Brad Brooks

(Reuters) – Monday’s U.S. government statement said that it could not prove that a key witness lied 66 year ago about the lynching of Emmett Till, a Black teen from Mississippi. The U.S. government closed its investigation into the murder which helped to ignite civil rights movements.

After publication of “The Blood of Emmett Till”, a book by Timothy Tyson, Duke University professor at the Justice Department, the Justice Department had restarted its investigation.

Tyson stated in it that Carolyn Bryant Donham was a white female who had testified to Till at a 1955 case. She said Till had touched and made sexual advances towards her. He later interviewed her 2008, and he said she had changed her mind and some of her testimony wasn’t true.

The Justice Department reexamined the case and found no evidence that Donham “ever claimed to the professor any portion of her testimony was false.” It said Monday.

Tyson sent Reuters an email stating that he didn’t record Donham after she retracted, but that he was keeping careful records. Tyson said that he was standing behind his work. Donham was not located.

“In closing the matter without prosecuting, the government did not assume that the testimony given by the State Court to the victim in 1955 was true or correct,” said the Justice Department.

“There is considerable doubt regarding the authenticity of Till’s version of events. This was contradicted by Till and others, even the testimony of a living witness.”

Till was visiting Chicago and had been beaten, shot, and mutilated four days before Donham (then 20) accused him of whistling at his girlfriend. Later the woman claimed that Till grabbed at her waist and made sexual remarks.

Roy Bryant (Donham’s spouse at that time), and J.W. Bryant (his half-brother) were charged with the crime. Milam was charged with Till’s murder. However, an all-white jury later cleared the white men.

In a magazine interview, the pair admitted to killing and abducting the teenage boy. Both men died in 1981 and 1994, respectively.

Till’s loved ones were saddened by the developments.

Till’s cousin Ollie Gordon said that even though they don’t feel like we have received justice, it was important to move on at the Chicago news conference. Let’s work together to create a plan for making a difference.

Mamie Till Mobley Till’s mom, decided to have an open-casket funeral that displayed her son’s tortured remains. It helped kickstart the civil rights movement. The images of Till’s corpse in his casket were seen in Black media outlets, but not in mainstream newspapers at the time.