A Mississippi grand jury has refused to accuse the White lady whose claim sparked the lynching of Black teenager Emmett till almost 70 years ago, despite disclosures about an outstanding arrest warrant and the woman’s recently discovered book, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
According to a press release from Leflore County District Attorney Dewayne Richardson, a grand jury reviewed evidence and testimony alleging Carolyn Bryant Donham’s role in the abduction and killing of Till.
According to Richardson, the grand jury ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Donham after hearing more than seven hours of testimony from investigators and witnesses. Both kidnapping and manslaughter charges were contemplated. The grand jury’s decision not to indict Donham makes it more improbable that she will ever face charges for her participation in the events that led to Till’s killing.
In June, a crew investigating the basement of the Leflore County Courthouse unearthed an unsealed arrest warrant accusing Donham, his then-husband Roy Bryant, and his brother-in-law J.W. Milam with Till’s kidnapping in 1955. While the men were caught and acquitted on murder charges in the following death of Till, Donham, who was 21 at the time and is now 87, was never arrested.
Donham claimed in an unpublished book acquired by The Associated Press last month that she had no idea what would happen to 14-year-old Till, who resided in Chicago and was visiting family in Mississippi when he was stolen, slain, and thrown in a river. She accused him of making obscene remarks and touching her as she was working alone at a family business in Money, Mississippi.
According to Donham’s manuscript, the men brought Till to her in the middle of the night for identification, but she sought to assist the young guy by denying it was him. Despite being kidnapped at gunpoint from a family home by Roy Bryant and Milam, the 14-year-old allegedly identified himself to the guys.
Till’s bruised, mutilated corpse was discovered days later in a river, weighted down by a huge metal fan. Mamie Till Mobley’s choice to uncover Till’s coffin for his burial in Chicago highlighted the tragedy of what had occurred and fueled the civil rights movement.
In a statement to CBS News, Till’s cousin, Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr., called the ruling “unfortunate but expected.”
“The prosecutor did his best, and we applaud his efforts,” Parker said in a statement. “But he alone cannot change hundreds of years of anti-Black policies that insured those who murdered Emmett Till would go unpunished to this day.” “The fact remains that the people who abducted, tortured, and murdered Emmett did so in plain sight, and our American justice system was and continues to be set up in such a way that they could not be brought to justice for their heinous crimes.”