Emmett Till Accuser Carolyn Bryant Donham Dead at 88, Months After Grand Jury Declined to Indict on Kidnapping & Manslaughter Charges
April 27 2023, Published 1:58 p.m. ET
Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman whose wolf-whistling accusations against Emmett Till led to his kidnapping and murder, has died at 88, RadarOnline.com can confirm.
She passed away on Tuesday in Louisiana following a quiet battle with cancer, according to a death report filed Thursday by the Calcasieu Parish Coroner's Office.
Donham was in hospice care at the time of her death, it was revealed.
Up until last August, Donham had remained out of the public eye since 2004. At the time, she was seen at a small apartment community in Kentucky with her son, Thomas Bryant, and their pet shih tzu, living in obscurity during her final years.
It was that month when a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict Donham, the White woman who claimed 14-year-old Black teenager Emmett Till allegedly made improper advances before he was lynched in Mississippi in 1955.
Till's mutilated body was thrown in the Tallahatchie River before being retrieved three days later on August 28.
Donham's then husband, Roy Bryant, and his brother, John Milam, were tried in court but ultimately acquitted of any charges involving Till's brutal murder.
The development involving Donham followed more than seven hours of testimony in Leflore County from investigators and witnesses before determining there was insufficient evidence to indict her on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter, despite revelations about an unserved arrest warrant and an unpublished memoir.
Till's family were disappointed by the ruling, marking the second time a grand jury has heard evidence against Donham.
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Till's cousin spoke out and said the news was "unfortunate, but predictable."
"The prosecutor tried his best, and we appreciate his efforts, but he alone cannot undo hundreds of years of anti-Black systems that guaranteed those who killed Emmett Till would go unpunished, to this day," Rev. Wheeler Parker said in a statement.
"The fact remains that the people who abducted, tortured, and murdered Emmett did so in plain sight, and our American justice system was and continues to be set up in such a way that they could not be brought to justice for their heinous crimes."
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