From Midnight to Guntown

by Hailman, John

  Coldest Case of All: Reopening the Murder of Emmett Till and What We Learned

  Any society that condones the killing of children does not deserve to survive, and probably won’t.

  —William Faulkner, in a letter to the Memphis Commercial Appeal written right after the killers of Emmett Till were acquitted14

  For at least fifty years, the reputation of Mississippi, otherwise one of the most beautiful and peaceful of states, has been stained by our history of racial prejudice and violence. If one case symbolized for the nation that dark part of our reputation, it was the murder of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago kidnapped from his bed while visiting his grandparents in Leflore County in 1955. The story, as generally told, was that Till had whistled, or possibly touched and made inappropriate remarks to, a white woman in her store in Money, a small town near Greenwood. Days later, when the woman’s husband returned from hauling shrimp to Texas, he and his brother-in-law took Emmett Till at gunpoint from his grandfather’s home in the middle of the night, beat him, allegedly castrated him, and threw his body off a bridge into the Tallahatchie River with a seventy-pound gin fan hung around his neck to weigh him down.

  Just five weeks later, an all-white jury in Tallahatchie County acquitted the two killers in less than an hour. The trial was a national sensation in both the black and white presses. The murder of Emmett Till became the civil rights case of the twentieth century. When Rosa Parks, a tired black maid in Montgomery, refused to get up and move to the back of the bus and thereby helped ignite the civil rights revolution, she said that the image that motivated her was that of the broken body of Emmett Till.

  From the early 1990s onward, a series of old, unresolved civil rights murder cases were reopened and the defendants convicted, many years after the events. First came Byron De La Beckwith of Greenwood, a hate-filled Klansman who murdered NAACP leader Medgar Evers by shooting him in the back in his own driveway in Jackson with a high-powered rifle. Beckwith was tried twice for the murder by local state DA Bill Waller, who was later elected governor, but those early all-white juries deadlocked, or hung, and the case remained open and unresolved. Then, thanks largely to vigorous digging and reporting by Jerry Mitchell, a red-headed Jackson Clarion-Ledger reporter from Arkansas, new evidence and new witnesses were located and Jackson District Attorney Ed Peters and his assistant, Bobby DeLaughter, retried the case and convicted Beckwith, who was sentenced to life in prison. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, in an eloquent opinion for the court by Michael Mills, now the chief federal judge in Oxford. When the case was retried, the Beckwith evidence was already nearly four decades old, but prosecutors DeLaughter and Peters succeeded in using the two old trial transcripts, the rifle with Beckwith’s prints on it, plus the few witnesses still alive.

  Later came the equally sensational retrial of Edgar Ray “Preacher” Killen for the infamous murders of the three civil rights workers who were buried under a dam near our largest Choctaw reservation. This case was almost as old, and the outcome hotly contested. One juror allegedly refused to convict a preacher of murder and the jury had to compromise on a lesser manslaughter verdict, barely avoiding another hung jury. But it was a conviction for the local DA and for attorney general Jim Hood, who tried the case personally. Local circuit judge Marcus Gordon gave Killen a sentence so stiff it guaranteed he would, as justice demanded, die in prison. Again, despite the age of the case and the deaths of key witnesses and the faded memories of others, the State Supreme Court affirmed. Many said the public outrage over a reversal on a technicality would have been too overwhelming.

  The Civil Rights Division of DOJ continued reopening other old cases, which for some reason occurred mainly in the southern half of the state, outside our district. One day in January 2004, our turn came. Anita McGehee, secretary to U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee, buzzed me and said Jim wanted me to take a call about reopening the Emmett Till case. It occurred to me how little I knew about such a historic case which had taken place in our district. The caller was Alvin Sykes from Kansas City, where my daughter was then attending medical school. Fortunately for me, Sykes had already done much of our work for us. “I met with the people at the Civil Rights Division last August, and I know that the federal statute of limitations on Emmett’s case has run out, but they said your office had a good reputation in civil rights circles and that you might be willing to help persuade the state DA to reopen the case if the FBI will agree to investigate it.”

