Left: Amber Guyger (Texas Department of Public Safety). Botham Jean (Harding University).
Amber Guyger, 38, the former Texas police officer who killed 26-year-old Botham Jean in his own apartment while off duty, was granted parole on Thursday by the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole.
In October 2019, the erstwhile member of the Dallas Police Department was convicted of murder for the accountant”s shooting death and subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In late 2024, Guyger first applied for — and was denied — parole. At the time, the board wrote that her next review date was slated for October 2026, after denying her a “favorable parole action.”
Now, it appears Guyger has secured some form of early release.
The board granted on Thursday what it denied her almost exactly two years ago. The board said parole was approved in the case because Guyger lacks “a documented pattern of violent or assaultive arrests/convictions.”
The board also said the defendant “maintained a satisfactory institutional adjustment” and notes she completed “programs and activities in the individual treatment plan that should enhance chances to obtain and maintain full-time stable employment.”
That’s a sea change from the prior review.
“The record indicates the instant offense has elements of brutality, violence, assaultive behavior, or conscious selection of victim’s vulnerability indicating a conscious disregard for the lives, safety, or property of others, such that the offender poses a continuing threat to public safety,” the board previously wrote.
Through their attorney, Jean’s family members said they were “deeply disappointed” by the decision, according to CBS News.
“Botham’s family and the community strongly opposed this parole,” Lee Merritt said. “They stood up again and again to ask that the full sentence be served. A 10-year sentence was already a fraction of what was lost. Releasing Ms. Guyger after seven years makes that loss feel even smaller in the eyes of the system. It is not.”
The announcement comes seven years to the day after Guyger’s conviction by a Dallas County jury for killing Jean in his own home.
At trial, Guyger testified in her own defense. She said she drove to the wrong floor of her apartment complex while distracted by a phone call following a lengthy overtime work shift, then entered Jean’s apartment thinking it was her own and opened fire.
“I hate that I have to live with this every single day of my life,” Guyger testified. “I ask God for forgiveness, and I hate myself every single day. I feel like I don’t deserve the chance to be with my family and friends.”
The defendant added that she felt “like a piece of crap” and wished that Jean was the one with the gun who had killed her instead.
“I never wanted to take an innocent person’s life,” Guyger told the jurors and the sympathetic judge overseeing her case.
While Guyger was granted parole, her release date is uncertain. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, Guyger is not currently scheduled for release and her next parole review was not scheduled until Oct. 20, 2026.
