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business Captain everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some
00:03:38
true [Music] crime [Music] hot Sunday morning 98 the 7th of June in Jasper Texas after breakfast people W to
00:04:13
work or the church to hit a pastor's message on a road called Huff Creek found it tough to speak cuz what they
00:04:20
saw left them gasping and breathless the broken body of bird and sure you probably heard the story it's rather
00:04:27
gory and if you follow the word words you can somewhat get a picture but can you really picture been chained up into
00:04:35
a pickup truck and Drug into the street RI your arm off and decapitate you and the ones who perpetrated this act for
00:04:42
the simple fact that you were black they had to hate you mad at nature cuz she made you beautiful and that's
00:04:51
irrefutable like the fact the crack Street Pharmaceuticals is genocide to blacks and although this attack on birds
00:04:57
left the whole world Disturbed a few years back it was common and not unusual for other brothers to get done like that
00:05:05
and the irony of it all y'all was bird was often heard saying that he would put Jasper Texas on the map but Jasper Texas
00:05:12
put him on the map figuratively and literally in spite the insanity of This calamity his family refused to respond
00:05:20
bitterly and considering the circumstances what riddles me is we rally to save The Killers but who rally
00:05:26
to save bird this week's case takes place back in 1998 in the small town of Jasper the
00:05:51
city's website says Jasper is located in deep east Texas so Jasper is about 130 mil Northeast east of the city of
00:06:00
Houston and it's pretty close to the Louisiana border the town is named after William Jasper a war hero from the
00:06:09
American Revolution he was killed when attempting to plant the American flag at the storming of Savannah in
00:06:17
1779 the town is only about 10 square miles and back in 1998 about 8,000 people lived there Jasper calls itself
00:06:27
The Jewel of the forest James Bird Jr was born in bont Texas back in 1949 so in 1998 bird was 49 years old
00:06:39
James was part of a large family um including James there were nine kids in his family and James Bird Jr was named
00:06:47
after his father in 1967 bird was in the last segregated class to graduate from Jasper High
00:06:57
School uh before it was consolid validated with Jasper High as part of the desegregation plan he married in
00:07:05
1970 he had three children uh his children's names were Renee Ross and Jamie so two girls and one boy uh before
00:07:13
divorcing in 1993 between 1969 and 1996 James bird was incarcerated a couple of times for various smalltime
00:07:26
offenses including theft forgery and violation of parole James bird was described as a fixture in Jasper someone
00:07:34
that most people of the Town knew either by name or because he often could be seen walking around the town James Bird
00:07:43
he did not drive because of a disability he suffered from seizures which would not allow him to operate a vehicle yeah
00:07:50
and I think every town has the Walker or the runner or the bicycle guy yeah we had uh in our small town grown up there
00:07:59
was was the it wasn't a tricycle but it was like a it was adult tricycle well it's it's technically a tricycle even
00:08:07
though it's made for fully grown person it wasn't like a big wheel was was this a basket and a flag in every I mean the
00:08:15
fully outfitted tricycle yeah that was the guy in our town growing up he was like everywhere and when I lived in
00:08:23
Richmond Indiana we had the runner it was just this guy that just ran everywhere like super fast and then when
00:08:32
when he was at like a traffic light waiting to cross the street he'd still run in place it was like probably in the
00:08:38
best shape of anybody in the history of the world now I live in North Columbus so a lot more people so a lot more
00:08:45
Runners there's not just the one Runner guy there's not just the you know the one Walker guy uh there's Bunches of
00:08:52
them however there's a couple of what I would call quote unquote bicycle guys and there's one guy that I've learned a
00:09:00
tendency that he has like he doesn't because the Sidewalk Ends does not mean that's where he's going to stop
00:09:09
so he will he will like pull up and he'll he'll keep going just past the curb and so he's out in the street um
00:09:18
you know just partially out into the street so when people are driving when I'm riding shotgun and I see that
00:09:23
bicycle guy I have to point out like be careful if you're going to turn here because he will in the street yeah and I
00:09:30
don't think he knows any better not to get hit by the car that's that's approaching well and bringing this up is
00:09:38
just to prove the point that a town can really know somebody uh or somebody could be very popular in the town just
00:09:44
because he's known as oh that James Bird he's the guy you always see out walking
