Charles Brown

Charles Brown, 20, a Black U.S. Air Force airman home on a month-long leave, was fatally shot in the heart at close range on June 18, 1957, while sitting at the dinner table of a neighboring family in Benton. He had accepted a dinner invitation from a white woman he had long known; her brother, 50-year-old farmer Raiford Walton, left the house, returned with a shotgun, and shot Brown, later telling investigators he believed Brown had gotten “too friendly” with his sister while he was out of town. Walton, who had a prior manslaughter conviction for killing his own son-in-law, called the police himself after the shooting and admitted to it; murder charges were filed, but a local grand jury declined to indict him. When the FBI reopened the case decades later under the Emmett Till Act, one witness alleged Walton had actually planned the killing in advance, luring Brown to the house after catching him “in some action” beforehand — though this could not be independently corroborated. Walton died in 1965, and the case was formally closed in 2010.

Benton, MS · Yazoo County

• 1957: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• Victim identity, background, and the June 18, 1957 date and circumstances, per the DOJ's public case file and PBS FRONTLINE's “Un(re)solved” case summary.
• Raiford Walton admitted to the shooting and was charged with murder, but a local grand jury declined to indict him, per the same sources.

• No one was ever convicted in Brown's death despite the shooter's own admission.
• Whether Walton planned the killing in advance, as one witness later alleged to the FBI, was never independently corroborated.

• PBS FRONTLINE Un(re)solved — case summary
• U.S. Department of Justice — Notice to Close File
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs