Testimony ties King to truck that may have dragged victim

BACKGROUND: Get details on the case RELATED VIDEO CNN's Susan Candiotti reports on the trial in Texas Windows Media 28K 80K

February 17, 1999
Web posted at: 4:57 p.m. EST (2157 GMT)

JASPER, Texas (CNN) -- The three white men accused in the dragging death of a black man in Texas last year were together on the night of the murder, in a truck prosecutors believe was used to commit the crime, a witness testified Wednesday.

Keisha Adkins, 21, said she saw accused killer John William King and two companions drive away in the gray pickup to which prosecutors say James Byrd Jr. was chained.

Adkins is an ex-girlfriend of King, who is being tried separately from the other two defendants, Lawrence Russell Brewer and Shawn Allen Berry.

The witness, who has known King for nearly a decade, previously told investigators he was wearing sandals on the night of the killing, but under defense cross-examination on Wednesday, Adkins said she wasn't sure.

Prosecutors say smeared blood found on the sandals match the victim's blood.

King arrives at the courthouse in Jasper, Texas, on Wednesday

Adkins said King called her several times on the night of June 6 and invited her to his apartment in the East Texas town of Jasper. Brewer and Berry also were there, she testified.

The three men left the apartment in Berry's pickup about 1:30 a.m. on June 7 to meet some women, Adkins said. She left separately. Prosecutors allege the killing took place soon thereafter.

"If I remember right, Shawn was driving, Bill in the middle and Russell on the passenger side," she said.

King called her the next night and "sounded different," she said. "He said he needed to see me and needed to talk to me," but didn't say why.

Prosecutors say King, a 24-year-old unemployed laborer and ex-convict who had served time for burglary, attacked Byrd as part of a plan to draw attention to a new white supremacist group he was organizing.

Adkins, however, said there was no racial discussion at King's apartment that night.

Later on Wednesday, prosecutors were expected to introduce DNA evidence in an effort to link King to the killing.

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