/AP Emmett Till case reopened after new evidence surfaces

AP Emmett Till case reopened after new evidence surfaces

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Justice Department stated that it would reexamine the case which was closed in 2007. This report was sent to Congress in March. Although the report doesn’t contain any details, it coincided with the publication of “The Blood of Emmett Till.” Till was just 14 years old at the time. He was visiting Chicago relatives when he was killed. Till was 14 when he was murdered while visiting his relatives in Chicago. He and his cousins visited a Money store owned by Roy Bryant. They claimed that Till grabbed Till’s arm and placed his hands on her waist, making sexually suggestive comments. Bryant and J.W. Milam later kidnapped Till at his relatives’ house. Till’s body was discovered days later. He had been severely beaten and then shot. Before he was thrown into the Tallahatchie River, a cotton gin fan was tied around his neck using barbed wire. The modern civil-rights era was ignited by Till’s open-casket photograph published in Jet magazine. Roy Bryant, Milam were both acquitted in the murders. However, they later admitted to it in a magazine interview. Carolyn Bryant (now Donham), claims that she falsified parts of her testimony at her husband’s trial. Wheeler Parker, a relative of Till and an eye-witness to the 1955 events, visited Mississippi in June to rededicate a marker to commemorate the case at the Tallahatchie River, Glendora. In 2016, bullets destroyed a previous marker. You can find information from the FBI case file here. You can find a transcript of the Bryant/Milam trial here, including the testimony of Carolyn Bryant.