By Doug Miler
KHOU 11 News
HOUSTON, Texas — On a cool February day in 1999, a crowd gathered outside the courthouse in the east Texas town of Jasper to watch as a phalanx of Texas Rangers escorted a man wearing a bullet-proof vest to a waiting prison van.
John King, an angry white supremacist covered with racist tattoos, had just been sentenced to death for the savage murder of James Byrd Jr., a black man who had been chained to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged to his death. The people of Jasper, a small town traumatized by one of the most searing hate crimes since the Civil Rights era, were palpably relieved to see King ushered away to death row. Some of them cheerily cried out “goodbye,” as though to taunt King with the idea they’d never seen him again.
That was fifteen years ago. Now the people of Jasper are seeing yet another picture of that same smiling, racist killer, one snapped inside the prison housing the Texas death row, up for auction on a murder memorabilia website.
“That’s unbelievable, unacceptable to me,” said Louvon Harris, one of Byrd’s sisters. “And as a victim of a hate crime, I think that we’ve been slapped in the face.” Now Texas prison officials have banned G. William Harder, whose website offered the King photo for sale, from visiting any more inmates. They say he’s been paying prisoners for memorabilia appearing on his site, a charge he flatly denies.
Full story: “Murderabilia” website owner banned from Texas prisons