Justice Department Reopens Emmett Till’s Murder Investigation

Nearly 63 years after the brutal, racist murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi, the US Justice Department has reopened the case.

Justice Department reopens Emmett Till case

The department says it has “new information” but has not elaborated or provided new details into the investigation.

The reopening was announced in an annual report to Congress in March and widely reported on Thursday.

Till’s death in August 1955 was followed by an open casket by the request of his mother to show the savagery in his killing.

Two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were prosecuted in 1955 for the killing, only to be acquitted by an all-white jury after just an hour of deliberation.

The case sparked the civil rights movement, and even today, Till’s death has been invoked by protesters decrying brutality against African Americans and people of color.

No one charged and statute of limitations

Aside from the two acquitted men, no one has been charged for the murder of Till.

A review in 2004 determined that the statute of limitations had run out on any federal crime that could be prosecuted.

In 2007, a state grand jury also declined to indict any other suspects.

Why the Justice Department reopened the Emmett Till case

In the report submitted to Congress in March, the Department of Justice said it had reopened its inquiry into Emmett Till”s murder “based upon the discovery of new information.” The department did not elaborate, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation.

The department also provided updates on a number of similar cold cases involving “crimes of racial violence,” including cases in which investigators sent state authorities information on still-living suspects who might be prosecuted.

“The Department is committed to achieving justice in civil rights-era cold cases,” the report to Congress says.

Admitting guilt

Till was buying candy when he whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, according to a cousin who witnessed the encounter. (Bryant also claimed he grabbed her and made obscene comments, but author Timothy Tyson says she has since retracted that claim, saying, “That part’s not true.”)

Several days later, Till was kidnapped, beaten and shot. Barbed wire was wrapped around his neck and tied to a heavy cotton gin fan, and his body was thrown in the Tallahatchie River.

Till’s uncle, Mose Wright, identified the killers in court as Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam. But the jury acquitted the two men anyway. Bryant and Milam later admitted to the crime in an interview with Look magazine, without identifying any accomplices who might face further charges.