Justice Department Reopens Emmett Till’s Murder Case After Receiving New Information

The federal government has reopened its investigation into the Emmett Till’s murder, according to the Associated Press.

The Justice Department developed a report in March for Congress, stating that they would be reinvestigating Till’s murder in 1955 after receiving new information. Although no news has been let out about what new information may have been recovered, it could have stemmed from the book “The Blood of Emmett Till,” which was published last year.

If anyone needs a reminder, or does not know about Till’s case, read the following below and click the link for more information here from history.com. 

“While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier.

His assailants—the white woman’s husband and her brother—made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and ordered him to take off his clothes. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river.”

The book, created by Timothy B. Tyson, quotes said white woman, Carolyn Donham stating that “during a 2008 interview that she wasn’t truthful when she testified that Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances at a store in 1955.”

AP also reports that when reporters went to Donham’s residence in North Carolina, who turns 84 this month, a man came to the door to decline. “We don’t want to talk to you,” the man said before going back inside.

Deborah Watts, Till’s cousin and co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, stated that she initially did not know the government reopened the case of her cousin, but that “it’s wonderful that the killing is getting another look.”

“None of us wants to do anything that jeopardizes any investigation or impedes, but we are also very interested in justice being done,” Watts stated.

As of recent, Taraji P Henson is working on a movie to bring Till’s story to the big screen. Time will tell how this new evidence will impact the case, and the pending movie.