Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger has been granted parole after serving seven years of a 10-year sentence for murdering Botham Jean. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles approved her release on October 1, seven years to the day after a Dallas jury convicted her.

On September 6, 2018, Guyger, coming off a long shift, entered the fourth-floor apartment directly above her own, believing it was hers, and shot Jean, 26, as he sat eating ice cream. A jury rejected her claim of a reasonable mistake and convicted her of murder in October 2019. Her appeals failed, and a 2024 civil trial ordered her to pay Jean’s family nearly $100 million.

The board cited her satisfactory institutional adjustment and completion of a treatment plan. Her first parole request was denied in 2024. Jean’s family opposed parole. Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt said the family was deeply disappointed, adding that Botham did not get to come home. No release date has been set; Guyger remains in the Patrick L. O’Daniel Unit in Gatesville, Texas.