Shawn Berry, Lawrence Brewer, and John King dragged him for 3 miles (5 kilometers) behind a Ford pickup truck along an asphalt road.

Byrd, who remained conscious for much of his ordeal, was killed about halfway through the dragging when his body hit the edge of a culvert, severing his right arm and head.

[1][2] Brewer and King were the first white men to be sentenced to death for killing a black person in the history of modern Texas.

Byrd died about halfway along the route of his dragging, when his right arm and head were severed as his body hit a culvert.

[24] Berry, Brewer, and King dumped the mutilated remains of Byrd's body in front of an African-American cemetery on Huff Creek Road, then drove off to a barbecue.

[25][27] Since Brewer and King were well-known white supremacists, it was determined by state law enforcement officials that the murder was a hate crime.

[30] King had several racist tattoos: a black man hanging from a tree, Nazi symbols, the words "Aryan Pride", and the patch for a gang of white supremacist inmates known as the Confederate Knights of America.

[31] In a jailhouse letter to Brewer that was intercepted by jail officials, King expressed pride in the crime and said that he realized while committing the murder that he might have to die.

[5][6][7][33] During the trial of Shawn Allen Berry (born February 12, 1975), the prosecution conceded that he was not a white supremacist, but they argued that he was just as responsible for Byrd's murder as the other men and suggested that he might have been a thrill killer.

As of 2020[update], Berry was living in protective custody at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Ramsey Unit,[7] and he will first be eligible for parole in June 2038, by that time, he will be 63 years old.

[40] Lawrence Russell Brewer (March 13, 1967 – September 21, 2011) was a white supremacist who prior to Byrd's murder had served a prison sentence for drug possession and burglary.

The meal included two chicken fried steaks with gravy and sliced onions; a triple-patty bacon cheeseburger; a cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapeños; a bowl of fried okra with ketchup; one pound of barbecued meat with half a loaf of white bread; three fully loaded fajitas; a meat-lover's pizza; one pint of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream; a slab of peanut-butter fudge with crushed peanuts on top; and three root beers.

Byrd's murder was strongly condemned by Jesse Jackson and the Martin Luther King Center as an act of vicious racism.

[55] Three sisters of Byrd are Jehovah's Witnesses, and in a joint statement said: "Having a loved one tortured and lynched produced an unimaginable sense of loss and pain.

[57] On the 25th anniversary of Byrd's death, family members reflected in a 2023 interview for the Texas Tribune that fundraising for the foundation had become much harder as knowledge of Byrd's murder fades; one sister reflected that there was less awareness amongst the public of hatred in the community: "People don't want to fund it because they think there's no hate in the world", she was quoted as saying.

[58] A reporter visiting Jasper in 2018 noted that several residents denied Byrd's death had any relation to racism or hate crimes.

Writing for the Pacific Standard magazine, John Savage said:[59] ... a dozen white residents have told me that racial hatred wasn't the principal motivation of Byrd's killers.

Circuit Court of Appeal ...On October 7, 1998, an episode of Law & Order titled "DWB" (driving while black) referenced the murder within the plot.

[60] As the plot goes, the officers stop and arrest a black man for no reason, and then proceed to drag him to his death, after tying him to the car.

The same year, a documentary titled Two Towns of Jasper, made by filmmakers Marco Williams and Whitney Dow, premiered on PBS's P.O.V.

[62] While employed as a radio DJ at station WARW in Washington, DC, Doug Tracht (also known as the "Greaseman") made a derogatory comment referring to Byrd after playing Lauryn Hill's song "Doo Wop (That Thing)".

[63] The February 1999 incident proved catastrophic to Tracht's radio career, igniting protests from black and white listeners alike.

[64] In May 2004, two white teens, Joshua Lee Talley and John Matthew Fowler, were arrested and charged with criminal mischief for desecrating Byrd's grave with racial slurs and profanities.

[58] Some advocacy groups, such as the NAACP National Voter Fund, made an issue of this case during George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 2000.

With the signature of Governor Rick Perry, who inherited the balance of Bush's unexpired term, the act became Texas state law in 2001.

The story of Byrd's murder, and that of Matthew Shepard, are told in a verse of the song "Trouble the Waters" by Big Country on their album Driving to Damascus (named John Wayne's Dream in its US release).