The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist

by Radley Balko

  “stain our national record.”: Wexler, Fire in a Canebrake, 81; Lohr, “FBI Re-Examines 1946 Lynching Case.”

  “from the law enforcement standpoint”: Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown, 378–383.

  led the country in lynchings, with 577: Jessie P. Guzman and W. Hardin Hughes, Negro Year Book: A Review of Events Affecting Negro Life, 1944–1946 in The Making of African American Identity: Vol. III, 1917–1968, National Humanities Center Resource Toolbox, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai3/segregation/text2/text2read.htm.

  was accidental or coerced: Hilton Butler, “Lynch Law in Action,” New Republic, July 22, 1931, 256–257.

  shotgunned him to death: “Report: Negro Who Shot Man Shoots Self,” Leader-Call (Laurel, MS), March 25, 1935.

  case is unsolved: Michael Newton, Unsolved Civil Rights Murder Cases, 1934–1970 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016), 103; “Report: Negro Who Shot Man Shoots Self.”

  coroner called that a suicide, too: Jessie Ames, The Changing Character of Lynching (Atlanta: Commission on Interracial Cooperation, 1942), 44.

  “to be chronicled in the dispatches.”: “The Week in Crime,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), May 16, 1904.

  coroner wrote simply: “no doctor.”: Patricia Schroeder, Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 42.

  But that too was never confirmed: Sources for Robert Johnson narrative: Elijah Wald, Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues (New York: Amistad, 2004); Tony Hays, “Robert Johnson: Murder or Bad Whiskey?” CriminalElement.com, Oct. 26, 2012, www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2012/10/robert-johnson-murder-or-bad-whiskey-tony-hays-true-crime-historical-bottoms-up-music; Joe Kloc, “Fact-Checking the Life and Death of Bluesman Robert Johnson,” Mother Jones, June 21, 2010; Tom Graves, Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson (Spokane, WA: Demers Books, 2008), 39–43.

  ill-equipped to bring killers to justice: Jay Milner, “‘Heart Failure’ or Stabbing?” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), March 20, 1955.

  “actual practice of pathology”: Ibid.

  responded with defiance: Carole Cannon, “Black Monday: Mississippi’s Ugly Response to the ‘Brown v. Board’ Decision,” Jackson (MS) Free Press, May 12, 2004; Myrlie B. Evers, with William Peters, For Us, the Living (Jackson, MS: Banner Books, 1967), 109–114.

  “Negro Leader Dies in Odd Accident.”: “Negro Leader Dies in Odd Accident,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), May 9, 1955.

  “quite a ladies’ man”: Newton, Unsolved Civil Rights Murder Cases, 17.

  The manner: “murder by persons unknown.”: Ibid.

  “could cause a deterioration of racial relations.”: Sources for George Lee narrative: Marc Perrusquia, “60 Years Later, Murder Still Bedevils Mississippi Delta Town,” Memphis Commercial-Appeal, May 2, 2015; see also David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, “The Grim and Overlooked Anniversary of the Murder of the Rev. George W. Lee, Civil Rights Activist,” History News Network, May 9, 2005; Michael Newton, The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010), 111; Newton, Unsolved Civil Rights Murder Cases, 17; M. Susan Orr-Klopfer, “Bloody Belzoni,” Chapter 14 in Where Rebels Roost… Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited (Lulu.com, 2005); Stephanie Saul, “FBI Files Detail ’55 Slaying,” Newsday, May 9, 2000; “Who Is Rev. George Lee,” Fannie Lou Hamer Civil Rights Museum; “Justice Dept. Urges FBI to Investigate Miss. Lynching,” Jet, June 2, 1955.

  George Lee’s murder: “Humphreys,” Mississippi Civil Rights Project, http://mscivilrightsproject.org/counties/humphreys.

  “wolf-whistled.”: Bryant has recently claimed that what she and others had claimed occurred that day in the store is not accurate. See Timothy B. Tyson, The Blood of Emmett Till (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017); Jason Parham, “Emmett Till’s Murder: What Really Happened That Day in the Store?,” New York Times, Jan. 27, 2017.

  “charge those men with murder.”: Devery S. Anderson, Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015), 48, citing “Negro Boy Was Killed for ‘Wolf Whistle,’” New York Post, Sept. 1, 1955.

  “more of a post-mortem.”: “‘Cover Up’ Charged in Boy’s Death,” Des Moines (IA) Register, Sept. 4, 1955.

