Let's Go To Court! - 110: The Murder of Emmett Till & Justice for Cyntoia Brown

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

This week, Kristin starts us off with a case that’s as awful as it is important. Emmett Till was just fourteen years old in 1955, when he traveled from his home in Chicago to visit relatives in rural Mississippi. Before he left, his mother warned Emmett that Chicago and Mississippi were two different worlds. The culture was different -- the racism more intense. He’d have to be careful. But no warning could prepare Emmett for what lay ahead of him in Mississippi.   Then Brandi tells us the infuriating, but ultimately positive story of Cyntoia Brown. From the moment she was born, Cyntoia faced incredible obstacles. By the time she was a teenager, Cyntoia had been sex trafficked by an older man. When she was 16, a 43-year-old real estate broker named Johnny Michael Allen approached her in a Sonic, looking for sex. The two went back to his house, where Cyntoia felt increasingly afraid.    And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Emmett Till Murder Trial” by Douglas O. Linder for famous-trials.com “Emmett Till” entry on wikipedia “What happened to the key figures in the Emmett Till case?” by Devery S. Anderson for the Mississippi Clarion Ledger In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “A timeline of the Cyntoia Brown case, conviction and successful bid for clemency” by Jon Garcia, The Tennessean “Who was Cyntoia Brown convicted of killing? A look at Johnny Allen.” by Jon Garcia, The Tennessean “Read Cyntoia Brown-Long's note to her 16-year-old self facing life in prison” by Juan Buitrago, The Tennessean “Cyntoia Brown wasn’t a victim, stole money after killing Johnny Allen: Prosecutors” by Christal Hayes, Newsweek “Cyntoia Brown, a trafficking victim jailed for killing a man using her for sex, was granted clemency following a social-media campaign. Here's everything you need to know.” by Benjamin Goggin, Insider “How The Justice System Failed Cyntoia Brown” by Leah Carroll, Refinery29 “Attorneys seek new trial for teenage killer” Associated Press, The Oklahoman “Cyntoia Denise Brown v.  State of Tennessee” tncourts.gov “Cyntoia Brown Is Getting Back The Childhood She & So Many Young Black Girls Never Had” by Clarissa Brooks, Bustle “Cyntoia Brown” wikipedia.org “Cyntoia Brown” episode ExpediTIously Podcast

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A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. Today's episode of Let's Go to Court is brought to you by Best Fiends. Woohoo! We have a sponsor! Yay! The moment we've all been waiting for. One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about the murder of Emmett Till. And I'll be talking about Cyntoia Brown. Okay, guys. Oh, oh, oh, oh, Bessie.

We got a bit of a call to action on Twitter. Yes, we did. Okay, so I've written it. Oh, guys. Oh, Bessie. We got a bit of a call to action on Twitter. Yes, we did. Okay, so I've written it up. Oh, good. Do you have it written up? No, I have. I just screenshot it. That's all.

So no. Oh, well, so. Go ahead. Step aside. Let me push my glasses up here. Okay, so a couple weeks ago. How do you say people's Twitter names? Do you say their name or the at name?

Say their at name. Okay. Okay. At Detroit reached out to us and she said, let me go ahead and join the Patreon so I can demand black people cases for black history month and did the little laughing emoji. And I was like, yes. And then I didn't think a thing of it again. And then like a few days later, Insecure Carrie, at Insecure Carrie jumped in and said, I second this. And then like a few days later, Insecure Carrie at Insecure Carrie jumped in and said, I second this. And then she did that gif of Oprah thinking. Yeah. And so then I screenshotted it and sent it to you. Yeah. And I said, I've got the nuts. And here we are with these with our giant nuts. So we are doing a Black History Month episode i guess and you know you may be wondering why

would i want to hear this stuff from two white women well you know this is what we got that's right trying our best am i rachel dolezal i don't know oh did you watch that documentary about her i didn't but i read a shit ton of stuff on her oh oh my god okay for anyone who did not memorize her name the way i did white lady oh i mean like the whitest lady, naturally blonde hair, very pale, got a couple spray tans and set up box braids. And and oh, my gosh. Then she became like the president of the NAACP chapter in Washington. I think she passed herself off as as black as a black woman. Yeah. OK, so I I watched the documentary.

This is totally off topic. I watched the documentary a long time ago when it came out on Netflix. You're welcome for this Black History Month episode. And so I watched it because I had heard a little bit about her take. And her take was she was trying to do kind of like race is a social construct. And just like people can choose their gender identity, people should be able to choose their race. And I was kind of like race is a social construct and just like people can choose their gender identity people should be able to choose their race and I was kind of like she thought it was like one of those quirky 80s movies like just one of the guys what I never saw that yes you did we watched it together

did we really yeah this girl's like a she works on like the school paper and she wants to like get the inside scoop about what it's like to be a guy and so she goes to a different school passes herself off as a guy but then she falls in love with a guy uh-huh and at prom she rips her shirt open and shows him her boobs okay i do remember that that's the only way to tell people that you're a woman is to rip your shirt open i that scene is etched into my was she wet when it happened? Yeah, she was. She got pushed.

Of course, the prom happened on a beach. She got pushed into the ocean. She's wearing a tuxedo and she rips open her tuxedo shirt and shows him her tits. There's no other way

to do it. You can't just say I'm a woman. Show, don't tell. That's a good writing lesson. it's a good life lesson yeah anyway back to Rachel Dolezal she just thought she was in a quirky 80s movie no so I heard that argument of like and I was kind of like huh well okay I'm listening yeah but then like in the documentary like you know they interviewed black women who had been part of the NAACP and they were like uh yeah

when we would tell stories about experiences we'd had with racism she would always one-up us and I'm like okay you lost me officially lost me and I feel bad for her kids anyway yeah and when they called her on it she ripped her shirt and they're like ma'am what are you trying to prove i'm sorry was this a weird tangent to go on a movie one time this might be our weirdest tangent yet uh detroit and insecure carrie i hope you're happy so yeah we were asked to do an episode for black history month we were like yes absolutely and i've got to give it to detroit because she actually reached out and she was like, hey, in case you need a lighthearted case for Black History Month, Lonnie Johnson was

the creator of the Super Soaker and he's an HBCU graduate. OK, so I looked into this case. You're making a face. Yeah, well, that would have been great information to pass along to me, Kristen. OK, I wanted to save it for myself. So here's the deal. We both have heavy fucking cases for this episode. Here's the deal with Lonnie Johnson.

Coolest guy ever. Yeah. Accomplished a ton of crazy stuff. No court stuff. Well, I mean, there's this. There's this. So he found out that he was being like insanely underpaid for his super soaker sales. Super soaker sales.

I just wanted to say it because it sounded fun. I did a great job with it, didn't I? You did. Yeah. I'm a podcaster and we're sponsored this episode and it shows. So he basically got an attorney and they were like, you owe us like 73 million dollars and he got 73 million dollars and boom this is what i call a twofer because that's the case right excellent and we had actually gotten a lot of requests in the discord yes for doing it and i had tried to

do it a couple times i cried too hard and i And, you know, this is just a situation where we got to do it. So if you're like, hmm, the Discord, you're allowed to talk to them and give suggestions in there? You sure are. You sure are. For the low, low price of $5 a month, you get into our Discord where you can hang out and talk to everybody. And you get bonus episodes. New one dropped last week, actually. That was our eighth bonus episode.

So if you get in, you get access to all those back bonus episodes, too. What more do you want? Yeah. Then at the $7 level, you get all that plus a monthly video, plus a sticker and our lovely autographs. Oh, the penmanship. Yeah. It's not great.

And that's it. It's only $7. What do you want? So big thank you to Marissa K on the Discord who suggested this case. And I want to read directly because I think this sums up my feeling about this case too. It's so awful.

Oh, good. And probably would need an entire episode on its own. Excellent. And then the next day, B. Barsanis chimed in too, wanting to hear the case and said, it was so awful, but was a major turning point for the civil rights movement. So I just have to get it out there. Is this going to be awful? It's going to be awful, but it's really important. It's a really fascinating case. I want to go to all these places and I want to punch some dead people. Okay.

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of love gone wrong. From cheaters and liars to con men and scam artists, these cases will leave your jaw on the floor. So listen to The Dating Detectives now on Spotify because true crime has never been this close to the heart. Okay, so first off, huge shout out to FamousTrials.com. LoveFamousTrials.com. Professor Douglas O. Linder always has great write-ups on big cases there. Good old Doug E. O. I don't know how he'd feel about that. And then there was an article in the Clarion Ledger, which was written by Devery S. Anderson. It looked like it was just a chapter of their book.

And the book was Emmett Till, The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement. A real snappy title. Yeah. Sorry, that's rude. And the book was Emmett Till, The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement. A real snappy title. Yeah. Sorry, that's rude. I'm thanking them for their research. Anyway. Don't be a bitch, Kristen.

It's my natural instinct. And also, Wikipedia. The Wikipedia entry on this is amazing. Excellent. Also, old timey disclaimer. I'm not even going to explain it. That's all you say. Also, I'm going to add a new disclaimer. Racist disclaimer. Oh, old timey disclaimer. I'm not even going to explain it. That's all you say. Also, I'm going to add a new disclaimer. Racist disclaimer.

Oh, yeah. Now, what a racist disclaimer. You may be thinking, oh, this just means, oh, racism is coming up. No, that's not what it means. Although, yes, definitely. Racism disclaimer is when an old timey case comes out and people say how they feel in the moment and then they get old and some of them try to be like, oh, what? No, I didn't really feel. Yeah, that's racism disclaimer.

Racism's bad, okay? Was that the point you were making, Kristen? That's the point of our Black History Month episode. What if they heard that from us and they were like, oh my gosh. Oh, I had no idea. Okay. Racism adjourned. Racism adjourned. Racism adjourned.

We ended racism. Do you know anything about? No. You don't? I don't know anything. Really? About anything. No, I really don't know anything about Emmett Till.

Okay. Emmett Till. Everybody kept saying it was awful. So I just didn't click on anything. Emmett Till was born in 1941 in Chicago to Mamie Carthen and Lewis Till. When it came to raising Emmett, Mamie and her mom did like all the heavy lifting because Emmett's dad kind of sucked, actually super sucked. But you know, I'm trying to be like that super soaker. That's exactly right. He was physically abusive and unfaithful. When Emmett was still a baby,

Lewis cheated on Mamie and he choked her until she lost consciousness. Wow. It was horrible. So Mamie got an old timey restraining order. And of course, he broke it. So in 1943, a judge was like, look, dude, I'm going to give you a choice here. You can either go to jail or we've got this super fun war going on and you can go join the U.S. Army. He chose the Army. Wow. Less than two years later, the U.S. Army executed Louis Till. For what?

For raping two women and murdering another woman. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I'm sorry. Did you say he was kind of bad at the beginning? Yeah. Sorry. I don't know why I tried to soften it. Now, I'm sorry. Did you say he was kind of bad at the beginning? Yeah. Sorry.

