of barbecue three fajitas a meat lovers Pizza a pint
00:54:46
of ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with lots of crushed peanuts in it
00:54:54
however he did not not eat any of this he ordered all of this food and ate none of it just when you think you couldn't
00:55:02
dis like a guy anymore well what this prompted was the Texas prison prison officials they ended the 87-year-old
00:55:12
tradition of giving special last meals to condemned inmates so look I'm not going to lie as a true crime fan uh I
00:55:21
enjoy talking about the last meal yeah it's weird it's of those guilty pleasures where you're like I shouldn't
00:55:28
enjoy this enjoy it but I do but I find it fascinating what people would come up
00:55:32
with their last meal but but there's a part of me that just goes hey you know these animals don't deserve to pick
00:55:38
their last meal you know their last meal they should go hungry let them feel hunger for a while and nothing against
00:55:44
the Texas prison officials but with an order like this come on we know something's up here you know like
00:55:51
shouldn't it be like okay you get this you get this plate and it's 15 by 12 and whatever you can fit on it that's it you
00:56:00
know or or you have a dollar amount so now nowadays the um before an inmate is executed in the state of Texas now they
00:56:09
just eat whatever the other inmates eat whatever the meal is yeah right why why should they treat you any different you
00:56:17
know so the other two guys are still in prison we have uh Bill King who at some point will be executed for this
00:56:25
uh murder he still has some pending appeals um he's running out of them we have Shawn Barry who is in prison life
00:56:34
in prison um but he is he's actually eligible for parole and this won't be until June of
00:56:44
2038 you're not getting out no no no he's not getting out and if you get out somebody's going to kill you I I
00:56:50
wouldn't I wouldn't and well you you talk about somebody killing him he's actually in protective custody in prison
00:56:57
I don't know if it's still to this day but for a lot of the early portion of his sentence uh he was spending 23 hours
00:57:06
per day in a 8x6 foot cell with only one hour a day for exercise uh and this is obviously to protect him against like
00:57:15
you said Somebody's somebody he's got a Target on him for the rest of his days well as well as he should there was a
00:57:23
moment of reconciliation for the town of Jasper and this came when they they knocked down a rickety old fence that
00:57:31
for more than 100 years had separated the black Graves from the white graves in the Jasper City Cemetery yeah uh so
00:57:41
this was a segregated cemetery and they finally removed that they they did have a little ceremony and they had a prayer
00:57:48
vigil that went along with this ceremony to you know to to mark this occasion I do want to point out however that James
00:57:56
Bird Jr's grave site it does have a fence around it and that's not to keep him segregated from anybody else in the
00:58:04
cemetery it's because of this disturbing fact that at some point some teenagers they desecrated the grave you know they
00:58:13
I believe they kicked over The Headstone and there was some kind of damage done to the Grave I think they even spray
00:58:19
painted some things on the stone itself so that that fence was simply put up to protect that memorial for that man and
00:58:29
to stop people from doing that type of behavior well because you know this is a this is a hate crime and this was done
00:58:36
by three racist individuals and uh ignorance will breed ignorance and there will be some [ __ ] out there that will
00:58:48
go to James BG's grave and desecrate it in the in the name of white supremacy you know mhm so Captain you've been
00:58:56
you've been calm you've been pretty good uh trying to be in the garage I know you
00:59:01
you might be holding back a little bit is there anything you want to add uh well I think it's sad that if
00:59:09
that this case isn't as known as you know maybe it should be mhm I think to shed a light on something this
00:59:19
is these kind of murders took place very often for a long period of time and I think
00:59:28
this is a reminder of that and it's a horrific crime um especially to somebody that
00:59:37
seemed to be a good guy that lived by the Golden Rule he treated others like he wanted to be treated MH and then you
00:59:46
get these weak minded and weak individuals that come along with these weak and um
00:59:55
ignorant ideas on how the world should be and they carry out this horrible crime and then they go on and they lie
01:00:05
about it or some of them lie about it and the fact of the matter is that whether is Brewer or Barry when somebody
01:00:14
is trying to pull out James from the truck if one person jumps in now it's two against two at least it's a fair
01:00:25
fight but you didn't want it to be a fair fight cuz you're weak mhm and then if both of them are claiming well it's
01:00:33
the other guy or this well but if you both jump in to help James out now it's three against one and this murder never
01:00:41
takes place but you're weak and you're a giant pile of [ __ ] and like I said if if
01:00:48
you're going to have the death penalty then these guys should have been tied up to a truck and drugg down the street for
01:00:56
miles and that's what should have happened and if you're in that situation you know I look the captain's
01:01:04
absolutely right each one of these people are weak they're they're weak to together as a group they're weak as
01:01:10
individuals but even in this situation if you're in this situation and you're afraid or you're
