Amber Guyger, the former Dallas police officer convicted of murdering her neighbor Botham Jean inside his own apartment, has been granted parole after serving seven years of her 10-year sentence, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles confirmed Thursday.

Guyger, now 38, fatally shot Jean, a 26-year-old accountant, on September 6, 2018, after she walked into his apartment believing it was her own unit one floor below. She told investigators she thought he was a burglar lurking in the dark and fired twice, striking him once in the chest. She was fired from the Dallas Police Department and convicted of murder in 2019, after her legal team's attempt to invoke Texas's self-defense "castle doctrine" argument failed.

She faced a sentencing range of five years to life and received 10 — a punishment Jean's family argued at the time was far too lenient for a murder conviction. The board rejected Guyger's first parole bid in 2024, when she had served five years. This time, according to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth and Dallas-Fort Worth's NPR station, KERA, the panel pointed to her lack of any documented pattern of violent arrests or convictions, her satisfactory institutional conduct behind bars, and her completion of prison treatment and job-training programs.

A family's renewed grief

The timing has reopened a wound for Jean's relatives: the parole was approved just two days after what would have been his 35th birthday. Lee Merritt, the attorney representing the Jean family, said the decision diminishes an already light sentence, according to Atlanta Black Star.

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.

Jean's mother, Allison Jean, has separately argued that Guyger should have served her full term, calling the original sentence well below what a murder conviction typically carries. The Dallas Police Department acknowledged Thursday's news brings renewed attention and emotion to the case, while the Dallas County District Attorney's office declined to comment. Guyger's attorney, Robert Rodgers, said his client remains remorseful and already has housing and a job lined up for her release, though he declined to share further details.

The parole board has not set a release date. Jean's family is separately pursuing a civil lawsuit against the city of Dallas seeking nearly $100 million in damages, filed earlier this year.

Guyger's case became a flashpoint in the national debate over police accountability, intensified after the judge in her 2019 trial was criticized for embracing Guyger and handing her a Bible in the courtroom — a moment that drew its own backlash. Her eventual release is likely to reignite that debate, with advocates arguing the punishment never matched the crime.