The Justice Department closed its investigation into the murder of Emmett Till Monday, CNN reported, after it was unable to validate a bombshell new claim that the woman who accused Till of making advances on her recanted the allegation decades later.
Author Timothy Tyson said in 2017 that Carolyn Bryant, the white woman whose allegations against Till led to his brutal abduction and lynching, admitted to lying about the events of the day while under oath. Tyson claimed that during a 2008 interview Bryant said Till, a black boy who was only 14 at the time, did not grab her or make sexual remarks.
The claim led the feds to reopen Till’s case despite it being widely disputed. Tyson said Bryant made the remark before he started recording the interview and Bryant’s family member who was present at the interview denied the allegation, casting doubts on Tyson’s claim.
Till was lynched on August 28, 1955 in Mississippi while visiting family by Bryant’s then-husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Milam. Bryant had told her husband that Till came onto her. The two men were acquitted by an all-white jury on murder charges but later admitted to carrying out Till’s killing.
The investigators were unable to find enough evidence proving that Bryant recanted her original claim, CNN reported.
“Even if such evidence could be developed, no federal hate crime laws existed in 1955, and the statute of limitations has run on the only civil rights statutes that were in effect at that time,” the Justice Department said in a Monday statement.
Tyson allegedly gave inconsistent testimony to the feds during the recent investigation, making the recantation harder to believe, CNN reported.
“For 66 years we have suffered pain,” Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., Till’s cousin, said at a press conference. “We’re not defeated.
“Whatever we do, we can’t bring him back, but we can carry on,” Parker said.
Other members of Till’s family said at the press conference they weren’t surprised by the results.
The Justice Department previously reopened the case again more than a decade ago but also failed to make additional prosecutions citing a lack of evidence.
The investigation was done in conjunction with the US Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Mississippi and the Mississippi District Attorney’s Office
