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Lawrence Russell Brewer is a white supremacist from Texas who murdered African-American James Byrd Jr. on June 7, 1998, along with John William King and Shawn Berry. The three men offered Byrd a ride in their pickup trick. Byrd accepted, not knowing that three men were actually tricking him into being abused and tortured by them. They drove off to a barren remote land outside of Jasper, Texas, and beat him unconscious. While Byrd was unconscious, the three men took further pleasure in torturing him by urinating, defecating, and spray-painting his body. They later murdered Byrd by chaining his body to their pickup and dragging it for three miles straight, killing him. The murderers later dumped the remains of Byrd's body in front of an African-American church, then cowardly fled by driving off to a barbecue.
Brewer, along with Berry and King, were convicted for the murder of Byrd. Brewer was ultimately given capital punishment, being executed on September 21, 2011.