00:09:49
right right yeah yeah and that's how that's how he was I mean he became a fixture of Jasper people either knew him
00:09:55
by name or they knew him from seeing him out walking around and he was known as like a happy dude he's a happy guy uh
00:10:04
known as a musician and singer James played the piano at church when he was growing up uh he played the trumpet in
00:10:11
school and as an adult he loved to attend parties where he would often sing in front of small crowds at these
00:10:18
parties he fancied himself like a like an Al Green type singer mhm and several people say purple rain must have been
00:10:27
one of James bird's favorite songs because he was always singing it uh so known as a a music man and for his
00:10:34
singing and dancing it's a great song it's one of my bar songs like to put it on mhm you know cuz it's a little sad
00:10:42
you know it kind of brings down the party and it's fun also to look around at the seea of people wondering who put
00:10:49
this song on well and if you play it late enough a lot of people start singing along to that song no I like to
00:10:55
play it at like 9: okay like where everybody's like what this is too early early this we're not ready for yet this
00:11:01
is like 4 hours too early so back in 1998 James Bird Jr would have been 49 years old and as we said Captain he's
00:11:09
like a man about town you know he's the guy that everybody would have known him by name or by seeing him around town and
00:11:17
happy guy good-natured guy very sociable very sociable I that that's the exact phrase that we should have used right
00:11:25
there well and he comes from a very small town but he also comes from a big family so let's listen to a clip of his
00:11:32
mother Stella talking about James he he was uh you know he was Ry and so he's missed very much just we haven't had any
00:11:42
more family reunions because just a part of just missing I guess it always uh would be like that just had two
00:11:54
boys and all rest of girls and so he was the third child and the girls and most all all
00:12:05
just looked up to him for different things cuz he was the big brother over the sisters and he would just keep your life
00:12:14
and you just he just likeed peoples and most musicians whether I mean not all musicians like people uh but no some
00:12:23
lock themselves in closets yes I've been known to do that um but you become social and you get you get good at
00:12:33
social skills you know so there's a lot of times that if there's a big crowd of people some people will come up to me
00:12:39
and say hey you're pretty good at this it's like but but I've been doing it forever MH so you you play your set and
00:12:45
then in between your sets you're you're mingling with people shaking hands and and having some drinks so he James very
00:12:53
active with his family you know a good Big Brother very you know stayed close with his parents and with with his uh
00:13:00
siblings and like you hear his mother saying you know he just liked people he liked he liked everyone um and and I
00:13:07
think happy go-lucky kind of dude uh he he was a musician that still had some Big Dreams and some pretty big goals and
00:13:15
even though he was 49 it was almost like um he didn't let that block his vision or block his goals he would always state
00:13:23
that he was going to put Jasper Texas on the map and doing so through his music now we have to talk about some other
00:13:31
guys here unfortunately but we could not tell the whole story without introducing
00:13:36
some guys and giving a little background first we have Shan Allen Barry born February 12th 1975 so in 1998 he would
00:13:45
be 23 years old and we have an old friend of his John William King John William King went by Bill so to make it
00:13:54
easy on me that's that's what I'll call him so Bill king would have been 20 23 years old as well in '98 bill as a child
00:14:03
he was diagnosed as uh manic depressive uh by 98 these two had known each other for over well for about 10
00:14:12
years in fact they went to school together so this is a lengthy uh friendship between these two so Shawn
00:14:20
Barry his father died when he was just a kid and he dropped out of school in the
00:14:26
eth grade it's believed that about this time that he went and he was living somewhat on the streets uh he wasn't
00:14:34
close to his mother uh so we after we see his father passing away we see his family life just I mean fall gone it's
00:14:43
just gone we have Bill King who dropped out of school in the 10th grade uh the two actually got into trouble together
00:14:52
in 1991 the two broke into a warehouse they were caught and they were sent to a boot camp Camp style to be um sent off
00:15:01
to this boot camp type of thing to be reformed both completed this boot camp both received probation afterwards Jerry
00:15:10
Springer style right yeah yeah so Shawn Barry he had little to no trouble with following the rules and doing what was
