EP. 55 MISSISSIPPI - The Emmett Till Story
01:10:58 Share

He's the most terrifying serial killer you've never heard of. Haddon Clark has confessed to several murders, but investigators say he could have over 100 victims. At the center of the mayhem, a cellmate of Haddon's that was able to get key evidence into Haddon's murder spree across America,

because hadn't thought he was Jesus Christ. Born Evil, the Serial Killer and the Savior, an ID true crime event. Premieres Monday, September 2nd at 9. Watch on ID or stream on Max. Set your DVR. Warning, the following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape,

murder, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned. Imagine the sun is creeping up in the east. The early light signaled the start of a new day more than 66 years ago on August 28th, 1955. It was quiet in the town of Money, Mississippi that summer morning.

But along the Tallahatchie River, a young African-American boy stood in fear, not knowing if he would live to see another day. He had every right to be scared. At this point, the two white men had beaten him relentlessly after kidnapping him at gunpoint from his uncle's home. And soon enough, the silence that filled the Mississippi air would be interrupted by a piercing gunshot.

No one knows if the teenage boy saw the bullet coming as he stood near the water's edge. But after the two white men killed him, they attached a heavy fan to his body with barbed wire and they sent him down the Tallahatchie River.

The innocent boy had traveled to Mississippi from Chicago to visit relatives. But when he left his mom's house a little more than a week earlier, he never knew that this would be the last time he would see her. By 8:00 a.m. that summer morning on August 28th, Emmett Lewis Till, whose friends and family referred to him as Bobo, lost his life at the hands of evil.

But the nation would never forget his face. And I don't mean the smiling face in the well-known photo taken that previous Christmas. They will remember the face that was unrecognizable after being beaten, tortured, and shot. They will remember the face that would spark a movement in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement. February is Black History Month.

So we are going to tell you the story of Emmett Till. I'm Courtney Shannon, and you're listening to Murder in America. The names of the two men who killed Bobo were Roy Brandt and J.W. Millam. They were white, they were half-brothers, and they were murderers. And the two believed a 14-year-old boy had to pay for an innocent mistake.

However, no jury ever convicted these two men. Officers charged the two of them, but the all-white jury said the evidence was not sufficient. No black man or woman was allowed to be on the jury because at that time, African Americans didn't have that right. The Mississippi state government still considered blacks to be second-class citizens, and instead of spending their lives behind bars, these two murderers led a free life up until their deaths, a luxury that Emmett Till never got to have in

After the jury set these two killers free, the men got paid to do an interview with the publication The Look. During the interview, the two men admitted to the murder. But because of double jeopardy here in America, the courts couldn't charge them again. In the eyes of the law, they were innocent no matter what they admitted to after their trials.

Early that morning, no one really knew what was running through Bobo's mind. No one would ever know. According to the courts and the FBI, his murder is still unsolved to this day, even though everyone knows exactly who killed him. And it remains one of the most horrific crimes ever committed against a human, let alone a vulnerable child.

Bobo's funeral was held on September 3rd, 1955. It was reported that Bobo's mom had to pay over $3,000 to have the body delivered to her in Chicago. Bobo's sweet body was unrecognizable, his head was a mess, and it looked like a meat grinder had just been run across his face several times. His eyes were swollen shut, his cheeks were puffy, and his eyeball had dropped down to his chest.

The line toward his coffin kept moving. Bobo's mom, Mrs. Mamie Till Mobley, had demanded her son's coffin remain open.

She wanted everyone to see what happened to her beautiful angel. Even if they saw his face, they would not even begin to understand the pain that these two men had caused. When people looked at the grotesque corpse, they were shocked to realize that the picture of the handsome boy on the easel next to the coffin was a picture of the same child. And many felt physical pain when they saw Bobo's face. At the time of our story, Bobo was only 14 years old.

He was innocent. And the reason he was killed that day was because he whistled at a white woman. Many men have whistled at women. But how many of those men have ended up in a coffin because of that whistle? Not very many. And because of that whistle, at least two white men stole Emmett Till's life. Some say that others have been involved, but nothing has been proven.

These two men were filled with anger towards the teenage boy. So they kidnapped him, beat him, and killed him. And they got away with it. Follow us as we take you through the story of Bobo and his short life.

To get a better understanding of the murder, it's important that we get a feel of the environment in America at the time. Racism still ran rampant in the South in 1955. And while racism still exists today, in 1955 it was extremely obvious, blatant, and accepted. In fact, some white Southerners felt like they needed to be racist just to impress their peers.

Back then, Jim Crow law still provided the legal framework for Southern blacks. Stephen Suits, who is the vice president with the Southern Education Foundation and an author and well-known historian, said, Jim Crow separated folks on streetcars. They separated folks in bathrooms. Black folks would not be allowed to use a spigot,

where water was flowing just to get a drink, even if it was used by white folks in any way. They just simply wanted to separate black people from all of white folks and then assure that in Jim Crow laws that they were unable to influence society so that they could change any of this.

Mr. Suits described exactly what people found if they traveled to 1955 Mississippi. Everything was segregated. Even the way people spoke showed the separation. Black individuals had to use Mr., Mrs., and Miss, while white people did not need to say anything.

When a black person purchased something and a white cashier was present, they had to place the money on the counter. Then the white cashier would return the change in the same manner. Now, a white person exchanging money with another white person didn't have to take any extra measures. This is just a small glimpse into the Jim Crow era laws.

Jim Crow laws extended into a person's personal life, too. Interracial marriages were forbidden. Black and white friendships were frowned upon. And then there were the schools.

The schools in America were a system of separate but equal, meaning that black children went to one school and white children went to another. But the separate schools were far from equal. By default, due to the white population having more money and privilege, the white schools were a lot better than the black schools.

But on May 17th, 1954, the nine justices ruled that the standard separate but equal policy was unlawful.

And the majority of the white Mississippians did not like this ruling. In fact, Frederick Sullen, a reporter with the Jackson Daily News, wrote, human blood may stain southern soil in many places because of this decision. But the dark red stains of the blood will be on the marble steps of the United States Supreme Court building. White and Negro children in the same schools will lead to miscegenation.

