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Jun 5, 2009 2:00 pm US/Central
Charges Tossed In East Texas Dragging Death
DALLAS (AP) ―
The former murder suspect accused of running down his black friend in a racially charged East Texas case said Friday he knew he would be cleared.
Shannon Finley reiterated his innocence in an interview with The Associated Press, a day after he was released after nearly nine months in jail. On Thursday, a prosecutor dropped murder charges against Finley and Charles Crostley, citing a lack of evidence. Both men were freed.
The two white men had been charged with fatally striking 24-year-old Brandon McClelland with a pickup truck in September following a late-night beer run the three friends made to Oklahoma. His mangled body, which authorities estimate was dragged beneath a vehicle for at least 70 feet, was found on a country road outside of Paris, about 90 miles northeast of Dallas.
"I'm glad to be home," Finley said. "I knew they would find out the facts someday. I just didn't know when."
A lack of eyewitnesses and physical evidence tying Finley's pickup to McClelland's death hindered the prosecution, said Ben Massar, Finley's attorney.
Finley's small Dodge Dakota pickup was tested in a lab three times, but no biological evidence was found, Massar said. It also sustained no damage or dents, despite being the vehicle authorities allege struck the nearly 300-pound McClelland, whose nickname was "Big Boy."
Last month, a gravel truck driver gave a sworn statement acknowledging he might have accidentally run over McClelland. Special prosecutor Toby Shook said it was unlikely the trucker would face charges, but that the investigation into McClelland's death would continue.
The trucker's attorney, Mike Mosher, said his client was given immunity regarding his sworn statement. He said the trucker does not know any of the parties involved, and declined to say whether his client took a polygraph test.
"I do not believe there is anything they can charge him with," Mosher said. "He didn't know he hit anyone."
Finley -- sitting with his father, his attorney and the attorney's investigator -- provided a detailed account of his last day and night with McClelland.
He said the trio had been drinking heavily for much of the night, and had mixed beer and alcohol with marijuana and prescription drugs. After leaving their dry Texas county to buy beer across the Oklahoma border, they argued about whether Finley was too drunk and high to drive.
Finley said he was unwilling to let anyone else drive his truck. After a heated argument, McClelland got out of the truck several miles from town and declared he would walk home.
Finley and Crostley left him on the side of the road, returning once to persuade him to get back in. McClelland refused, so they continued home, Finley said.
Later that morning, Finley said he and Crostley learned of McClelland's death.
"I've known Brandon since I was 15 and he was about 12 or 13," Finley said. "We have been best friends every day pretty much since. We didn't hang out one day a week. We hung out four or five days a week."
The racial implications of the case reminded some of the murder of James Byrd, who was chained by the ankles to a pickup and dragged to death in 1998 in the East Texas town of Jasper.
The McClelland case last year attracted about 200 protesters, many of them from the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party. They held a rally at the courthouse last year.
It was not the first event indicating racial problems in Paris, which is about 73 percent white and 22 percent black. In 2007, a black girl was sentenced to up to seven years in a juvenile prison for shoving a teacher's aide at school, while a white girl was sentenced by the same judge to probation for burning down her parents' house. The case drew international media attention.
In March, civil rights attorneys alleged discrimination at a pipe fabrication facility that employs about 700 workers in Paris. Two black workers alleged widespread racism and said supervisors did not respond to complaints about racist graffiti, nooses and slurs.
(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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