Emmett Till’s family is seeking the arrest of a woman linked to the abduction of a black teenager in 1955, after a team looking for new evidence of the infamous lynching found an unfulfilled warrant that was never executed nearly 70 years ago. Leflore County Sheriff Elmus Stockstill told the Associated Press on Wednesday that the search team, which included two of Till’s relatives and members of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, found a warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham – identified as ” Mrs. Roy Bryant “in the document – in a file in the basement of a Mississippi court last week. Donham, who is White, had accused 14-year-old Till of making improper advances to a family store in Money, Miss., In August 1955 – a charge that began the chain of events that led to Till’s lynching. Donham was married to Roy Bryant, one of two whites acquitted weeks after Till was abducted from a relative’s home, lynched and thrown into a river. While the documents are sorted by decades, it is not clear where the warrant, dated August 29, 1955, was for all those years. Stockstill told the Associated Press that he certified the warrant was genuine after it was found on June 21. “They limited it between the ’50s and’ 60s and they were lucky,” Stockstill said. A photo of the warrant, published by the Mississippi Free Press, shows a document that states: “We order you to take the bodies of JW Milam, Roy Bryant and Mrs. Roy Bryant if they are in your county… the abduction charge “. The check marks are next to the names of Milam and Bryant, but Donham, who is identified as “Mrs. Roy Bryant “does not have one next to hers. The news of the discovery led the family and longtime supporters to seek the arrest of Donham, who is in her late 1980s and most recently lived in North Carolina, according to public records. As police never issued the warrant, it is likely that law enforcement will continue to seek her arrest. Till’s cousins, Deborah and Terry Watts, had previously handed in a report to Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitz (R) calling for Donham to be prosecuted for kidnapping Till. The Justice Department announced last December that it had completed its investigation into Till’s lynching. “Execute the warrant now!” wrote on Twitter the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation. “Serve it and charge it,” Teri Watts told the Associated Press, adding that finding the warrant was tantamount to new evidence. “This is what the state of Mississippi needs to move forward.” Donham, Stockstill, the Department of Justice, and Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks did not immediately respond to requests for comment. While a 1955 warrant would probably not be valid if served by a sheriff, any new evidence could provide a stronger argument for discovering a warrant for a new investigation, said Ronald J. Rychlak, a distinguished law professor at his law school. Mississippi, he told the Washington Post. “If the officers want to continue this case, they obviously have any information they had in 1955, as well as some more. “You could really go to a judge today or tomorrow and get a new arrest warrant if you believe there is, in fact, a possible cause and suspicion of a crime,” Rychlak said. “The warrant does not really give us any substantial new information about her role in this crime, but it does show that she was once a suspect and that a judge ruled out a possible reason for her arrest.” In August 1955, Till traveled from Chicago to visit relatives for a summer vacation in Mississippi, where he would stay with his great-grandfather, Moses Wright. Till’s mother, Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley, who was born and raised in the state of Mississippi, warned her son that the state was full of racism and reminded him that he had to obey his relatives. He told him to “be very careful; to be humble enough to fall to his knees,” according to Time. “Living in Chicago,” he explained at the trial of his killers, “he did not know.” ” Emmett Till’s mother opens box and launches civil rights movement A few days after Till arrived in Mississippi, he and his cousins went to Bryant Grocery and Meat in Money to buy sweets. According to testimonies, Till allegedly whistled at Donham and then at Carolyn Bryant, who worked in the store. Maurie Wright, 16, Till’s cousin, told United Press in a report published on September 1, 1955: “Emmett entered the store and asked for a bubble and left after saying ‘goodbye’ to the women. Outside, Emmett gave a “wolf call.” “I told Emmett to watch what he said in the store.” That night, August 28, 1955, the woman’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, JW Milam, went to Till’s uncle’s house and asked the boy to go out, according to an Associated Press report. 2007. “Moses begged the men to leave Emmett alone,” according to PBS. “He is only 14, he is from the north. “Why not give the boy a whip and leave it like that?” “His wife, Elizabeth Wright,” offered money to the intruders, but they ordered her to go back to bed. “ Till’s uncle “led the men around his house with flashlights until they found Emmett in a bed sleeping,” according to a PBS report. “They woke him up and told him to get dressed.” Three days later, Till’s body was found in the Tallahatsi River, with a fan tied around his neck. Bryant and Milam were charged with murder and tried on September 19, 1955, in Sumner, Miss. Five days after the trial began, Bryant and Milam were acquitted by an all-white juror, after about an hour of deliberation in a shocking decision. There have been many attempts to reconsider the Till case, such as when the Department of Justice reopened the case in recent years. Although Leflore County Attorney Joyce Chiles (D) filed the case against Donham before a grand jury in 2007, he refused to charge her with Till’s murder. No one has ever been convicted of killing Till. Nearly 60 years after the lynching, Donham has revealed that she lied about her interaction with Till. In the 2017 book “The Blood of Emmett Till”, Timothy B. Tyson, a professor at Duke University, wrote that in an interview, Donham admitted that Till did not make sexual progress towards her. Her statement is in stark contrast to her testimony decades ago, when she told jurors that Till had grabbed her waist and told her vulgar things. New details in book about Emmett Till’s death prompt officials to reopen investigation Announcing that Donham would not face prosecution, the Justice Department noted that “the government does not take the position that the state court testimony given by the woman in 1955 was true or accurate.” Donham told the FBI she had never denied the allegations, with the Justice Department saying there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she lied to the FBI. “There remains considerable doubt as to the veracity of her version of events, which is refuted by others who were with Till at the time, including the testimony of a living witness,” the Justice Department said in a December 2021 press release. Milam and Bryant are now both dead, but Till’s family and supporters have argued that Donham should be arrested. Prior to the paper’s discovery, filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, who directed the documentary “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till” in 2005, said in a speech at Southern University that he believed there was a warrant for Donham for years, according to Free Press. “The next step is to follow Carolyn,” Beauchamp said. “She must be held accountable for her involvement in kidnappings and killings.” Rychlak, law professor Ole Miss, told The Post that it was “unique and surprising that a document would appear much later”. “I do not know anything, even close to the previous one,” he said. As the news of the warrant spread, many on social media called for action against Donham. Among them was Shuwaski Young, the Democratic candidate for Congress, who called on law enforcement to “act quickly and decisively.” “Justice has been delayed considerably,” he wrote. Beauchamp, who was a member of the search team that found the document, expressed optimism that charges could eventually be filed almost seven decades after Till’s death. “It’s not over until it……” Beauchamp wrote on Twitter.