And Sullen was not alone. Many people's racism showed from the comments that they made. Mississippi Senator James Eastland, who was in office for nearly 35 years, also had his two cents to add when the decision came out.

He said the ruling, quote, End quote.

Senator Eastland also served as President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate from July 28, 1972 to December 27, 1978, 24 years after the ruling came out. The Supreme Court's ruling had tensions running high, and legislators were not following the court's instructions. Instead, they were looking for ways to try and go around the court's ruling in good old Mississippi.

Hundreds of citizen councils formed across the state and by August of 1955 there were 253 councils with over 50,000 members.

Then, on October 12th, 1954, the Maine Council in Mississippi was formed, and it was called the American Associations of Citizens Council. First headquartered in Winona, Mississippi, and later moved to Greenwood. And it was here where the council members did what they could to keep their Jem Crow laws in place.

Okay, everybody, I have to stop the show for a second to tell you about an amazing service that Courtney and I both love called Current.

Current is the future of banking. Current's app and connected debit card help you get ahead by giving you faster access to paychecks, fewer fees, and more flexibility. Benefits of Current include earning points on every swipe, points that are redeemable for cash bonuses, no ATM fees on over 40,000 in-network all-point ATMs in the U.S. There are easy ways to create savings goals with Current, including the ability to round up all of your purchases and helpful spending insights and budgeting tools to keep better track of your spending.

One thing that Courtney and I really like about Current is the fact that there aren't overdraft fees because I know that with my current bank, I've had overdraft fees and they just kind of stack on top of each other. But with Current Banking is honestly so easy and I love the company. They really care about their customers.

We've partnered with Current to give away more money. That's right. Current is going to give away $250 to four podcast listeners in the month of February. All you have to do, guys, is download the Current app at MIA2 or enter our code MIA2 during sign-up for a chance to win.

There are so many reasons for you to start banking with Current. And honestly, if you're listening to this message, go download Current because that $250 giveaway, if you use our code MIA2, is a really good deal. And we hope to help a lot of y'all out through the Current company helping us out. So anyways, let's get back to today's episode. ♪

Now, it would of course in Southern culture be somewhat impolite to outwardly say what these people wanted to say, but their behavior spoke louder than words. These counsels did what they could to keep the Jim Crow structure in place. About eight years after the trial, a well-known academic did his own research into the case. Mr. Hugh Stephen Whitaker went to the Delta, Mississippi area to work on his thesis, which was focused on the Emmett Till case.

According to Mr. Whitaker's notes, he had interviewed all of the jurists who served on the case. And once again, just to point this out, every member of the jury was white. Each one had said a council member had visited them to make sure they had voted in the proper manner that day.

And that wasn't all. Three months earlier, another black person was shot and killed, except this individual was an adult black male: Mr. Willie George Washington Lee, a black minister who lived in Bilzoni, Mississippi. Mr. Willie was the first black person to vote in Humphreys County, and someone shot him dead on May 7th, 1955. No one was ever arrested for the crime.

Actually, the sheriff of Humphreys County, L.J. Shelton, had other theories about Mr. Lee's injuries. He suggested that metal fragments in his jaw were from fillings in his teeth. Meanwhile, the coroner's office stated that a number three buckshot is what killed Mr. Lee.

The majority of Mississippians wanted their informal laws and communities to remain the same. They didn't like that black children were coming in white schools and that black adults were now getting the opportunity to vote.

These events created a strained atmosphere in Mississippi where many people were on edge. Any mistake, error, or wrongdoing could be taken the wrong way, even an innocent mistake. When Bobo stepped into the Bryant Grocery and Meat Market on August 24th, 1955, he never realized that his naive actions would cost him his life. But before going into the incident that instigated the crime and the murder, it is important to tell you guys a little about Bobo and his family.

Although Bobo lived in Chicago, his mother Mamie Carthen was born in Webb, Mississippi. When Mamie recalled her hometown, she said that it wasn't really much of a town at all. The 2000 consensus showed Webb only had a population of around 587 residents.

which is about the same population that existed in the 1920s. The peak population for the city was in 1980 when about 780 people lived in the town, but since then it's steadily decreased.

There wasn't much in the town to keep toddler Mamie and her family in Mississippi back then, and in 1924, the family moved to Argo, Illinois, which was located about 12 miles outside of Chicago. The town was still small, but it was larger than Webb, with less than 3,000 people. Mamie's dad, Mr. Wiley Nash Carthan, had scored a job at the corn products refining company

a main employer in Argo. While Argo, Illinois was 638 miles away from Webb, Mississippi, the city still felt like home, almost like they never left.

The Carthan family was not the only family to migrate from Mississippi. So many other folks did too, including the Carthans family and friends. Mamie would tell you that Aunt Marie, Uncle Kid, and his cousin Junebug lived west of them. Uncle Crosby and his family lived to the east. Aunt Babe and her husband, Uncle Emmett, lived behind Mamie. And Great Uncle Lee Green lived right across the street. Life was better here than it was in racist Mississippi.

But the family still never forgot where they came from. The new generation of Northerners began to call their new home in Argo, Illinois, Little Mississippi. Others called Argo the "Alice Island of Chicago" due to people stopping in Argo on their way to the land of dreams, Chicago.

Although the family lived in Illinois, the stories from Mississippi would migrate with them too. And although racism wasn't as severe there, in Illinois they still faced their fair share of discrimination. They heard the bad and the ugly, and the racism continued.

There was the lynching of a young black man, his mutilated body hung from a tree, not far from where Mamie's aunt and uncle lived. Their names were Uncle Moses and Aunt Elizabeth Wright. Later, these two family members would play an important role in Bobo's death, and the fact that this lynching happened so close to their home was horrifying for the family, that was simply just trying to live in peace.

These lynchings were a common occurrence, and it was also common for these crimes to go unreported. Mamie and her family also discovered something while they lived up north.

Racism still flourished in Argo too, but it wasn't as dangerous here as it was in Mississippi. Like the South, Black people still could not call white people by their first name. White children still bullied Black children out of spite. Black adults still had to warn their children to not talk to strangers and definitely never talk back to a white adult.

Black children couldn't enter restaurants or businesses without being accompanied by an adult.

