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The Murder of
Emmett Till
Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was excited about his trip from his home in Chicago's south
side to the Mississippi, Delta to visit relatives. Prior to his departure, his mother, Mamie Till Bradley, a teacher, had
done her best to advise him about how to behave when interacting with white people. Till's mother understood that in Mississippi
race relations were a lot different than in Chicago. In Mississippi, over 500 blacks had been lynched since 1882, and racially
motivated murders were not unfamiliar, especially in the Delta where Till was going. Racial tensions were also on the rise
after the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in ‘Brown v. Board of Education’ to end segregation
in schools. Two blacks had recently been murdered for registering black voters. Furthermore, the Ku Klux Klan and other white
supremacy groups began working to maintain life as they knew it. With his mother's warning and wearing the ring that had belonged to his deceased father, on August 20, 1955,
Till setoff with his cousin Curtis Jones on the train to Mississippi. When Till and Jones arrived on August 21, they stayed
at the home of Till's great-uncle, Mose Wright, which was on the outskirts of Money, Mississippi. On August 24, the boys drove Wright's car into the small town of Money, and
stopped at Bryant's Grocery store to buy some candy. Prior to entering the store, Till pulled out some pictures of his
white friends in Chicago, and showed them to some local boys outside of the store. The boys dared Till to talk to Carolyn
Bryant, the store clerk. Till went into the store, purchased some candy, and what happened as he was leaving is unclear. Till
either said, "Bye, baby" or he whistled at Carolyn Bryant. Neither Till nor Jones understood the magnitude of Till's act so they did not tell Mose Wright what had happened.
They continued to think nothing of the event as three days passed without incident. However, on the fourth day, early Sunday
morning, Roy Bryant, Carolyn's husband, and J. W. Milam, Roy's half-brother, knocked on the door of Wright's home.
With a pistol and flashlight in hand, they asked Mose Wright whether three boys from Chicago were staying with him. Wright
led them to the room where Till was sleeping, and the men told Till to get dressed. Wright unsuccessfully pleaded with them
to just whip Till. As they were leaving, they threatened Wright that if he told anyone they would kill him. Several hours later, Mamie Till was notified of her son's kidnapping. A search
of the area was conducted, and Mamie Till notified Chicago newspapers of her son's disappearance. Wright told Money's
sheriff who had taken Till, and he arrested Bryant and Milam for kidnapping. Three days later, Till's body was discovered in the Tallahatchie River. Its was weighted down by a seventy-five
pound cotton gin fan that was tied around Till's neck with barbed wire. His face was so mutilated that when Wright identified
the body, he could only do so based on the ring that Till had been wearing. While Mamie Till experienced difficulty in getting her son's body sent to Chicago, when it finally arrived, she
made the decision to have an open casket funeral. Mamie wanted the world to know what had happened to her son. His right eye
was missing, his nose was broken, and there was a hole on the side of his head. Fifty thousand people attended the funeral.
Jet magazine ran photos of Till's body. Soon Till's murder became an international story. Meanwhile, Milam and Bryant had garnered support. Whites in their community claimed that they were innocent, and
supported their defense financially. The trial began on September
19, 1955 in Sumner, Mississippi. The jury was composed of all white men who were from the defendants' home county. Their
defense was that the body recovered from the river was not Till's body. Milam and Bryant claimed that they had taken Till
but had let him go. Instead, they alleged that the NAACP and Mamie Till had dug up a body and claimed that it was Till. According
to their defense, Till was hiding out in Chicago. Finding witnesses
was difficult for the prosecution. It was dangerous for a black person to testify, so those who knew anything were reluctant
to come forward. However, white and black reporters and the NAACP were able to find witnesses against the defendants. Willie
Reed testified on the stand in barely a whisper, that he had seen Bryant, Milam, and another man with Till. Further, he testified
that he heard screaming coming from the Milam's barn. When Milam came out of the barn with a .45 on his hip, Milam asked
Reed if he saw anything, and Reed said no. Mose Wright had decided from the beginning that he was going to testify. When Wright
took the stand, he testified that Milam and Bryant were the men that had taken Till at gunpoint. After Reed and Wright testified,
they were quickly escorted out of Mississippi by the NAACP. Testimony
also came from Mamie Till. She testified that the body she buried was her son, Emmett Till. Neither Milam nor Bryant testified.
