"Before 1998 few Americans had ever heard of Jasper, Texas. That all changed on June 7, 1998, when a trio of young white men chained a forty-nine-year-old black man named James Byrd Jr. to the bumper of a truck and dragged him three miles down a country road. In the hours after Byrd's body was found in pieces on Huff Creek Road, Jasper's white community tried to believe that one of their own had not committed the crime.

That hope was shattered when the trail of blood and evidence led directly to two local men, Bill King and Shawn Berry, and King's former jailhouse companion Russell Brewer. Within twenty-four hours, Sheriff Billy Rowles had gotten a confession and the trio was charged with capital murder.".

"From the initial investigation through the trials and their aftermath, A Death in Texas follows the turns of events through the eyes of Billy Rowles - an enlightened lawman determined to take lessons from the tragedy - and other townspeople trying to come to grips with the killing."--BOOK JACKET.