I don't know why I tried to soften it. Another source said that he raped one woman and murdered another. We get the picture. Potato, potato. I don't think it really matters at that point. Somehow through all of this made me kept going, but life didn't get easier. About two years later, when Emmett was six, he got polio. He survived, but for the rest of his life, he lived with a stutter, which I didn't know was... I hadn't, yeah.

Yeah, I guess that can happen to you. Your legs stopped working. I didn't know. Yeah, apparently a stutter can happen too. Wow. But Mamie kept going. She wanted to build a good life for herself and her son, so she got a job as a civilian clerk for the u.s army they moved into a cute little brick house in the south side of chicago located at 6427 south st lawrence avenue chicago illinois oh oh my gosh it's so cute i know i love it me too we should probably describe it

it's like a little row house yeah exactly yeah exactly. I love row houses. I think they're so cute looking. It actually has kind of like a cool, like, San Francisco vibe to it. It really does. So that's where they lived. And obviously, the stuff with Emmett's dad was terrible. Polio was terrible. But by all accounts, it seemed like Emmett was a pretty fun, happy kid. He was a bit of a ham.

And Mamie figured that one day he'd be a really good lawyer or maybe a politician. He was a really snappy dresser. He knew how to make people laugh. He knew how to engage with people. He and his friends loved playing baseball and pulling pranks on each other. Normal kid stuff. What? Have you given us a year?

Yeah. So he was born in 41. Okay. The stuff with his dad, I think he was killed in 45. Okay, excellent. I clearly wasn't paying close enough attention. Wow. Hello.

I'm doing a podcast here. Sorry. It's kind of your job in this space. I apologize. I didn't latch on to a year. Okay. So Mamie grew up most of her life in Illinois, but she wasn't originally from Illinois. She was born in Webb, Mississippi.

And let me tell you, being black in Webb, Mississippi, in old timey times, oh my god, it sounds awful. Like they had racism just perfected down there. So here's the deal. If you could find work, you were a sharecropper, where you'd make, I don't even think it's fair to say enough money to survive. Because in 1949, so almost like 30 years after Mamie's family left Mississippi the average black family in Tallahatchie County Mississippi brought in 462 dollars a year holy hell adjusted for inflation it's a little over five grand a year oh my god so I I don't even know what what do you do how yeah on five grand a year for your family. Oh, my gosh. So there were no opportunities. There was no money to be had.

There was racism out the yin-yang. Yeah. So Mamie's immediate family immediately. Immediately came. Got the hell out of Mississippi. But she still had extended family living in Mississippi. So, you know, they'd visit each other from time to time. And in 1955, which is a year, Brandy.

Thank you. I heard that one. Okay. When Emmett was 14 years old, Emmett begged his mom to let him go to Mississippi. They just had Mamie's uncle up to visit, and he told them all about life in Mississippi. And Emmett wanted to check it out. He wanted to hang out with his cousins. He wanted, you know, a little summer vacation.

I know you're making a face. Yeah, I don't think that's gonna go well. So finally, Mamie said, okay, he could go with a cousin and stay with family in Money, Mississippi for two weeks. Yeah, Money, Mississippi. Ironically named, I think, for two weeks over the summer. But before he went, Mamie was like, just so you know, Mississippi is nothing like Chicago. Right. First of all, it's tiny, like a few hundred people live there. Second, there's not much there. You got a post office, a school, a cotton gin.

But most importantly, the culture is totally different. She said, it is a different world. And you have to know how to act in front of Southern white people. It's not the same as it is up here. If you offend anybody down there, you drop to your knees and beg for forgiveness. You know, so she gave him this very serious talk and he said that he understood. But I don't know that you can prepare. Yeah, I don't know. Mamie was right to be nervous. A year earlier, the Supreme Court ruled on Brown versus the Board of Education, right to be nervous. A year earlier, the Supreme Court ruled on Brown versus the Board of Education,

which deemed racial segregation in public schools as unconstitutional, which was a great decision, but it really got racist people's panties in a wad. Sure did. So then they're all extra mad. And at the same time, the civil rights movement was starting to take off. So that made the racist people's panties even wadier, like wads of panties wads on top of wads wads wads all type of wads yeah but Mamie had that talk with Emmett and he seemed to understand what she was saying and I think she must have figured he'd be pretty safe staying there with family he'd be staying with her uncle Moe's right and her aunt his wife Elizabeth Moe's well Moe's but they called him Moe's why she's thinking Moe's Moose. Mose. Do we know a Mose? Yeah, I'm office. Oh, okay. Dwight's creepy cousin Mose. Okay. I never heard of another Mose. Well, here you go. This guy's much better than Mose on the office.

So Mose was a preacher and a sharecropper. Emmett would be fine. So on August 20th, 1955, Emmett took the train down to Mississippi. The first few days of the visit were pretty fun. He and his cousins swam in a snake-infested pond, shot off fireworks. I mean, southern stuff. I don't know. Then on August 24th, Emmett and his cousin Curtis and a few friends skipped church. And actually, I think another cousin went too. But at any rate, they skipped church to go to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market.

If you Google it, it's still standing, but barely. Yeah, I can see it. I'm looking at it. Does it have a Coca-Cola ad on the building? Yeah, and like no roof. Yeah. Uh-huh. You want to know a not fun fact great

this thing's not going to get bad soon enough you got to give me a shitty fun fact yeah i think i do this will just dip your toe in the snake infested waters great this shithole does have historical significance and so some preservationists have wanted to buy it, but it is now apparently in the hands of the son of one of the jurors who would eventually serve on this case. And that man wants an unreasonable sum of money for it. Four million dollars, it seems. Does it say four million? I read a million. I have a picture of it pulled up and then there's a little blurb under it that says Emmett Till, owners of Crumbling Story, where began demand four million dollars yeah they can kiss my whole asshole wow well it's true that's the graphic

well they deserve it what fucking assholes why don't you tell us what happens at this store christian are you wanting me to move it along no no i'm not i'm just i know it's about to get terrible and so okay So here we go. Wait, can you tell us, is there, what do you want to know? Like, did something good come out of the end of this story? Is it just terrible the whole way? I mean, there's a reason everyone says it's awful. It's awful. It's awful. All right.

But yeah, I mean, I guess there's a silver lining, I guess. Oh boy. So Emmett and his friends went in the store to buy some candy. So the store served mostly sharecroppers and was run by a white couple, 24-year-old Roy Bryant and 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant. On that particular day, Carolyn was running the store by herself because Roy was out of town. So something or maybe absolutely nothing happened in the store that day. absolutely nothing happened in the store that day. Okay, I'm not going to go into every possible take on what was maybe said because it's just like, it's ridiculous.

But I'm going to name a few. Here's what Carolyn said happened. Carolyn said that the boys came in, bought their candy, and they all left except for Emmett. So there she was alone in the store with this 14-year-old boy. And Emmett grabbed her hand and said how about a date baby she pulled away and he grabbed her by the waist and said you needn't be afraid of me baby I've slept with white women before but he didn't say slept he said

an unprintable word she said okay I'm extremely skeptical about that. Why? Version. It's a 14 year old boy. A 14 year old boy is going to say that a 14 year old black boy in 1955 is going to say that to a 20 something white woman. No. No. Hell no. I don't believe that at all. Take race out of the equation. I don't think a 14 year old boy is going to say. No. And the other thing I have thought is if he was going to say something that outlandish. Wouldn't he say it while the other boys were there? Because what's the point of saying that?

It's just a brag, right? Because you want to show off to your friends. Yeah. Okay. I think this is horse shit. Yeah. Emmett's cousin had a different story. He said that Emmett and Carolyn had only been alone in the store together for less than a minute and that when he walked in,

everything seemed normal between them. Emmett paid for his candy and he and Emmett walked out together. Yeah. So he's like, OK, how quickly could that have all happened? And then I walked in and everything was fine. Some people say that maybe Emmett whistled at Carolyn in the store that day. And maybe it was kind of flirty, which is possible. The other thing is that he had that stutter. And one of the ways he got around the stutter was to whistle. So if he got caught on a word, and it was usually a word that started with the letter B, he could whistle to help him get past the stutter. So I think it's perfectly possible that he did that.

And she took it as, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The bottom line is that whatever happened or didn't happen, by the time Emmett left that store, Carolyn was pissed off. So here's the part of the story that people, for the most part, agree happened. Carolyn stormed out of there, went to a car, and grabbed a gun. OK.

And Emmett whistled, like a big whistle. Uh-huh. And when he did that, Emmett's cousins and friends were kind of stunned. Uh-huh. Because you just, you did not do that. Yeah. Emmett's cousin, Curtis Jones, was across the street playing checkers with an older man. And the old man saw this go down, and he said, you boys need to get out of here fast.

He was just like, this is really unsafe. So they all piled into their car and got the hell out of there. Meanwhile, Carolyn told her little story all over town to the five people who lived there. And the next day, Carolyn's husband, Roy, came home from Texas. And somehow he found out about what happened at the store.

He became enraged. He asked around and found out about what happened at the store. He became enraged. He asked around and found out that the person who'd done something to his wife was a young black teenager from Chicago. He went home and asked Carolyn about it. And at first she denied it because she says she was afraid he would beat Emmett up. But eventually she told him the story. So I want to pause here. What do you think happened? I honestly don't know. I think that she probably if her version really happened. I don't know why she would have kept that from her husband. So that tells me that that is not what happened. Yeah. What do you think happened? Okay, my disclaimer here before I say what I think

happened. This is purely my opinion. Yeah. Just based on, you know, reading and thinking, crying about this for about a day and a half. Here's what I think happened. She's alone running this store. Her husband is out of town. I know from times when Norman has been out of town, my fear is elevated. And you remember the story I told you that one time about where I woke up in the middle of the night and I thought someone had like a chainsaw trying to get into my house. It was Kiki had stepped on my Roomba and I was like, all right, they're breaking in.

I'm going to scare these people up. You locked yourself in your panic room. So just that thought of how maybe when your husband's out of town, your fear gets elevated. I'm thinking, OK, so if you're fearful and you're racist and maybe you're bored, like let's let's put that in a soup. So this and take that into an interpretation of, yes, if he had to whistle to. Yes. Break his stutter. Yes. Yeah. So my theory is she's alone fearful and racist so she's alone in the store with this 14 year old black boy who maybe is a little bolder than the black boys she's used to seeing around her so she doesn't like that and maybe he does whistle and so when she

goes and tells that story to her sister-in-law who's in the back of the store to, you know, whoever. Yeah. Because it's boring as hell. Maybe she exaggerates a little bit. And by the time her husband comes home, she doesn't want to tell the story because it's become something that it's not. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think I solved this.

Anyway. I think that's completely possible. Thank you. So you agree wholeheartedly. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I think that that is a feasible possibility. I really think it is. All right.

I agree with myself. So the next day was Saturday, August 27th. Roy decided that he needed to kidnap this young black boy and teach him a lesson. Oh, boy. to kidnap this young black boy and teach him a lesson. Oh, boy. So Roy, his half-brother, J.W. Millam, and Carolyn got in their pickup truck, and they picked up a black man named Johnny Washington, or J.W. Washington. So, you know, sources have it different ways.