The trial lasted five days. In the defenses closing argument,
Milam and Bryant's attorney forewarned the jury about convicting the defendants: "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." The jury deliberated
for 67 minutes, which according to one juror, was only because they stopped to drink soda. The jury found Milam and Bryant
not guilty. The jury concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove that the body recovered from the river was Emmett
Till. On January 24, 1956, Look magazine published
the confession of Milam and Bryant, who had agreed to tell their story for $4000. According to their confession, they beat
Till with a .45 in Milam's barn. They then put him back in the truck and took him to the Tallahatchie River where they
had him undress and then shot him. They then tied a gin fan around his neck with wire in order to weigh the body down. Then
they proceeded to burn Till's clothes and shoes. Milam and Bryant were never charged with other crimes for murdering Till.
After the trial, blacks boycotted the Bryants' store, which
forced them out of business. Both Milam and Bryant remained in Mississippi, and Milam died of cancer in 1980 and Bryant died
of cancer in 1990. The murder of Emmett Till was a shocking
example to the world of the danger, inequality, and prejudice that blacks faced. However, Till's murder helped spur the
civil rights movement. It was only one hundred days after Till's death that Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the
bus.
Unknown author or copyright.
Used without permission, but with the best of intentions.
The Black Dahlia
Elizabeth Short, better known as the Black Dahlia, was the victim of an infamous
murder in 1947. An aspiring actress who'd moved to Hollywood in the late 1940s from Medford, Massachusetts, Short was a drifter
and hanger-on who never managed to break into films until she disappeared sometime around the beginning of January 1947. On
January 15, 1947 her horribly mutilated corpse was found in an empty lot in South Central Los Angeles. Her murderer was never
publicly identified or apprehended.
According to newspaper reports shortly after the murder, Short received the
nickname Black Dahlia at a Long Beach drugstore in the summer of 1946, as a play on the then-current movie The Blue Dahlia,
starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. However, Los Angeles County district attorney investigators' reports state the nickname
was invented by newspaper reporters covering the murder. In either case, Short was not generally known as the "Black Dahlia"
in life.
The Black Dahlia murder investigation by the LAPD was the largest since the
murder of Marian Parker in 1927, and involved hundreds of officers borrowed from other law enforcement agencies. Because of
the complexity of the case, the original investigators treated every person who knew Elizabeth Short as a suspect who had
to be eliminated. Hundreds of people were considered suspects and thousands were interviewed by police. Sensational and sometimes
inaccurate press coverage, as well as the horrible nature of the crime, focused intense public attention on the case. About
60 people confessed to the murder, mostly men, as well as a few women. As the case continues to command public attention,
many people have been proposed as possible killers of Elizabeth Short, much like the Jack the Ripper case.
In her 1999 book, Mary Pacios, a former neighbor of the Short family, suggested
filmmaker Orson Welles as a suspect. Pacios bases this theory on such factors as Welles' volatile temperament and his obsession
with cutting-in-half as indicated by the visual clues Pacios claims can be found in the crazy house set he designed for scenes
that were later deleted from "The Lady From Shanghai," a film Welles was making around the time of the murder. Pacios also
cites the magic act Welles performed to entertain soldiers during World War II. She believes that the bi-section of the body
was part of the killer's signature and an acting out of the perpetrator's obsession. Welles applied for his passport on January
24, 1947, the same date the killer mailed a packet to Los Angeles newspapers. Welles left the country for an extended stay
in Europe ten months after the murder. According to Pacios, witnesses she has interviewed say that both Welles and the victim
frequented Brittingham's restaurant in Los Angeles during the same time period. Welles was never a suspect in the original
investigation.
Although the vast majority of suspects in the case were male, authorities did
not rule out the possibility of a female killer. One theory held that, because Short had checked her baggage, including her
clothing and cosmetics, a week before she died, she must have been staying with another woman (who presumably would have lent
Short the essentials) during the intervening time. Another theory was that the assailant bisected Short's body because he
or she was not strong enough to move it in one piece. One of the first people to confess to the murder was a WAC Sergeant
stationed in San Diego. Authorities took the confession seriously enough to investigate and found it groundless. Another suspect
is referred to simply as "Queer Woman Surgeon" in the Los Angeles district attorney's files on the case. Newspaper stories
at the time implied that Short was homosexual or bisexual, but the district attorney files state bluntly that Short "had no
use for queers."
Copyright © 2007 Arcamax Publishing, Inc., and its licensors. All rights
reserved.
Lizzie Borden
July 19, 1860 - June 1, 1927
by Jone Johnson Lewis
Lizzie Borden was famous -- or infamous -- for allegedly
murdering her father and stepmother in 1892 (she was acquitted), and memorialized in the children's rhyme:
"Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks
And when she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one."
Lizzie Borden was born in, and lived her life in, Fall River, Massachusetts.
