Woman whose accusation led to the lynching of Emmett Till has died at 88, coroner says

Dianne Gallagher and Sara Smart, CNN
April 27, 2023

Carolyn Bryant, pictured at age 21.
Carolyn Bryant, pictured at age 21. (AP)

CNN — Carolyn Bryant Donham, the White woman whose accusation led to the 1955 lynching of Black teen Emmett Till in Mississippi – and whose role in Till’s brutal death was reconsidered by a grand jury as recently as last year – has died in Louisiana, the Calcasieu Parish coroner’s office confirmed to CNN.

Donham, 88, died Tuesday in Westlake, according to a fact of death letter from the Calcasieu Parish Coroner.

CNN has reached out to the Till family.

In August 1955, 14-year-old Till was beaten and shot to death after he allegedly whistled at Bryant – now Donham – in Money, Mississippi.

Emmett Louis Till, 14, with his mother, Mamie Bradley, at home in Chicago.
Emmett Louis Till, 14, with his mother, Mamie Bradley, at home in Chicago.

Later, her husband, Roy Bryant, and J.W. Milam, took Till from his bed and ordered him into the back of a pickup truck and beat him before shooting him in the head and tossing his body into the Tallahatchie River. They were both acquitted of murder by an all-White jury following a trial in which Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett grabbed and verbally threatened her.

Milam, who died in 1980, and Bryant, who died in 1994, admitted to the killing in a 1956 interview with Look magazine.

In 2007, a Mississippi another grand jury declined to indict Donham on any charges.

Donham testified in 1955 that Emmett grabbed her hand, her waist and propositioned her, saying he had been with “White women before.” But years later, when professor Timothy Tyson raised that trial testimony in a 2008 interview with Donham, he claimed she told him, “That part’s not true.”

The prospect that the woman at the center of Emmett’s case had recanted her testimony – which the US Justice Department said in a memo would contradict statements she made during the state trial in 1955 and later to the FBI – prompted calls for authorities to reopen the investigation.

The DOJ, which had already re-examined and closed the case in 2007, reopened the probe into Emmett’s killing in 2018. But the case was closed in December 2021 after the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division concluded it could not prove Donham had lied. When questioned directly, Donham adamantly denied to investigators that she had recanted her testimony.

In August 2022, a Leflore County, Mississippi, grand jury declined to indict Donham, deciding there was insufficient evidence to indict her on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter, according to a statement from District Attorney Dewayne Richardson.

The grand jury heard the testimony from witnesses detailing the investigation of the case from 2004 to the present day and considered both charges, Richardson said.

“After hearing every aspect of the investigation and evidence collected regarding Donham’s involvement, the Grand Jury returned a ‘No Bill’ to the charges of both Kidnapping and Manslaughter,” the statement said. “The murder of Emmett Till remains an unforgettable tragedy in this country and the thoughts and prayers of this nation continue to be with the family of Emmett Till.”

CNN’s Chuck Johnston contributed to this report.