Warrant For Woman Who Accused Emmett Till Found 67 Years Later, Family Demands Arrest

A team searching for evidence in the Emmett Till case made an astonishing discovery in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse.

An unserved warrant, charging a White woman in his 1955 kidnapping, was found 67 years later. Till’s relatives who initiated the search want authorities to finally arrest her.

A warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham — identified as “Mrs. Roy Bryant” on the document — was discovered last week inside a file folder that had been placed in a box, Leflore County Circuit Clerk Elmus Stockstill told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

CBS reports:

The search was started by the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation and included two members of Till’s family: Cousin Deborah Watts, head of the Foundation; and her daughter, Teri Watts. They want authorities to use the warrant to arrest Donham, who at the time of the slaying was married to one of two White men tried and acquitted just weeks after Till was abducted from a relative’s home, killed and dumped into a river.

“Serve it and charge her,” Teri Watts told the AP in an interview.

Donham set off the case in August 1955 by accusing the 14-year-old Till of making improper advances at a family store in Money, Mississippi. 

Evidence indicates a woman, possibly Donham, identified Till to the men who later killed him. The arrest warrant against Donham was publicized at the time, but the Leflore County sheriff told reporters he did not want to “bother” the woman since she had two young children to care for.

Now in her 80s and most recently living in North Carolina, Donham has not commented publicly on calls for her prosecution. But Teri Watts said the Till family believes the warrant accusing Donham of kidnapping amounts to new evidence.