There were two J.W.'s in this truck that day? I know. It's ridiculous. How many J.W.'s do you want? Actually, no one J.W. Well, and I think they were both Johnny Williams well and my nephew nobody really calls him JW but those are because there are too many JWs in the world I know I think occasionally his parents call him JW because there's two first two

initials but is it Johnny William no it's Jeremiah Wayne oh well okay I'll allow it but that's not what people were named in this story. As they were riding down the road, they spotted a black teenage boy. So Roy told Johnny, go get him, throw him in the back of the truck. So Johnny did. But once Carolyn got a good look at the kid, she said, that's not the right kid. Only she didn't say that. She said racist stuff, which, you know, okay.

So they were like, okay, now throw him out of the truck. So Johnny threw the young man out of the truck. He landed on his head first. He landed face first and lost his front teeth. Oh, my gosh. So they kept riding around trying to find this boy whose name they didn't know. Roy later admitted that they were drunk. So great.

And by talking to people and aggressively questioning them, they found out that the boy was staying at Moe's Wright's house. By this point, it was 2.30 in the morning. So they pulled up to the house with their headlights off. You can actually look up Moe's Wright's house. It's since been destroyed, I believe, but it's actually kind of a pretty log cabin. It looks like a screened in porch on the front. So they knocked on the door and shouted, a pretty log cabin. Looks like a screened in porch on the front. So they knocked on the door and shouted preacher, preacher, which is how Moe's was known. Moe's came to the door and here's what was said. That was a nickname for his nickname. Okay. Moe's is not really a nickname for Moses. I mean, you drop one letter. It's just, you know, casual times. Okay. All right. All right. All

right. Brand. Nobody calls me brand. They call me Bran. I always thought your mom was calling you Brand. No. Bran. I added the D. So Moe said, who is it? Roy. This is Mr. Bryant. I want to talk to you and that boy.

Moe's. Yes, sir. Roy. I want that boy who did the talking down at Money. So Moe's let him in and the lights weren't working. So Roy's brother, J.W., came in with his flashlight and went over to the two beds where there were four boys sleeping. So from now on throughout this story, because I'm going to be reading some passages, obviously I'm not going to say the N word, but I'm going to raise my hand every time

and you just go bleep. Okay. Then it's awkward to be like, and then they said a bad word. Okay. So everybody will get the idea. So the four boys were in bed, and he shined the light in Emmett's face and said, You that, bleep, that did the talking down at money? Emmett, yeah. Don't say yeah to me, bleep. I'll blow your head off. Get your clothes on. So Emmett reached for his socks, and J.W. said, just the shoes.

And Emmett said, I don't wear shoes without socks. At this point, Emmett's great aunt Elizabeth intervened, and she said just the shoes and Emmett said I don't wear shoes without socks at this point Emmett's great aunt Elizabeth intervened and she said we'll pay you whatever you want to charge if you just release him so in an article that I read this morning with I believe it was his cousin Simeon who was in bed with him it looked like Roy kind of wavered when she offered money, but JW was the one with the gun and the flashlight and he just flat out ignored her. And he turned to Moe's and he said, do you know anybody here? And Moe's said, no, sir, I don't know you. And JW said, how old are you? Moe's 64 JW. Well, if you know any of us here tonight, then you will never live to get to be 65. Oh, my gosh. The men took Emmett from the house, and they got to the truck,

and Mose heard the men ask someone in the truck, Is this the boy? And he heard a voice say, Yes. He said it was a lighter voice than a man's. Carolyn? Question mark? Probably, right? Exclamation point.

Yeah. And they took off. When those men took Emmett, Mose sat on his front porch, hoping that they would return him. Maybe Emmett would be beaten. Maybe he'd be scared out of his mind, but hopefully he would be returned. Yeah. Mose didn't sleep at all. He just waited. After a while, he and another man drove around trying to find Emmett, but they didn't. The next morning, Emmett still wasn't home, and his cousin Curtis Jones, who'd come down from Chicago with him, was in a panic. He wanted to call the police, but Mose, of course, was terrified.

Those men had told him straight up that they would kill him if he said anything. And what would stop them from murdering the whole family? But Curtis called Sheriff George Smith anyway. And he also called his mom in Chicago. And his mom freaked out and called Mamie. Meanwhile, Sheriff Smith questioned Roy and J.W. And they were just like, yeah, yeah, we took him. We snatched him away from his uncle's house.

And, you know, things happen, but we let him go. We let him go in front of the Bryant's grocery and meat market. Why? Is he not around? Wow. Yeah, pretty bold. At that point, they were arrested for kidnapping, which they had just admitted to. Yeah. But where was Emmett? Are you a true crime junkie who's run out of

episodes? Are you possibly too nosy when it comes to your friends' dating lives? Then the Dating Detectives podcast is about to be your next obsession. Hosted by private investigator Mackenzie Foltz and me, comedian Hannah Anderson, every Monday, The Dating Detectives brings survivors to the mic to share their unbelievable yet true stories

of love gone wrong. From cheaters and liars to con men and scam artists, these cases will leave your jaw on the floor. So listen to The Dating Detectives now on Spotify because true crime has never been this close to the heart. Word got out about the boy from Chicago who'd gone missing. And the NAACP was like, mmm, this is bad. So these two guys, Medgar Evers and Amesie Moore, who were both big-time civil rights leaders and heavily involved in the NAACP,

went undercover as cotton pickers in Mississippi, just in the hope that they could uncover some sort of information about what happened to Emmett. But ultimately, it was a boy named Robert Hodges who found Emmett. It had been three days since he was kidnapped. Robert was fishing in the Tallahatchie River when he saw two feet sticking out of the water. Emmett's body was unrecognizable. He was completely naked. The only things on him were a fan blade, which had been wrapped around his neck with barbed wire. Oh, my gosh.

And a silver ring, which had belonged to his father. It was a very distinctive ring. It had his father's initials and a date carved into it. I think engraved is probably... What did I say? Carved. Oh, God. I don't know much about jewels. He'd been shot in the head. He was missing an eye. His head had been mutilated. He'd been severely beaten on his back and hips. When her son's body was discovered, Mamie did something

incredible. She demanded that his body be sent back home to Chicago. Some people in Mississippi wanted to quickly bury Emmett. Of course. But she refused. So she had her son brought up to Chicago where she held an open casket funeral. To show everyone what they did to him. That's like almost for quote verbatim. She wanted people to know what these white men

had done to her son. 50,000 people attended Emmett Till's funeral. Oh my gosh. Mamie allowed photographers from Jet Magazine and the Chicago Defender to come take photos of her son's corpse. Those photos made international news. All of of a sudden everyone was talking about what happened to emmett till she did so i just want to pause i've got goosebumps she did such a smart thing on his casket she pinned photos of him so you could see what he looked like in like a suit and tie and then see what his body looked like. When people do lists of like the most impactful photos of all time, photos of his body are always on this list because Mamie's thought was, if we don't take pictures of this, people will never believe it.

You can look them up if you want. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, his face doesn't even really look like a face. It's terrible. It doesn't look like a face. Mm-mm. And it's so swollen and misshapen that he doesn't even look like a boy anymore.

No. No. Ugh. People were disgusted. They wanted justice. But not everyone wanted justice. Ugh. People were disgusted. They wanted justice. But not everyone wanted justice. Yeah. Roy and J.W. were indicted by a grand jury for kidnapping and murder.

Mm-hmm. But a couple days before that happened, the Tallahatchie County Sheriff, Clarence Strider, handed them their defense on a silver platter. He said that Emmett Till was still alive. What? Yeah. So I'm going to read a quote to you. The body we took from the river looked more like that of a grown man instead of a young boy.

It was also more decomposed than it should have been after that short stay in the water. So his argument is that this is some other person? Oh, no, no, no. It gets better. His argument was that the NAACP planted that corpse in the water and somehow got Emmett Till's father's ring onto it. It was all framed. Sure. Yeah. And Emmett Till was off, I guess, somewhere laughing about it. So I want to pause here. Some people say that initially the white people of Mississippi were horrified by this crime and that, you know, justice was a coming. And I really fucking hated this. Some sources kind of seem to place the blame for the change in opinion on like

the NAACP or on like northern newspapers because this story became international news and people everywhere became horrified that this had happened and so some thinking from some sources is like well you know Mississippi kind of was defending itself you know we were gonna give justice out but then people bad badmouthed us and we had to defend ourselves. That's kind of the vibe. And I don't love it. So when people found out that Roy and J.W. couldn't afford attorneys, all five lawyers in town banded together and volunteered to work for them pro bono. Wow. Another source said that people put out collection jars in town,

and they raised $10,000 for the defense fund. Adjusted for inflation, about $97,000. Jury selection began on September 19th. And don't worry, they got a super diverse jury. All white? Oh, yeah. So it was 1955. No black person in Tallahatchie County was eligible to serve as a juror. Also no women. That was thanks to the rules at the time which stated that

only registered voters could serve as jurors. And if you've made sure that black people can't vote then guess what? Black people can't be on the jury. So the defense already had the deck stacked in their favor. But on top of that, Sheriff Strider, aka Giant Douchebag, did the defense a solid by going over to them and being like, hey, fellas, you're going to want that guy on the jury, not that guy. The prosecution also did something

that in retrospect may have been a mistake. They wanted to strike anyone from the jury who personally knew J.W. Is it J.W.? Yes, you said J.W. 800 times. They wanted to strike from the jury anyone who personally knew J.W. or knew Roy. In retrospect, that might have been an error because everyone who knew these two thought they were douchebags and hated them. So it might have actually

helped to have people who knew them. Anyway, by the end of this jury selection, don't worry, they had 12 appropriately racist white men on the jury. I read somewhere that they were allowed to drink beer while they were... That seems on brand.

It's kind of the least horrible part of this. The trial got started and it was a media circus. And it sounds like it was a real hoot for black reporters because black people weren't allowed to stay in hotels there. Wow. And when the trial would break for lunch or when people would come back in for the day, Sheriff Strider would stand there and he greeted all the black people by saying, hello. Beep. Yeah. Wow. Cheerfully and loudly. Awesome. Mo's right. Emmett's uncle was the prosecution's first witness. He testified about Roy and J.W. kidnapping Emmett. He testified about identifying the body and watching as the undertaker took that memorable ring off of Emmett's finger. The fact that Mose testified was brave on its own, but people were shocked at the trial because when

Mose was asked to identify the men who'd taken his great nephew, he stood up and pointed at them. in his great nephew. He stood up and pointed at them. Okay. So the judge had told people you are not allowed to take any photographs at this time. But this was so shocking. Reporters called it electrifying that one guy I mean, it looks like an old timey covert photo. If you look up on the Wikipedia page for Emmett Till and you scroll down, you will see this photo of mose hang on emmett too oh yeah do you see it it's clearly taken like at waist level yeah yeah so those cameras were fucking huge back then i know that had to be really really tough mamie bradley emmett's mom also testified she said yes that was my son i positively id'd his body yes, that ring on his body belonged to my husband. It was sent to me along with some of his other things after he was killed in Europe.

