Jury shown human billboard of hate in Texas dragging case

Prosecutors insist the motive for the crime is etched all over King's body
BACKGROUND: Get details on the case RELATED VIDEO: CNN's Susan Candiotti reports on the trial in Texas Windows Media 28K 80K

In this story: Witness puts suspects in truck 'Crucial evidence' RELATED STORIES, SITES

JASPER, Texas (CNN) -- Texas prosecutors in the trial of one of three white men accused of dragging a black man to his death said Wednesday that John William King did not wear his hatred on his sleeve but wore it all over his body.

Prosecutors showed color photographs of dozens of intricate racist, satanic and neo-Nazi tattoos on King's body to the jury.

"If you look closely, there's a tree branch and a man hanging from the tree," Rich Ford, a Jasper police detective, testified. "It appears to be a black man hanging from a tree."

Other tattoos included Nazi-type SS lightning bolts on King's shoulders; an upside-down satanic star known as a baphomet on the back of his head; and a large patch of the Confederate Knights of America, a white supremacist group, on the side of his stomach, underlined with "Aryan Pride."

Prosecutors insisted the skin designs help prove motive, intent and state of mind.

"Devils and monster faces and skulls and things like that are pretty consistent with somebody having a lot of hate in their hearts," said District Attorney Guy James Gray.

The prosecution said King had enough hate to chain James Byrd Jr. to the back of a pickup truck and drag him nearly three miles, dismembering his body.

But King's attorney, Haden "Sonny" Cribbs, said the tattoos prove little. "I don't think just the tattoos themselves make him a racist," Cribbs said.

Cribbs objected to the jury being shown the tattoos, saying the art was constitutionally protected freedom of expression. State District Judge Joe Bob Golden overruled the objection.

Witness puts suspects in truck

Evidence presented against King includes applications for a white supremacist group he was organizing

Keisha Adkins, 21, was the only witness to take the stand on the second day of testimony who was not in law enforcement. She said she saw 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 Wednesday, Adkins said she wasn't sure he was wearing them when he left his apartment.

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

Adkins said King called her several times 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. 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 day, 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 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.

'Crucial evidence'

CNN Correspondent Susan Candiotti and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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