Her father was Andrew Borden, and her mother, Sarah, died when Lizzie was less than three years old. Lizzie had another sister,
Emma, who was nine years older. Another daughter, between Emma and Lizzie, died in infancy.
Andrew Borden remarried in 1865. His second wife, Abby Durfree Gray, and the
two sisters, Lizzie and Emma, lived mostly quietly and uneventfully, until 1892. Lizzie was active at church, including teaching
Sunday School and membership in the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). In 1890, Lizzie Borden traveled abroad briefly
with some friends.
Lizzie Borden's father had become comfortably wealthy, and was known as tight
with his money. The house, while not small, had no modern plumbing. In 1884 when Andrew gave his wife's half-sister a house,
his daughters objected and fought with their stepmother, refusing thereafter to call her "mother" and calling her simply "Mrs.
Borden" instead. Andrew tried to make peace with his daughters, in 1887 giving them some funds and allowing them to rent out
his old family home.
In 1891, tensions in the family were strong enough that, after some apparent
thefts from the master bedroom, each of the Bordens bought locks for their bedrooms.
In July of 1892, Lizzie Borden and her sister Emma went to visit some friends;
Lizzie returned and Emma remained away. In early August, Andrew and Abby Borden were struck with an attack of vomiting, and
Mrs. Borden told someone that she suspected poison. The brother of Lizzie's mother came to stay at the house, and on August
4, this brother and Andrew Borden went into town together. Andrew returned alone and lay down in the sitting room.
The maid, who had earlier been ironing and washing windows, was taking a nap
when Lizzie called to her to come downstairs -- Lizzie said that her father had been killed while she (Lizzie) went to the
barn. He had been hacked in the face and head with an axe or hatchet. After a doctor was called, Abby was found, also dead,
in a bedroom, also hacked many times (the later investigation said twenty times, not forty as in the children's rhyme) with
an axe or hatchet.
Later tests showed that Abby had died 1-2 hours before Andrew; because Andrew
died without a will, this meant that his estate, worth about $300,000 to $500,000, would go to his daughters, and not to Abby's
heirs.
Lizzie Borden was arrested. Evidence included a report that she'd tried
to burn a dress a week after the murder (a friend testified it had been stained with paint), and reports that she had tried
to buy a poison just before the murders. The murder weapon was never found for certain -- a hatchet head that may have been
washed and deliberately made to look dirty was found in the cellar -- nor any blood-stained clothes.
Lizzie Borden's trial began June3, 1893. It was widely covered by
the press locally and nationally. Some Massachusetts feminists wrote in Lizzie Borden's favor. Townspeople split into two
camps. Lizzie Borden did not testify, having told the inquest that she had been searching the barn for fishing equipment and
then eating pears outside during the time of the murders. She said "I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me."
Without direct evidence of Lizzie Borden's part in the murder, the
jury was not convinced of her guilt. Lizzie Borden was acquitted on June 20, 1893. She remained in Fall River, buying a new
and bigger home she called "Maplecroft," and calling herself Lizbeth instead of Lizzie. She lived with her sister Emma until
they had a falling-out in 1904 or 1905, possibly over Emma's displeasure at Lizzie's friends from the New York theater crowd.
Both Lizzie and Emma also took in many pets, and left part of their estates to the Animal Rescue Leauge.
Lizzie Borden died at Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1927, her legend
as a murderess still strong. She was buried next to her father and stepmother. The home in which the murders took place opened
as a bed-and-breakfast in 1992.
Two books which each revived public interest in the case:
- Edmund Pearson, The Trial of Lizzie Borden, 1937: finds Lizzie Borden
guilty of the murders.
- Edward D. Radin, Lizzie Borden: The Untold Story, 1961: finds Lizzie Borden
innocent of the murders.
©2007 About, Inc., A part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.
The St. Valentines Day Massacre
by Jennifer Rosenberg
Date: 10:30 a.m. on February 14, 1929
The Dead: Frank Gusenberg, Pete Gusenberg, John May, Albert
Weinshank, James Clark, Adam Heyer, and Dr. Reinhart Schwimmer
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre remains the most notorious gangster killing
of the Prohibition era. The massacre made Al Capone a national celebrity as well as brought him the unwanted attention of
the federal government.
During the Prohibition era, gangsters ruled many of the large cities, becoming
rich from owning speakeasies, breweries, brothels, and gambling joints. These gangsters would carve up a city between rival
gangs, bribe local officials, and become local celebrities. By the late 1920s, Chicago was split between two rival gangs:
one led by Al Capone and the other by George "Bugs" Moran. Capone and Moran vied for power, prestige, and money; plus, both
tried for years to kill each other.
