Posted on 05/04/2005 11:16:37 AM PDT by MississippiMasterpiece
The FBI will order the exhumation of the body of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy who was taken from a Mississippi farmhouse in 1955 and killed for whistling at a white woman, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Till's body, which is buried next to his mother's at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, will be exhumed within the next few weeks, and an autopsy will be conducted by Cook County Medical Examiner Ed Donahue, according to a source.
"The FBI wants to know who killed Till, and due to the brutal beating he received, an exhumation may provide the evidence they need" to make a case, said the source.
The murder of Till, an unsolved case standing at the center of the American civil rights movement, gave meaning to the term "Mississippi Justice."
Then, last year, a new chapter was added to the Till story.
Documentary highlighted case
The U.S. Justice Department reopened the case following a documentary by African-American filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, 32, who claimed to have uncovered new evidence. The documentary, "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till," chronicled Till's nightmare death and the sham trial of his alleged murderers.
It was the lack of convictions in the face of overwhelming evidence that lead Beauchamp to make his startling documentary, which took nine years to research and produce.
Beauchamp believes five people who are still alive could lend new insight into the case and that as many as 10 people either observed or took part in the slaying.
The story began innocently enough: In 1955, Till traveled from Chicago to Mississippi to spend the summer with relatives. His mother, Mamie Till Mobley, was reportedly apprehensive about letting her outgoing son spend the summer in Jim Crow Mississippi. Her worst fears were confirmed.
In August of 1955, while at a convenience store in Money, Miss., Till apparently whistled at and "sassed" a young white woman behind the counter. Three days later, Till was abducted at gunpoint from his great-uncle's home and savagely beaten, shot dead and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. Till's decaying body, attached to a 70-pound cotton gin fan fastened to his neck with barbed wire, was found three days after his abduction.
Acquitted men later bragged
Two white men, one of whom was the husband of the woman behind the counter, were acquitted of the murder by an all-white jury despite their admission they were the ones who abducted Till. The defendants later bragged about the murder in a Look magazine article, which included gruesome details about Till's slaughter.
Neither man, both of whom are now dead, was ever convicted of Till's murder.
And in 1960, the five-year statute of limitations for federal civil rights crimes expired without any other suspects being brought to trial.
The brutal slaying and sensationalism surrounding the case caused Till's close-knit family to scatter and flee to Chicago after the defendants were acquitted. Mamie Till Mobley was widely hailed as a hero for her strong, forthright demeanor during the murder trial and for insisting that her son's body be displayed in an open casket during his funeral, showing the world just how savagely he was beaten.
Mobley, who remained in Chicago, became an outspoken crusader for civil rights, and upon her death in January 2003, she was buried near her son in the city's first African-American cemetery.
Now that the U.S. Justice Department has stepped up to the plate, the source says, the FBI intends to hit a home run.
Let the dead rest.
What a shameful event..
I can't imagine how there could be much left by now.
The climate in Mississippi pretty much does away with
organic material in that length of time. And I'm assuming
here that his burial was nothing out of the ordinary.
How about we make the guilty pay for their crimes so the dead can truly rest?
I just don't see how this can help anyone or anything. Please enlighten me...SSZ
How is exhuming a 50 year old corpse going to solve anything? This was a heinous crime, but his murderers are dead. Who else can be punished?
Let us use the tragedies of the past and learn from them.
I don't get it - what info can they get from a body buried 50 years ago?
Broken bones, maybe... but what sort of info that would be identifying of the killer?
But with everything going on today (the WOD, etc.) doesn't the Justice Department and the FBI have a few more pressing problems than solving a 50 year old murder?
Sorry...should be
(the WOT, etc.)
Don't be so sure the guilty parties are dead. If they were 21 when they did the deed, they're only 71 now.
I just don't see how this can help anyone or anything. Please enlighten me...SSZ
Those responsible for this heinous crime should be made to pay. I do not care if they are now 105 years old! You do not wantonly savagely beat and murder a 14 yr old boy and walk. No mercy was shown to this boy and none should be shown to those who committed this crime.
Even if you can find the perpetrators more than likely they are in their 70's and if found guilty would never serve a day in prison until the appeal process ran it course ( long after their deaths ).
I am a firm believer in punishment, but I don't think any good will come of this that justifies exhumation.
We should take the guys who admitted to doing it and dig them up.
They'd need to call in a qualified forensic anthropologist, wouldn't they? Examination of a set of 50-year-old remains would not yield any evidence of, say, drowning.
The people who want to do this just want to rub the South's nose in it. The people who did this are long gone. We aren't the only ones with skeletons in our past, just the only ones who keep getting slammed for it.
Is digging up 50 year old skeletons at the behest of the race baiting establishment the proper use of law enforcement resources?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.