00:15:17
expected of him while on probation Bill King well not so much Bill King violated
00:15:24
his probation he gets caught with drugs and so so he so he ends up in prison and
00:15:31
Bill is the one that was diagnosed with manic depression correct so maybe possibly self-medicating to the drugs um
00:15:39
yeah yeah very likely Bill gets caught with these drugs he goes to prison and while he's in prison he met this guy
00:15:46
named Lawrence Russell Brewer he just goes by Russell okay so Russell Brewer is about 8 years older than Bill mhm
00:15:55
Brewer is one of these always in and out of prison kind of dudes you know so a a
00:16:01
real winner MH um Brewer had been in and out of prison for a little more than 10
00:16:07
years he had served a prison sentence for drug possession and burglary he was pered in
00:16:14
1991 uh after violating his parole conditions in 1994 Brewer was returned to prison according to Brewer while he
00:16:23
was in prison he joined a white supremist gang with Bill King in order to safeguard himself from other
00:16:33
inmates Brewer and king became friends in the uh what's called the Beto Unit Prison this is this is supposed to be a
00:16:42
pretty um it's rumored to be a very tough prison right you see this a lot in Hollywood movies where if if you ever
00:16:50
watch American his History X for example but where you you have to team up with somebody mhm uh and so that's kind of
00:16:59
what his Cop Out is is well we only teamed up with the white supremacist for protection yeah I mean there's no secret
00:17:07
that there's the white gang and there's the Latino gang and there's the African-American gang um so yeah he's
00:17:14
he's teaming up or getting involved in this group to you know to protect himself is what
00:17:21
he claims right now Bill King claimed that he had been gang raped in prison uh at some point during his stay by
00:17:30
African-American inmates so is this before or after he joined the white supremacist all right this is going to
00:17:37
sound crazy but I came across this newspaper article and I have to talk about this to kind of because you know
00:17:44
when we research these cases you take in a lot of information and if sometimes if
00:17:48
you don't if you don't push that information out it gets stuck with you and it stays with you and I don't know
00:17:54
how the Washington Post knows this information but today you're going to be my you're going to be my therapist and
00:18:00
I'm going to lay this on you so I don't have to carry it around with there's not
00:18:04
enough booze in this garage so according to the Washington Post article that I read last night MH the way that this
00:18:12
went down is Bill King he would have been fairly Young when he entered the prison system okay uh he was a smaller
00:18:20
dude like about 140 uh 140 lbs according to this Washington Post article what they say in this article is
00:18:28
that the the inmates had managed to kind of divvy themselves up like you had said
00:18:34
into their different gangs and they kind of occupied different portions of the prison um not really segregated but kind
00:18:44
of self-segregation uh people staying away from one another if that makes sense MH
00:18:49
okay so there was an area that was predominantly African-American um and according to the
00:18:57
article it's African-American gang um area in this prison the white supremist group had some kind of involvement with
00:19:08
the guards or some form of relationship with the guards that they were able to manipulate the system when a when a
00:19:16
young white guy small white white guy like Bill King came into the prison right [ __ ] loser they would they would
00:19:25
influence the guards in some way that they could put that young man with either the Latino gang area or the
00:19:35
African-American gang area right probably hand jobs and cigarettes uh I I don't I I don't know how it came about
00:19:43
but this is according to the Washington Post M this could all be complete [ __ ] for all I know because it's
00:19:49
it's it's a strange story it's it's like a double crossed weird psychological story here so the white supremist put
00:19:58
this young white dude with a different group with the African-American group with the with the purpose that he would
00:20:05
be abused in some fashion by these guys and that would influence him to come running to want to join their silly
00:20:12
little club that they have right according to the Washington Post that's how this whole thing went down so it
00:20:18
would have been he would have been attacked uh and according to the article it was multiple times and then
00:20:24
eventually he ended up with this white supremist group all right so what happens next with these uh losers U
00:20:31
could would you mind terribly if we circled the wagons back there and and talked about that newspaper article uh
00:20:38
the reason being is that the reason why I kept saying according to the Washington Post it's a horrific story
