" (Huie). This was corroborated by another anonymous source in a later investigation (Federal Bureau of Investigation). In any event, Carolyn Bryant was so alarmed that she ran out to her car and grabbed a pistol. The boys were frightened by what had happened, and, fearing violence, told Mose Wright, the town's preacher. Carolyn's husband, Roy Bryant, returned home three days later, and after hearing the story from the town, he, his 36-year-old half-brother J.W. Milam, and another man drove to Wright's house, where Till was staying (Evers). The arrived in the early morning and questioned Till if he was "the nigger who did the talking". Emmett replied, "Yeah", for which they threatened to shoot him, and told him to get dressed. They also threatened to kill Wright if he reported what he had seen (Douglas). The three men who abducted and later murdered Till were ignoring key facts and circumstances, and unjustly persecuted Emmett Till. He was only fourteen years old, and clearly unused to the degree of segregation in Mississippi. Till was hanging out with other boys his age, from a new town, and clearly trying to impress them. His adolescent showing-off was blown drastically out of proportion, and he was killed for it. Roy Bryant likely heard a very different version of the story from what actually occurred, considering he heard it three days later, and a version that had been gossiped around the town several times during that period. Till may have not even been whistling at Carolyn Bryant, but none of these facts and circumstances stopped three grown men from brutally assaulting the fourteen-year-old in the middle of the night, and murdering him. .
Till was pistol-whipped and placed in the bed of a pickup truck and covered with a tarpaulin. Between two and four white men and two and four black men were either in or surrounding the truck, which was driven to a shed behind Milam's home in the nearby town of Glendora.