Civil Rights Division Emmett Till Act (Cold Case Closing Memoranda)
Willie Countryman
On May 25, 1958, at about 1:30 a.m., Dawson Police Department (DPD) Officers Weyman Cherry and Robert Hancock, the subjects, entered the yard of Willie Countryman, the African-American victim, reportedly to investigate a suspicious noise. The subjects claimed that the victim jumped from behind a tree and cut Cherry’s cap with a knife, whereupon Cherry broke free and shot the victim. Countryman sustained a gunshot wound to the stomach and was transported to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
Ernest Hunter
On September 13, 1958, at about 7:30 p.m., St. Mary’s, Georgia, Police Department (SMPD) Officer Billy Carter, the subject, arrested Ernest Hunter, a 22-year-old African-American for “interfering” when the subject was writing a traffic ticket. The subject placed the victim in his patrol car and transported him to the city jail. The subject claimed that once inside the jail, the victim swung at him, struggled with him, and started to choke him and punched him. According to the subject, he then “blacked out.” The subject stated that he could not recall drawing and firing his gun at the victim, fatally wounding him. Three eyewitnesses corroborated the subject’s account that the victim fought with him at the jail, and two of those witnesses stated that the victim was choking the subject when the subject fired the fatal gunshot.
George Love
On January 8, 1958, a 25-man posse shot and killed George Love, a 38-year-old African American accused of arson, robbery, and multiple murders. Newspaper articles from January 1958 reported that Love escaped arrest in Ruleville, Mississippi, by shooting a law enforcement officer four times, leaving him seriously wounded, but alive. Love fled after the shooting, prompting the organization of the posse and the manhunt that lasted through the night. The articles reported that the posse discovered Love hiding on a plantation several miles east of Ruleville. Reportedly, as the posse closed in, Love fired upon the posse, which returned fire. During the exchange of gunfire, Love was fatally shot. An NAACP press release from January 23, 1958, alleged that an investigation by Medgar Evers, NAACP field secretary for Mississippi, concluded that Love was shot in the back.
Woodrow Wilson Daniels
On June 21, 1958, Woodrow Wilson Daniels, the African-American victim, was severely beaten with a “blackjack” or a large club by Yalobusha County Sheriff James Gray “Buster” Treloar, the subject, after the victim objected to the subject’s attempt to move him out of the “white section” of the Yalobusha County Jail. The victim was released from the jail at about 12:30 p.m. on June 22, 1958. He was first seen by a local doctor, then by a physician in Oxford, Mississippi, and finally taken to the John Gaston Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where he died on July 1, 1958.
John (Larry) Bolden
On May 3, 1958, John (Larry) Bolden, a 15-year-old African-American high school student, was fatally shot by Officer William Henry Taylor of the Chattanooga Police during an altercation in South Chattanooga, Tennessee. The incident began when a resident complained she was being “annoyed” by several youths. Officer Taylor and his partner, Lester Lee Shell, responded and confronted the victim, his XXXXXX and his XXXXXX Shell communicated with XXXXXXXXXX and Taylor attempted to arrest the victim. According to the subject, the victim “jumped” him. The subject then struck the victim with a nightstick and the victim threw a trash can at the subject. In response, the subject fired his gun three times, striking the victim twice in the chest. The victim died in the hospital the next day.
Richard Lillard
On July 20, 1958, Richard Lillard, a 38-year-old African-American inmate, died after being beaten in a padded cell in the Nashville City Workhouse, Nashville, Tennessee. The autopsy report showed that the victim’s injuries included eight lacerations and three fractures, and the cause of death was hemorrhage, shock and cerebral concussion caused by “external violence.” The three subjects, superintendent John William Burnett, and officers Lucien Harris Debow and Clark Patterson, claimed that the victim was “deranged” and had to be subdued after the victim had obtained a blackjack and a broom handle.
Joseph Franklin Jeter, Sr.
On September 13, 1958, Joseph Franklin Jeter, Sr., the African-American victim, was shot and killed by Atlanta Police Department (APD) Officer W.O. Dempsey. Shortly before the shooting, Dempsey, and subjects Lieutenant Ellis Barrett, Officer Ned C. Oliver, Officer Andrew W. Jones, and Officer David R. Turner responded to a report of a man, later identified as XXXXXXX, pointing a gun inside a drug store. The subject officers reported that when they arrested XXXXX and placed him in a patrol car, a very large crowd approached and began yelling at them. Among them was XXXXX, the victim XXXXX. The officers claimed that The above numbered file has been closed as of this date.
James Brazier
On April 20, 1958, James Brazier, the African-American victim, was arrested by Dawson Police Department (DPD) Officers Weyman Cherry and Randolph McDonald, the subjects, for “interfering” with the earlier arrest of XXXXXXXXXXX. Subject Cherry admitted that he struck the victim on the head with a “blackjack” (a short, leather-covered club, consisting of a heavy head on a flexible handle), during the arrest, but he claimed that he acted in self-defense when Brazier resisted arrest by swinging at him and subject McDonald.
Ed Smith
On April 27, 1958, Ed Smith, the African-American victim, was fatally shot in the chest by Lawrence David Clark, the subject, in the front yard of the victim’s home in State Line, Mississippi. After a preliminary hearing, the subject was placed on a $5000 bond pending a grand jury hearing. Two weeks after the shooting, a local grand jury was convened and failed to indict the subject.