00:20:46
but you know you referenced Hollywood movies earlier and how they portray prison and it sounds to me like a very
00:20:52
kind of Hollywood version of what could be going on in this prison I'm not saying that none of this stuff happened
00:21:00
right but what I'm what I question when I read that article is where are they getting this information from because I
00:21:07
don't know who out of any of those groups that were mentioned in the article that would come forward with
00:21:13
that information right and maybe they're getting this from Bill King himself and
00:21:19
if so it's you know it's just an excuse as all it is but well I get I get that it's an excuse and maybe it did come
00:21:25
from Bill King but then isn't that like because Bill King is like a he's proud to be a racist and he's proud to be in
00:21:35
this white supremist group right okay but this group according to the story double crossed you and made you a victim
00:21:43
so that you would join their group it seems like the last group you would want to join if that's how they create their
00:21:51
members yeah but he's he's a [ __ ] he needed somebody to protect him no no no no I I get that portion of it what I'm
00:21:58
saying is that that I I don't trust the story because I don't know how they would have got this information because
00:22:06
no matter who would tell you this story out of any of those groups they're putting themselves in a horrible light
00:22:13
you know what I mean they're putting themselves as being the bad guy there is no good guy in that story so where did I
00:22:19
don't know where they got the information well right and I think even talking about it more than we should is
00:22:24
is giving some uh you know justification for for him to think these horrible thoughts and to be a racist so
00:22:35
while in prison both Brewer and King they got in this white supremist group uh while still locked up Bill King
00:22:42
started to write letters to his old buddy sha Barry who was on the outside as they say in these letters Bill used a
00:22:51
lot of prison slang some that Shawn Barry says he was familiar with and some that he was not but in these letters
00:23:00
that Shawn would sha this is where Shawn would learn of what he calls a change in
00:23:04
his longtime friend uh Bill's Behavior Bill started talking about his white supremacy uh Bill spoke of his hatred
00:23:14
for African-Americans and Jewish people Shan said that bill sent him four letters while he was in prison and he
00:23:22
would end up he would end these letters by referring to Shawn Barry as his Aryan
00:23:27
brother M and I thought you were going to say he like you know did some kissy faces or something well this this one
00:23:34
seems silly he he would also say things like like uh stay white so yeah I felt sorry I know this
00:23:42
is not really a case where we should be laughing but but I mean dork hey stay white seems like a dorky thing to say
00:23:50
stay stay white U I woke up today and again I'm white you know stay white Sean Sean says that he didn't care much for
00:24:01
that kind of talk uh stating that he did not write uh back to Bill King he didn't
00:24:06
send Bill King any return letters he didn't do any kissy faces or yeah send a send an or stay white stay white back at
00:24:14
you back at reply with an update regarding his whiteness um eventually Bill gets out of prison and he goes back
00:24:23
to Jasper Texas MH and when he returns he starts hanging out with his old buddy Shawn Barry this is another weird thing
00:24:31
it's like okay you got this guy writing you all these letters saying all these things that you don't care for yet when
00:24:36
he returns to town you're like hey how's it going let's hang out it's just another excuse and a horrible um trying
00:24:44
to explain away what you what you are so sha Barry says that once bill got back uh he made it bill made it pretty well
00:24:53
known that he did not like African-Americans Jewish people or Asian asan people Bill King was also sporting
00:25:01
it seems like his hatred keeps growing well his now he hates Asians his possible uh friendship pool just got a
00:25:10
lot smaller right so Bill King is also sporting some racist tattoos as well I'm sure those look amazing and I
00:25:21
are they on his face you can no no they're on mostly like his chest and arms and some on his back and you can
00:25:28
find them online um no nobody needs to see there's a there's a lot of pictures of them I don't care really to describe
00:25:36
them here but then eventually Lawrence Russell Brewer uh Russell Brewer gets out of prison and he goes to Jasper as
00:25:45
well so now we have the Jasper 3 so by now it's almost the middle of the year of
00:25:52
1998 um we as we said Brewer 2 Brewer is covered in these racist tattoos as as well on the face um not on the face so I
00:26:02
mean if you if you're going to go for it you know put it right on the face if you're going to be an idiot just put it
00:26:09