It was an unfortunate part of parenting for black families back in the day. You had to teach your children these lessons so that they wouldn't end up killed. And sadly, this same type of parenting is still happening today. In modern day America, many black families still have to teach their children how to survive in this world without being killed. Isn't it sad how history repeats itself?

October 14th, 1940 marked a special occasion for Mamie. She was getting married to Bobo's father, Louis Till. Mamie was only 18 years old, but she was blindly in love. People that knew Mr. Till said he was an avid gambler with a hot temper. Only a few months later, Mamie became pregnant with Bobo. The cheery, always smiling baby was born on July 25th, 1941.

Family had already nicknamed baby Emmett as Bobo before he was even born. The name stuck. Growing up, Bobo had a close relationship with his mom and his grandmother.

However, he never had a relationship with his father. Mr. Till never even stopped by the hospital to see Mamie and Bobo when he was born. After Mamie had Bobo, Mr. Till became mean and cruel towards his wife. He did not like how Mamie spent most of her time with her mother after Bobo's birth. He expected his wife to be "the perfect wife" who cleaned, cooked, and took care of him.

And Mamie often skipped out on making him dinner because she was staying with her mother. Soon enough, the cruelness turned into physical violence. During one violent event, Mamie defended herself by throwing boiling water at her husband. And she ended up having to get a restraining order against him. But like we've seen time and time again, the restraining order was only a piece of paper. And it didn't do anything to keep Mr. Till away from Mamie.

He constantly violated the order, showing up at Mimi's house unexpectedly. The judge became annoyed and exhausted of seeing the repeat offender. So he gave Mr. Till the choice of going to jail or joining the army. Mr. Till chose the army. This was during World War II.

Mr. Till left for Europe, but he never returned. Bobo never had any memories of his father, and soon enough, Mamie received a Department of Defense telegram. She learned the Army had court-martialed and executed Mr. Till in 1945. The Army had convicted him of raping two women and killing the third while he was stationed in Italy. The only thing Mamie had received of Mr. Till's belongings was a ring engraved with his initials, L.T.,

Later, this ring would be the only way Bobo's body was identified. Then another crisis hit the family. During the summer of 1946, when Bobo was just 6 years old, he became ill. Mamie said that she watched her son, who was full of energy during the day, turn extremely tired and fatigued by night. Then, his temperature started to increase every night.

The 1940s and 50s in the U.S. brought more cases of polio than Americans had ever seen, and Bobo was one of those cases. The doctor had confirmed it. Mimi remembered those days, saying, quote, End quote.

In about 2% of polio cases, the polio is so severe that it damages the muscles. And it could cause paralysis in limbs. So the doctor demanded that Bobo be quarantined.

Mamie said the most difficult part was fighting with six-year-old Bobo to stay inside the house. Like any six-year-old, he wanted to go out and play, explore the world around him. But fortunately, Bobo soon started to feel better. However, the polio left him with a stutter and weak ankles. So he had to wear special shoes to help support him when he walked.

Bobo loved living in Argo. He had a lot of friends there, and they would often spend their time running around and playing outside. However, his time here did not last very long.

Mamie and Bobo would eventually move to Detroit while she worked at the Fort Wayne Induction Center. Fort Wayne is located on the Detroit River, and the Army used the fort between 1841 and 1972. It wasn't an ideal move for Bobo, but they had to do whatever they could to make ends meet. While in Detroit, Mamie did not stay single for long. She met a man named Mr. Pink Bradley, a Chrysler autoworker in Detroit, and the two would eventually get married.

And although Mamie was happy in her new marriage, Bobo missed his friends back in Argo. He didn't know many kids his age in Detroit.

Mamie hoped her son would get over his homesickness, but it only became worse. So, she sent him to live with Uncle Kid and Aunt Marie back in Argo for a short period of time. Shortly after, Mamie's new husband lost his job and the two moved to Chicago. Eventually, Bobo moved back in with his mom and his stepdad in the Windy City, but unfortunately, Mamie's second marriage did not last long either. Mr. Bradley left Mamie for another woman, and because of this, Bobo

Bobo and Mamie had to move in with Mamie's mother. Bobo was not a small child. When standing, Bobo was 5'4". He weighed about 150 pounds. During the investigation, his great-uncle Moses Wright would say that Bobo, quote, "He looked like a man," end quote.

And Bobo was the prankster of the family. He was known for always joking around and making people laugh. His mom said, quote, I hear about more chickens crossing more roads and knock, knock this and knock, knock that. All those tired old jokes that were still new to him. Sometimes he would tell riddles that he seemed to have been making up because they didn't make sense. Or maybe you just had to be a child to understand them. End quote.

Bobo's favorite role models were comedians. He knew the routines of the top performers: Red Skeleton, Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello, and George Goebel. A white comedian, Goebel was best known for his comedy television show, The George Goebel Show. And when the show was on in the house, everyone was in the audience, not just Bobo's mom and grandmother.

Bobo forced his cousins Wheeler, William, and Milton Parker, with whom he played on the weekends, to be fans of the comedian and watch the show too. He delivered his jokes to other cousins, Crosby, Sonny Smith, Sam Lynch, and Tyrone Modiest, and his friends Donny Lee Taylor and Lindsey Hill. However, if you would talk to these youngsters, they'd tell you that Bobo was indeed funny. He always had them laughing and kept them laughing. Wheeler Parker said Bobo would pay others to tell him jokes.

Bobo just wanted jokes to add to his repertoire. Let's be honest, we can all up our fruit and veggie game. I definitely can myself. Sometimes it's just really hard to eat the fruits and veggies that I know that my body needs to be healthy, especially me being a type one diabetic. I need to eat healthy. And this year I want to change the way that I eat and I want to make it easier for myself. That's why I chose to keep my freezer stocked with Daily Harvest.

Daily Harvest is the easiest way to get more fruits and veggies into my day every day. The company has my back with delicious food that's good for me and good for the planet. Now, Daily Harvest is a food delivery service, but they deliver really, really good, healthy meals like harvest bowls, flatbreads, smoothies, and more. And all the meals are built on organic fruits and vegetables. They come right to your door and conveniently the meals stay fresh in your freezer.

