The U.S. Justice Department announced Monday, Dec. 6, that it has closed its latest investigation into the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till.
The “re-investigation,” as federal officials termed it, followed the 2017 reopening of the cold case over a report that in an interview with a book author, a key witness had recanted testimony she made during the 1955 murder trial.
Timothy B. Tyson, in his 2017 book, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” wrote that Carolyn Bryant Donham, the shopkeeper in Money whose account of an encounter with Till led to his brutal death, told the writer in a 2008 interview that her charge Till grabbed her and made sexually suggestive remarks was “not true.” Donham, now in her late 80s, lives in North Carolina.
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During the latest investigation, however, Donham denied to the FBI that she had ever recanted her testimony.
Citing “insufficient evidence” and the statute of limitations, the Justice Department said it could not now prosecute Donham, who, they noted, had provided no information to implicate herself or anyone new in Till’s murder.
Click here to see the full text of the three-page Justice Department news release dated Dec. 6, 2021.
