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

April 27, 2023

By Dianne Gallagher and Sara Smart | 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.

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

Emmett Louis Till, 14, with his mother, Mamie Bradley, at home in Chicago.
(TNS/ABACA via Reuters/CNN)

(Gene Herrick/Associated Press Archives)

FILE- In this 1955 file photo, Carolyn Bryant poses for a photo. A grand jury in Mississippi has declined to indict the white woman, Carolyn Donham, known as Carolyn Bryant, whose accusation set off the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till nearly 70 years ago, despite revelations about an unserved arrest warrant and a newly revealed memoir by the woman, a prosecutor said Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022.(AP Photo/Gene Herrick, File)

FILE – This undated photo shows Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old black Chicago boy, who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 1955 after he allegedly whistled at a white woman in Mississippi. The federal government has reopened its investigation into the slaying of Till, the black teenager whose brutal killing in Mississippi helped inspire the civil rights movement more than 60 years ago. (AP Photo, File)

Associated Press

FiLE – In this Sept. 22. 1955 photo, Carolyn Bryant rests her head on her husband Roy Bryant’s shoulder after she testified in Emmett Till murder court case in Sumner, Miss. A team searching the basement of a Mississippi courthouse for evidence about the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till has found the unserved warrant charging a white woman in his kidnapping in 1955, and relatives of the victim want authorities to finally arrest her nearly 70 years later. A warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham _ identified as “Mrs. Roy Bryant” on the document _ was discovered last week by searchers inside a file folder that had been placed in a box, Leflore County Circuit Clerk Elmus Stockstill told The Associated Press on Wednesday, June 29, 2022. (AP Photo, File)

Robert A. Davis/Chicago Sun-Times via AP

FILE – In this May 4, 2005 file photo, Emmett Till’s photo is seen on his grave marker in Alsip, Ill. The FBI announced Wednesday, May 4, 2005, that Till’s body will be exhumed to conduct an autopsy, which was never performed, and determine the cause of death. The woman at the center of the trial of Emmett Till’s alleged killers has acknowledged that she falsely testified he made physical and verbal threats, according to a new book. Historian Timothy B. Tyson told The Associated Press on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017, that Carolyn Donham broke her long public silence in an interview with him in 2008. (Robert A. Davis/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

FILE – In this Sept. 23, 1955, file photo, J.W. Milam, left, his wife, second left, Roy Bryant, far right, and his wife, Carolyn Bryant, sit together in a courtroom in Sumner, Miss. Bryant and his half-brother Milam were charged with murder but acquitted in the kidnap-torture slaying of 14-year-old black teen Emmett Till in 1955 after he allegedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant. The men later confessed in a magazine interview but weren’t retried; both are now dead. Citing “new information,” the U.S. Justice Department has reopened the investigation into Till’s death. (AP Photo, File)

Emmett Till Interpretive Center

The second Emmett Till sign in 2016. (Emmett Till Interpretive Center.)

Priscilla Sterling, left, of Jackson, Miss., and Anna Laura Cush Williams, right, of Port Gibson, Miss., both cousins of Emmett Till, attend a news conference, Feb. 16, 2023, in Washington about their hope to have a 1955 arrest warrant served on Carolyn Bryant Donham in the kidnapping that led to Till’s brutal lynching. In April 2023, a Mississippi sheriff asked a judge to dismiss Sterling’s lawsuit that seeks to compel him to serve the warrant. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

Michelle Duster, great-granddaughter of civil rights pioneer Ida B. Wells, speaks after President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act in the Rose Garden of the White House, Tuesday, March 29, 2022, in Washington. Vice President Kamala Harris looks on at left. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

From left, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, hold a news conference to discuss the “Emmett Till Antilynching Act” which would designate lynching as a hate crime under federal law, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020. Emmett Till, pictured at right, was a 14-year-old African-American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family’s grocery store. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(L-R) Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till Mobley and Jalyn Hall as Emmett Till in “Till,” directed by Chinonye Chukwu. (Photo credit: Orion Pictures)

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

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 following a trial in which Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett grabbed and verbally threatened her.

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

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Orange County Register

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

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