Some of the best items that I've tried from Daily Harvest include the broccoli and cheese harvest bowl, which was just absolutely delicious. Courtney and I both loved it. And the tomato and zucchini minestrone soup. It was just, I mean, there's so many options on Daily Harvest. The tomatillo and pepper flatbread is a great choice as well. Now, what Courtney and I love the most about Daily Harvest is that the meals take literally minutes to prepare and they never use preservatives, added sugars or artificial anything. And that goes for everything on their menu.

Daily Harvest is an amazing company that cares for their customers and cares for the earth. So just go to dailyharvest.com slash state to get up to $40 off your first box of food. That's dailyharvest.com slash state for up to $40 off your first box. Dailyharvest.com slash state. And remember, when y'all sign up with the codes, it helps our show out and helps our sponsors out. So go check out Daily Harvest. I'm sure you guys are going to love it. And yeah, let's get back to today's story.

Mamie always remembers one event that showed Bobo's playful personality. Sometimes she would take the boys to the beach on the Lake Michigan coastline. And of course, they had to make sure they weren't causing any trouble since segregation also pertained to public beaches. On one occasion, on their way home from one of those beach trips, the boys decided to wear their swim trunks and just carry their clothes.

Poor Donnie Lee was exhausted and he fell asleep in the car with Bobo nearby. Donnie Lee woke up to find that he was no longer carrying his underwear. He was actually wearing it on top of his head. This goes to show the joyous light that Bobo brought to the people around him. One of his friends, Richard Hurd, would later say, quote,

Bobo was not the academic achiever like his mom, who was the first black student to get on the honor roll at her school.

He was a quiet student at the all-black McCosh Elementary of 1,600 students. Far from his mom's hometown of Webb, Mississippi, Bobo grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Chicago's Southside.

And it was here where black businesses flourished. Segregation may still have existed in this northern town, but black businesses had room to grow. These businesses included tailors, pharmacists, barbers, beauty salons, and even nightclubs. Mamie also said that Boba was more religious than her.

He had a very tight-knit relationship with his grandmother and every single week he rode the 63rd bus to Argo to attend the Church of God in Christ with his grandma. Bobo's uncle, Mr. Wheeler Park Sr., was also the superintendent of the Sunday School and he said that Bobo had a near perfect attendance at the church.

Bobo was also mature for his age. He took on more responsibilities in the house to help lessen the load on his mother, especially after her second marriage ended in 1953. Bobo did everything he could to help. He did housework, he washed the laundry, and he even tried to cook, although it was said that he wasn't very good at it. He was meticulous about his attire. He always wore a straw hat

and a tie, as can be seen in the photo that stood beside his casket during the funeral. The photo is a headshot of smiling Bobo as his eyes peer from underneath the brim of his straw hat. The headshot, which was taken during Christmas of 1954, is long enough to show his collared dress shirt and tie that showed from beneath the collar. Bobo looked like a happy and friendly teenager.

one that had his entire life ahead of him. That summer before Bobo's death, his great uncle Moses Wright had made the trip to Chicago from Mississippi for a funeral. Of course, when stopping in Chicago, Uncle Wright, who was also a reverend, had to see family. He stopped by to visit with Bobo and tell him all these tales about life in Mississippi.

The stories made Bobo want to see Mississippi all for himself. Prior to the 1954 trip, Bobo had been to the southern state three times. Two of those times included once when he was a baby and once when he was a toddler. So, like most people, he longed to see where he came from, where his roots were. And he always dreamed of returning one day to visit Mississippi.

But even though Mamie was hesitant to let Emmett go, when she looked at her baby, she could tell that he wasn't a little baby boy anymore. He was growing into a man. He was mature. He was taking more of the chores. He was responsible. So she felt like she could not say no to him when all he wanted was to see his family.

Before he left with his uncle, Mamie was sure to warn Bobo about Mississippi. The racism in Chicago was different than the racism in Mississippi. She told him not to talk to white people. He only was to speak to them if they started a conversation. She told him that he should never stare at a white woman and, in fact, that if he saw a white woman, he should cross to the other side of the street. After his death, Mamie realized this conversation was the first time she had ever talked to Bobo about race.

She asked, quote, "After all, how do you give a crash course in hatred to a boy who has only known love?" End quote. That Saturday, on August 20th, 1955, Mimi said goodbye to her only son at the train station. She never knew that this would be the last time she would see her baby alive. Four days later was the event that started the downward spiral towards Bobo's death.

In the evening, on August 24th, 1955, Bobo had gone with some of his cousins to the Bryant Grocery and Meat Market in Money, Mississippi.

It was 7:30 p.m. They had arrived at the grocery store in a '46 Ford. When the vehicle came to a stop, all of the cousins stepped out of the car. It was said that there was about eight of them: seven boys and one girl. Their ages ranged from 13 to 19. Four of the kids in the group also came from Chicago and traveled with Bobo to Mississippi.

Bobo was excited to be with his family members whom he had not seen in years and inside of the store Bobo did what a lot of teenagers do. He joked and he bragged. No one can really recall what the exact words of the conversation were like and no one really knows what happened inside of the Bryant grocery and meat market but we imagine it went something like this.

"Hey guys, I have myself a girl." "What girl, Bo? I see you every week." "See, here she is." Bobo had a picture of a white girl he had fished out of his wallet. That picture probably came with the wallet.

However, Bobo was stubborn. No one really knows if he did have a girlfriend. Most believe he didn't. Mamie maintained Bobo had only ever gone out on one date. Whether he did or didn't, Bobo wanted his buddies to believe him. But his friends didn't believe that he had any game. But Bobo kept insisting that the girl in the photograph was his.

And that's when one of his friends dared him to ask the white woman who was handling the cash behind the register on a date. Bobo may have forgotten his mother's warnings at that exact time because he decided to take the friend's dare and he entered the store.

"How about a date, baby?" Bobo said to the woman behind the counter. But the woman jerked away and started to walk towards the back of the store. Bobo then allegedly said, "You needn't be afraid of me. I've been with white girls before." It was at this moment when one of Bobo's cousins ran into the store and pulled him outside.

The group knew that he was going to get in trouble if this continued, and they all prayed that this incident wouldn't cause any problems. Meanwhile, the white woman, whose name was Ms. Carolyn Bryant, stopped walking towards the back of the store and started walking towards her sister-in-law's car. She knew her sister, Juanita Milam, kept a pistol in the car.