  Alvin Sykes was no screaming militant like many I’d dealt with. He was calm and low-key but persistent. And he knew what he was talking about. “We know there are only a handful of possible defendants still alive after fifty years, but we want peace of mind for Emmett’s family. They say the woman who accused Emmett and pointed him out for killing is still around, as well as some black guys who supposedly helped transport him to his death.” Sykes continued, “We also know the transcript of the trial has disappeared, and the two men who later bragged about doing the killing have died, but we still believe that a really thorough investigation might turn up enough evidence for a state prosecution for murder. If not, at least the family and the nation would finally know what really happened.”

  I certainly could not argue with Sykes’s rationale. I told him I’d check into it further and call him back in a couple of days. He said he wanted a face-to-face meeting with the DA and the FBI at our office. He promised to bring with him Keith Beauchamp, a young filmmaker working on a documentary that featured on-camera interviews with several surviving witnesses. Then he said the thing that persuaded me: “I will also bring with me Simeon Wright, the boy who was sleeping in the bed with Emmett when he was taken and was also with him at the store in Money when he supposedly whistled and said things to the white woman. Simeon is now nearly seventy but smart as a whip and has a vivid memory of all that happened.” From a different mindset I repeated to Mr. Sykes that I’d get back to him. The thought of hearing the story directly from Simeon Wright had convinced me to go ahead with the meeting.

  First I called some old friends at the Civil Rights Division for counsel. They said the case sounded awfully old, a real long shot after nearly half a century but that Sykes and Beauchamp were serious people and worth a meeting. They too were intrigued by the idea of hearing from Simeon Wright, who had been thirteen years old at the time and would certainly be a powerful witness if there were any defendants left to prosecute. U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee agreed. I called FBI supervisor Philip “Hal” Neilson, who shared similar doubts, but agreed that at least a preliminary meeting to evaluate our chances was a good idea.

  Then I called District Attorney Joyce Chiles in Greenville, whom I had known for over twenty years, since she was a brand-new undercover agent for the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics. In fact, I was the first prosecutor ever to use Joyce as a witness, long before she went on to law school. Joyce had just been elected DA. Tall and imposing in a calm way, she was the first black DA ever in the Delta counties of Sunflower, Washington, and Leflore, where Emmett Till was kidnapped. One key issue would be where Till was killed. The post-acquittal confessions of his killers to Look magazine reporter William Bradford Huie had raised more questions than they answered. Defendants claimed to Huie that they had gotten lost while driving Till around the Delta trying to decide whether to kill him and where to dispose of the body.

  Joyce was her usual calm, firm self. “John, I will do what is right. If we have a case, I’ll prosecute it, but I won’t do it just to satisfy people’s feelings. Reopening the case will reopen old racial wounds however it comes out. With our Delta juries and grand juries now predominantly black, I can easily get an indictment and probably a conviction, but it would be terrible for us to go forward without good evidence and try someone on prejudice alone. We’ve had enough of that. And what if we got a conviction and the state supreme court had to throw it out for lack of evidence? That would be a lot worse than doing the right thing now.” I knew we would be in go
od hands with Joyce.

  She continued, “There are two things I insist on. First, I need you to persuade the FBI to commit totally to a really in-depth investigation.” I told her I’d do my best and thought they would. “My next request is personal: I want you to agree to work with me on the investigation as a specially appointed assistant DA and to try the jury case with us if we go to trial. I know Jim Hood has the authority to appoint you, and he will do it if I ask him.” That put the case in a different light. From a theoretical problem for someone else, the Till case had suddenly become personal. It was as if someone had just draped a heavy winter coat over my shoulders. But I immediately agreed anyway, wondering what I was getting myself into.

