Mississippi’s top legal official has no plan to prosecute the white woman whose accusation set off the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till nearly 70 years ago, an aide said Friday following revelations about an unserved arrest warrant and a newly revealed memoir by the woman.
via: BET
According to the Associated Press, Michelle Williams, chief of staff for Attorney General Lynn Fitch, said Friday (July 15), “There’s no new evidence to open the case back up,”
Williams also said Finch’s office has not been in contact with Leflore County District Attorney Dewayne Richardson, the local prosecutor who would be responsible for pursuing any case against Carolyn Bryant Donham.
Williams also noted that the Justice Department previously investigated without filing charges and closed the case in December.
Recently, a group searched the basement of the Leflore County Courthouse and found the unserved arrest warrant charging Donham, then-husband Roy Bryant and brother-in-law J.W. Milam in Till’s 1955 abduction. While the ment were arrested and acquitted on murder charges in Till’s slaying, Donham, who is now 87, was never taken into custody.
In an unpublished memoir, Donham said she was unaware of what would happen to Till, who was a teenager in 1955 and killed and tossed in a river. She accused him of making lewd comments and grabbing her while she worked alone at a family story in Money, Mississippi.
