HOUSTON (AP) - In a rare public statement, the mother of the black man dragged to death outside Jasper by three white men in 1998 says she dreads next week's premiere of a documentary about the crime and its aftermath in the East Texas city.

"My son has been dead for four years," Stella Mae Byrd, mother of James Byrd Jr., wrote in a letter published this week in The Jasper Newsboy. "What people said back then is their business and as for the family, we do not want to hear it!"

The film, "Two Towns of Jasper," is scheduled to air on PBS stations across the country Wednesday night as part of the program "P.O.V."

Filmmakers Whitney Dow and Marco Williams told the story of the crime and the three trials that followed using segregated film crews, following a cross-section of Jasperites along the way.

"The idea of filming it with a white crew filming the white community and a black crew filming the black community just seemed like a logical idea," Dow says in an interview with "P.O.V." that precedes the film. Dow is white and Williams is black.

Stella Byrd, who has rarely spoken publicly about her son's killing, said in the letter Williams misled the Byrd family about the intent of the film.

"(Williams) did not do any of the things he told us he was going to do," Stella Byrd said. "We are sorry we ever came in contact with him."

Williams, in Durham, N.C., on Friday screening the film at universities in the area, attributed Stella Byrd's remarks to emotion.

"I think Mrs. Byrd is still grieving, still in the process of healing and I think that anything that relates to the murder of her son in many ways reinjures herself," Williams said by telephone.

Williams said he spoke with Stella Byrd on Thursday and "had a good conversation, as we usually do." He said the only things he told the Byrd family were that he was making a film with Dow and that he would keep them posted and send them advance copies, which he did.

The film, coupled with a "Nightline" town hall meeting scheduled to air live on PBS from Jasper on Thursday night, will bring more unneeded attention and interrupt the city's healing process, Stella Byrd wrote.

"Ted Koppel and company will all be gone back home and we will be back home and we will be the ones left here to suffer and deal yet again with tough racial issues," Stella Byrd wrote. "All they want is show and money."

She added that she and her daughters turned down a request from Koppel to appear on the show, just as they turned down an invitation from talk-show host Oprah Winfrey for a show on the film set to air Monday.

"It's the reaction of someone who is a little overwhelmed," Williams said.

In the same issue of the Jan. 15 Newsboy, one of the victim's sisters, Betty Byrd Boatner, wrote that Jasper's blacks and whites came together after the murder, which was symbolized by the removal of a fence segregating white and black graves at the city's main cemetery.

"I watched people of all different races come together, joining hands and standing together," Boatner wrote. "I began to thank God for man could not do this alone."

Neither Boatner nor Stella Byrd has seen the film.

James Byrd was intoxicated and trying to walk home the night of June 7, 1998, when a truck carrying three white men picked him up. Later, Byrd was chained to the back of the truck and dragged for 2 1/2 miles to his death.

All three white ex-convicts accused in James Byrd's death were found guilty of capital murder. Racist prison gang members John William King and Lawrence Russell Brewer are on death row, while friend Shawn Allen Berry -- who wasn't affiliated with a gang -- is serving life.

The film focuses on the city and its residents as they endured the three trials, frequently recording discussions at a black beauty salon and a daily breakfast among local white men at a nearby hotel.

At one point, the film shows the breakfast club discussing their feelings about use of a common racial slur. Later, it shows the divide in Jasper over the fate of Berry, seen by some whites as less culpable and by some blacks as someone who failed to stop the attack.

Houston PBS affiliate KUHT will follow the film with a 30-minute interview with Stella Byrd taped last September. In that program, which is being made available to public broadcasting stations nationwide, the mother of eight said she had mixed feelings about the media swarm that invaded Jasper after her son's death.

"They really didn't seem to care what we were going through," she said, noting she received phone calls from journalists at all hours.

But, Stella Byrd said the media "circus" served a purpose.

"The world really did need to know about this hatred and prejudice," she said.

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On the Net:

Film site: twotownsofjasper.com

P.O.V.: www.pbs.org/pov/pressroom