A deputy sheriff said that shortly after J.W. and Roy were arrested, J.W. admitted that they'd kidnapped Emmett. Then the prosecution brought in surprise witnesses, which I thought were only a thing for TV. Yes. Apparently not. brought in surprise witnesses which i thought were only a thing for tv yes apparently not so three witnesses testified that they'd seen roy jw and some other men parked their pickup outside of leslie millum's barn so i believe this would have been jw's full brother and maybe roy's half brother okay the witnesses said they could hear crying and the sounds of someone being beaten inside the barn. So this was all excellent evidence. I mean. Yeah, but it doesn't matter.

It's not going to matter. Yeah, well, what are you, some kind of genius? You've got a racist jury of white men. Like, it's not going to matter. Maybe they'll surprise you. I don't think they will. They won't. Yeah.

But the prosecution was frustrated because they knew that their evidence could be even better. They had heard that two black men, Leroy Collins and Henry Loggins, had been made to participate. On some level, I don't know what their degree of participation is, if they just witnessed it firsthand or if they were made to participate in the beating and the murder. Okay. But the bottom line was, if they could just find these men, their case would be even stronger than it already was. It was already a pretty damn good case. They would have actual eyewitnesses to what happened to Emmett Till. But those men were missing. Cool. Well, not really missing. Remember Sheriff Strider? Yeah. He had heard about those two eyewitnesses. So he went and arrested Leroy and Henry and held them under false identities in a jail in Charleston, Mississippi.

So that's why no one could find them. Once the prosecution rested, the defense called Carolyn Bryant to the stand. And she told her tale about how it was just after dark and she was alone in the store and here this boy came in and grabbed her hand and asked her how about a date baby and then he grabbed her waist and said you needn't be afraid of me i've unprintable word with white women before she said i was just scared to death so carolyn did her little song and dance and afterward the judge was like okay that's inadmissible wow this judge was actually praised for being remarkably fair in an otherwise unfair situation so the ruling was basically you know we're here to talk about

whether you guys kidnapped and murdered this kid yeah We're not here to talk about like whether he, you know, offended a white lady. Right. So FamousTrials.com says that she had said this in front of the jury. And so even though the judge deemed it inadmissible, it's kind of like, it didn't matter. Good luck on ringing the bell. But another source I saw, I think this was on Wikipedia, said that she had actually not said that in front of the jury.

And the judge deemed it inadmissible. but the jury found out about it anyway at any rate just great as if there could be any reason to do this to somebody yeah well that's exactly it like wow that wasn't a word that i said exactly that's exactly it it's like oh well maybe we did beat and murder him and kidnap him but but this is why we did it. He grabbed someone around the waist. Oh my gosh. Then Sheriff Strider took the stand. He said that, based on his expert opinion, that the body they found in the river that day had to have been there for 10 to 15 days.

What? Oh yeah, so it couldn't be Emmett. The embalmer said something similar. Had to have been in the water for at least 10 days. No. In their closing arguments, the prosecution said that Roy and J.W. were dripping with the blood of Emmett Till. Wow. The district attorney said they murdered that boy.

And to hide that dastardly, cowardly act, they tied barbed wire to his neck and to a heavy gin fan and dumped him into the river for the turtles and the fish i don't believe for a second that that body could be in the water for more than 10 days because there's no way it would be as intact as it was yeah with animal activity and just the deterioration that would happen with a body being in water for that long. I would also love to know more about this sheriff's expertise. How many bodies have you seen at varying stages of decomposition from being in that particular river? How do you know what 10 days looks like versus three days? That's bullshit.

Are you ready for what the defense said in their closing arguments? I'm sure that I am not. Every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to set these men free. Wow. Come on, white folks. Let's do it. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, basically. White folks helping white folks. That's the story of America. As the jury went into deliberation, the sheriff told them to wait a while That's the story of America. As the jury went into deliberation, the sheriff told them to wait a while before they returned their verdict, you know, to make it look good. Oh, cool. They came out a little over an hour later. Apparently, it only took that long because they drank Cokes.

So if they hadn't had some soda, it could have been faster. They, of course, acquitted them yep not guilty would you have pooped yourself if i'd said guilty of course i would have six weeks later the d.a tried to get roy and jw on just kidnapping charges but the grand jury didn't indict them wow which i thought they had been tried for kidnapping before but maybe this maybe they separated the charges maybe they did the murder charge didn't stick like that used to be pretty common well and that would have been smart because they probably figured they might not be able to so uh roy and jw went back to their normal lives but oopsies their normal lives involved owning stores whose customers were almost exclusively black

yeah how'd that go for them? Not great. Isn't that too bad? It's a shame. Guess what, Brandy? What? Turns out, after this trial, black people didn't want to shop at their stores anymore. Wow. Oh my. Oh, I can't imagine why. So their store's closed. Boo hoo. And you're ready to cry some more. J.W. relied heavily on black people to farm his land. But he needed sharecroppers. Yeah. Yeah. This is just so sad. I know everyone's going to be really upset. No black people wanted to work for him anymore. Oh, no. What was he to do? Oh, well, you know, it was just a real rough time for him. Couldn't have happened to nicer guys. No. Fuck these guys.

So in 1956, they sold their story to Look magazine for about $3,500, which is about $33,000 adjusted for inflation. In the magazine, they admitted to kidnapping and murdering Emmett Till. Well, yeah, they've already been charged and acquitted, so. Can't have double jeopardy. No. Here's what they said. They said that their original plan was just to beat Emmett up a little bit. Oh, cool. And throw him in the river and, you know, just really scare him. But that plan changed because while they were beating him up, Emmett called them bastards. And he said that he was just as good as a white man. And he said that he'd had sex with white women. Yeah. Yeah. I am so fucking sure. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah so you know they really had no choice but to

shoot him by the river and weigh his body down with a heavy fan okay quick side note everyone knows that they murdered emmet in leslie millum's barn but in this article they said they shot him by the river and didn't mention any other men because obviously those other men had not been charged they couldn't implicate them i mean good grief if they didn't get these two i mean they're not going to get the other ones but anyway here's an excerpt from the article this is what jw said when he was asked why he did it okay well what else could we do he was hopeless i'm no bully i never heard a bleep in my life i like ble bleep in their place. I know how to work them. 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,

bleep, are gonna stay in their place. Bleep. 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 a bleep 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. I stood there in that shed and listened to that bleep throw that poison at me and I just made up my mind. Chicago boy, I said. I'm tired of them sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. God damn you, I'm going to make an example of you, just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.

Wow. Awesome. That was in a magazine, eh? Yeah. Cool. So, J.W. and Roy got away with murder. Yeah. And they got away with bragging about it.

Yeah. You'll be sad to know that many of the white people who defended them were very embarrassed and angry about that interview that Roy and JW gave to Life magazine. Or was it Look magazine? I think it was Look magazine. Whoops, Look magazine. Frankly, it made them all look bad. Yeah. So I guess they were hoping that, oh, we'll do you guys a solid, get you off for murdering this kid, but don't brag about it. Oh, my gosh. So what became of J.W. and Roy? Let's start with J.W. Karma bit him directly in the buttocks.

Like I said, black people were like, we're not working with you. And he couldn't afford to hire white people. So he ended up doing a lot of plantation work himself. A few years after the trial, the New York Post reported that J.W. was on welfare. When a reporter for Jet Magazine asked him about it, he got so mad. I've got a great quote for you. He said, quote, me is saying the New York Post is a goddamn liar. I'm standing here with an ass pocket full of money.

Ass pocket? I hate this guy, but I might use that. I'm standing here with an ass pocket full of money. Anytime someone accuses you of not being rich, that's what you say. In the 60s and 70s. Say exactly that. The New York. Are you a true crime junkie who's run out of episodes? Are you possibly too nosy when it comes to your friends' dating lives? Then the Dating Detectives podcast is about to be your next obsession.

Hosted by private investigator Mackenzie Foltz and me, comedian Hannah Anderson, every Monday, the Dating Detectives bring survivors to the mic to share their unbelievable yet true stories of love gone wrong. From cheaters and liars to con men and scam artists, these cases will leave your jaw on the floor. So listen to The Dating Detectives now on Spotify, because true crime has never been this close to the heart. In the 60s and 70s, he ran into a little trouble with the law. Oh, yeah?

I know, he seems like a great guy. He's already been on trial for murder. Well, yeah, but you know that he was innocent, right? He was not He seems like a great guy. He's already been on trial for murder. Well, yeah. But, you know, he was innocent, right? He was not guilty. That's my dad. So, yeah, he got in trouble for writing bad checks, stealing a credit card, assault and battery. You know, just the works.

He died of very painful spinal cancer in 1980. Spinal cancer? Yeah. I didn't even know that was a thing. Yeah. Huh. He was 61. Yeah. I didn't even know that was a thing. Yeah. Huh. He was 61. Sorry, I'm trying not to be like. I think you can be as shitty about it as you would. He murdered a kid. He got away with it, Kristen. Okay. I'm like, there are a lot of bad things that happen to bad people like later in life. And I don't know, you know. Yeah. I just don't care.

Exactly. Well, no, I do do care I love it and that's bad anyway how about our good pal Roy Bryant yeah what happened to old Roy they made him into dog food oh god that would have been great that's a joke old Roy is a brand of dog food yes yes and a terrible man who should have been turned yes after he lost his business roy tried to find work okay what do you think he wanted to do um he wanted to be a lawyer no okay think more hands-on oh gosh i don't know you want to be a police officer yep yep yep oh boy how'd that go thank fucking god they turned him down oh goodness i mean thank goodness that would have been right when they're like i'm sorry you're too racist for us i i don't know so you know he got rejected from that so then he went to welding school but one day when he was

welding he got a piece of steel in his eye and he became legally blind so yes kristin just did a little dance when she said that sorry so i mean i guess so i guess that kind of sucks i guess you can't see race now so eventually in the 70s he took over a small grocery store from family members. And by this point, he and Carolyn had children and their marriage sucked. In their divorce papers, Carolyn accused Roy of treating her cruelly and being a habitual drunk. Excellent. Yeah, sounds about right. But don't worry. Roy found love again with his second wife, Vera Jo Orman, who was an accountant at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. And just like his dipshit half-brother, J.W., Roy had some trouble with the law as well. In the late 70s, he lost

his permit to handle food stamps because he was doing shady shit with them. It's kind of boring, so, you know, we're breezing on. But don't worry, he totally learned his lesson. He just got better about stealing food stamps. Well, not really, because he got caught again. In the early 80s, he pled guilty to food stamp fraud. Oh, cool. Okay, don't worry. He super learned his lesson this time, though. No, he didn't.