right on your face yeah I mean so by June of 1998 these three guys are sharing an apartment Shawn Barry Bill
00:26:17
King and Russell Brewer and this goes down like this so it's it's technically Bill King's
00:26:23
apartment okay sha Barry had a girlfriend that he at this time would have uh had at least one child with
00:26:32
maybe two but I think it was one of those one you know has one kid and one on the way situation mhm Shawn and his
00:26:41
lady friend were having some trouble and they were on the outs so Shawn goes to stay with Bill King Shawn Barry at this
00:26:48
time is working as a manager at a movie theater then we have Russell Brewer he is just fresh out of prison it's like
00:26:57
the the last week or second to last week of May that he got out of prison and he
00:27:02
headed out to Jasper to catch up with Bill King and stay there with him for a while now Bill King wants to organize a
00:27:10
white supremacy chapter or group in Jasper Texas this is the Texas Rebels Soldier
00:27:17
division of the Confederate Knights of America and Russell Brewer is going to be the first member or hold a high rank
00:27:25
I'm not really sure how that stuff works it sounds like these three idiots living
00:27:31
together in this apartment it's pretty much like a loud drunk thre man party every night because at some point the
00:27:38
land lady had got sick of the noise in the late drunken nights and Bill King was facing an eviction from his
00:27:46
apartment let's get right back to The James Bird case right after this quick beer
00:27:56
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something unusual in the presentation what's this it was an off-brand font her coworker explains I added the font I
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all right cheers mates on Saturday June 6th 1998 James Bird Jr he spent the day drinking and socializing with friends
00:30:10
and family in Jasper Texas he was at his niece's bridal shower this celebration was being held at Bird's parents house
00:30:19
after the bridal shower James walked to a friend's house for an anniversary party so this is a good Saturday Captain
00:30:27
a long day filled with three of my favorite things Friends food and drinks mhm and at the party James was just
00:30:36
being James you know he was seen laughing and joking around with everyone singing and dancing he sounds like a
00:30:43
good timing man that you know happy go-lucky and ready to put everyone in a good mood yeah one thing that a lot of
00:30:50
people don't know about the colonel is the colonel likes to dance after a couple
00:30:55
drinks do the old Colonel Shuffle um so so his friends so his at his friend's home this would have been across town
00:31:06
from James's apartment it sounds like he would have left his friend's house quite
00:31:12
late that night there's some varied accounts of what time this would have been but it was it was late sometime
00:31:19
after 1:00 a.m. you know so we have people who've been partying all day there's no wonder that there's a little
00:31:25
bit of a question as to what time Mr bird left the party now roughly at about the same time we have Bill King Russell
00:31:34
Brewer and Shawn Barry they had spent the evening at a party as well but not any of the same parties as James Bird
00:31:43
right I'm not really sure how these guys are getting invited to a party but anyway that's that's what they were
00:31:49
doing so apparently they left this party uh because a young African-American woman arrived at that same party and and
00:31:57
this it's reported that bill and Russell got upset at seeing the new guest at the
00:32:03
party and became enraged angered and very loud uh so they probably stormed out of this party from there they spent
00:32:13
some time drinking and driving so Shawn Barry had an old gray pickup truck and they were driving around in his pickup
00:32:22
truck drinking beers and you know looking to pick up women I guess yeah and probably holding hands and stuff so
00:32:30
James Bird left and he's going to be walking home and now we have these three guys driving around in the pickup truck
00:32:37
drinking their beers somewhere along James's walk home a truck with these three guys in it pulls up and they offer
00:32:45
him a ride so from my understanding having never been there but the way that I believe Jasper is laid out is that you
00:32:53
have um the east side and the west side which is divided by Highway 96 and remember we said he was James bird was
00:33:02
at an event taking place on one side of town and across the other side of town was his apartment so at some point James
00:33:10
had to walk along Highway 96 to get to his apartment mhm that's where he encountered Shawn Barry Bill King and
00:33:19
Russell Brewer in the primer gray pickup truck right and this is not a good thing
00:33:25
I mean this is not going to be good for James Bird because one he doesn't know that he's getting offered a ride by
00:33:32
