House of Horrors: Barn Where Emmett Till Was Brutally Tortured and Murdered Shown 70 Years Later After Tragic Crime That Sparked Civil Rights Movement
Emmett Till's brutal murder shocked the country.
Sept. 2 2025, Published 2:30 p.m. ET
Emmett Till was just 14 years old when he was tortured and murdered at the Milam Seed barn on August 28, 1955, his body found three days later in the Tallahatchie River.
RadarOnline.com can now reveal the Mississippi barn where Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, beat and killed the teen, sparking a Civil Rights movement.
Details Of A Horrific Crime
Till was brutally killed when he was 14 years old.
At the time, a journalist, under the alias "Amos Dixon," detailed what occurred inside the barn, including Till's collapse to the ground as he begged for the torture to end. However, this did not deter Bryant and Milam, as they continued to pound the youngster until his death.
Till's body was found disfigured and missing an eyeball.
According to Dixon, 18-year-old sharecropper Willie Reed, "heard screams turned to whimpers, turned to silence," when he walked by the barn on that day. The journalist detailed the horrific crime, as at one point, the heartless killers made Till put a 74-pound fan in the back of their pickup truck.
They then drove Till to the river's bank, where they ordered him to take off his clothes and then shot him in the head. His body was found weighed down by a metal fan tied around his neck with barbed wire.
Till's Casket Was Kept Opened At His Funeral
The teen was tortured and murdered at Milam Seed barn.
During the investigation, Milam's brother, who owned the plantation where Till was killed, did not admit that his property was the site of the murder, despite the two murderers confessing to the crime.
A disturbing photo of Till's dead body at his funeral spread around the country after his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, decided to keep her son's open casket during his funeral in Chicago.
Till's horror began after he was accused of propositioning and grabbing 21-year-old shopkeeper Carolyn Bryant Donham, who was married to Bryant, at her family's grocery store, just four days before the vile crime was committed.
Despite the horrendous act, both Bryant and Milam were acquitted and boasted about their crime in a 1956 interview with Look magazine.
Did Till's Accuser Ever Apologize?
Till was killed by Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam.
In 2007, Donham is believed to have recanted part of her story, and claimed in her unpublished memoir, I Am More Than A Wolf Whistle, that she did not identify till as the person who had offended her.
"I tried to protect him by telling [my husband] Roy that, 'He's not the one. That's not him. Please take him home,'" she said in the manuscript, co-authored by her daughter-in-law.
She continued: "I tried to protect him by telling [my husband] Roy that, 'He's not the one. That's not him. Please take him home,'" she said in the manuscript, co-authored by her daughter-in-law.
"I did not wish Emmett any harm and could not stop harm from coming to him, since I didn't know what was planned for him," Donham claimed.
Till had been accused of grabbing one of his attacker's wife.
Donham is also said to have apologized for all that went down and wrote: "I have always prayed that God would bless Emmett's family. I am truly sorry for the pain his family was caused."
In 2022, a Mississippi grand jury decided not to charge Donham with kidnapping and manslaughter.
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Till's body was found three days later in the Tallahatchie River.
Till is buried at Burr Oak Cemetery in Illinois.
His death led to a Civil Rights movement.
