General News | October 1, 2026
Amber Guyger Granted Parole 7 Years After Conviction for Murder of PwC Accountant Botham Jean
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles confirmed Guyger, a former Dallas police officer, was granted parole on Thursday. She was previously denied release in 2024.
DALLAS — Amber Guyger, the former Dallas police officer sentenced to a decade in prison for the 2018 murder of PwC accountant Botham Jean, was granted parole Thursday.
Guyger, 38, has served seven years in the Patrick L. O’Daniel unit in Gatesville, a prison about 37 miles west of Waco. It was not immediately clear when she would be released.
Guyger was previously denied parole in 2024. A spokesperson for the board said her request was granted this week after a review found Guyger’s record showed no documented pattern of violence, that she maintained a “satisfactory institutional adjustment” and that she completed a treatment plan that “should enhance” her chances of obtaining—and keeping—a full-time job.
Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney who represented Jean’s family when the case went to trial, wrote in a statement that he was “deeply disappointed” by the decision.
“Botham’s family and the community strongly opposed this parole,” Merritt said. “They stood up again and again to ask that the full sentence be served. … Releasing Ms. Guyger after seven years makes that loss feel even smaller in the eyes of the system. It is not smaller.”
On the night of Sept. 6, 2018, Guyger mistook Jean’s apartment for her own; Guyger lived on the third floor of the South Side Flats building not far from downtown, while Jean lived on the fourth. At her 2019 trial, Guyger testified she fired her gun twice, believing Jean was a burglar.
Guyger, who was a Dallas police officer at the time of the shooting, was off duty but still in uniform. It was her service weapon that killed 27-year-old Jean.
Jean was Black. Guyger is white.
“The Dallas Police Department understands this decision may bring renewed attention and emotion surrounding the tragic death of Botham Jean,” police officials said in an emailed statement, adding they had no role or authority in the decision to grant Guyger parole. “Our thoughts remain with the Jean family and all those impacted by his loss.”