  My father used to kid me about how I handled problems. My first reaction, he said, was always to read a book about it if there was one. In this case, I walked straight to Square Books and asked owner Richard Howorth what he had on the Emmett Till case. In his usual calm, measured tone, Richard said, “There’s a fairly new book out on the case written by Emmett’s mother. I haven’t read it, but reviewers liked it.” The blurb from the Washington Post on the cover said it was “as eloquent as the diary of Anne Frank.” That kind of hyperbole always puts me off. A highly emotional foreword by the Reverend Jesse Jackson did not help either. But the pictures on the cover of a pudgy, wide-eyed boy and his smiling, pretty mother persuaded me to try it. The title sounded right: The Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America. Those words hit the right note. But it was the mother’s words in the introduction that hooked me:

  For forty-seven years I wasn’t quite ready to write this book. It took a long time for me to reach this kind of deep understanding. I have been approached oh so many times by people who wanted to tell my story or put words in my mouth to tell their version of my story. But I just couldn’t do that. I owe Emmett more than that. I owe him the absolute understanding I have finally come to appreciate, this deep understanding of why he lived and died and why I was destined to live so long after his death. . . . Only now can I share the wisdom of my age. I am experienced but not cynical. It is only because I have finally understood the past, accepted it, embraced it, that I can fully live in the moment. And hardly a moment goes by when I don’t think about Emmett, and the lessons a son can teach a mother. (p. xxiii)

  That night and the next day, I could not put the book down. Its mature, philosophical tone was far more moving than any angry polemic could have been. The utter candor of Mamie Till-Mobley was stunning. Despite her deep love for Emmett, her only child, this daughter of the black bourgeoisie of South Chicago did not hesitate to tell things most people would have suppressed. She told of the infidelities and abuse of Emmett’s father and of how she finally ran him off by pouring a pot of boiling water on him while he slept.

  An educated, refined, and religious woman who became a teacher, Mrs. Till had to have suffered unbelievably from the death of her only child. Yet bitterness was not her tone. She told their story in an unforgettably stoical voice. Now I was really hooked. We had to do whatever we could for this worthy victim. When Alvin Sykes called back, I felt confident I understood much better what the Till case meant and why we should pursue it, and I told Mr. Sykes so. Then I revealed my ignorance again, asking if Mrs. Till Mobley might be able to come. “No, sadly, if we can obtain justice in this case, she will not be around to see it. Mamie died in January 2003, after her book was written, but before it was published. But Simeon Wright will be there.”

  As agreed, we all met in U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee’s conference room on February 6, 2004. After an hour of interesting discussions with Alvin Sykes and Keith Beauchamp about interviews with witnesses and the trial of the killers J. W. “Big” Milam and Roy Bryant, and their bragging to Look magazine after their acquittal, we felt the meeting was drifting. Alvin Sykes suggested we bring in Simeon Wright, who had been waiting downstairs.

  A muscular, well-spoken man born the same year I was, Simeon Wright was one of those natural storyteller witnesses all trial lawyers look for. He needed no coaching or prompting but proceeded to lay out for us all the reasons we needed to reopen the case. After all, Simeon Wright was the only one who was with Emmett Till both at Bryant’s store in Money and in bed with Emmett Till when Milam and Bryant kidnapped him. Simeon Wright had thought about the case for a half century and gave us several insights no one else could have. As soon as he left, we agreed unanimously, investigators and prosecutors alike, both federal and state, that we had to reopen the case and investigate it as thoroughly as humanly possible.

  The next day I called Richard “Ricky” Roberts, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, whom I knew well from prior cases. He and the chief of his criminal division, my old friend Al Moscowitz, who’d been to our district on several earlier cases, said they wanted just one thing, but it was a big thing: a conclusive final report on the Till case, whether it led to a prosecution or merely closure of some kind. “Everyone in America,” they said, “needs to know what really happened.” We all knew that was a tall order, but I never expected the investigation to last until the year I retired.

