ANNOUNCER: Bringing you the world for 20 years, this is CNN.</s>JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: Three men are in custody tonight in Texas, charged with a gruesome murder there. Police say that it is possible that the victim was killed because he was black.</s>CHARLES ZEWE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was almost incomprehensible that, here, in the last year of the 20th century, that someone could have chained someone to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him for more than 11 miles to his death. And I think the thing that affected me the most in the James Byrd trial was the 11 1/2 minute videotape showing the route, the asphalt road that James Byrd was dragged down. As you watch that tape, you start to be struck with the fact that there was a human being tied behind a truck by his ankles struggling for his life, trying everything he knew to get free, but still being dragged down this road, being bounced around. That just had an overwhelming effect on me and I think everybody who saw that videotape and knew the particulars of that trial and of that crime. Two of the three men who were charged with James Byrd's death were convicted and sentenced to die. A third was convicted but sentenced to life in prison.
CNN 20: James Byrd Jr. Murdered, June 7, 1998