The family of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was kidnapped and lynched in 1955, is calling on Mississippi police to arrest the woman linked to his killing after finding an unserved warrant.
A search group with the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation found the warrant inside a file folder that had been placed inside a box in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse and certified as real on June 21. Now, they’re calling on law enforcement to serve it to Carolyn Bryant Donham, who had accused Till of making unwelcome advances in a grocery store in 1955 — an accusation that led to his abduction and eventual death.
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“This is the first time I’ve known about a warrant,” Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks told the Associated Press. “I will see if I can get a copy of the warrant and get with the DA and get their opinion on it.”
Till had been accused of grabbing Donham’s waist and making inappropriate comments, according to testimony from Donham decades ago — an account she later admitted was false in an interview for the 2017 book The Blood of Emmett Till. The Department of Justice then reopened its investigation into Till’s death but closed it in December 2021 after concluding prosecution wasn’t possible.
The unserved warrant, paired with new evidence about the attack, could renew those efforts and even provide a stronger argument to arrest Donham, who is now in her late 80s and most recently lived in North Carolina, according to public records.
“If officers want to pursue this case, presumably they have whatever information they had back in 1955, plus some more. You really could go in front of a judge today or tomorrow and get a new arrest warrant if you think, in fact, there is probable cause and suspicion for a crime,” said Ronald Rychlak, a law professor at the University of Mississippi, to the Washington Post. “The warrant doesn’t really give us new substantive evidence of her role in this crime, but it does indicate she was a suspect at one time and that a judge determined probable cause to arrest her at one time.”
Till was lynched in August 1955 after being accused of making unwelcome advances toward Donham, then Carolyn Bryant, at a grocery store in Money, Mississippi, where she worked.
The teenage boy was visiting the town when he and his cousins went to the store to buy some candy, and Till allegedly made advances at Donham, who was working behind the counter, according to reports. Later that night, Donham’s husband at the time and his half brother went to the home where Till was staying and demanded he come outside.
After unsuccessful attempts to send the men away, Till’s great-uncle led the two men through his home to where the teenager was sleeping. They woke him up and told him to get dressed and come with them, according to the Associated Press.
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His body was found three days later in the Tallahatchie River with a large cotton gin fan tied around his neck.
The two men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were later charged with murder and went to trial in September 1955, when they were acquitted after an hour of deliberation by an all-white, all-male jury. Bryant and Milam, who have since died, were both listed on the warrant alongside Donham.
“The next step is to go after Carolyn,” said Keith Beauchamp, a filmmaker who directed the documentary The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till. “She needs to be held accountable for her participation in kidnapping and murder.”