In early 1929, Al Capone was living in Miami with his family (to escape Chicago's
brutal winter) when his associate Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn visited him. McGurn, who had recently survived an assassination
attempt ordered by Moran, wanted to discuss the ongoing problem of Moran's gang. In an attempt to eliminate the Moran gang
entirely, Capone agreed to fund an assassination attempt and McGurn was placed in charge of organizing it.
McGurn planned carefully. He located the Moran gang's headquarters, which was
in a large garage behind the offices of S.M.C. Cartage Company at 2122 North Clark Street. He selected gunmen from outside
the Chicago area, to ensure that if there were any survivors, they would not be able to recognize the killers as part of Capone's
gang. McGurn hired lookouts and set them up in an apartment near the garage. Also essential to the plan, McGurn acquired a
stolen police car and two police uniforms.
With the plan organized and the killers hired, it was time to set the trap.
McGurn instructed a local booze hijacker to contact Moran on February 13. The hijacker was to tell Moran that he had obtained
a shipment of Old Log Cabin whiskey (i.e. very good liquor) which he was willing to sell at the very reasonable price of $57
per case. Moran quickly agreed and told the hijacker to meet him at the garage at 10:30 the following morning.
On the morning of February 14, 1929, the lookouts (Harry and Phil Keywell) were
watching carefully as the Moran gang assembled at the garage. Around 10:30, the lookouts recognized a man heading to the garage
as "Bugs" Moran. The lookouts told the gunmen; the gunmen climbed into the stolen police car.
When the stolen police car reached the garage, the four gunmen (Fred "Killer"
Burke, John Scalise, Albert Anselmi, and Joseph Lolordo) jumped out. (Some reports say there were five gunmen.)
Two of the gunmen were dressed in police uniforms. When the gunmen
rushed into the garage, the seven men inside saw the uniforms and thought it was a routine police raid. Continuing to believe
the gunmen to be police officers, all seven men peacefully did as they were told. They lined up, faced the wall, and allowed
the gunmen to remove their weapons.
The gunmen then opened fire, using two Tommy guns, a sawed-off shotgun, and
a .45. The killing was fast and bloody. Each of the seven victims received at least 15 bullets, mostly in the head and torso.
The gunmen then left the garage. As they exited, neighbors who had heard the
rat-tat-tat of the submachine gun, looked out their windows and saw two (or three, depending on reports) policemen walking
behind two men dressed in civilian clothes with their hands up.
The neighbors assumed that the police had staged a raid and were arresting two
men. After the massacre was discovered, many continued to believe for several weeks that the police were responsible.
Six of the victims died in the garage; Frank Gusenberg was taken to a hospital
but died three hours later, refusing to name who was responsible.
Though the plan had been carefully crafted, one major problem occurred. The
man that the lookouts had identified as Moran was really Albert Weinshank. "Bugs" Moran, the main target for the assassination,
was arriving a couple minutes late to the 10:30 a.m. meeting when he noticed a police car outside the garage. Thinking it
was a police raid, Moran stayed away from the building, unknowingly saving his life.
The massacre that took seven lives that St. Valentine's Day in 1929 made newspaper
headlines across the country. The country was shocked at the brutality of the killings. Police tried desperately to determine
who was responsible.
Al Capone had an air-tight alibi because he had been called in for questioning
by the Dade County solicitor in Miami during the time of the massacre. "Machine Gun" McGurn had what became called a "blonde
alibi" -- he had been at a hotel with his blonde girlfriend from 9 p.m. on February 13 through 3 p.m. on February 14. Fred
Burke was arrested by police in March 1931 but was charged with the December 1929 murder of a police officer and sentenced
to life in prison for that crime.
Though this was one of the first major crimes that the science of ballistics
was used, no one was ever tried or convicted for the murders of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Though the police never
had enough evidence to convict Al Capone, the public knew he was responsible. In addition to making Capone a national celebrity,
the St. Valentine's Day Massacre brought Capone to the attention of the federal government.
©2008 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company. All rights
reserved.
Minnie Dean
On August 12, 1895, Minnie Dean became the first woman to be hanged
in New Zealand. Her crime was "baby farming." She would adopt unwanted babies for a certain fee and then dispose of them,
a "service" she began in 1889. The police caught on to Minnie after six years and found her to be most certainly guilty when
they dug up three bodies of infants in her flower garden. - Copyright
© 2008 ArcaMax Publishing, Inc., and its licensors. All rights reserved.
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