Relatives of Emmett Till recently discovered an unserved arrest warrant for the white woman whose accusations led to his lynching, prompting calls for her arrest nearly 70 years later.
Last week they uncovered a warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Brant Donham, identified as ‘Mrs Roy Bryant’ on the document, inside a file folder that had been placed in a box in the basement of a courthouse in Greenwood, Mississippi.
Till was brutally beaten and shot in the head in 1955 after Donham said he whistled at her and touched her in a store. A cousin of Till who was there has said Till whistled at the woman, which went against Mississippi’s racist social code at the time.
The search was conducted by the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation and included two members of Till’s family: His cousin Deborah Watts, who heads the foundation, and her daughter, Teri Watts.
Till’s relatives want authorities to use the unserved warrant from 67 years ago to arrest Donham.
‘Serve it and charge her,’ Teri Watts told the Associated Press.
Donham is now in her 80s and lives in North Carolina. She has not publicly commented on calls for her prosecution, but members of the Till family say the warrant accusing Donham of kidnapping should be considered as new evidence in the case.
‘This is what the state of Mississippi needs to go ahead,’ she added.
District Attorney Dewayne Richardson, whose office would prosecute a case, declined comment on the warrant, citing a December report from the Justice Department that ended the federal investigation into Till’s case.
The Justice Department reopened its investigation into the case in 2018 following the publication of the book The Blood of Emmett Till, by Duke University Professor Timothy Tyson a year earlier.
In the book, Tyson wrote that Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman who claimed Till touched her and made sexual advances, had told him in a 2008 interview that parts of her testimony were not true.
After re-examining the case, however, the Justice Department could not find enough evidence to support Tyson’s claim that Donham lied.
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