No, just kidding. In the late 80s, he got caught doing the exact same thing. And this time, he finally went to prison. Okay. But for like eight months. Later in life, he developed cancer and diabetes and he got angry when people would bring up emmett till he told a reporter basically that the emmett till thing was in the past he said you have to leave it alone live your life you can't

just sit around and cry over spilt milk yeah a murdered 14 yearold boy is the same as spilt milk. Yeah, yeah. Cool. I read on FamousTrials.com that in 1985, he was secretly recorded bragging about murdering Emmett. I have no doubt that's accurate. I didn't even include it because it's like, well, that's not really shocking information. Like they admitted it in a magazine. But he was just bragging about like, actually, no, it's interesting because he admits that it wasn't just him and J.W., which again, duh. But he was like, you know what? I'm not telling blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, so let's talk about Leslie Millam. The murder took place at his farm in the barn. 15 years after the trial, he went to prison after he was caught with more than 500 methamphetamine pills, which is too many methamphetamine i mean yeah by by a long shot in 1974 when he was on his deathbed he asked his wife to call their pastor to come speak with him pastor showed up and leslie confessed that he'd helped murder emmett till and he died the next morning wow yeah right conscience, huh? Yeah, that's like, what did that do for you? Yeah, you're about to die. Yeah. And you finally admit to the thing that everyone knows you did. You shitbag. Anyway, now let's talk about Sheriff Strider. You'll be devastated to learn that in the immediate aftermath of the trial, he had a tough time. You see, before the trial, he had a pretty awesome plantation and he relied on black people to work on it. But they were like, goodbye. Peace. Apparently five families just left

his plantation, which like that, I mean, I don't know how many families were there, but that seems like a lot of people. Then in 1957, someone tried to assassinate him. Oh, how sad that they missed. See, see, this is why I got to keep it in control. He was so frightened that he decided not to run for sheriff again. Instead, in 1962, he became the chairman for the State Game and Fish Commission. That same year, a black student named James Meredith wanted to attend Ole Miss. Did they say Ole Miss or Ole Miss? It's Ole Miss. Okay, sorry.

Hard D there. I added the D to your, yeah, okay. D's are flying all over this podcast. I got D's flying all over the place, Kristen. D's coming at you hard. Okay, okay. Too far. Too far. D's coming at you hard. Okay. Okay. Too far.

Too far. It was classy before you said that. But state officials didn't want that to happen. During this conflict, good old former Sheriff Strider announced that he and 250 supervisors and game wardens would be happy to assist in keeping the student body whites only cool then three years later he won a special election to the state senate oh that's what you want in his new position and this is not a joke this is very real he co-sponsored a bill to relocate the black residents of mississippi to other states what yep it was like a thing of like, well, if you don't want to work on the farms here, you can go work on the farm somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. You get it? Yeah, I think we get the picture. Great. Okay. Yeah. You'll be shocked to know that nothing happened with that. Yeah. Then in 1968, he admitted on the Senate floor that he hadn't really won his sheriff's election back in 1951. He bought the election. Oh, neat. He had spent 30 grand. It's just one shitty guy after another shitty guy, Kristen. This is terrible.

Yeah, yeah. It's awful. Dude spent 30 grand buying blank absentee ballots. Excellent. He died of a heart attack in 1970. And in 1981, a portion of Mississippi 32 was named the Henry Clarence Strider Memorial Highway. Very good. Yeah. There's a guy we want to remember.

Yeah. Let's celebrate him. You want to dedicate a highway to? Carolyn Roy, as far as I can tell, is is still alive wow uh she's living in raleigh north carolina she's 85 she hasn't talked much to the media she's been married at least three times in her life two of her sons died as adults one in 1995 from cystic fibrosis and one in 2010 from heart failure her daughter was born deaf 2004, the Department of Justice reopened the Emmett Till murder case. So it's always been suspected that a lot of people were involved

in the beating and murder of Emmett Till. And that Carolyn may have played some role in there. In 2005, the DOJ exhumed Emmett Till's body to finally put to rest the ridiculous idea that Emmett Till wasn't really Emmett Till and it was some other corpse. And of course, they did. It was Emmett Till. Yeah, it was Emmett Till. Over the next few years, prosecutors wanted to get Carolyn on manslaughter charges.

But in 2007, a grand jury refused to indict her. They said there wasn't enough evidence, which there probably wasn't. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think that's probably that much of a stretch. Which I gotta say, you know, the previous jury was all white. This time, the jury was actually diverse. I think it was mostly African American. And it seems like she got a pretty fair shake. Yeah. Later, Carolyn did an interview with a historian named Timothy Tyson, where she admitted that a lot of her testimony at the murder trial had been untrue. Emmett Till had never grabbed her or said anything obscene to her. And as for what really happened that day, she couldn't remember. Because nothing happened. Exactly. Exactly. I really think maybe it was a whistle that she blew out out a proportion maybe yeah how can you say oh

that part's not true and also i don't remember what really happened because that's better than saying i made it all up yeah now let's talk about people who don't suck after the trial emmett's great uncle mose wright was in grave danger so was willie Reed, who testified. He was one of the surprise witnesses that he'd seen J.W. go into that barn where Emmett was for sure murdered. So was another black witness who testified against Roy and J.W. saying, this is what I heard.

All three of these men were in incredible danger, but what the hell could they do to protect themselves? That's when TRM, which I hate it when people only go by initials but what can i do yeah trm howard stepped in this man was a surgeon he was a civil rights leader and he was a very rich black man wow so he had been very involved in the case and he admired the courage of these three men and he wanted to keep them safe so he personally paid to relocate these men to other

parts of the country. And I mean, they got the hell out of Dodge like the minute the verdict came down. So I believe Moe's and Elizabeth moved together to Illinois, which it sounds like it was a huge culture shift for Moe's. I think he had really liked living in the South. He had liked, obviously he hated the racism and all that, but like, I think he liked being in a rural area. But he eventually adjusted and he seemed to do well there. Willie Reed moved to Chicago the day the jury announced their verdict. He changed his name. And even though he actually lived pretty close to the Till family, they weren't in contact. He got a job at a hospital, married a nurse's aide, and didn't talk publicly about the Emmett Till case until like 1999. Wow. Most of his friends

had no idea that he'd been a witness at that trial. Willie died in 2013. He was 76. After the trial, Emmett's mom, Mamie, went back to Chicago, but instead of going back to her old job, she enrolled in the Chicago Teachers College. Around that same time, she met a man named Gene Mobley, whom she married. Mamie worked as a teacher in Chicago's public schools for 23 years. She got a master's degree from Loyola. She retired in 1983, and even though she didn't have any more biological children, Jean had two daughters, I believe from a previous marriage, and so she helped raise them. She and her mom did a lot to keep Emmett Till's name alive. Her mom formed the Emmett Till

Foundation, which gives out scholarships to young people. Mamie formed the Emmett Till Players, where kids can memorize speeches from Dr. Martin Luther King and, you know, give them out. That's how you give a speech. You give it out. Yeah. Recite it. Okay. Some people, some people, what was my other one? Inscribed? Carved. But it was really after she retired that she started traveling the United States speaking about her son. Mamie died in 2003 from a heart attack. She was scheduled to speak about her son's death the next day in Atlanta. She was 81. So silver linings. The murder of Emmett Till and the lack of justice that followed is considered a major catalyst for kind of the next

phase of the civil rights movement. And I think we can thank his mom for that yeah not that it's just one person no but her decision to have an open casket funeral to invite a ton of people out to invite reporters and photographers yeah that was huge yeah emmett till's casket is on display at the smithsonians national museum of african-american history and culture in dc which i've heard is awesome i'm not bad the courthouse where jw and roy were tried has been restored and reopened. And apparently across the street, they've got this thing called the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, where you can see photos and stuff from the case. In 2006, part of the road that was taken to transport Emmett's body from Mississippi to Chicago was renamed the Emmett Till Memorial

Highway. Now, that's the kind of person you want to name a highway after. Guess what? What? It intersects with that douchebags. Does it really? It does. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Can we? Yeah. Can we pull down the Confederate monuments? Can we pull down all that bullshit? I mean, I don't display poems I wrote when I was 14. Oh, it's history. I don't know. I see now that it sucks.

There are a lot of signs marking significant locations in Mississippi relating to this case. And they are frequent targets for vandalism. They get shot up a lot. And yeah, great. So racism is not adjourned. Yeah. And that's the story of Emmett Till. That was terrible.

Thank you. It's a really good story. Like, it's an important story. But man, it just sucks. It sucks. Sucks real bad. Should I tell like a little good piece of news before I get into my story? Please, my God.

Yes, yes. Tell them, tell them. So I found out what the baby is this week. It's a human. it's a human in there it's a little girl we're having a girl i'm so excited oh we're so excited too he cried it was a whole thing we found out on valentine's day so that was pretty amazing yeah little girl cooking away in there i'm so excited oh me too and she's got all her parts. Everything's good. She's looking, she's looking good. She's so, she's so cute.

Yes. Oh, very excited. Me too. Are you a true crime junkie who's run out of episodes? Are you possibly too nosy when it comes to your friends' dating lives? Then the Dating Detectives podcast is about to be your next obsession. Hosted by private investigator Mackenzie Foltz and me, comedian Hannah Anderson, every Monday, the Dating Detectives

bring survivors to the mic to share their unbelievable yet true stories of love gone wrong. From cheaters and liars to con men and scam artists, these cases will leave your jaw on the floor. So listen to The Dating Detectives now on Spotify because true crime has never been this close to the heart. Okay, let me tell you about my case,

which is not as terrible as yours and has a good ending. Thank God. But it is heavy. Well, sure. Let's talk about Cyntoia Brown. Okay. Do you know the story of Cyntoia Brown? No.

I'm surprised because this has been huge in the news in the last year. I've been under a rock this whole time. I bet maybe once I get in it, you'll know it. So Cyntoia Brown was born fighting, essentially. She had to be tough from the very beginning. She was not given a choice. She was born in January of 1988 to a single mother. She never knew her father.

And her mother was maybe homeless at the time that she was born. Definitely an alcoholic. She's quoted as saying she would drink a fifth of whatever a day if she could get it. Oh, nice. And so Cyntoia from her birth was suffering like from fetal alcohol syndrome, which has lifelong effects on there's all kinds of spectrum disorders associated with it. It has a big effect on your cognitive development. And so Cyntoia had a rough life from the get-go. She bounced around like the foster care system, finally was adopted by a family,

and she ended up running away at a young age. She claimed that she was abused by her stepfather, which is likely true. But I will say that her adoptive mother was very hurt by the fact that she was abused by her stepfather, which is likely true. But I will say that her adoptive mother was very hurt by the fact that she ran away. She didn't know why she couldn't come and talk to her about the things that were happening to her. So I don't know if that stuff was going on behind closed doors. The adoptive mother didn't know about it. But for whatever reason, Centoya did not feel like she could go to her. She ran away. And she ended up on the streets. And before long, she ended up in this relationship with this guy named Cutthroat.