01:01:18
scared at least go and get help at least go and get somebody at least go and tell
01:01:23
somebody what is happening or what may be about to happen so that you can put an end to this somehow in some way and
01:01:32
save a good guy's life this was a guy that was about the community this was he was somebody that was known he was a
01:01:39
fixture in the community well he's human and and it doesn't matter if you're black white yellow or red he's a human
01:01:47
right and and the and the fact of the matter is you either stand for something but or you fall for anything is that
01:01:54
what it's called right something like that but it's like you got to stand up and and I think
01:02:01
this should be a lesson to all of us I mean it's not just when a crime is going down or some uh brutal beating is
01:02:10
happening that's not when you need to stand up you need to stand up every time there is ignorance and anytime that you
01:02:17
see ignorance because if you don't if you don't say anything if you just turn the other cheek that is that is one of
01:02:24
the lessons here the here's these two guys that put the blame on other people I I think they put the blame on other
01:02:30
people because they wanted to save themselves I wanted I think they wanted to think you know maybe more so uh Barry
01:02:39
than Brewer because Brewer had no remorse and you know didn't want you know you're not even going to apologize
01:02:46
yeah you wouldn't change anything you know uh I think the what I'm trying to get at is it doesn't matter if it if
01:02:54
it's a violent attack or just a violent attack with words it is your duty or at least I think it's our duty as uh humans
01:03:04
to speak up and protect others and and it's just um it's just a horribly sad case and it's just not one that has been
01:03:15
talked about enough u in the True Crime Community I do want to talk about what I
01:03:22
thought was that tid bit of of joy and peacefulness that I needed when looking at this case and that was the bird
01:03:32
family I mean I could not say enough good things about these people regarding their their their class their um their
01:03:43
integrity just who they are as people a as individuals and as a group and I'm talking about James Bird's parents I'm
01:03:51
talking about his ex-wife I'm talking about his children Renee Ross and jimie I see I see a group of people that
01:04:02
are they don't they're not looking for revenge for their loved one's death right they they are looking to be strong
01:04:12
and to try to heal from this and try to this this is what makes them such great people even during their grieving
01:04:21
process they were trying to help their town and their Community heal from this as well and I think we could all learn a
01:04:29
lot from the bird family from from his parents from his children and how we should carry ourselves in our everyday
01:04:38
lives because I tell you what you know a a person's character is best judged in the time of tragedy and I can think of
01:04:45
no bigger tragedy than what we talked about today and then how this family conducted themselves afterwards yeah cuz
01:04:53
it'd be easy to to take um you know the hatred and the ignorance of these three individuals and then take that and
01:05:03
internalize it and then release that back onto the world mhm and and you know the bird family decided not to do that
01:05:12
and to be above that and I don't I don't know that I could and that's why I look
01:05:18
it I look at the bird family and I remind myself these are people that are they're smarter than me they're better
01:05:26
than me they're they're good people and there's things that I can learn from them you don't give don't don't beat
01:05:34
yourself up so you're not you're not that bad I mean you're pretty bad but here's where I will Pat myself smell
01:05:40
funny here's where I will Pat myself on the back and this is what I hope everybody else does just accept that
01:05:46
there's things that you can learn from good individuals like this accept that and try to learn from these people
01:05:52
that's what you do that's what a good person does we all have flaws we we can all work on them yeah one of the things
01:05:58
for me is um and and I think we both heard about this case back in 1998 uh but I was listening to I want to
01:06:08
say Like This American Life and um this case was just briefly mentioned uh in a rap lyric which reminded me of the case
01:06:19
and then I dove a little bit back into it and just felt that it was important important like I said to cover but one
01:06:25
of the things that talk about a u positive moment was for whatever reason like it's like I
01:06:35
didn't know James Bird but I but I know James Bird if that makes any sense I worked at a recording studio for many of
01:06:45
years and there was multiple artists that would say I'm going to put you on the map you know not
01:06:55
not that they're going to put Columbus on the map or anything but they're going to put me as a producer on the map and
01:07:01
uh so when you hear over and over uh these stories of James Bird telling everybody I am going to put
01:07:10
Jasper on the map and I just wonder if there was just some intuition that he had and his death doesn't have to be in
01:07:20
vain and it's up to us to carry on on not the legacy of his murder but what he was in his life and that would be
01:07:31
treating people the way you would want to be treated all right Captain I want to
01:07:44
thank you for everything this week thank you Colonel all right everybody thank you for joining us in the garage until
01:07:50
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