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