Oh, yeah. Was that his Christian name? It was definitely not. His name was Garion. What's wrong with Garion? I know, it's a perfectly fine name. Not as tough as Cutthroat, though. But he went by Cutthroat.

So in like the year 2004. So think about us. She's like two years younger than us. She's like 16. She's on the streets of Nashville living with this guy, Cutthroat, who abuses her emotionally, eventually starts abusing her physically. He's much older than her. He's in his mid 20s, 24, 25, something like that. Yeah. I mean, she just thinks that's how a relationship goes. This is why these creepy people go for people who are really young. You don't know better. You don't know any better.

It's your first relationship. You don't know what's wrong and what's right. Yeah. She's doing drugs regularly. And at some point, they are living between hotels. They're going from motel to motel. And eventually, Cutthroat tells her she needs to help pay the bills. She's got to get out there and sell herself.

And so he forces her into prostitution at the age of 16 years old. Wow. So she's on the streets of Nashville prostituting herself. And it's in August of 2004 that she's like outside of a Sonic and she's approached by a man. He comes up to her and he's in a truck and he comes up to her and asks if she's hungry, if she needs anything. This guy's name is Johnny Allen. And so she gets in his truck. He takes her to Sonic. They get some food and they start talking. And eventually during this time in the truck, the subject of sex comes up and he offers to pay her for sex.

He phrases it differently, says something to the effect of, are you down for action or something like that? And a negotiation begins. She says, yeah, I'll have sex with you for 200 bucks. And he's like,

I only have a 100 bucks on me. And so finally they settle on 150 dollars. I've always wondered how they do this, because like that's how you know if someone's an undercover cop. Right. They try to say like they want to get you to say exactly how much. Yeah. And what it's for. Right. So I wonder how you get around that without actually being like, OK, but I'm going to fuck you. But I want 200. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know. How do you do it, Brandy? I've never done it's for. Right. So I wonder how you get around that without actually being like, OK, but I'm going to fuck you, but I want 200 bucks. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know. How do you do it, Brandi? I've never done it, Kristen. And by that, I mean sex.

So they come to this agreement. And worth noting here, Johnny is a much older white man. He's in his 40s. Centoya believes that he's even older than that. She describes him as a 50-something man. 50-something white man. When you're that young, everyone looks super old. And Cyntoia is a young African-American girl, mixed girl. I'm not really sure. But she is 16 years old and looks much younger.

She looks very young. Yes, disgusting. Great. So they go back to johnny's house that's where this is gonna go down they get to the house and he's like bragging the whole time about how he's ex-military he's got all these guns at his house he's a sharpshooter and he's trained as a sniper and whatever so they really cool Is this to scare her or is this to brag? Essentially, that's what it ends up doing. Well, sure. This is already a girl who's been taught her whole life that men abuse you, men beat you.

You have to be ready to fight. You have to be ready to take care of yourself. Sure. And so now she's got this much older man bragging about how great he is with guns. So they get back to his house and they like sit in the living room for a while. And he offers to let her take a shower at one point. And she tells him a little bit about

how she's been living in motels and stuff like that. And so he asks her if she wants to take a nap. What was this guy's angle? It's super weird. I don't really know. And Cyntoia is on full alert because she thinks he it's super weird i don't i don't really know and centoia is on full alert because she thinks he's acting super weird yeah he tries to kiss her at one point at one point he says he loves her okay yeah okay so they end up upstairs in his bedroom she takes a shower

it's unclear when the shower takes place but at one point she takes a shower and they get in his bed and they're in his bed together he gets completely naked like he's like okay the sex is gonna happen now and centoia is just like not here for it she's like she pretends to be asleep she's wondering how she got herself in this situation cutthroat doesn't know where she is and she has yet to get any money from this guy and she knows she can't go back to cutthroat until she has money or she'll get the shit beat out of her right and so she's just laying there pretending to sleep trying to figure out how she's going to get herself out of this situation what happens next there's a lot of debate about Because Cyntoia's version is that she felt very threatened. At one point,

Johnny grabbed her leg and then reached for something and she thought that he was reaching for a gun. The prosecution would tell you that Johnny fell asleep and was laying on his stomach with his hands interlocked under his head. So there's no way her version is correct. But how would they know that? Because she kills him. Yeah, but how would they know how he was laying if he couldn't tell them? Because that's how his body was found. I see.

Okay. Yes. Okay. So I would, how do I say this? Okay. I would say that it is very possible that she felt extremely threatened without him coming directly at her and attacking her in the moment. Yeah. I don't think there's anything crazy about that at all.

I think he could have completely fallen asleep and she still felt completely threatened as a 16 year old girl in bed next to a naked 40 something year old man yeah and unsure of how to get herself out of this so she claims what she did next she did in self-defense she grabbed a gun out of her purse that had been given to her by cutthroat for protection should she ever find herself in a dangerous situation which ding ding her whole fucking life was and she didn't know anything different she grabbed the gun she according to her just kind of like haphazardly aimed it at johnny shot once jumped up out of the bed grabbed what she could from the house so that she wouldn't go back empty-handed to cut throat and left his house in his truck she stole his truck what she had grabbed was like two guns

on the way out and like the whole time around his're at his house, he's like, this is my gun safe. This is where I keep all my guns. We also got guns here. There's guns all over the place. So great. She's in a super dangerous situation, I would venture to say. That is my opinion. Yeah, of course she is. And so she is. She picks up his jeans or his pants that have his wallet in it because she's never gotten any money from him. And she grabs all that stuff, two guns, his pants, his car keys, goes out of the house, goes back to the motel and like gives that stuff to Cutthroat. And he's like, what the fuck are you doing coming here with this guy's stolen truck?

He's pissed at her. Yeah. Well, she's 16. She's a kid. Yeah. She's a kid. Yeah. So she's like, I don't know. I didn't know what to do. I don't even know if I hit him. I don't know. I don't I don't know anything. Like I didn't stick around to see like he didn't wake up when I shot

the gun or he didn't react when I shot the gun, you know, whatever. Yeah. So he's like, you have to get rid of this truck. And so they go and they ditch the truck in a Walmart parking lot and go back to the motel. Like a day goes by and she checks like the news to see if there's anything about this guy being found dead or anything like that. And there's nothing. But the situation is like very heavily weighing on her. She doesn't know what to do. She's terrified that she's murdered someone, that she's going to get arrested, that Cutthroat's going to continue to beat the shit out of her. And so she calls 911. Wow. And she reports that there may have been a homicide. Yeah. And that's all she says and gives them enough information to lead them to this Johnny guy's house. So that

following day, police respond to Johnny Allen's home. Johnny was a Nashville area real estate agent. Also, some sources say that he was a youth pastor. Oh, great. Great. Yeah. You know what? That explains a lot of this to me. The trip to Sonic, the, oh, take a nap, take a shower. It's, I want to be seen as a good guy. I want to act like a good guy while I'm paying a child for sex. I also want to pay a child for sex. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. But I'm great because I bought her some crap. I'm sorry. The food at Sonic sucks. There we go. Yeah. And maybe it made him sick to his stomach because that was one of the things that centoia thought was so weird when she was pretending to sleep he kept getting in and out of the bed

and like walking out of the room and coming back in so she didn't know what he was doing then like maybe he was going to the bathroom because his stomach was upset maybe he was stockpiling guns right next to her so he could murder her. Like, yeah, that's weird. It was super weird. And just like as things got weirder and weirder, she felt more and more threatened. And so she did what she did to get herself out of the situation. Yeah. After Johnny's body was found, they tracked down Centoya Brown and they arrested her and charged her with the first degree murder of Johnny Allen.

They said that it was not in self-defense, that she had gone to his house that night with the intention of robbing him and killing him. No. And that Johnny was not a predator in any way. What? And that Centoya was a cold-blooded murderer. Okay. Not that she was, I don't know, like a human trafficking victim. Right. Who had been forced into prostitution or, you know, like a 16-year-old child. Yeah. Yeah, no, none of that. Yeah, she was a cold-blooded, premeditated killer. Uh-huh.

Okay. Yeah, who had stolen $173 from Johnny Allen and then murdered him while he slept, you know, completely naked next to her. Yeah, that's what you do next to a child. That's what a non-predator does. Yeah. Yeah. What a great youth pastor. So in August of 2006, Cyntoia goes on trial for this murder.

She's charged as an adult. Why? Why? Why do we do this? Why? Why have these rules if we always break them? Yeah. For certain people?

Yeah. So the prosecution tells that whole story, that she's a cold-blooded murderer, that she went there with the intent to rob him, that he was just this upstanding citizen and all of this. Just a good guy who wanted to fuck kids. Right? How do you not tell? How is that not the story? I don't know. I don't know to this day his family says that this story is all told wrong and that he wasn't a predator and he was trying to help her and get her off

the streets how do you explain him being naked in that bed that's part of the help i that's so stupid that's so stupid yeah so stupid his family says that uh-huh against her will she does not testify may i google a picture of her yes i want to see her from this time and so yeah if you see a picture of her at trial she looks like a child there's a picture of her with her hair kind of in pigtails oh my god she is a child she looks 11 12 uh-huh yeah so i will say my personal opinion on sex work yeah i really don't think it should necessarily be oh i don't either so if you are an adult yeah if you're an adult and that's what you want to do i really don't care as long as everything's consensual yeah that's fine i feel exactly the same way but i don't mind for a second that this man looked at her

and was like, oh, here's an adult. Yeah. Who wants to have sex with me for money. Correct. No, there's not a chance in hell. This is a child. She is clearly a child. She looks even younger than she actually was. She does not look 16. No. Okay. I'll stop looking at pictures around. She's beautiful. She is beautiful. So at her trial, she wants to testify. But as I told you at the very beginning, she's a fighter. From the moment she was arrested, she was very volatile. She threatened a lot of people like when she was taken into custody, because that's all she knows. Yeah. That's all she's known her whole life. Yeah. And so her defense attorney would not put her on the stand because he was

worried that she would come across as unhinged and unbalanced. Yeah. But because of this, they didn't introduce any testimony about her childhood. They didn't introduce any testimony about her past. They didn't introduce any testimony about her spectrum disorder. Well, what the hell? Yeah. So they essentially put up a weak defense when they had a pretty strong one. Yeah. And in August of 2006, a jury found her guilty of first degree murder and robbery. Wow. Yeah. Even still. Yeah. The jury. It's crazy to me. In October of that year, she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 51 years. Holy shit. She would be well into her 60s before

she would become eligible for parole. Oh, my God. For killing her predator. I cannot 16 years old that a jury heard that this 40 something yearold man was naked in bed with a child. And they don't think that that should change things. No, because she was a cold-blooded murderer. Yeah, right. She sounds real bad. Yeah. And because the prosecution was able to introduce testimony about how, yeah, when she was taken into custody, she threatened guards in the jail and all kinds of stuff.

Like, I'll kill you like I killed that man. Like, OK. OK. She never knew any other kind of life than that. And that information was not presented at trial. Yeah. And she was a kid. She was a child. She was a child.

