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1955 warrant in Emmett Till case found, family seeks arrest

Emmett Till
Posted at 5:13 PM, Jun 29, 2022
and last updated 2022-06-29 18:13:08-04

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A team searching a Mississippi courthouse for evidence about the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till has found the unserved warrant charging a white woman in his 1955 kidnapping.

And relatives of the victim say they now want the woman brought to justice nearly 70 years later.

Leflore County Circuit Clerk Elmus Stockstill tells The Associated Press the warrant was found last week.

It named a woman now known as Carolyn Bryant Donham on a kidnapping charge in Till's abduction.

Donham was never arrested, and Till relatives in the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation now want her taken into custody.

Till was killed after witnesses said he whistled at Donham in Mississippi.

Two white men, one of whom was married to Donham at the time, were arrested but later acquitted.

Last December, the U.S. Justice Department announced it was ending its investigation into the 1955 lynching.

An investigation was reopened after a book published in 2017 quoted Dunham, now in her 80s, of lying at trial about what actually happened.

Officials said they couldn't find evidence that Dunham told the author she lied about Till grabbing her.

In March, President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law, making lynching a federal hate crime.