Amber Guyger is about to walk free. The former Dallas police officer was granted parole on Thursday after serving seven years of a 10 year sentence for the murder of Botham Jean.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles approved her release over the objections of Jean’s family. Their attorney Lee Merritt said the family “strongly opposed” it. The board’s reasoning: Guyger had no documented pattern of violence behind bars, adjusted well in prison, and finished the programs in her treatment plan. No release date has been announced. She has been held at a state prison in Gatesville.
This was her second try. She first became eligible in September 2024 and the board said no. Back then, more than 6,000 people, including Jean’s family and the Dallas County district attorney, signed a petition opposing her release.
The case never left the culture. On Sept 6, 2018, Guyger, 30 and still in her Dallas police uniform after a long shift, walked into the wrong apartment, one floor above her own, and shot Botham Jean dead as he sat eating ice cream in his own living room. She was arrested three days later, fired weeks after that, and in October 2019 a jury convicted her of murder. Prosecutors asked for 28 years. She got 10. The sentencing gave us one of the most replayed courtroom moments of the decade, when Jean’s younger brother Brandt told her he forgave her and asked to hug her.
