“After hearing every aspect of the investigation and evidence collected regarding Donham’s involvement, the Grand Jury returned a ‘No Bill’ to the charges of both Kidnapping and Manslaughter,” the statement said. The grand jury heard the testimony from witnesses detailing the investigation of the case from 2004 to the present day and considered both charges, Richardson said. In August 2022, a Leflore County, Mississippi, grand jury declined to indict Donham, deciding there was insufficient evidence to indict her on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter, according to a statement from District Attorney Dewayne Richardson. When questioned directly, Donham adamantly denied to investigators that she had recanted her testimony. But the case was closed in December 2021 after the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division concluded it could not prove Donham had lied.

The DOJ, which had already re-examined and closed the case in 2007, reopened the probe into Emmett’s killing in 2018. Grand jury declines to indict Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman whose accusations led to the murder of Emmett Till The interview was included in Tyson’s book, “The Blood of Emmett Till.”Įmmett Louis Till, 14, with his mother, Mamie Bradley, at home in Chicago. In 2007, a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict Donham on any charges.ĭonham testified in 1955 that Emmett grabbed her hand and waist and propositioned her, saying he had been with “White women before.” But years later, when professor Timothy Tyson raised that trial testimony in a 2008 interview with Donham, he claimed she told him, “That part’s not true.” Milam, who died in 1980, and Bryant, who died in 1994, admitted to the killing in a 1956 interview with Look magazine. They were both acquitted of murder by an all-White jury following a trial in which Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett grabbed and verbally threatened her. Milam, took Emmett from his bed and ordered him into the back of a pickup truck and beat him before shooting him in the head and tossing his body into the Tallahatchie River. In August 1955, 14-year-old Emmett was beaten and shot to death after he allegedly whistled at Bryant – now Donham – in Money. Emmett Till, left, and Carolyn (Bryant) DonhamĪ timeline of Emmett Till's accuser's changing stories

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