DOJ Closes Investigation into 1955 Murder of Emmett Till, Finds No Proof Accuser Lied

Monday, the Department of Justice announced the closing of the investigation into the 1955 murder of Emmett Till after it failed to find proof a key figure in the case lied.

Till, a Black teenager from Chicago, was abducted, brutally beaten and shot in the head while visiting family in Mississippi after a white woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, claimed he whistled at her and touched her in a store.

Donham’s then-husband and another man, both now deceased, were acquitted by an all-white jury that year. Months after the trial, a magazine published the two men’s account of the brutal slaying where they admitted to beating Till and tossing him in a river.

The case was reopened after a 2017 book by Duke University professor Timothy Tyson reported that Donham had recanted her account about the encounter with Till.

“The woman however, when asked about the alleged recantation, denied to the FBI that she ever recanted her testimony and provided no information beyond what was uncovered during the previous federal investigation,” the Department of Justice said Monday. “Although lying to the FBI is a federal offense, there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she lied to the FBI when she denied having recanted to the professor.”