John William King was born on November 3, 1974, in Texas. He grew up in Jasper, where he attended local schools and was known to have a troubled upbringing. Before the murder of James Byrd Jr., King spent time in prison on charges unrelated to the later homicide.

While incarcerated, King claimed he was gang-raped by Black inmates. During this period, he became deeply involved with white supremacist prison gangs, including the Confederate Knights of America, a Ku Klux Klan faction. He formed a close friendship with Lawrence Russell Brewer, another member of the same gang. King had multiple racist tattoos, including depictions of lynchings, Nazi symbols, and the phrase "Aryan Pride," clearly signaling his extremist beliefs.

After his release from prison, King remained active in white supremacist circles. His writings and communications with Brewer revealed a strong ideological commitment to racial hatred and a belief in white nationalist causes.

On June 7, 1998, John King, Lawrence Brewer, and Shawn Berry offered 49-year-old James Byrd Jr., an African American man, a ride in Berry’s pickup truck in Jasper, Texas. Instead of taking him home, they drove to a remote road, brutally beat him, and chained his ankles to the truck’s rear bumper.

King and Brewer, known white supremacists, participated in dragging Byrd along an asphalt road for nearly three miles. For much of the ordeal, Byrd was alive and conscious, attempting to hold his head up. Approximately halfway through the dragging, Byrd’s body struck a culvert, causing decapitation and the severing of his right arm, which led to his death.

The men dumped Byrd’s remaining torso in front of an African American cemetery before driving away. Physical evidence, including a wrench with “Berry” inscribed and a lighter marked “Possum,” King’s prison nickname, tied the perpetrators to the crime. Investigators quickly identified the racially motivated lynching as one of the most brutal hate crimes in modern U.S. history.

In 1999, King was convicted of capital murder. During trial proceedings, testimony and intercepted letters revealed his lack of remorse. In one letter to Brewer, King wrote, “Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history. Death before dishonor. Sieg Heil!” His appeals, including attempts to block execution on claims of ineffective counsel and trial errors, were repeatedly denied.

On December 21, 2018, a judge formally scheduled King’s execution for April 24, 2019. His last appeals to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles were denied. King refused to make a final statement before being executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit. He was pronounced dead at 7:08 p.m.

The murder of James Byrd Jr. led to historic hate crime legislation, including the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act in Texas (2001) and the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009). King’s execution, along with Brewer’s earlier execution in 2011, marked one of the rare instances where white perpetrators were executed for killing a Black victim in Texas since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the 1970s.