But as the group bought Bobo to their car, he let out a whistle towards Ms. Carolyn Bryan. Many people around heard this whistle, but Bobo didn't realize just how much trouble he caused by whistling at a white woman. He had broken one of Mississippi's unspoken rules: Black men were never supposed to publicly flirt with white women.

Bobo had also disobeyed this rule at one of the worst times in Mississippi's history, when white parents were doing everything they could to prevent their white children from intermingling with black children, especially in schools. And the people of this Mississippi town were disgusted that Bobo had the tenacity to wolf whistle at an older white woman.

Carolyn Bryant, the white woman in the store, was fearful when Bobo first approached her. Her sister-in-law Juanita Milam, who was married to J.W., had been in one of the back rooms and Carolyn had initially walked to get Juanita's help. However, when Bobo continued to flirt with her, she thought the pistol would do the trick. But Bobo and his friends had already driven out of the parking lot before she had gotten to the weapon. After Bobo left, Carolyn walked to the back of the store to let Juanita know what had happened.

The two of them agreed not to let their husbands know. They knew that both men were very hot-headed. However, enough people had seen the incident and stories seemed to get around pretty quickly in small towns. Now that you have some information about Bobo's background and the incident that occurred in the store, it's important to get some information about the background of the murderers.

Carolyn Bryant had grown up in Mississippi and racism was an inherent part of her life. Her parents, Mr. Tom Holloway and Mrs. Marilyn Galsworthy, instilled racism into Mrs. Bryant since the day she was born on July 23, 1934.

This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. I know we talk about BetterHelp a lot on this show, but we love doing it because we want to get into the logistics and the stigmas around mental health. A lot of people think that you should wait until things are absolutely unbearable, horrible in your life to go to therapy.

But honestly, that just isn't true. I actually go to therapy myself and I use BetterHelp and it's really such a helpful thing and there's nothing wrong in my life, but there's a lot on my plate and a lot in my head all the time that therapy really helps with. And a lot of people think that therapy is only for so-called crazy people.

But therapy doesn't mean that something is wrong with you. It means that you recognize that all humans have emotions and we need to learn how to control them, not avoid them. I love my emotions, but BetterHelp is a service that helps me get more control of them. Honestly, we, Courtney and I, have both used BetterHelp and it is such a great, great service. They have amazing providers on there and

Honestly, I prefer BetterHelp to in-person therapy because it's just so much easier and there's no pressure. BetterHelp is customized online therapy that offers video, phone, and even live chat sessions with your therapist so you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to. It's much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can be matched with a therapist in under 48 hours. So give it a try and see why over 2 million people have used BetterHelp online therapy.

Once again, this podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp, and Murder in America listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash MIA. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P dot com slash MIA. Go check it out, guys. BetterHelp. Now let's get back to today's story.

Carolyn's father was a plantation manager on the Archer Plantation. Plantation owners respected Mr. Holloway and often competed for his services. So the family had to move around a lot. Usually though, when they moved, they didn't have to move very far. Carolyn remembers living on three different plantations during her childhood.

But she said her heart belonged in Kruger, Mississippi. Her maternal grandparents and her Aunt Mabel, her mother's oldest sister, lived in Kruger and she loved it there. To make extra money, her father, Tom, also worked as a prison guard in Lambert, one of the outlying camps of the Mississippi State Prison.

The prison was also known as the Parchman Farm, and it was only 30 miles away from where J.W. and Roy murdered Bobo later in our story. It's also not surprising that all of the prisoners at this farm were black men.

Tom worked at Camp A, the first camp people encountered on the way into the prison. He was a rider, and all riders were white. Each rider who oversaw the prisoners from horseback had a whip, a shotgun, and a rifle on them at all times. If the inmates caused any trouble, any kind of trouble, the riders disciplined the inmates in any way they saw fit, with total impunity.

However, Carolyn has remained steadfast in her naive belief that her father was a kind and good man who could never raise his hand to a black man. Her father told her that he would refuse to participate in whipping and that the rest of the farm officials would take over. And Carolyn believed him, and to this day, she still believes her father never whipped or disciplined any of the black inmates when he worked at the farm. But according to Timothy Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till, quote,

On the other hand, it stretches the imagination to think that the sensibilities of a man chosen as first driver on Parchman Farm were so delicate that they prevented him from joining in the brutal rigors of his job." In other words, it's likely that Tom did participate in disciplining the inmates. Carolyn was Bobo's age, 14, when she met Roy Bryant,

who was 17 at the time. And there was an instant attraction between the two, but they couldn't do anything about it. You see, Roy had asked Carolyn out, but Carolyn's sister forbade her to date him. She felt like Carolyn was too young for the mature 17-year-old Roy. But the stars were aligned for these two, and they would end up coming into contact again a while later.

One day when Carolyn was walking home, Roy pulled up beside her, driving his 1949 Chevrolet, and he asked Carolyn if she wanted a ride. This time, her sister was not there to stop them. Carolyn said she didn't hesitate before accepting his offer. And about a year later, the two eloped during a spring day in 1951. Neither Carolyn nor Roy ever graduated from high school.

Roy came from poverty. His mother, Miss Eula Lee Morgan, the matriarch of the family, had 11 children, 8 boys and 3 girls, and Eula had been married two different times.

Eula's first husband was Mr. William Leslie Millam Sr. She had five children with him, all boys. Their names were, from oldest to youngest, Edward, Spencer Lamar, John William or J.W., Dan, and Leslie Jr. J.W. was Roy Bryant's older half-brother and the accomplice in the murder of Emmett Till.

Some say he was actually the one who called the shots in Bobo's death, but we'll get to that in a little bit. JW's father, William Sr., however, died in a construction accident and Eula got married again.

This time, she married William Sr.'s cousin, Mr. Henry Ezra, otherwise known as "Big Boy" Bryant. In that marriage, Eula had six more children. She gave birth to Mary Louise, Roy, and his twin brother Raymond. Aileen, James, and Doris, the youngest, was born with severe mental disabilities.

The Mill and Bryant clan were a very tight group, and this was especially the case for J.W. and Roy. Even though they may have had two very different fathers, they regarded each other as full-on blood siblings, and they always worked together and helped one another. Several of the brothers owned stores, and they would have their siblings work for them. Roy, to earn extra money, would drive his brother J.W.'s truck.