  “in an advanced state of decomposition.”: Emmett Till trial transcript, contained in Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning [redacted], Roy Bryant, John William Milam, Leslie F. Milam, Melvin L. Campbell, Elmer O. Kimbrell, Hubert Clark, Levi Collins, Johnny B. Washington, Otha Johnson, Jr., Emmett Louis Till, Civil Rights Conspiracy; Domestic Police Cooperation, Feb. 9, 2006.

  “by murdering black children.”: Stephen J. Whitfield, A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 28, citing New York Times, Sept. 8, 1955, 10; Memphis Commercial Appeal, Sept. 1, 1955, 1, 4; Daily News (Jackson, MS), Sept. 2, 1955, 8.

  “hell to pay.”: Damon Root, “A Forgotten Civil Rights Hero,” Reason, April 2009; see also David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009).

  “all the niggers that’ll be thrown into it.”: Randy Sparkman, “The Murder of Emmett Till,” Slate, June 21, 2005.

  “I doubt it.”: Emmett Till trial transcript, contained in FBI, Prosecutive Report of Investigation, 299–300.

  “if it had been in the open air?”: Ibid., 300.

  “pressure,” he said: Gary Younge, “Justice at Last,” Guardian, June 5, 2005.

  “it wouldn’t have taken that long.”: “The Law: Trial by Jury,” Time, Oct. 3, 1955.

  “$4,000 for their story”: Lottie L. Joiner, “How Emmett Till Changed the World,” Daily Beast, Aug. 28, 2015.

  this was the body of Emmett Till: Additional sources for Emmett Till narrative: Anderson, Emmett Till; Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson, The Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (New York: Random House, 2003); Davis W. Houck and Matthew Grindy, Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2008).

  was not true: Richard Perez Pena, “Woman Linked to 1955 Emmett Till Murder Tells Historian Her Claims Were False,” New York Times, Jan. 27, 2017.

  “I think I have killed a nigger.”: “Luther Jackson,” Emmett Till Act (Cold Case Closing Memoranda), Civil Rights Division, US Department of Justice, Oct. 6, 2016.

  ruled the shooting a justifiable homicide: Michael Newton, The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010), 116.

  again ruled the killing a justifiable homicide: Newton, Unsolved Civil Rights Murder Cases, 215–216.

  whipped him with a belt: See ibid., 215–216.

  to crack heads in the civil rights movement: Florence Mars, Witness in Philadelphia (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), 76.

  an accidental drowning: “Hubert Orsby,” Northeastern University Project on Civil Rights and Restorative Justice, http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/hubert-orsby, last accessed July 27, 2017.

  “with a blunt instrument or a chain.”: Claude Sitton, “Arrests Awaited by Mississippians,” New York Times, Aug. 8, 1964.

  “I’m talking about hands.”: Jerry Mitchell, “Experts: Autopsy Reveals Beating,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 4, 2000.

  complaint with the College of American Pathologists: Jerry Mitchell, “Spy Agency Took Aim at N.Y. Pathologist,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 4, 2000.

  the coroner wrote “unknown.”: Sources for Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner narrative: Douglas O. Linder, “‘Bending Toward Justice’: John Doar and the ‘Mississippi Burning’ Trial,” Mississippi Law Journal 72 (2002): 731–780; Newton, The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi, 140–147; Mitchell, “Spy Agency Took Aim at N.Y. Pathologist”; Jerry Mitchell, “Activist Slayings Reopened,” Clarion-Ledger
(Jackson, MS), Feb. 8, 2000; Richard D. deShazo, Robert Smith, and Leigh Baldwin Skipworth, “A White Dean and Black Physicians at the Epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement,” American Journal of Medicine 127, no. 6 (June 2014); “Autopsy Shows Chaney Was Brutally Beaten, Shot,” UPI, Aug. 11, 1964; Mitchell, “Experts: Autopsy Reveals Beating”; David Spain, “Mississippi Autopsy,” Ramparts, Mississippi Eyewitness: Special Issue, 1964; Amy Goodman, “Mississippi Trial Begins in 1964 Civil Rights Killings” (interview with Ben Chaney), Democracy Now, June 14, 2005; Walter Rugaber, “Mississippi Jury Convicts 7 of 18 in Rights Killings,” New York Times, Oct. 21, 1967; John Dittmer, The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), 55–60.

