Long Dark Road: Bill King and Murder in Jasper, Texas.

Long Dark Road: Bill King and Murder in Jasper, Texas. By Ricardo C. Ainslie. (Austin: University of Texas Press, c. 2004. Pp. xviii, 236. $24.95, ISBN 0-292-70574-3.)

In Long Dark Road: Bill King and Murder in Jasper, Texas, Ricardo C. Ainslie seeks to understand a particularly heinous hate crime by providing "an unprecedented psychological profile of Bill King," the convicted ringleader of the brutal 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr., an African American citizen of Jasper, Texas (quotation on dust jacket). Ainslie attempts to counter the natural tendency for us bystanders of such horrific events to distance ourselves from "the fact that Bill King is, ultimately, one of us" (p. xiii). While the book is in fact a "gripping account of the murder and its aftermath," it is not a contemporary version of Erik H. Erikson's Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History (New York, 1958) in terms of depth psychology (quotation on dust jacket).

This reviewer expected a steadier focus on the psychology and psychopathology of racism, and in the fourth chapter, "The Unraveling," Ainslie comes close to providing it. Ainslie describes Bill King's traumatic loss of identity and subsequent ill-fated search for identity, acceptance, understanding, and admiration. The unraveling begins with the awkward and impulsive attempt by his father, Ronald King, to inform Bill about his origins: "Son, you realize that you're adopted, don't you?" Ronald felt that "the moment had come" to make this revelation because Bill was unknowingly playing with his two biological sisters in the midst of a frenzied family gathering (p. 57). His biological mother, Sylvia Rae, had chosen to keep her daughters but had arranged for her son to be reared by close family friends, Ronald and Jean King.

King's interest in tattoos emerged after this revelation. At the time of the murder, tattoos covered most of his visible body with explicit and coded messages of racial hatred. Bill described himself as "addicted to them" (p. 59). Ainslie implicitly invites the reader to speculate that Bill sought identity and self-soothing outside of intimate relationships after his experiences of betrayal by the parent who gave him up at birth and by the parents who first concealed his adoption and then informed him of it without preparation or a contextual explanation. Whatever happened internally, his search for identity was obscured by a facade of detached indifference.

Implicitly, Ainslie suggests that Bill's growing self-hatred eventually became expressed as rage toward despicable others. Racial minorities became human containers for disavowed aspects of his hated self. Such a formulation would be a common psychoanalytic understanding of racism as projected self-hatred. Ainslie does not explicitly make this formulation, however.

Ainslie introduces the reader to prison gang culture, particularly gangs coalesced and sustained by racial hatred. In the gang culture of the Beto Prison Unit, King found identity, a shared worldview, and admiration--all of which rested on the psychological value of despicable and hated "others." As is often the case, the other serves as a convenient receptacle for disavowed qualities of the self. King's fragile veneer of confidence and self-esteem rested squarely on the contempt for a hated, contemptuous other.

An undeveloped piece of King's narrative is revealed as somewhat of a bombshell on page 74, where Ainslie states that King "refused to take prescribed medications for what by now had been diagnosed as a bipolar disorder." Ainslie provides no prior mention of a pattern of symptoms that might suggest such a diagnosis. He later mentions that Bill had "attempted suicide on four occasions" and that "his medical records indicate that he suffered from bipolar I disorder and borderline personality disorder" (p. 76).

In the closing chapter, "Blood Ties," Ainslie describes Bill's ill-fated attempt to reconnect with his biological mother shortly before the murder of James Byrd. Just weeks prior to the murder, King asked Sylvia Rae why she had "chosen him, specifically, as the child she would relinquish." She explained that he was "the product of the devil" (p. 226). Was that the final straw in the destruction of his self-identity and self-esteem? Was that rejection followed by a compensatory urge to externalize and to kill a representation of his hated self in the person of James Byrd? Perhaps. But Ainslie is silent about this possible understanding of Bill King.

Repeatedly, Ainslie describes King's charisma and charm. This charm gave him the ability to get people, especially women, to do things they otherwise would not do. Did that also happen to Ainslie? He seems distracted from a more in-depth understanding of King, instead engaging in an interesting but somewhat superficial pursuit of the story at an interpersonal, factual level. It leaves the reader who is looking for a deeper psychological understanding of the murderous act a bit frustrated, much as King probably felt about his attempt to understand his origins and the motivations of his biological mother.

In summary, Long Dark Road is an interesting story of a horrific event. Ricardo Ainslie provides material that can be constructed to link virulent racism to projected self hatred. However, this volume leaves the seeker of a deeper understanding with a stimulated but unsatiated appetite.

JAMES W. LOMAX

Baylor College of Medicine