One of the most scrutinized police-shooting cases in recent American history has entered a new chapter. Amber Guyger walked out of the Christina Melton Crain Unit in Gatesville, Texas on Friday, October 16, on parole, after serving seven years of the 10-year murder sentence she received for killing Botham Jean, CBS News and NBC News reported.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles approved her release on October 1, citing satisfactory institutional adjustment, participation in re-entry and employment programs, and no documented pattern of violent or assaultive arrests or convictions. She had previously been denied parole in 2024.
The terms are strict: supervision until her sentence expires in September 2029, regular check-ins, home visits and employment requirements, a ban on living in Dallas County, no contact with Jean's family or Dallas police officers, and no leaving Texas without approval.
Jean, a 26-year-old accountant from St. Lucia, was eating ice cream in his own apartment on September 6, 2018 when Guyger — who lived one floor below, said she mistook his unit for hers and believed him to be an intruder — shot him. A Dallas jury convicted her of murder in October 2019. A separate federal civil jury in 2024 ordered her to pay Jean's family about $98.6 million.
Jean's family opposed the release, and a petition asking that Guyger serve her full sentence drew more than 6,000 signatures. Her lawyer Robert Rogers said she 'has been remorseful, she's stayed remorseful, she's still remorseful.' The street where the shooting happened was renamed Botham Jean Boulevard in 2021.