  CHAPTER 5: SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE CADAVER KING

  permanent party stronghold: Rick Perlstein, “Exclusive: Lee Atwater’s Infamous 1981 Interview on the Southern Strategy,” Nation, Nov. 13, 2012; Beth Schwartzapfel and Bill Keller, “Willie Horton Revisited,” The Marshall Project, May 13, 2015 www.themarshallproject.org/2015/05/13/willie-horton-revisited#.HOuhWlVRH; Robin Price Pierre, “How a Conservative Wins the Presidency in a Liberal Decade,” Atlantic, July 9, 2016; Stephen D. Shaffer and David Breaux, “Mississippi Politics in the 1990s: Ideology and Performance,” presented to the American Political Science Association, 1997, http://sds17.pspa.msstate.edu/research/Apsa97.html; Jere Nash and Andy Taggert, Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976–2008 (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2009).

  “Best States for a Murder.”: Kenneth Fairly, “On the Hill,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 18, 1968.

  instituted during Reconstruction: Martin Zimmerman, “Dead Men Tell Few Tales to Mississippi’s Good-Ole-Boy Coroners,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Jan. 25, 1981; “Murder Haven,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Dec. 19, 1984.

  when Mississippi was still a territory: Don Hoffman, “Coroner System Gives Mississippi Killers a Break,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Sept. 18, 1983.

  almost exclusively to lay coroners: Fairly, “On the Hill.”

  they found little success: Kenneth Fairly, “State’s Physician Coroner Tells Need to Upgrade Office,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 16, 1968.

  convene juries to investigate suspicious deaths: Ibid.

  coroner at all: Ibid.

  he wanted to get into politics: Bob Zeller, “Ex-Coroner Doesn’t Advise Job on a Part-Time Basis,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), May 8, 1978.

  “with very little effort.”: Ibid.

  recently reviewed the coroner system: Fairly, “State’s Physician Coroner Tells Need to Upgrade Office.”

  paid to conduct investigations: Josh Zimmer, “Race Livens Up for Hinds Coroner’s Post,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), July 29, 1995.

  for embalming and funeral services: Ibid.

  corrupt and broken anachronism: Fairly, “State’s Physician Coroner Tells Need to Upgrade Office.”

  was never identified: Charles B. Gordon, “Old Jud Is Daid, But How?” Daily News (Jackson, MS), Jan. 13, 1974.

  to fund the position directly: “An Evaluation of Mississippi’s Medicolegal Death Investigation Process,” Report to the Mississippi Legislature, Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER), Sept. 16, 2008, 5; Bob Zeller, “Constant Uncertainty of Death Raises Doubts About Coroners,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), May 8, 1978.

  vacant for twenty years: Jean Culbertson, “Medical Examiner Need in Mississippi Stressed,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), March 27, 1974.

  lobbied for an appropriation: Zeller, “Constant Uncertainty of Death Raises Doubts About Coroners.”

  “‘X’ at the bottom,” he said.: Ibid.

  for modernizing the office: Ibid.

  named an official state medical examiner: Anne Q. Hoy, “New Medical Examiner Is Lifeline in Death Investigations,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Aug. 4, 1979.

  began to agitate for change: James Dickerson, “State Coroner System ‘Ludicrous,’” Daily News (Jackson, MS), March 7, 1980; Coleman Warner, “Examiner Empties Her Office,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 30, 1982.

  “and get away with it.”: Dickerson, “State Coroner System ‘Ludicrous.’”

  “ludicrous joke.”: Ibid.

  to collect the $20 fee: Ibid.

  “allowed into their homes.”: Ibid.

  possibility of an investigation: “Coroner Reform: Part 1,” Daily News (Jackson, MS), March 7, 1980.

  a model for the country: Martin Zimmerman, “Death Investigation Can Combat Crime,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Jan. 25, 1981.

  for each of several regional districts: Ibid.

  sought a mixture of the two systems: “Coroner Reform.”

  the bill failed: Ibid.; Warner, “Examiner Empties Her Office.”

  take their jobs more seriously: Martin Zimmerman, “Bill Could Bring Investigations of Death Out of ‘Dark Ages,’” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Jan. 26, 1981; “Coroner Reform”; Warner, “Examiner Empties Her Office”; “Coroner Reform: Part 1,” Daily News (Jackson, MS), March 7, 1980; “Coroner Reform: Part 2,” Daily News (Jackson, MS), March 10, 1980.

  compromise many of them could live with: Faye Spruill, interview by Radley Balko.