In fact, during the incident when Bobo flirted with Carolyn inside of the store, Roy was in Texas driving his brother's truck to make a shrimp delivery, so he was not even in the store when Bobo whistled at his wife.

If Bobo had seen Roy and J.W. before he took the dare, he may have backed away from the risky challenge. Most people didn't like to cause trouble for the two brothers, and people were especially fearful of J.W., who is known as Big Millum. He was 36 years old, 6'2 and 235 pounds.

He was also balding, which made him look more intimidating. And the fact that he was also a slavery and plantation overseer made him even more monstrous. One article said of JW, "Those who know him say that he can handle Negroes better than anybody in the country." JW was also a World War II veteran, leaving for war after his freshman year

J.W. was commissioned in battle by the 75th Division. During the war, J.W. proved that he was an expert platoon, street fighter, and night patrolman. He also knew how to handle a grease gun and any device that could be used for close-range killing. With this long resume, it's no wonder why people were afraid of him. J.W. had even won a combat infantryman's badge after getting injured in war.

Roy also had combat experience too, but the 190-pound, 6-foot-tall veteran was not as intimidating as his half-brother. Roy had served in the U.S. Army with the 82nd Airborne Division as a paratrooper. He served from June 1950 until his discharge in 1955. And these two men were known to be aggressive. Two days after the whistling incident, Roy returned from his Texas trip at 4 a.m. on Friday, August 26, 1955.

Once home, he drove to JW's house where Carolyn had been spending the night with their two boys. Roy was tired from his drive and immediately got into bed not knowing what had happened with Bobo and his wife. And later, Carolyn let him sleep while she left to work a shift at the store. Later that Friday afternoon, Roy drove to the store like he always did. Both Juanita and Carolyn had kept their promise and had not said a word to Roy about the whistling incident. But it was another person who spilled the beans.

A black customer had come into the store with a smirk on his face, like he knew something that Roy didn't know. And it didn't take much for Roy to persuade the black man to tell him what had happened. The customer told Roy about the Chicago boy who whistled at Carolyn. And he even went as far as to tell Roy that the Chicago boy was staying with the preacher, a name that the town had given Reverend Wright.

When Roy heard this, his blood was boiling. He couldn't believe that a black teenager would do that to his wife. And he felt like he needed to respond so that he wouldn't be the laughingstock of the town. In his mind, if he didn't put Bobo in his place, the people would view him as a coward. And there was no way a black teenager was going to make him feel like a coward.

But Roy knew he couldn't do this alone.

He needed his brother, J.W. Milam, to help teach Bobo a lesson. Now here is where the story differs. In court, Roy and J.W. said that they never did anything to the 14-year-old except threaten him. However, after the jury acquitted the two men, a few months later, they sat down to do an interview with the newspaper. And they knew they could say whatever at this point. They were safe from being tried again.

Federal law protected them from double jeopardy. So when they sat down for this interview, they gave every detail of that gruesome night. The following is an account of the article The Look published during their interview. While the events may portray the events of that night with more accurate information, Roy and JW may still have distorted some of the details.

According to the article, Roy knew that he couldn't do anything that Friday night. He was busy. But the next night at 10.30 p.m. on Saturday, August 27, 1955, when J.W. drove by the store, Roy took him aside and told him of Bobo and the whistling.

Roy told JW, "I want you to come over early the next morning." And JW immediately agreed. That same evening, JW was working with his older brother at Minter City. He worked until closing at 12:30 a.m. and afterwards he went home, but Roy's news kept him awake.

Rather than staying in bed, Big Millum got up, drove to the gas station to fill up his tank, and then made his way to Money, Mississippi to wake up his brother Roy. Roy and Carolyn lived in the two back rooms of the station, and Big Millum was ready to find the Chicago boy.

It might have been early, but he was going to get his brother ready to find the Chicago boy too. When J.W. woke Roy up, he didn't hesitate to follow his brother's lead. He got out of bed and was dressed within a few minutes. According to the newspaper article, both of them were completely sober. However, Reverend Wright, who had gotten a whiff of their breaths when they stopped at his house to kidnap Bobo, said he could smell alcohol on their breath.

Both of them also had .45 caliber Colt handguns. But according to the brothers, the only reason they brought the weapons that night was because they just wanted to scare Bobo, not to kill him. Early Sunday morning, they knocked on the Reverend's door. Being well known in the community, it was not difficult for Roy and JW to find his house.

The Reverend, 63, said that he was not surprised by their visit. However, he said he didn't realize how much trouble Bobo was actually in. When Bobo and his grandchildren had told him of the incident earlier that week, the Reverend didn't think it was a big deal, more like a trifling affair. Bobo had told the Reverend that he wanted to leave town afterwards.

But the Reverend's wife, Miss Elizabeth Wright, didn't think that the whistling was that big of a deal either. But when the two brothers showed up at their house that morning, the Reverend knew that Bobo was in trouble, and he tried to stall the brothers at the door when they arrived on his doorstep that morning. He was hoping that Bobo would hear them and that he would make an escape out back.

The Reverend, who also worked as a sharecropper, thought about getting his shotgun for a brief moment, but he decided against it. Who knows what would have happened if the Reverend did grab that shotgun. He may have saved Bobo, but he could have ruined his life, his wife's life, and the lives of the other people who were in the home at the time. The Reverend knew that killing two white brothers would cause a whole lot more trouble than he was wanting to get into.

There were eight others in the home that night. The reverend's three sons, Simon, Robert, and Maurice, were all sleeping when the brothers arrived that morning. The three other boys visiting from Chicago were sleeping too. Those boys included his nephew, Bobo, and his two grandchildren, Curtis Jones and Wheeler Parker Jr.,

Mrs. Wright was thinking along the same lines as her husband. She scurried over to wake up Bobo. Meanwhile, the two men at the door wanted to come inside. Milam had a flashlight in his left hand and a gun in his right hand. The gun probably would not have done the Reverend any good, as Milam also did most of the talking. After speaking with the brothers, the Reverend headed to a bedroom in the house. He knew Bobo wasn't sleeping in that room, which is why he opened that specific door.

