WASHINGTON, APRIL 25 - John William King, 44, a white supremacist believed to be the head of a group that killed a black man, James Byrd Jr (49), was executed by a lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. , chaining him by the ankles to a pick up and dragging him for several kilometers until his body was dismembered.
It is one of the worst racist murders in modern America and prompted Congress to approve hate crime legislation in 2009. The victim met King and two other men in the early hours of June 7 in Jasper, Texas, while he was coming home from a party and was attacked because of color.
Lawrence Russell Brewer, the other supremacist who took part in the brutal assassination, was already executed in 2011. The third accomplice, Shawn Allen Berry, was saved capital punishment because he did not share the suprematist faith and is now serving life sentence.