Lawrence Russell Brewer was born on March 13, 1967, in Texas. He grew up in a working-class environment and struggled with criminal behavior early in life. Brewer served a prison sentence for burglary and drug possession in the early 1990s. While incarcerated, he joined a white supremacist prison gang alongside John William King. According to court records, Brewer claimed he joined the gang for protection against other inmates.

After being paroled in 1991, Brewer continued to live a troubled life, violating parole in 1994 and returning to prison. He became further entrenched in racist ideology during his prison time, forging a close bond with John King. Both men carried numerous white supremacist tattoos, including Nazi symbols and hate slogans. Brewer exhibited violent tendencies and showed no signs of rehabilitation after his release.

On June 7, 1998, in Jasper, Texas, Lawrence Brewer, John William King, and Shawn Berry encountered James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old African American man. Byrd accepted a ride from the trio, unaware of their intentions. The men drove Byrd to a remote road, where they viciously beat him, chained his ankles to the rear of Berry’s pickup truck, and dragged him along an asphalt road for nearly three miles.

For much of the dragging, Byrd was alive and conscious, desperately trying to keep his head up to survive. His body struck a culvert during the ordeal, severing his head and right arm, which ultimately caused his death. The perpetrators dumped Byrd’s remains near an African American cemetery and went to a barbecue afterward.

The brutality of the crime shocked the nation. Investigators quickly connected Brewer and his accomplices to the murder using physical evidence, including tools and personal items belonging to Byrd, as well as racist writings and symbols found in their possession. Brewer, known for his unwavering racist beliefs, showed no remorse during the trial.

In 1999, Brewer was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. He remained on Texas death row for over a decade at the Polunsky Unit. In a 2011 interview, Brewer expressed no regrets about the crime, stating he would “do it all over again.” On September 21, 2011, Brewer was executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit in Texas, becoming one of the first white men executed in Texas for murdering a Black person since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s.

Before his execution, Brewer requested an unusually large last meal but refused to eat it. The unused meal led Texas officials to permanently end the long-standing tradition of offering special last meal requests to condemned inmates.

The murder of James Byrd Jr. spurred the passage of significant hate crime legislation, including the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act (2001) in Texas and the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009), both of which were landmark steps in combating racially motivated violence in the United States.