The Dallas cop who murdered an innocent man in his own apartment is 2018 is now eligible for parole.
Amber Guyger was still in uniform when she came home to Botham Jean’s 4th floor apartment instead of her own 3rd floor home and shot the 26-year-old dead on his couch as he ate ice cream, as CrimeOnline reported.
She was convicted of murder in 2019 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. According to the Texas Department of Corrections, the 36-year-old ex-cop became eligible for parole on Sunday, which would have been Jean’s 33rd birthday, WFAA reported.
The Department of Corrections says that Guyger’s parole status is “under review,” a process that began six months before eligibility. No date for a parole hearing has been set. Guyger’s multiple appeals of her conviction have been rejected.
Guyger, who was fired from her job, told investigators she’d just finished a 13-hour shift with the Dallas Police Department and mistakenly parked on the 4th floor parking garage, not noticing the lack of a ceiling on that floor, something her own 3rd floor garage has.
She also didn’t notice Jean’s bright red doormat, the only one of its kind on either the 3rd or 4th floors of the apartment building, or the smell of marijuana inside the apartment when she opened the door and stepped inside.
Jean had left the door unlocked when he returned from an errand earlier and was casually sitting on his couch watching television when Guyger came in, failed to notice that the decor in Jean’s apartment was completely different from her own — Guyger’s sparcely furnished apartment lacked a large ottoman in front of the couch, a rug, a coffee table, and artwork on the walls behind him.
Instead, Guyger automatically assumed he was an intruder and killed him. Then, prosecutors said, she texted her partner asking for help rather than actually helping the man she shot.
Jean’s family on Monday urged the parole board to reject early release completely and make sure Guyger servers her full sentence.
“We have to deal with that sentence for the rest of our lives. So for the person responsible for taking Botham away from us just unjustly and senselessly, the logical thing to do is to have her serve her full sentence,” Allisa Charles-Findley, Jean’s sister, told ABC News. “And 10 years, to me, it’s a light sentence for murder.”
Jean’s younger brother, Brandt, famously said at Guyger’s sentencing that he forgave her. Charles-Findley told ABC that she’s “not there yet.” because, she said, “I don’t believe her story. I don’t believe she has been honest with the events that took place that night.”
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[Featured image: Amber Guyger/Texas Department of Corrections and Botham Jean/Facebook]
