An arrest warrant for Carolyn Bryant Donham – identified as “Mrs. Roy Bryant” in the document – was discovered last week in a boxed file, Leflore County official Elmus Stockstill told the Associated Press. Wednesday. . This undated photo shows Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago who was abducted, tortured and killed in 1955 after allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. AP Documents are kept in boxes every decade, he said, but there was nothing else to show where the warrant could be, dated August 29, 1955. “They limited it between the ’50s and’ 60s and they were lucky,” said Stockstill, who certified the warrant as genuine. The research was started by the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation and involved two members of the Till family: cousin Deborah Watts, head of the Foundation. and her daughter, Teri Watts. Authorities want to use the warrant to arrest Donham, who at the time of the murder was married to one of the two White men who were tried and acquitted a few weeks after Till was abducted from a relative’s house, killed and thrown into a river. “Serve it and charge it,” Teri Watts told the AP in an interview. Donham started the case in August 1955, accusing 14-year-old Till of making improper advances to a family store in Money, Mississippi. A cousin of Till who was there said that Till whistled at the woman, something that confronted the racist social codes of the Mississippi era. Evidence suggests that a woman, possibly Donham, identified Till to the men who later killed him. The arrest warrant against Donham was made public at the time, but Leflor County Sheriff told reporters he did not want to “bother” the woman as he had two young children to care for. Now in her 80s and most recently living in North Carolina, Donham has not publicly commented on calls for her prosecution. But Teri Watts said the Till family believes the warrant accusing Donham of kidnapping is tantamount to new evidence. “This is what the state of Mississippi needs to move forward,” he said. Prosecutor Dwayne Richardson, whose office would prosecute a case, declined to comment on the warrant, but cited a December report on the Till case by the Justice Department, which said prosecution was not possible. In this September 22, 1955 photo, Carolyn Bryant rests her head on the shoulder of Roy Bryant’s husband after testifying in the Emmett Till murder case in Sumner, Miss. AP “This is the first time I know about a warrant,” Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks told the Associated Press on Wednesday. Banks, who was seven when Till was killed, said “nothing was said about the warrant” when a former prosecutor investigated the case five or six years ago. “I will see if I can get a copy of the warrant and contact the DA and get their opinion on it,” Banks said. If the warrant can be served, Banks said, he should speak to law enforcement officials in the state where Donham lives. Arrest warrants can be “stale” due to time and changing circumstances, and one since 1955 is almost certain not to be taken to court, even if a sheriff agreed to serve it, said Ronald J. Rychlak, a law professor. at the University of Mississippi. But combined with any new evidence, the original arrest warrant “absolutely” could be an important step toward finding a possible cause for a new prosecution, he said. “If you were going to a judge, you could say, ‘Once upon a time a judge thought there was a possible cause, and a lot more information is available today,’” Rychlak said. Till, who was from Chicago, was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he entered the store where Donham, then 21, was working, on August 24, 1955. A relative of Till who was there at the time, Wheeler Parker, told the AP that Till whistled at the woman. Donham testified in court that Till abducted her and made a lewd comment. Two nights later, Donham’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, JW Milam, appeared armed at Till’s uncle Mose Wright in Leflore County Farm, searching for the youth. Till’s brutal body, bored by a fan, was pulled from a river days later to another county. His mother’s decision to open the coffin so that mourners in Chicago could see what had happened helped mobilize the political rights movement of the time. Bryant and Milam were acquitted of the murder, but later confessed to the murder in a magazine interview. While both men were named in the same warrant accusing Donham of kidnapping, authorities did not pursue the case after their acquittal. Wright testified during the murder trial that a man with a voice “lighter” than that of a man who was identified by Till in a truck and the kidnappers took him away from the family home. Other FBI records show that earlier that night, Donham told her husband that at least two other blacks were not the right person.
