Convicted ringleader in Texas dragging death to be executed

A man who orchestrated one of the most gruesome hate crimes in U.S. history faces execution in Texas.

John William King is scheduled for lethal injection Wednesday evening in the June 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr., a black man from East Texas.

The 44-year-old King, who is white and an avowed racist, was put on death row for chaining Byrd to the back of a truck and dragging his body along a secluded road outside Jasper, Texas. Prosecutors said Byrd was targeted because he was black.

In this Wednesday, April 10, 2019, photo Mylinda Byrd Washington, 66, left, and Louvon Byrd Harris, 61, hold up photographs of their brother James Byrd Jr. in Houston. James Byrd Jr. was the victim of what is considered to be one of the most gruesome hate crime murders in recent Texas history. (AP PhotoJuan Lozano)

The hate crime put a national spotlight on Jasper, which was branded with a racist stigma it has tried to shake off ever since.

King would be the second man executed in the case. A third man received a life sentence.

This April 12, 2019, photo shows the gravesite of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas. Byrd was killed on June 7, 1998, after he was chained to the back of a pickup truck and dragged for nearly three miles along a secluded road in the piney woods outside Jasper in what is considered one of the most gruesome hate crime murders in recent Texas history. (AP PhotoJuan Lozano)

This April 12, 2019, photo shows a section of Huff Creek Road in Jasper, Texas, where James Byrd Jr., who was black, was dragged to death by three white men in what is considered one of the most gruesome hate crime murders in recent Texas history. John William King, the convicted ringleader of Byrd's death, is set to be executed on Wednesday, April. 24, 2019. (AP PhotoJuan Lozano)

This April 12, 2019, photo shows a bench donated by a foundation started by the family of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas. The bench is located in front of the county courthouse in Jasper, Texas, where two of the three men convicted for Byrd's death, considered one of the most gruesome hate crime murders in recent Texas history, were tried. John William King, the convicted ringleader of Byrd's death, is set to be executed on Wednesday, April. 24, 2019. (AP PhotoJuan Lozano)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Monday that it attacked three boats accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing a total of eight people as scrutiny over the boat strikes is intensifying in Congress.

The military said in a statement on social media that the strikes targeted “designated terrorist organizations,” killing three people in the first vessel, two in the second boat and three in the third boat. It didn't provide evidence of their alleged drug trafficking but posted a video of a boat moving through water before exploding.

President Donald Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. But the Trump administration is facing increasing scrutiny from lawmakers over the boat strike campaign, which has killed at least 95 people in 25 known strikes since early September, including a follow-up strike that killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of a boat after the first hit.

The latest boat strikes come on the eve of briefings on Capitol Hill for all members of Congress as questions mount over the Trump administration’s military campaign.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top national security officials are expected to provide closed-door briefings for lawmakers in the House and Senate.

The campaign has ramped up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the U.S. In a sharp escalation last week, U.S. forces seized a sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration has accused of smuggling illicit crude. Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office.

The U.S. military has built up its largest presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. Trump says land attacks are coming soon but has not offered any details on location.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)