The convicted killer of James Byrd Jr., a Black Texas man dragged to death in 1998, was executed by lethal injection Wednesday at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

Doctors pronounced Lawrence Russell Brewer, 44, dead at 6:21 p.m. His parents and the parents of his victim witnessed the execution lasting 10 minutes from the injection of the lethal drug to his tattoo-covered arms.

"Hopefully, today's execution of Brewer can remind all of us that racial hatred and prejudice leads to terrible consequence for the victim, the victim's family, for the perpetrator and for the perpetrator's family," Clara Taylor, one of Byrd's sisters, said, according to the Associated Press.

Brewer and two other accomplices killed Byrd on June 7, 1998 by chaining him from a pickup truck and dragging him for three miles along a bumpy asphalt road in Jasper town.

Byrd's headless body was found at the end of a remote road in Huff Creek Road. Strewn body parts and blood trails convinced police he was not a victim of a hit-and-run.

Brewer, John William King, 36, and Shawn Berry, 36, were arrested the following day for the hate crime. In the trial, Byrd apparently hitched from his killer's pickup truck. The truck stopped at an isolated logging road, where a fight broke out between Byrd and his killers.

Brewer had insisted he did not kill Byrd but only assaulted him. But Byrd's blood were found on the three suspects through DNA test.
Brewer had been in the death row for 12 years since his conviction. King was also sentenced to death but the verdict is on appeal and there is no execution date set yet. Berry is serving a life sentence.