The family of a Black boy who was lynched in Mississippi 70 years ago has called for the arrest of a white woman after discovering an unserved warrant charging her with kidnapping.
Emmett Till was just 14 years old when he was abducted, tortured, and murdered after being accused of making improper advances toward a white woman in her family's shop.
Last week, a search team that included Till's relatives and members of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation were looking in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse when they stumbled across a warrant for Carolyn Bryant Donham.
The discovery, reported by the Associated Press, shows an unserved warrant, dated August 29, 1955, for the arrest of Donham — identified as "Mrs. Roy Bryant" on the document.
Leflore County Circuit Clerk Elmus Stockstill told the publication on Wednesday (June 29) that the warrant was found inside a folder that was kept inside boxes for decades but there was nothing else to indicate where the warrant was.
"They narrowed it down between the '50s and '60s and got lucky," said Stockstill, who affirmed that the warrant was authentic.
In Money, Mississippi, in August 1955, Donham, then 21 years old, accused Till of making inappropriate advances toward her while she was working at her family’s grocery store.
The members of the search group are now demanding authorities arrest Donham with the warrant as she identified Till to his killers - according to testimony from the case.
After Donham told her husband, Roy Bryant, about the alleged encounter, Bryant and his half-brother John William Milam abducted and murdered Till.
Bryant and Milam kidnapped the young teen from his great-uncle’s house two days after the incident and beat him before killing and tossing his body in a river.
At the time of the slaying, the warrant was reported in papers but never served. The Leflore County sheriff had told reporters that he didn’t want to "bother" the woman since she was the mother of two kids.
Now, 70 years later, Till’s descendants want the police to serve it and arrest Donham, who is now living in North Carolina and is in her 80s.
"Serve it and charge her," Teri Watts, the daughter of Till’s cousin Deborah Watts, said. Teri believes the warrant amounts to new evidence and is pleading: "This is what the state of Mississippi needs to go ahead."
The US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Mississippi refused to comment on the uncovered warrant, and the Justice Department closed an investigation into Till's case in December 2021 with no new charges issued.
Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks revealed that he hadn't heard about the warrant but said he would try to get a copy of it and get the District Attorney's opinion on the matter.
If the warrant could still be served, Banks said he would have to talk to authorities in North Carolina, where Donham currently lives.