FSU to host Emmett Till Archives Lecture Series featuring retired FBI special agent
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Florida State University will host its third annual Emmett Till Archives Lecture Series — and one of the key speakers is a former FBI agent who led Till’s 2004 cold murder case investigation.
Retired FBI Special Agent Dale Killinger will discuss the investigation’s key findings in Till’s kidnapping and murder 5:30 p.m.-7 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 13, in the Globe Auditorium of FSU’s Global and Multicultural Engagement Building on South Woodward Avenue.
The event is free and open to the public.
“It’s been nearly 20 years since Dale Killinger began investigating the people and places involved in the murder of Emmett Till,” said Davis Houck, the Fannie Lou Hamer Professor of Rhetorical Studies in FSU’s School of Communication, in a prepared statement.
“During that time, he’s become an indispensable resource when it comes to piecing together the often-confusing details of the case.”
The case involves the kidnapping and brutal lynching of Till, a 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago who was visiting his cousins in Mississippi in August 1955. He was accused of whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham.
Evidence shows that Donham — who died last April 25 at the age of 89 in Louisiana — identified Till to the men who later killed him. Her then-husband, Roy Bryant, and his half brother, J.W. Milam, were tried for the crime but were acquitted in September 1955.
Although investigations were reopened in 2004 and in 2017, they were both closed.
The U.S. Department of Justice determined in December 2021 that the reopened case lacked enough jurisdiction to bring federal charges proving Donham had lied.
Moreover, a Leflore County, Mississippi, grand jury declined to indict Donham in August 2022 after deciding there was insufficient evidence to indict her on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter, according to CNN.
During the 2004 investigation, Killinger identified and interviewed key witnesses who were previously unknown. He also located a trial transcript that was missing for over 40 years.
Killinger will discuss the key witnesses of the investigation, admissions by the killers, the autopsy of Till’s remains and obtaining key admissions from Donham.
The event is funded by the Emmett Till Lecture and Archives Fund, which was established by Houck in collaboration with FSU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives.
The Emmett Till Archives — which is open to the public — includes materials that range from newspapers, magazines and photographs to government records, scholarly literature and creative works that all document the Till case.
More on Till case: FSU scholar on Emmett Till case hopeful after recently discovered 1955 arrest warrant
Killinger’s career investigations have included civil rights violations, crimes against children, bank robberies, white collar crimes and other violations of federal law for 10 years.
Currently, he is a certified FBI hostage negotiator and a police instructor with certifications as an FBI Police Instructor, FBI Crisis Negotiator, Insider Threat Program Manager and Insider Threat Vulnerability Assessor, according to the university.
If you go
RSVP to the lecture series event at www.bit.ly/FSUEmmettTillLecture2024.
Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on X: @tarahjean_.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU to hold event with retired FBI agent from Emmett Till case