three white supremacists he doesn't know that these white supremacists were at some party and left because a a black
00:33:42
woman showed up yeah he doesn't know who who he's getting in the truck with they
00:33:46
offer him a ride James Bird accepts the offer and as you said Captain he gets in
00:33:51
the truck with Bill King Russell Brewer and Shawn Barry now Bill King and and not Russell but Shawn Barry Shawn Barry
00:34:01
they are from Jasper yes so there's very good chance that they know who James bird is or at least know him as oh this
00:34:10
is the guy that you see walking a lot very likely they have seen him before now about 7 a.m. on Sunday June
00:34:18
7th a call goes out to police there is a body that has been found in the road near a cemetery the early belief was
00:34:27
this was a hit and run type situation the responding officer quickly noticed dark marks on the road as he got near
00:34:36
the location of where the body was found the officer this is uh Sheriff rolls mhm
00:34:42
he says he followed that Mark for the entirety of the crime scene thinking you know while he's checking this out he's
00:34:51
thinking to himself this is going to be the easiest hit and run case that we have ever had because he was going to be
00:34:58
able to follow what he believed to be tire marks all the way to the guilty party's house or to at least the
00:35:06
location of the vehicle that was involved the officer had followed the tracks for about two miles he and the
00:35:13
other officer started to notice that this was not tire marks like they had thought this was a brown what they refer
00:35:21
to as a brown like substance when they got to the end of the March the officers found shoes a tank top dentures and a
00:35:31
billfold in the billfold they found the ID card of one James Bird Jr Sheriff rolls is pretty he's now pretty aware
00:35:42
that this is not a hit and run mhm uh that he is dealing with this is a murder case um and the victim had been he could
00:35:52
tell by what he was seeing captain that because the original thought is that whoever the victim was which turns out
00:35:59
to be James Bird right he would maybe he was crossing the street and somebody didn't see him they hit him and the
00:36:08
Damage Done to the body that they found would have occurred being having rolling
00:36:14
underneath the vehicle as it passed over top of him right or you've seen cases um
00:36:20
with you know even like um state troopers or Highway Patrol where they get hit by a car but they actually get
00:36:27
locked into that car and and and they're dragged for a little bit Yeah well but but their initial thought is that that
00:36:35
this person was run over there was initial damage from being rolled underneath the vehicle as the vehicle
00:36:42
passed over them and then left the remains there right however as they're following these tracks and as they're
00:36:50
starting to piece this thing together they're finding evidence that it's that it is this person was dragged they
00:36:58
weren't they weren't hit and then and then the person took off right they're seeing evidence that this person had
00:37:04
actually been pulled behind a vehicle and dragged to death along this stretch of road while they are checking out the
00:37:12
items uh that they have located all of which they believe to belong to the victim a woman comes forward at and
00:37:21
tells the sheriff and his officer that she has found a head in an arm near her home mhm so the head and arm were found
00:37:32
about 1 mile from where the Torso was located the head was in such bad condition and so destroyed from the
00:37:39
dragging that they had to use fingerprints to identify the body and after checking the fingerprints they
00:37:46
confirmed that this is this was in fact the body of 49-year-old James Bird Jr so
00:37:53
the law enforcement's going to find some items from James Bird bir they're also going to find some other items yeah this
00:38:00
is at a small clearing in in the woods um which is just right off of off of the road if anybody's watched any videos or
00:38:08
seen uh the the road that was traveled in Jasper Texas I mean there's trees along both sides of the road this is a
00:38:18
small thin country road that we're talking about here but in a small clearing the investigators uh believe
00:38:25
that there was a fight in this clearing because of upturn grass Disturbed dirt and broken beer bottles so they are
00:38:33
seeing signs of what they believe to be a struggle in the clearing the investigators also found several items
00:38:41
so this is evidence and this evidence includes cigarette butts uh the beer bottles like we had said a wrench with
00:38:49
the word Berry inscribed on it we also have a lighter that's inscribed with the word posum in some kind of KKK
00:38:59
symbol they also found some eyewitnesses so Witnesses came forward reporting having having seen James Bird
00:39:09
Jr riding in the bed of a gray or light colored pickup truck with two or three men in the cab between 230 and 245 a.m.