She was a child. Yeah. I don't even understand how this situation starts. You find a 43-year-old man who's been murdered and you find out that the person that murdered him is the 16-year-old that he picked up for sex. How is she charged for the crime? So I listened to this interview with her on this podcast, TI's podcast, Expeditiously. So the rapper TI was actually instrumental in what will happen in this case as we go on. Getting some notoriety behind it, starting a movement behind it. And so she came

on his podcast and talked to him. And she said that she wasn't a lot of help with her defense then. She really wasn't because she didn't see the situation that she was actually in. She would have told you that she was in a relationship. She would have told you that she was consenting to having sex for money. And she never would have guessed that what was going on with her, what was happening to her, would have been categorized as human trafficking. Yeah. But all of that is accurate. She was being abused by someone much older than her who was her pimp. Yeah.

And she had been forced into prostitution, which is human trafficking. Yeah. Yeah. She said she didn't even know that that's what that was and that she believes that that's one of the problems with our society is that people think human trafficking is one thing and don't see it that it's also this other thing. Yeah. Yeah. She said it's not always children are being kidnapped and sold into the sex trade like this is also human trafficking. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. It 100 percent is. is yeah it's psychological yes yeah yeah and are you a true crime junkie who's run out of episodes are you possibly too nosy when it comes to your friends dating lives then the dating detectives podcast is about to be your next obsession hosted

by private investigator mackenzie foltz and me comedian hannah anderson every monday the dating detectives bring survivors to the mic to share their unbelievable yet true stories of love gone wrong. From cheaters and liars to con men and scam artists, these cases will leave your jaw on the floor. So listen to the Dating Detectives now on Spotify because true crime has never been this close to the heart. She said at that point in her life, she had been so convinced that this was the way the world worked and this is what you did. She never would have accepted that that's what was happening to her. But I totally believe that a 16 year old doesn't have the ability to consent to any of that. Well, and you would have to understand that you were a victim.

Yes. And I do think that people get weird about the word victim and everything. And I think sometimes that doesn't serve us well. Yeah. Because she did not understand that she was being victimized in so many of these situations. Yes. And so if you don't feel like that, if you feel like somehow you're in control and you're the one making these decisions. Yeah.

Then, yeah, you're not going to be able to give yourself a good defense. No. So this case didn't make huge news when it happened it was just a 16 year old girl that murdered a guy and got sentenced to life in prison like bing bang boom send her away that's it that's what you do when someone murders someone the details of it weren't that well known until sometime in 2011. So she's been in prison since 2004. So seven years at that point. And this guy who had kind of like caught wind of this case early on had followed it and he made this documentary about it. And this documentary came out on PBS. It was called

Me Facing Life, Centoya's Story. I tried really hard to find this documentary. I want to watch it. I haven't been able to find it yet. I'm sure it's out there somewhere. Yeah, but I have not yet been able to find it. But it was aired nationally through PBS as part of this documentary series that PBS does. And it brought a lot of attention to her case as people were like, holy shit, like this girl is a victim. Yeah, this girl. She sure is this. And the man that she killed was a predator. Yes. How is this happening? How is this happening in our justice system? And so people started to kind of get behind it. But who knows how to do anything with that? Like, where do you start? How do you change things?

Like, you know, while people were outraged by it, you have to have somebody who knows how to do something about it, like get behind it. And this lawyer did take note of it. And he decided that he was going to work on her case pro bono. A couple of lawyers, I believe, took this case on and they started filing appeals to try and get her a new trial. First, they appealed and said that she had ineffective counsel at her first trial. Yeah. And I read the appeal on this and I read a lot of what they said that her attorney wouldn't bring up and the stuff that I mentioned where they didn't talk about her past at all because

they were afraid of what cross-examination would happen, that she wouldn't, they didn't allow her to testify because they were worried she couldn't stand up to cross-examination. Okay. And they didn't present the stuff about the fetal alcohol syndrome and stuff because, again, they thought that that couldn't hold up on cross-examination. But who would they be questioning at that point? So, experts about. Right.

So, why wouldn't that hold up? Great question. Okay. Thank you. Yes. I'm brilliant. question okay thank you yes i'm brilliant because one of the things about centoia is that she was actually and is actually very well spoken uh-huh while she was in prison she got her ged and then went on to get her associate's degree so she can't possibly have had fetal alcohol poisoning

she has a very high iq so these are the things that her defense worried would come up at trial that they wouldn't be able to argue. But here's the thing. She has all of those. But experts say that her cognitive reasoning, her ability to make decisions and react in the moment is stalled like at a 13-year-old's level. Wow. Yeah. And that is the result of her spectrum disorder from the fetal alcohol syndrome. Those two things can exist completely separately.

They are different parts of the brain. Okay. Okay. But none of that got talked about at her trial. Well, it sounds like that would take some effort. Who has time for that? Yeah. In the meantime, where all these appeals are working, we've talked about this Supreme Court decision before.

So this Supreme Court decision comes down where they say it is unconstitutional to automatically sentence a juvenile to life in prison when they've been tried as an adult. So we've talked about a couple of cases where that happened. And so that was the case in this. That was the mandatory sentence, life in prison. And so they're like, great, we can work another appeal on that because the case in this. That was the mandatory sentence, life in prison. And so they're like, great, we can work another appeal on that because the first appeal is turned down. They're like, no, her counsel was effective enough. You know, I've noticed just from like watching a bunch of true crime stuff, it's really hard to get people on ineffective counsel. Yeah. Because it's not just did they kind of suck? Yeah. I mean, they had to really screw up to count as ineffective.

Yeah. So these lawyers that have taken on Cyntoia's case are filing appeal after appeal. And Cyntoia gets this surge of hope that something is going to happen because she felt so down when she was sentenced to life in prison. First of all, she thought that that could never happen because she was 16 years old. Yeah. And then it happens. And then when each of these appeals are being turned down, she's like, I'm going to be in prison for the rest of my life.

Absolutely. That's it. That's the end of this for me. Unless TI does something. So in November of 2017, while all of these appeals are going on, they've sent an appeal off to the Supreme Court after that decision comes down to look at her sentence and say, hey, does this fall? Do we need resentencing? These are the reasons that we think are resentencing. And this is essentially her last appeal. But that takes forever to get through the system. Like we're years and years. Okay. And it is her final appeal. And so while that's working through, somehow Rihanna hears about Cyntoia Brown's case. Oh my God. And she posts this post on Instagram.

And it says, Imagine at the age of 16 being sex trafficked by a pimp named Cutthroat. After days of being repeatedly drugged and raped by different men, you were purchased by a 43-year-old child predator who took you to his home to use you for sex. You end up finding enough courage to fight back and shoot and kill him. You're arrested as a result, tried and convicted as an adult, and sentenced to life in prison. This is the story of Cyntoia Brown. She won't be eligible for parole until she's 69 years old. Hashtag free Cyntoia Brown. Yes. This takes off. Immediately, several people share it. T.I. is one of them.

He's one of the first people to share it. And Cyntoia says that T.I.'s post is the first that she is told about. So he's the first person that. I wonder how she found out. Somebody in prison told her. That is. That had to have been so crazy. She got a call from someone who, family member or something, was like, T.I. is posted on Instagram about you.

Oh my God. So then she's like, what the fuck's Instagram? And then, yeah. And then, yeah. And then, yeah. And Kim Kardashian retweeted it, which Kim Kardashian has like the most Twitter followers of anyone. And so became this huge movement. People start looking into this.

That documentary resurfaces and people are watching that. And people are outraged. How does this happen? This child was a victim. And yes, she did. She murdered someone. She never claimed not to have. Yeah, of course.

She said she did it. Yeah. But it was in self-defense. And that's a thing that people get hung up on in this case about self-defense. Well, if he was asleep, how could it have been in self-defense? I will maintain my position on this. I do not think he has to be coming at her with a gun for her to feel threatened and feel like she needs to defend herself.

I completely agree. She had known nothing but abuse for her whole life. And maybe it did culminate. And maybe that guy is the guy who ended up being the one she fought back on. But he was clearly a predator. I know there's a term that is failing to come to mind. But it's like it usually happens, I think, in domestic abuse situations where people for the longest time were like, well, you can only fight back. You can only kill when someone's coming after you.

But it's been proven in domestic abuse cases when you've been abused for a long time by a person. You're not always going to fight back when they're coming right at you, because that's when you're going to fucking lose. Absolutely. And it doesn't mean that you're not technically defending yourself. Anyway, yeah, I'm with her on this. Yes. So this takes off like this gets retweeted and retweeted and shared on Instagram. And there, this hashtag free Cyntoia Brown takes off like huge. And it's getting huge international attention. Her story is all over the place. Finally. I mean, we're talking 2017. So this is this is 13 years after the crime occurred. Wow. Yeah. At this point, she knows that there's very little hope of her

conviction being overturned. Her attorneys decide that her best bet is to plea for clemency from the governor. What does that mean? I can never remember. Clemency is basically where it's not a pardon, but it's like commuting your sentence where they're like, okay, well, yes, you've served enough time. You're now out. OK, gotcha. However, the chances of her case even being seen by the governor is less than 1%. In a clemency case, you have a less than 1% chance of actually even getting a hearing with the governor. They're still waiting on a ruling from the Supreme Court at this point on whether her

sentence is deemed unconstitutional based on that 2012 ruling. Finally, that comes back in 2018. And they say, no, it's not unconstitutional because she was sentenced to 51 years to life. So she wasn't technically sentenced to life in prison. Oh, come on. So her sentence is just fine. Come on. Because all of these celebrities have gotten behind her, they're able to talk to different people. And they learn that now the play is definitely with the governor, they've got to get in front of the governor, they've got to get him to look at her case. And at this point, the governor of Tennessee is going to be leaving office like he's in his final year of his term,

he's not running for re-election or didn't get re-elected. Either way. And so they're like, this is our chance. This is when it happens. And so somehow they end up getting a hearing with the parole board and the clemency board and the governor. And it's completely split. You're kidding. On her case. Two members recommend that the governor grants clemency and release her from prison. Two vote to recommend that the clemency is denied and that she must serve her full sentence. And the other two recommend that the governor reduces her sentence and that she should be released after 25 years. So this is just like another like, oh, I had this hope. Like I finally got my hearing. I had a less than 1% chance of that

happening. And then this is the result of it completely split. Who are these creepy people who hear this story and think she should go to prison forever? I don't know how you hear this story and you don't see what this is. Yeah. January of 2019 2019 the governor of tennessee is about to leave office come on gov his name is bill haslam and he grants clemency to centoia brown as one of his final acts in office whoa yeah i whoa when the board was so split i think it's shocking that that's the direction he went. But how, again, I don't see how you could see it any other way. No. So in January of 2019, he grants her clemency. He commutes her sentence to time served.

