Obstructed by calls for a re-investigation into the murder of Emmett Till, relatives and activists are pushing for another possible way to account in Mississippi: of illegal advances in 1955
Carolyn Bryant Donham was named nearly 67 years ago in an order accusing her of kidnapping Till, even before his mutilated body was found in a river, FBI records show, but she was never arrested or tried in a case. who shocks the world for his brutality.
Authorities then said the woman had two young children and did not want to be disturbed. Donham’s then-husband and another man were acquitted of murder.
Make no mistake: Till’s relatives still prefer prosecution for murder. But there is no evidence that the abduction order was ever rejected, so it could be used to arrest Donum and eventually face criminal charges, said Jaribu Hill, a lawyer working with the Till family.
“This order is a step towards that,” she said. “As the orders do not expire, we want to see this order served on her.”
There are many obstacles on the roads. Witnesses have died in the decades since Till was lynched, and it is unclear what happened to the evidence gathered by investigators. Even the location of the original order is a mystery. It may be in boxes of old archives at the Leflor County, Mississippi County Court, where the abduction took place.
Till’s relative said it was long overdue for someone to arrest Donum in Till’s abduction, if not the murder itself.
“Mississippi is not Mississippi since 1955, but it still seems to be part of that era of protecting the white woman,” said Deborah Watts, Till’s distant cousin who runs the Emmett Till Heritage Foundation.
Now in her late 80s and last living in Raleigh, North Carolina, Donham has not publicly commented on calls for her prosecution. She seemed to know she was on an arrest warrant for Till’s abduction decades later, said Dale Killinger, a retired FBI agent who questioned her more than 15 years ago.
“I don’t think she remembers that,” he said. She was surprised.
The Justice Department completed its latest investigation into the December murder, when the agency said Donum had rejected an author’s claim that she had denied allegations that Till had done something wrong to her at the store where she worked in the town of Money. . The writer could not provide any records or transcripts to support the claim, authorities said.
While relatives met in March with officials, including County Attorney Dewey Richardson and Leflor County Attorney General, but left unsatisfied, Watts said. “There doesn’t seem to be the determination or the courage to do what needs to be done,” she said.
Richardson has been in office for about 15 years and was the first black man to be president of the Mississippi Prosecutors’ Association. He did not return phone messages or emails seeking comment on a potential abduction.
Keith Bosham, a director whose documentary The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till preceded a retrial by the Justice Department, which ended without charge in 2007, said there was enough evidence to prosecute Donum.
“If we say we are a country of truth and justice, we must achieve truth and justice … regardless of the age or gender of the person concerned,” Bosham said.
Stories of the events leading up to Till’s murder have varied over the years, but the woman known at the time as Carolyn Bryant has always been at the center of it, said author Devery Anderson, who received original FBI files on the case while investigating his 2015 Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Driven the Civil Rights Movement.
Till was a 14-year-old from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi when he entered the store on August 24, 1955; Donam, then 21, worked inside. A relative of Till’s who was there at the time, Wheeler Parker, told the Associated Press that Till had whistled at the woman. Donam testifies that Till grabbed her.
Two nights later, Donum’s then-husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, JW Milam, appeared armed at Till’s great-grandmother’s country house, Moses Wright, looking for the young man.
Wright testified in 1955 that a man with a “lighter” voice than the man identified Till by pickup truck and was abducted by kidnappers. Other evidence in the FBI files shows that earlier that evening Donham told her husband that at least two other black men were not the right man.
Authorities have already received warrants accusing the two men and Donum of kidnapping before Till’s body was found in the Talahachi River, according to FBI files, but police never arrested Donum.
“We’re not going to bother the woman,” Leflor County Sheriff George Smith told reporters. “She has two little boys to take care of.”
Roy Bryant and Milam were quickly charged with murder and acquitted by an all-white jury in Talahachi County about two weeks later.
Major jurors in neighboring Leflor County have since refused to charge men with kidnapping charges, effectively ending the threat of prosecution for Roy Bryant and Milam. Both men have been dead for decades, leaving Donum as the only survivor directly involved.
Killinger, a retired federal agent, said he had seen neither the original order during his investigation nor any indication that it had ever been overturned by a court, and it was unclear whether it could be used today to arrest or try Donum. Even if authorities find the original documents with affidavits describing detailed evidence, he said, courts need witnesses to testify.
“And I think all these people are dead,” Killinger said.
Reeves is a member of the AP’s race and ethnicity team.