The nervous reverend slowly opened the door that the two 16-year-olds were sleeping in. Milam asked the reverend to turn on the lights, but he told him that he couldn't because the electricity wasn't working. Wheeler, one of the 16-year-olds in the room, was later quoted as saying, quote, You couldn't see. It was like a nightmare. I mean, I mean, someone could stand over you with a pistol in one hand and a flashlight, and you're 16 years old. It's a terrifying experience, end quote.

However, Bobo was too sleepy and he was moving too slowly in the next room. He also probably wasn't aware of exactly what was happening. And although the Reverend tried to stall the best he could, it didn't work. And JW and Roy eventually made their way into Bobo's room. "Are you the one that did the smart talking up at money?" Milam asked.

Yeah, Emmett had answered. Well, that was my sister-in-law and I won't stand for it. And don't say yeah to me or I'll blow your head off. Get your clothes on. Mrs. Wright was terrified for her nephew, and she didn't give up on trying to protect him. She even offered the men some money to keep Bobo safe. But JW yelled, Woman, you get back in bed. I want to hear them springs squeak.

The Reverend then tried to blame Bobo's actions on the polio, saying ever since he contracted it, Bobo had never been right. He never meant any harm. And he told the men, "Why not give the boy a good whipping and leave it at that? He's only 14 and he's from up north."

But JW threatened Mr. Wright's life if he did not stop talking and it was here where JW and Roy took Bobo out of the home at gunpoint and brought him to their vehicle.

Mr. Wright said he could hear the two men talking to a third person in the car. He said he couldn't hear the voice very well, but it sounded like Mrs. Carolyn. Mr. Wright figured that Carolyn was there to identify Bobo, since neither of the two men were present when the whistling occurred. However, he could not say for sure that it was 100% Carolyn.

JW and Roy would later tell The Look that they were the only ones involved in Bobo's kidnapping. They stated that they never needed to identify Bobo since he had already admitted to his behavior.

At this point, no one really knows exactly what happened. The only people who really know are JW, Roy, and Bobo. But Bobo was silenced, and he would never get the opportunity to explain the horrors he endured that day. The only accounts we have are from JW and Roy, but no one knows whether or not they're telling the entire truth.

According to the article, the two had asked for Bobo to lay in the back of the pickup, and Bobo immediately obeyed. The two men stated that their intention was only to whip the boy. They told the reporter that they wanted to go to the scariest place they could think of, a place west of the Tallahatchie River called the River Bend.

The 100-foot drop was also close to Rosedale. They were going to have him stand at the edge of the cliff, whip him with their guns, and shine a light towards the water to make Bobo think that they were going to knock him into the Tallahatchie. And so the men drove and drove with a terrified Bobo in the back seat. They drove for nearly three hours until they finally gave up and decided to drive over to J.W.'s home in Glendora.

But by this time, it was 5 a.m. J.W. and Roy told the reporter that Bobo wasn't afraid of them. Instead, he kept egging them on. He told the two that he was just as tough as them.

He told them that he didn't think they had the guts to kill him. But just about anyone who hears this story knows that this is not true. Bobo had even told his family days earlier that he feared for his life and that he wanted to return to Chicago. So he definitely wasn't egging the two white men on when he had a gun pointed in his face.

But once they arrived at JW's property, they took Bobo to a tool house in the back of the home. And it was here where the severe beating began.

The two brothers took turns whipping Bobo. They smashed him in his head over and over with their .45 caliber pistols, each taking turns beating the 14-year-old. And it's likely that JW was the one who suggested this technique because he had previous experience with this torture method. He had used it many times during the war to get information out of the Germans.

And as painful as this beating was to the teenage boy, JW and Roy said that Bobo didn't holler much. According to them, they said he continued to threaten them and call them bastards.

The two men said that Bobo told them, "You bastards, I'm not afraid of you. I'm as good as you are. I've had white women. My grandmother was a white woman." But again, this likely isn't true. I'm sure in reality, Bobo was begging for his life. I'm sure he was pleading for the brothers to stop as they beat him in the head over and over again.

I'm sure he was profusely apologizing, telling them, "If you let me go, I'll leave town and you'll never see me again." But it soon became clear that the brothers weren't going to let him leave.

JW blamed his behavior on Bobo. He said he never wanted to be a bully. Actually, he was no bully. However, he did not know how to teach Bobo a lesson. JW said,

But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, N-Words are gonna stay in their place. N-Word ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when an N-Word gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired of living. I'm likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country and we got some rights.

Now, I'm sorry that that paragraph was offensive, but...

And it was here when JW decided to teach the 14-year-old a lesson. He started looking around for an anvil.

which is an iron block used to shape metal, but he couldn't remember where he put it. Then, he recalled something even better. There was a nearby ginning company nearby, where they had just installed new equipment.

And he specifically had in mind a trashed fan that had been dumped there. It was a metal fan that was circular, heavy, and three feet tall. After the brothers took turns gun-whipping Bobo, they said he had severe bruising all over his head. And it was here when J.W. and Roy took Bobo back into the pickup truck.

The three of them drove through Doddsville, Mississippi to the Progressive Ginning Company. By the time they got there, the sun was beginning to peek through the horizon. And when JW saw the sunlight, he said he was worried for the first time that day. And he wasn't worried because he had almost beat a teenager to death.

He wasn't worried about someone seeing them. The only worry he had was that they would get in trouble for stealing the trashed fan. At this point, JW and Roy forced Bobo out of the truck and they ordered him to carry the heavy fan from the building and load it into the truck. Little did he know that the two brothers would use this to dispose of his body.

Now, there's only one reason why JW would want the fan. He wanted weights to weigh Bobo down. However, JW said that Bobo still didn't understand what the men were doing. Once the fan was in the truck, they started driving again, this time over the Tallahatchie. They

They then drove along a dirt road that ran parallel to the river. Once they reached a spot that JW was familiar with, they parked the truck. He knew this area because he often hunted squirrels here, and he knew that the riverbank in this specific spot was very steep. The truck was about 30 yards away from the water when JW told Bobo to get out of the car and pick up the fan.

