Thursday, May 31, 2012

Parole board approved Eroy Brown release

A panel recently voted to grant parole to Eroy Brown, whose 30 year long saga was the subject of an excellent book by Michael Berryhill, Brown's attorneys were notified yesterday.

Related, seea past Grits post, The Trials of Eroy Brown, a Q&A with Berryhill from the Houston Chronicle, and a Texas Observer cover story on the case. Said Berryhill in the Chronicle interview, "The story of Eroy Brown may seem to be a true crime story and, in a sense, it is. Really, it's a story of the tragedy of Texas prisons going back to the 1950s, the tragedy of how they were run with a plantation mentality with state officials denying what they were doing."

A burglar and armed robber sentenced to 90 years, while an inmate Eroy Brown drowned Ellis Unit Warden Wallace Pack and fatally shot Billy Moore, the unit's farm manager, precipitating a series of high-profile trials that exposed outrageous brutality in the state's prison system. Brown was acquitted separately in each murder on grounds of self defense. Remarkably, he's been serving time for his prior offenses in South Carolina because of the risk of retaliation in TDCJ. Brown will move to a reentry facility run by the Catholic church in Los Angeles when he's released, said one of his attorneys, Bill Habern.

MORE: From the Austin Statesman.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck Eroy a true Texas hero. To rise up in self defense and bring justice to 2 pieces of garbage who got off on the misery of others is a true testimony to light in a dark place. It’s a tradition among some to stop at night and urinate on the monument dedicated to the evil incarnate in front of the Ellis plantation.
Its good you are going to LA.

Anonymous said...

Amen!!! Truely a just end for two evil people!

Anonymous said...

Only three people knew the truth and two of them are dead. Did know Billy Max Moore but had the honor of working for Warden Pack for about six years. He was a christian gentleman. Eroy Brown was not tried in court but the deceased were tried based on testimony of inmates who were the "culls" of society.

Gritsforbreakfast said...

Good God! Eroy Brown is not a hero, the two murdered were not "evil," nor were they honorable Christian gentlemen. Not one of these men were as good as they seemed on their best day nor as bad as they seemed on their worst ones.

Because of the racial component, perhaps, this is one of those culture-war flashpoint cases where most opinions I hear from anyone not named Michael Berryhill are entrenched, ill-informed, and generally much more reflections of the writer than they shed light on facts.

Anonymous said...

I think the jury and most of us honorable law abiding tax payers have been effected by what someone in TDCJ has done to a friend or a love one. Because of this and what I have seen at visitation, being purely evil is a TDCJ job requirement. If I was on the jury, knowing what I have seen and heard right out of the guards and wardens mouths at visitation, I would have voted not guilty also, based on my personal experience, and that experience tells me that evil people, will do evil things and at the Unit I have visited, all of them in gray are evil. I honestly believe they did take him down there to kill him, and plenty of inmates have been killed without an impartial investigation and no TDCJ people are ever prosecuted either. I would always vote not guilty no mater the circumstance were now from what I have experience at visitation because something tells me that it is possible for TDCJ employees to do evil things and that is called "The Benifit of Doubt".

Anonymous said...

No amount of lies can't save Mr. Brown from the eternal torment he is destined to receive.