00:39:21
this is some stuff that I love here Captain here is some small town good oldfashioned police work an officer
00:39:29
tells the sheriff hey Shawn Barry has a light gray colored pickup truck right well they
00:39:37
found you know they have the wrench with the word Berry on it they have witnesses
00:39:41
seeing a light colored pickup truck this is just when when you live in a small town like this like you said most people
00:39:48
knew James bird from having seen him walking a lot of people knew each other everybody kind of knows what's going on
00:39:54
you find a couple couple Clues you put two and two together and you got somebody to talk to right away right
00:40:00
again Jasper is a town of maybe 10 miles yeah and then when you have a crime that
00:40:06
you know that whatever went down is one of the most horrific crimes maybe ever uh definitely ever in Jasper as law
00:40:17
enforcement I think your your initial fear is that you need to have this solved and quickly uh fortunately for
00:40:28
them there is a bunch of evidence that is left now uh talking about you know good oldfashioned police work we have
00:40:36
Sheriff rolls he's the one that's heading the investigation and you talked about it being a small town and one of
00:40:42
the worst murders ever I don't know how many years as Sheriff rolls had under his belt by 98 he comes off in in
00:40:52
interviews that I've seen with him as a pretty seasoned um police officer a pretty seasoned Sheriff
00:41:00
uh and investigator at that as well but in one interview you know he's asked is is this the most horrific murder you've
00:41:08
ever seen and he said well you know in my time in Jasper first of all every murder is
00:41:15
horrific however in his time he had only worked two murder cases up to this point
00:41:22
right and he said if I had to pick the murder of James Bird Jr would be the worst one that I've ever seen so well
00:41:31
easily for him but like I said I mean I think it not that it goes past those boundaries that it goes past the the the
00:41:39
city limits of Jasper I I get you I get you so we have this officer that brings up that information to the sheriff we
00:41:47
have Shawn Barry he has a light gray colored truck so they go pick up Shawn Barry that afternoon that's right they
00:41:55
find the Vic at approximately 7 a.m. on that Sunday and it's by that afternoon that that they've picked up a guy and
00:42:03
they're already hitting him with some hard questions they actually arrest him on some type of traffic violations he
00:42:09
must have had outstanding speeding tickets or parking tickets God knows what but they pick him up on these
00:42:16
traffic violations then according to the police well he had an outstanding warrant for being a
00:42:24
douchebag uh ACC according to the police they got some info from some women in these guys' lives so at about 4 or 5
00:42:33
a.m. the three guys U sha Barry Bill King Russell Brewer they showed up at uh Bill King's I'm guessing his
00:42:43
girlfriend's house or place I'm unclear as to the details of the relationship but the two had a child together okay
00:42:50
okay uh baby mama yes and when the sheriff's department when they go to talk with with her she identifies the
00:42:58
lighter that they found the lighter that has the word posum in the KKK thing on it uh as bills lighter and she tells
00:43:07
them that the three men showed up at her place like we said about four or five a.m. in the morning and they stayed
00:43:14
there that night right and and the thing about the posum is that that was Bill's
00:43:19
nickname because he was King Bill King they called him possum King okay that makes
00:43:27
so she identified the lighter as belonging to bill so now they're going to have all three of these guys in
00:43:34
custody and they're not they're not charging them with anything yet because they don't really fully know what's gone
00:43:40
down or if these guys are in fact guilty of anything when they rounded these guys
00:43:46
up this is another weird part of this story that you come across they found that the the guys were in possession of
00:43:52
some form of stolen property mhm so they're going to kind of hold that over their heads and use that for means to
00:43:59
hold them as long you know longer so they can speak with these guys and figure out what happened well all these
00:44:05
guys have a record they're just I mean they're they're smalltime criminals is what they truly are I I mean until this
00:44:13
point in the story but they're they're bad at it like they're not they're not smart they don't get away with anything
00:44:21
you know what I mean like well well you can tell I mean they're they're racist and and by definition that makes them
00:44:28
ignorant people yeah but they can't even be good at committing crime I mean they
00:44:32
get picked up for all these smalltime things and then this possession of stolen property what we're talking about
00:44:38
here is there was a restaurant that was broken into uh days before this event happened okay and when when they were
00:44:46
going through these men's belongings after having arrested them and speaking with them they found them to be in
00:44:54
possession of of stolen frozen meat that was from that location so they I mean they couldn't
00:45:01
prove that they had broke into the restaurant but it looks like yeah it's not like if you went into my freezer
00:45:06
right now and you said man there's a bunch of Wendy's patties in here where did you get those oh how that happen I
00:45:12
bought them at the store I'm good friends with Wendy they probably said uh why do you guys have all this meat here
00:45:17
and they said well you know we need some extra money so we could get our our our
00:45:22
sheets together so we could cut some holes in them to make some clue clucks clay hats that's what we want to do so
00:45:30
they're holding these guys they're holding them and questioning all three of them obviously separately trying to
00:45:35