He says she will be released. This is what he said when he granted her clemency. He said, Cyntoia Brown committed by her own admission a horrific crime at the age of 16, yet imposing a life sentence on a juvenile that would require her to serve at least 51 years before even being eligible for parole consideration is too harsh, especially in the light of the extraordinary steps Ms. Brown has taken to rebuild her life. Yeah. Yeah. When she found out that she was granted clemency, she said,

I am thankful for all the support, prayers and encouragement I have received. We truly serve a God of second chances and new beginnings. The Lord has held my hand this whole time and I would have never made it without him. Wow. In August of 2019. So just. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Yeah. August 7th at 320 a.m. Cyntoia Brown was released from prison. 3.20 a.m.? They often do it in the middle of the night to try and keep the press down. Well, good grief. Yeah.

That's amazing. Yeah. Her attorney at the time of her release said, I'm rejoicing. We are confident she'll be as successful as a free woman as she had been as an incarcerated woman, but in a totally different journey. Doesn't this make you wonder, though, about all the other people who are in prison for bullshit?

Oh, absolutely. And like, well, how do you get Rihanna to tweet about everybody? Yeah, absolutely. So Cyntoia Brown was granted clemency. She was not pardoned. She wasn't exonerated, nothing. So she will be on parole for 10 years following her release. And there are very specific conditions to her parole. She has to maintain in compliance with this very specific release plan.

She has to maintain employment or educational enrollment. She has to participate in regular counseling sessions. She's also required to perform at least 50 hours of community service, including working with at-risk youth. Cool. Yeah. Following her release, she did a bunch of interviews and she wrote a book about her story. Netflix is actually working on a documentary about her. Oh, hell yeah.

You know I love a Netflix documentary. It'll come out this year. Okay. Yeah. But in one of these articles where she did an interview, she wrote a letter to herself at 16. So this is what her letter says. Dear Cyntoia, I know you're anxious and you feel alone

right now, but I want you to know that God hears you. You don't have a driver's license, you haven't voted or even made it to prom, but today you're in juvenile court praying that you will not be tried as an adult. Although you will be told that you're going to die in prison, I'm here to tell you that's a lie. A wild swing of events is about to take place that will cause you to question whether god even exists But just keep your faith and trust me when I say He hears you. I know right now. It seems like all you ever hear is talk about what a horrible person you are You've been called a whore a murderer Incorrigible, but I want you to know that you are so much more than the worst thing you've ever done

I know that as a little girl You felt like an outcast when kids talked about your hair or skin color. And this moment is no exception, but know that a day will come when you could care less what people think of you. There's a fire inside that burns inside of you that will eat up any obstacle that dares to stand in your way. You don't realize that yet, but you are bigger than anyone that tried to hurt you. Yes, there will be many lonely nights ahead of you. You'll spend some time believing that the world is against you and that you may never be happy again.

You'll be exploited and mistreated by people for years to come, including your own biological mother. And you'll have your hopes of freedom dashed repeatedly. They'll attack your character, your family, your marriage, your faith. But none of what they have to say defines your self-worth or your happiness. Stay focused on your calling. You will learn that there are many people from all parts of the world who support you, who believe in you. You will know once again that happiness is meant for you too. And through the people who mistreated you, you will know forgiveness. And it will bring you freedom that

you can enjoy even when in prison. Most importantly, though, you will forgive yourself. It will be hard and it will take many years, but you will love yourself again. You can't see it now, but God has used you in a mighty way. Through you, he will give a voice to the voiceless. You will speak up at every opportunity to encourage justice, freedom, and mercy for the oppressed. And that prayer you prayed,

the one where you promised God to tell the word about him if freed, that will come to fruition as well. You'll one day get a chance to tell the world every detail of your journey through the system and how God freed you from it all. Never forget what I told you from the beginning. God does hear you. Wow. Yeah. Today, Cyntoia Brown is free.

She's married. She actually got married in prison. Wow. To this guy, this musician and rap artist, Jay Long, who used to be a member of Pretty Ricky, which was like a R&B boy band kind of thing. Yeah. He started writing her letters in prison. He is on this episode of this podcast, T.I.'s podcast. Yeah. He talks a little bit about how he felt called by God to reach out to

her. And he did. And they formed this great relationship and they got married while she was in prison. And she would call him when appeals would get denied. And she's like, it's over. I'm done. I'm here forever. And he said, are you going to listen to them? Are you going to listen to God? God has told you that you will come out of this. Wow. God has told you that you will come out of this. Wow. Yeah.

Again, Johnny's family thinks that this story has been spun and that he's been made this predator. You can choose to believe what you want. I believe that he was a predator and that Centoya Brown was doing what she thought she had to do to stay alive. I believe that he was just a terribly nice guy who got naked and laid in bed with a child. Yeah. No. Yeah. So yeah, that's the story of Centoya Brown. She's a book out now that you can read. It's all about her story and her journey through the justice system. And then Netflix is making a documentary about her that will be out later this year. Hell yeah.

Yeah. All right. I told you, you got to watch The Pharmacist on Netflix. Yes. That's the documentary. You got to watch it. I'm definitely going to watch it. All right.

Kyla told me I should watch it. And I told her I wasn't going to because she had talked about the show Love is Blind on Netflix. And you hated it? It's the dumbest thing ever. I haven't watched it. And she was like, oh my, it's so stupid.

It's so stupid. It's like, you know, 10 men, 10 women, whatever. They're separated, but they can like weirdly flirt with each other. But they can't see each other. And then they have to propose to each other. Oh, no. It's terrible. I don't want to watch that.

She's going to be so embarrassed that I brought it up. And when I told her that, I was like, that show sucked. She's going to be so embarrassed that I brought it up. And when I told her that, I was like, that show sucked. She was like, oh, and Nick Lachey and his wife host it? Anyway, I know. I know.

So then she was like, well, I wasn't doing that as a recommendation. I was just telling you my embarrassing things I've been watching. But really, you should watch The Pharmacist. Okay, The Pharmacist is great.

I told her I would trust her. You know what I just watched? What? David and I binged it. Lock and Key. Oh, I haven't heard of it. So good. It's a little bit Stranger Things-y, which I know you're not big into like the sci-fi.

It's not super sci-fi, kind of horror-y. It's actually based on a graphic novel written by Joe Hill. Okay. Do you know who Joe Hill is? No. He's Stephen King's son. But he doesn't want people to know he's Stephen King's son. Well, cats out of a bag.

Yeah, it was so good. It's just like 10 episodes. Really good. Okay. That's my Netflix recommendation. How does it compare to Love is Blind? I haven't seen it and I bet it kicks its ass. If you want to watch a bunch of people be like, well, I just love to cook.

Oh, well, I love to eat. And then they're like, it's gross. gross it's weird watching people flirt is weird yeah well i don't watch the bachelor or anything for that reason i can't hand it's too cringy to me oh well that's a show where real love blossoms and champagne flows no can i steal you i was i was waiting for you to say that okay so we watched we watched snl and they just did a sketch. They have that like running sketch where they do like a little thing. And it's like, can I steal you for a second? I just want to steal you for a second.

And so David was like, is that what that show is really like? And I was like, I don't know. I've never actually seen it. Yes. So my dad was complaining about that sketch. He was like, that's a stupid sketch. It goes on too long. And I was like, dad, have you ever watched an episode of The Bachelor? And he was like that's a stupid sketch it goes on too long and i was like dad have you ever watched an episode of the bachelor and he's like no and i was like okay

if you had watched you would know that that's a pretty good sketch and i love when there's always the one who's like oh this tragic thing happened to me or like some weirdo who's like oh i'm a virgin and blah blah blah anyway yeah yeah is it time for inductions? I believe it is that magical time. It's the witching hour? It's the witch hour. Hey, guys. Are you wondering how to get inducted on this very podcast? We sure are.

So all you have to do is sign up for our Patreon at the $7 level. That's the Supreme Court. And we induct you. And we say, you, your name and like a fun fact about you. This week's fun fact is your favorite movie. Excellent. Amaya. The Breakfast Club. Sonia.

The Green Mile. Megan. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Sharon. Scream Mallory Wayne's World Ruth

The Joy Luck Club I do enjoy that one. Why did you whisper it? Christy The Usual Suspects Also good. Will Tooker Primer

Never heard of it. Sounds made up, Will. Oh. No, we have a birthday gift here. Ooh. Ooh, okay. So this is for Lisa Ellis from Anastasia? Is that what I'm picking up here, or is that the other way around? No, no, her favorite

movie is Anastasia. Oh! Brandy, let me break it down for you. Thank you. Okay. So this is a birthday gift for Lisa Ellis. And Anastasia is Lisa's favorite movie. Okay. All right.

I'm picking up what you're putting down. I'm smelling what you're stepping in. Josh. Like Kristen, I don't really watch movies. All right, Josh. You're cool, Josh. Casey. Lord of the Rings.

All right. Hey, she says no hate. I get why it's boring to some. So, you know Casey. Lord of the Rings. All right. Hey, she says no hate. I get why it's boring to some. So, you know, keep the hate to yourself. Or he. Casey is a unisex name. Oh, you're right. Okay.

Well, anyway. Hunter. Ladybird. Gingy. Fried green tomatoes. So, Wanda. Welcome to the Supreme Court. This was a really fun episode.

Was it? It was pretty dark. I know. Yeah. But I really loved both the stories. Yeah, I thought the stories were great. I know that's fucked up to say about such terrible cases, but they were really, really good stories. And I'm glad we were asked to do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you to Detroit and... Insecure Carrie. Yeah. Or cari k-a-r-i either way i'm sorry i lost did you have a train i had one and it choo-chooed anyway no i'm glad we were asked to do it because i would have never done emmett till no i i had tried to do it a couple times yeah Yeah. And if I hadn't, I... Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Forced against my will. Forced against your will. It was a tough one. It was a really tough one to hear. Guys, we've reached the point in the episode where I... The time has come.

For one and all. To play ball. No, thank you for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. Which is cooler than social media. That's right.

We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon. find us all those places i do want to say one quick thing yeah thank you to everyone who has been supporting us recommending us to your friends yes you know we've been at this for a long time and this is the first week where we've gotten a like real sponsor and it's just it's so exciting that you guys are listening to us and recommending us enough that that's a possibility. Yes.

And thank you to Best Fiends for sponsoring this episode. Yeah. Please check out their game. I legit love it. Yeah. If you couldn't tell, we probably will have had

to cut your recommendation down because you went on for five minutes. It's a fun one. Please subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review in Apple Podcasts. And then be sure to join us next week. When we'll be experts in two whole new podcasts. Oh, two whole new podcasts.

We could not put out two whole new podcasts, Kristen. We can barely handle this one. Why not? Best Beans is giving us some money. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics podcast adjourned and now for a note about our process i read a bunch of stuff then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary and i copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes wikipedia so we owe a huge thank you to the real experts for this episode episode, I got my info from FamousTrials.com,

the Mississippi Clarion Ledger, and Wikipedia. And I got my info from the Tennessean, the Oklahoman, Bustle, Refinery29, Insider, Newsweek, The Court Record, Wikipedia, and an interview with Centoya on the podcast Expeditiously. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.