NEVER FORGET

Feds Close Emmett Till Lynching Investigation—Again

Four years after reopening the case, the Justice Department says it can’t prove the allegations that a key witness had lied.

The Department of Justice has for the second time closed its investigation into the brutal kidnapping, torture, and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till by two white men in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman at a local market. In 2017, the DOJ again began looking into the circumstances surrounding the lynching of Till, who was Black, following new evidence obtained by Professor Timothy Tyson. The Duke University historian said Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman at the center of the infamous case, had recanted her claim. But according to sources quoted by CNN, Donham denied telling Tyson she had been untruthful, and DOJ “has now concluded it cannot prove the woman lied to federal investigators.” Till’s killers, who later admitted in a magazine interview to murdering the teen, were subsequently acquitted by an all-white jury. They have both since died.