  “unknown causes.”: Zimmerman, “Dead Men Tell Few Tales to Mississippi’s Good-Ole-Boy Coroners.”

  weren’t being investigated: Ibid.

  and no expense account: Sources for Robert Martin narrative: Martin Zimmerman, “No ‘Routine’ Day for County’s On-Call Coroner,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Jan. 26, 1981; Robert D. Martin, “State Coroner System Given Explanatory Insight,” Letters to the Editor, Daily News (Jackson, MS), March 25, 1980; but see Theresa Kiely, “Coroner’s 20 Years Draw to a Close,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Jan. 3, 2000.

  proposal into law: Tom Clifford, “Coroner System’s ‘Old Bones’ Hamper Monticello Inquiry,” Daily News (Jackson, MS), Feb. 25, 1981; Spruill, interview.

  it had approved: Coleman Warner, “State’s 1981 Coroner Reform Law Not Yet Funded,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Jan. 11, 1982.

  more powerful lawmakers: Warner, “Examiner Empties Her Office.”

  Crook had been around a long time: Interestingly, Crook later represented Roy Bryant when Bryant was charged federally in a food stamp scam, referring to Bryant at the sentencing hearing as “a good citizen of Ruleville.” See Devery S. Anderson, Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015), 278.

  a tough agricultural market: Ibid., 270; “Two Delta Senators Offer Negro Relocation Measure,” Hattiesburg (MS) American, Feb. 25, 1966.

  “what to do anymore”: Lloyd White, interview by Radley Balko.

  the number had been disconnected: Warner, “Examiner Empties Her Office.”

  refused to fund her office: “Medical Examiner System Takes Big Step Backward,” Natchez (MS) Democrat, July 22, 1983.

  or a phone: Ibid.

  couldn’t read or write: Ruth Ingram, “No Medical Training Required for State Coroners,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Jan. 17, 1988; Valeri Oliver, “State Coroners to Ask Legislature for Tougher Qualifications,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Dec. 17, 1984; Dickerson, “State Coroner System ‘Ludicrous.’”

  70 percent: Dean Solov, “Proposed Bill Would Establish Standards for County Coroners,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), March 31, 1986.

  around 3 percent: Jeanna Bryner, “Mystery Deaths Plague Coroners,” Live Science, May 4, 2007; see M. J. Breiding and B. Wiersema, “Variability of Undetermined Manner of Death Classification in the US,” Injury Prevention 12, Supp. 2 (2006): 49–54; A. M. Miniño, R. N. Anderson, L. A. Fingerhut, et al., “Deaths: Injuries, 2000,” National Vital Statistics Report (2006).

  in other states were allocated: Russell Carollo, “Medical Examiner Arrives,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), April 5, 1985.

&n
bsp; “have been sent a message!”: Ibid.

  “We’re going to be hard on you,”: Ibid.

  the existence of a Supreme being: Dickerson, “State Coroner System ‘Ludicrous’”; Mississippi Code Section 19-21-103 (2013); Mississippi Constitution, Section 265.

  controversy in Mississippi: Ingram, “No Medical Training Required for State Coroners”; Solov, “Proposed Bill Would Establish Standards for County Coroners”; Cristal Cody, “Only 1 Coroner in Miss. Qualified as Crime Analyst,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Aug. 3, 1998; “Rankin County Pathologist Named Interim Mississippi Medical Examiner,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 24, 1987.

  “out of anybody?”: Solov, “Proposed Bill Would Establish Standards for County Coroners.”

  they didn’t like his diagnosis: Ibid.; Ingram, “No Medical Training Required for State Coroners”; Cody, “Only 1 Coroner in Miss. Qualified as Crime Analyst”; “Rankin County Pathologist Named Interim Mississippi Medical Examiner”; Carollo, “Medical Examiner Arrives”; “A Policy Analysis of the State Medical Examiner Program,” Mississippi Legislature Joint Committee on Expenditure and Evaluation Review, Aug. 11, 1988; Jimmy W. Cox, “You Should Clean Off Your Own Step First,” Columbian-Progress (Columbia, MS), July 31, 1986; Sid Salter, “State Law Should Spell Out Duties of Coroners in Preserving Evidence,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), March 9, 1986.

  definitely been strangled: Sid Salter, “State Law Should Spell Out Duties of Coroners in Preserving Evidence,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), March 9, 1986.

  fallen off on its own: Dean Solov, “Coroner May Have Cut Off Head of Body,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), July 18, 1986.

  “one person can handle.”: Harvey Rice, “New State Pathologist Finds Full Workload,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), Aug. 21, 1985.

  to the witness stand: Ibid.

  equipped for forensic pathology: Lynn Watkins, “Bennett Fights Budget Crunch with $400 Autopsy Fee,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), July 26, 1986.

  support from the DPS: Dean Solov, “Medical Examiner to Keep Post,” Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 28, 1986.