Two white Mississippi women who were part of a group that scoured the streets hunting for black people to attack, one of them fatally, have been jailed.
Sarah Graves, 22, who pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiracy to commit a hate crime, was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Shelbie Richards, 21, who admitted conspiracy and concealing the crime by lying to police, received eight years.
Six white men were sentenced earlier to prison terms ranging from four to 50 years for the June 2011 death of James Craig Anderson in the city of Jackson.
The 47-year-old car plant worker died after being beaten in a hotel car park and run over by a pick-up truck in which Graves and Richards were passengers.
Graves told the court: “I was a teenager who partied too much and wanted to fit in with the crowd, and I’ve asked myself so many times, ‘Why was I so afraid? Why was I so stupid? Why did I drink so much?’
“I pray that not only God and Mr Anderson can forgive me, but that his family can one day forgive me.”
Both women have acknowledged they helped recruit people at a birthday party to take part in the outing that led to Mr Anderson’s death.
Richards admitted she encouraged the pick-up truck driver, 18-year old Deryl Dedmon, to attack Mr Anderson when they arrived at the car park.
She also shouted a racial slur and urged Dedmon to run over Mr Anderson when Dedmon returned to the Ford F-250.
The victim’s sister, Barbara Young, addressed the young women in court, reports the Clarion Ledger.
“Your thirst for the blood of an innocent African American caused you to pour more fuel on the fire that has ignited the great Magnolia State of Mississippi,” she told them.
During the trial, Mr Anderson’s family asked that the perpetrators be spared the death penalty.
The group had admitted other racially motivated attacks, including beating up a black man near a Jackson golf course and trying to run over another African-American man.
They also attacked another man who tried to sell them drugs and used beer bottles and a slingshot to assault pedestrians.
Photo credit: Sky News