figure out what had happened that night or maybe and this is what they're probably really trying to do Captain you
00:45:42
know this I know this a lot of the listeners out there know this what they're probably trying to do is to get
00:45:48
these guys to start turning on one another right well Barry Shawn Barry ends up giving the share Sheriff
00:45:56
permission to search his truck he didn't have to you know he could have said nope
00:46:01
can't search my truck you have to come back with probable cause or or a warrant well he gives them permission to search
00:46:07
the truck and the sheriff's department they find Blood on the underside of the truck they also find tools in the truck
00:46:17
and these tools they you know we mentioned that wrench earlier other than the three gentlemen
00:46:23
yeah well uh just like that wrench that they had found earlier these tools are inscribed with the word or the name
00:46:31
Barry on them right so it's looking like that wrench came from this you know was
00:46:36
is the missing piece from this set that they find in the truck yeah cuz it's one
00:46:40
thing for law enforcement to find you know a wrench that says Berry we would all assume where it came from but you
00:46:47
can't do that when you're in court so by finding these other tools with inside the truck then that's that's your con
00:46:55
connection that's where that's kind of uh Undisputed evidence well yeah it it takes a it takes a piece of evidence
00:47:03
that was a little Loosey Goosey and now it's some pretty hardcore substantial evidence I believe right and then on top
00:47:10
of that you have the blood evidence underneath the truck at some point and I'm I'm unclear who this was I believe
00:47:18
it may have been Shawn Barry though but I do want to point out that I'm I'm a little unclear who who did this but at
00:47:25
some point during the questioning one of these guys says the n-word to sheriff rolls mhm okay so at that point the
00:47:35
sheriff sheriff rolls and Sheriff rolls is a white guy yeah yeah oh yeah yeah but I guess we should point that out but
00:47:43
they're not directing it towards him they're just saying it that's okay so I think it was Shawn Barry and I think
00:47:50
when he was asked what he was doing the night before he says something something
00:47:56
like I was just trying to stay white no he says something like we you know me and the guys were riding around in our
00:48:03
truck and at some point we drove this right person into town this nword yeah right so um yeah that's a that if that's
00:48:15
not a red flag I I I got to tell you though Captain I'm a huge fan of the sheriff rolls guy a big fan of this dude
00:48:21
so he quickly understands what he's dealing with right you know it's he has an African-American murder victim killed
00:48:30
in one of the worst ways imaginable tortured you have to say tortured cuz that's what it is MHM and it's starting
00:48:37
to look like he was killed by these three guys three white guys and one of them is now using racial slurs during
00:48:44
the questioning process so it's now obvious to the sheriff that these guys if they did this they committed this
00:48:52
murder simply out of hate and that these guys killed James Bird Jr just because he was black right so Sheriff rolls
00:49:02
tells tells Shawn Barry and this is why I think that word came from Barry because R he's a real piece of [ __ ] well
00:49:10
roll is going to turn up the heat on Barry good okay and so he wants him to squirm a bit cuz he's what he's he's
00:49:17
starting to see is out of these three dudes this is the guy that that first of all we have things connecting your truck
00:49:26
to this situation right we got you you are already in the most heat so now you either need to tell us what happened or
00:49:35
we're coming we're coming at at you full go and so to turn up the heat he tells sha Barry exactly how it's going to be
00:49:45
from from this point on in the investigation Sheriff rolls tell sha Barry I have called the FBI and I can
00:49:53
guarantee you one thing is is for certain the FBI is going to be taking this thing over they're going to be
00:50:00
taking a hard look at you they're going to charge you with murder and you are going to be the first one they are
00:50:07
talking to first thing in the morning well and I think it's smart too you you come from such a small town it's smart
00:50:15
to turn this over to the FBI this is this is something bigger this crime is something bigger than Jasper mhm well
00:50:22
once the sheriff threatens Shawn Barry with getting the FBI involved and letting him know that they're going to
00:50:28
be speaking with him first thing in the morning right well that's all the encouragement that sha Barry needs
00:50:36
because now he's going to tell them what happened and we can get into that tomorrow the the evidence of the case
00:50:44
the details of the case and then the trial as well MH and this is a very difficult case to cover yeah oh yeah
00:50:51
difficult uncomfortable um but if this is a very important case anybody that remembers this case back from 1998 it
00:51:01
was I mean it was National headlines because of how horrific the nature of the crime was but also how we thought
00:51:10
and when I say we I mean us as a nation I've got to believe that that most of us
00:51:16
believed that this was something that we it's an embarrassing portion of our history um it's a it's a part of our
00:51:24
history that I personally am very ashamed of but I think we thought as a nation that that we were very far past
00:51:33
this right and it turned out that we were not so as uncomfortable and as difficult as this case can be to report
00:51:41
to everybody in the garage here it's something that we shouldn't shy away from it's important to discuss these
00:51:47
things and it's necessary thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend and thanks for sharing on
00:52:00
social media we hope everybody has a good night and we will see you back here in the garage tomorrow until then be
00:52:05
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