Published January 14, 2015
A defense attorney says charges have been dismissed against two white men accused of killing a black man in a racially charged dragging death in East Texas.
Attorney Ben Massar says Shannon Finley and Charles Crostley were released from jail in Paris Thursday afternoon after a judge granted the special prosecutor's motion to dismiss the case.
The men had been charged with fatally striking 24-year-old Brandon McClelland in September following a late-night beer-run to Oklahoma.
The case had been unraveling in recent months because of a lack of eyewitnesses and physical evidence. A gravel truck driver gave a sworn statement last month acknowledging he might have accidentally run over McClelland.
Protesters compared McClelland's death to the East Texas dragging death of James Byrd in Jasper 11 years ago.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/defense-attorney-says-charges-dismissed-in-texas-dragging-death