‘New information’ prompts U.S. to reopen Till case
A year after a book on the brutal slaying of black teen Emmett Till revealed that a key figure in the case acknowledged lying, the federal government has reopened its investigation of the 1955 crime that helped build momentum for the civil rights movement.
A federal report sent annually to lawmak-
e rs u nder a law that bears Till’s name said the Justice Department is reinvestigating Till’s slaying in Mississippi after receiving “new information.”
The report issued in late March doesn’t indicate what that information might be.
But the 2017 book “The Blood of Emmett Till” by Timothy B. Tyson quotes a white woman, Carolyn Donham, as saying during a 2008 interview that she wasn’t truthful when she testified that Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances at a Mississippi store in 1955.
A potential witness with the 14-year-old Till in the store that day, cousin Wheeler Parker, said Thursday that he has talked with law enforcement about the case in recent months.
A Mississippi prosecutor declined to comment on whether federal authorities had given him new information since they reopened the investigation.
“It’s probably always an open case until all the par- ties have passed away,” said District Attorney Dewayne Richardson, whose circuit includes the community where Till was abducted. It’s unclear what new
charges could result from a renewed investigation, said Tucker Carrington, a profes- sor at the University of Mississippi law school.
Conspiracy or murder charges could be filed if anyone still alive is shown to have been involved, he said, but too much time likely has passed to prosecute anyone for other crimes, such as lying to investigators or in court.
The case was closed in 2007 with authorities saying the suspects were dead; a state grand jury didn’t file any new charges.
Two white men — Donham’s then-husband, Roy Bryant, and his half brother, J.W. Milam — were charged with murder but acquitted in the slaying of Chicago teen Till, who had been staying with relatives in northern Missis
sippi at the time. The men later confessed to the crime in a magazine interview but weren’t retried. Both are dead.
Donham, who turns 84 this month, lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. A man who came to the door at her resi- dence declined to comment about the FBI reopening the investigation.
“We don’t want to talk to you,” the man said before going back inside.
Paula Johnson, co-direc- tor of an academic group that reviews unsolved civil rights slayings, said she can’t think of anything other than Tyson’s book that could have prompted the Justice Depart- ment to reopen the Till investigation.
“We’re happy to have that be the case so that ultimately or finally someone can be held responsible for his murder,” said Johnson, who leads the Cold Case Justice Initia- tive at Syracuse University.