Lawrence Russell Brewer

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — White supremacist gang member Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed Wednesday evening for the infamous 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas.

Byrd, 49, was chained to the back of a pickup truck and pulled to his death along a bumpy asphalt road in one of the most grisly hate crime murders in recent history.

Brewer, 44, was asked if he had any final words, to which he replied: “No. I have no final statement.”

Appeals to the courts for Brewer were exhausted and no last-day attempts to save his life were filed.

Besides Brewer, John William King, 36, also was convicted of capital murder and sent to death row for Byrd’s death. King’s conviction and death sentence remain under appeal. A third man, Shawn Berry, 36, received a life prison term.

“One down and one to go,” Billy Rowles, the retired Jasper County sheriff who first investigated the horrific scene, said. “That’s kind of cruel but that’s reality.”