It was difficult for Bobo to carry the fan on the steep riverbank, and it's likely that he even fell a few times as he walked down. "Take off your clothes!" JW demanded, and Bobo slowly obeyed. It was now 7:00 AM on August 28th, 1955, as Bobo stood naked beside the Tallahatchie River. JW asked, "You still as good as I am?" And according to him, Bobo replied, "Yeah." JW then asked another question, "You still had white women?"

And Bobo had the same response.

But JW did not have a third question. Instead, he shot Bobo. The bullet zipped through his right ear and Bobo fell to the ground. JW said that the boy never even saw it coming, but he did deserve it since he was acting so cocky. However, it's hard to believe that Bobo, the 14-year-old who loved to tell jokes, had only gone on one date in his life and attended church every Sunday, would have been trying to make these two men angry, especially when they were brandishing weapons and beating him.

With Bobo's body on the ground, dead, JW and Roy took a barbed wire and wrapped the 74-pound fan around Bobo's neck. Then, they rolled him into 20 feet of water. But Bobo's death did not conclude the long night for the men. Afterwards, they went back to JW's home and burned Bobo's crepe-soled shoes in the backyard. They later said that his shoes were hard to burn. Three days later, some boys were fishing at the Tallahatchie, only eight miles down from where Bobo's body had dropped into the water.

The boys saw Bobo's feet sticking out, and they realized they had just stumbled upon a corpse.

Bobo's body was completely unrecognizable when it was pulled from the Tallahatchie. The only reason he was even identified as 14-year-old Emmett Till was because of the monogrammed ring they found with the body, the ring that had Bobo's father's initials on it, LT. Mamie had given Bobo the ring before he had left. When Mamie was shown pictures of her son's body, she wept and was horrified that someone could have done this to her baby. And it was clear to everyone exactly who was responsible for his murder.

J.W. and Roy would eventually get arrested and in September of that year they would face their day in court. But one of the most disturbing facts about this entire story is the fact that the town supported the two men. They even raised $10,000 for their defense, which is equal to over $100,000 today with inflation. Thousands of people in their community supported these men after they murdered an innocent child.

During the trial, the Reverend, Bobo's uncle, took the stand and told the jury that J.W. and Roy showed up to his house and kidnapped Bobo at gunpoint. Another eyewitness named Willie Reed, an 18-year-old sharecropper, testified that he heard screaming and beating from J.W.'s shed on the night of the murder. He also said he saw J.W. come out of the shed holding a .45 caliber pistol. These two eyewitnesses should have been more than enough to convict J.W. and Roy.

But that's not how this story ends. Their defense attorney, Sidney Carlton's closing statement to the jury was that if they didn't free these men, quote, your ancestors will turn over in their grave and I'm sure every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men, end quote. And after just 67 minutes, the all-white male jury found the men not guilty. They were acquitted.

One of the jurors even said after the trial that "we wouldn't have taken so long if we hadn't stopped to drink pop." When the verdict was read, both JW and Roy kissed their wives and lit up cigars, celebrating that the two of them had gotten away with the murder of an innocent child.

But the worst part about this entire case, in our opinion, is that the entire story that we just laid out for you, the one of Emmett whistling at Carolyn Bryant, the story that allegedly caused the murder of Emmett Till, wasn't even true. Carolyn Bryant would come forward decades later and tell a man named Timothy Tyson that the entire story was fabricated. Emmett was entirely innocent, and she knew that the entire time.

Carolyn is just as much a monster as the two white murderers in this story, and that's because she fabricated the entire tale. After Emmett was killed, Carolyn took an oath, lied for her husband, and watched as the two men were set free, knowing that justice would never be served for 14-year-old Emmett Till. Strangely enough, the city where this took place had a slogan that can be seen on signs throughout the town that read, quote,

a good place to raise a boy." But that's clearly not the case, because the boys that had been raised here grew up to become men, men who would eventually acquit J.W. and Roy. Many jurors would later come forward and say that they knew the two brothers killed Emmett Till, but they didn't think the men deserved to go to prison because they were white men who killed a black person.

And in their mind, that wasn't a crime. And as horrifying as this case is, the majority of Mississippians at the time either agreed with what the brothers did or they were too scared to say anything. And although the murder of Emmett Till would go unpunished, it wouldn't go unnoticed. In fact, it would serve as a catalyst for the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s.

100 days after Emmett was murdered, Rosa Parks was told to move to the back of the bus. And she said that she thought about moving for a moment. But then she thought about Emmett Till and what he went through earlier that year. And right then and there, she decided she wasn't going to move. It's been over 65 years since Bobo was killed. And his killers eventually died without ever having to pay for what they did.

We wanted to tell you this story today because February is Black History Month, and although we have made some improvements since 1955, we as a country still have a long way to go. Black men and women are still being gunned down in our streets today, and white supremacist groups are still functioning as we speak.

And it's up to us, the future generations, to not only break these patterns of racism, but to remember these horrible stories of injustice so that history will never repeat itself. So say their names, remember who they are, and never stop telling their stories.

Hey, everybody, and thank you for listening to another episode of Murder in America. This has been such an incredibly stressful time of life for Courtney and I. Really exciting. But our wedding is actually in just a couple of days. I'm sorry the episodes have been late and kind of uncoordinated lately. But I mean, putting a wedding together is absolutely incredible.

So much work that I did not even understand, you know, how much work all this is. I'm actually supposed to be at my bachelor party right now, but I'm instead working on this episode. Thank you all so much, though, for the support, for everything. This is our last podcast for the month of February. We have our wedding, then Courtney and I are going on our honeymoon. We are celebrating, so...

Please go restream. Go listen to all of our older episodes. And when we're back, we now have a full team. We have hired writers. We have a full-time editor and we are going to be pumping out these episodes at

at an amazing pace. We're going to be giving you higher quality episodes and we're going to be giving you more episodes. So there's so much to look forward to this year. This show is only going up. We're getting bigger and badder as we go. And we're attracting so many amazing people out there in the family is just growing stronger every single day. But I just want to come on here and thank you all so much for,

everything you do thank you to all of our patrons thank you to everyone that's out there listening wish both Courtney and I some luck this weekend as we enter our marriage journey and yeah we will see you in March when we return with new episodes of murder in America thank you all so much we love you and keep asking that question the dead don't talk or do they see you next month