  Together we discussed several of the open questions: How did Emmett Till really die? Was he beaten to death, lynched, or thrown off a bridge and drowned? Was a hole drilled in his skull, as legend had it? Was he castrated or his body otherwise mutilated? Who else, black or white, was involved in his death? Was there any federal jurisdiction of any kind under which we could prosecute? What state jurisdiction, if any, was not barred by a statute of limitations? In which of at least three counties could a state prosecution be pursued: Leflore County where he was kidnapped, Tallahatchie where his body was supposedly found, or perhaps Sunflower or even Bolivar County, where he was actually killed? Rumor supported all of these choices. What did Emmett Till actually do to provoke such a horrifically violent murder? Did he just whistle, as witnesses said? Or did he “do some talking” as Milam and Bryant claimed? Or did he go so far as to grab Carolyn Bryant by the waist, as she had claimed?

  When we finished talking, I had several pages of questions. Could anyone ever sort them all out? What would the FBI agree to do? How far would they go to answer all the questions? We soon had our answer. The new FBI agent in charge for Mississippi, Bob Garrity, after consulting both with FBI Director Robert Mueller, a former U.S. Attorney, and his Mississippi agents, decided on a full-court press. Garrity assigned Oxford agent Dale Killinger, a native of Pennsylvania relatively new to the area, to work on nothing else but the Till case for as long as it took.

  Dale was given extraordinary freedom, especially to travel for witness interviews. In routine FBI investigations, such as bank robberies, the case agent never leaves his district but sends out “leads.” If an eyewitness to a crime in Mississippi is located in Ohio, the Mississippi agent will send a written request to the FBI office in Ohio nearest the witness. An Ohio agent will then go ask the witness the relevant questions. That procedure, fast and economical in routine cases, would never work in the Till case. There were too many detailed questions, which only a totally informed case agent could probe into and follow up on and fully understand the responses. Dale Killinger was therefore given full authority to go everywhere and do everything necessary to produce a final, conclusive report answering all open questions. He received this plenary authority in May 2004.

  In August 2004, we had a thorough meeting in the courthouse at Greenwood with Joyce Chiles and her chief assistant, Hallie Gail Bridges, a tough-talking veteran prosecutor, who grew up near the scene of the crime and lived near Midnight, for which this book is named. H.G., as Joyce called her, was as tough and pragmatic a state prosecutor as I could possibly have wished for. We had a good team. Leflore County sheriff Ricky Banks, an old friend from a variety of tough cases over the years, guaranteed—and delivered—full cooperation. Another valuable ally was Lent Rice, a retired FBI agent who grew up at Sumner in Tallahatchie County, where the trial was held, and had known the Til
l case and its players since childhood.

  The investigation started off well. While the national media from CBS to the New York Times stoked the emotional fires demanding an investigation, Dale and his partners quietly carried it out in relative anonymity. To our surprise, Dale persuaded Carolyn Bryant Donham (since remarried) to talk with him several times both in person and on the phone. While in some ways unreconstructed in her idea that Till brought his troubles on himself, she also insisted that she never wanted him killed and had not at first told her husband what happened, only admitting it when he confronted her after someone else told him. She said she had feared what he would do.

  Evidence began to roll in. Civil rights reporter Jerry Mitchell had always said that none of these cold cases could ever be retried without a transcript of the evidence from the original trial. With a transcript, the trial testimony of witnesses who had since died would be admissible if they were cross-examined at the previous trial. The last copy of the Till transcript that anyone knew of had been in the possession of Florida graduate student Hugh Whitaker who quoted from it extensively in his unpublished master’s thesis way back in 1962. Out of the blue, one of the team’s contacts produced an ancient, fragile, faded copy that witnesses who knew the handwriting of the deceased court reporter authenticated by his signature. Other witnesses who’d been at the trial verified that it seemed correct and complete. Two FBI clerks spent several weeks retyping it, page by page and word for word. It was a gold mine of detail.

  Somewhat to our surprise, the trial, for its time, was very professionally conducted. Circuit judge Curtis Swango excluded the testimony of Carolyn Bryant from the hearing of the jury as not relevant enough and not probative enough to overcome the extreme racial prejudice it would have injected into the trial. Unfortunately, the local jurors had already heard all about it on the street and from informal visits to their homes by members of the White Citizens Council as verified by the files of the State Sovereignty Commission.