UPDATE 1-White supremacist executed in Texas for dragging death of black man

A white supremacist convicted of killing James Byrd Jr. in 1998 by dragging the 49-year-old black man behind a truck in one of the most notorious hate crimes of modern times was executed in Texas on Wednesday. John William "Bill" King, 44, was put to death by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 7:08 p.m. (0008 GMT Thursday) at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville.

King and two other men were accused of kidnapping Byrd as he hitchhiked in Jasper, Texas, on June 7, 1998, before dragging him behind their pickup truck and dumping his body in front of an African-American church, court documents showed. (Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney)