The woman who falsely accused 14-year-old Emmett Till of harassment has died at the age of 88. In 1955, Carolyn Bryant Donham claimed that the young teenager tried to grab her hand and proposition her.
With her death, Donham can never be brought to justice for her role in Till's death. The young teen was kidnapped and beaten and tortured to death by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, who were acquitted by an all-white jury.
In 2022, prosecutors attempted to bring Donham to justice in court and brought charges of kidnapping and manslaughter against her. However, the jury decided there was not enough evidence to indict Donham, and no further attempts to charge her were made.
The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Institute commented that those at the organization "wish mercy on her soul, even as we regret that she never took responsibility for her role."
The commented continued, "While the world saw the horrors of racism in Emmett's murder, the real consequences of hatred, what the world will never now see is remorse or responsibility for his death."
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Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam eventually admitted to the murder in a later interview, but they could not be tried again for the crime. In 2008, Donham told a historian that her original claim against Till, who was visiting family at the time of his death, was "not true."
In June 2022, an unserved warrant that charged Bryant, Milam, and Donham with abduction was found. Despite the warrant being public, the sheriff at the time had admitted he didn't want to "bother" Donham with it as she had two young children.
Donham later claimed that she didn't know what would happen to Till when she made her false allegation, though it's unclear if she understood that is hardly an adequate response to the horrors that befell the teenager.
There is more in the video below.
