Carolyn Bryant Donham, the White woman whose accusation led to the 1955 lynching of Black teen Emmett Till in Mississippi — and whose role in Till’s brutal death was reconsidered by a grand jury as recently as last year — has died in Louisiana, the Calcasieu Parish coroner’s office confirmed to CNN.
Donham, 88, died Tuesday in Westlake, according to a fact of death letter from Calcasieu Parish Coroner.
CNN has reached out to the Till family.
In August 1955, 14-year-old Till was beaten and shot to death after he allegedly whistled at Bryant — now Donham — in Money, Mississippi.
(Gene Herrick/Associated Press Archives)
FILE- In this 1955 file photo, Carolyn Bryant poses for a photo. A grand jury in Mississippi has declined to indict the white woman, Carolyn Donham, known as Carolyn Bryant, whose accusation set off the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till nearly 70 years ago, despite revelations about an unserved arrest warrant and a newly revealed memoir by the woman, a prosecutor said Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022.(AP Photo/Gene Herrick, File)
FILE – This undated photo shows Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old black Chicago boy, who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in 1955 after he allegedly whistled at a white woman in Mississippi. The federal government has reopened its investigation into the slaying of Till, the black teenager whose brutal killing in Mississippi helped inspire the civil rights movement more than 60 years ago. (AP Photo, File)
Associated Press
FiLE – In this Sept. 22. 1955 photo, Carolyn Bryant rests her head on her husband Roy Bryant’s shoulder after she testified in Emmett Till murder court case in Sumner, Miss. A team searching the basement of a Mississippi courthouse for evidence about the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till has found the unserved warrant charging a white woman in his kidnapping in 1955, and relatives of the victim want authorities to finally arrest her nearly 70 years later. A warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham _ identified as “Mrs. Roy Bryant” on the document _ was discovered last week by searchers inside a file folder that had been placed in a box, Leflore County Circuit Clerk Elmus Stockstill told The Associated Press on Wednesday, June 29, 2022. (AP Photo, File)
Robert A. Davis/Chicago Sun-Times via AP
FILE – In this May 4, 2005 file photo, Emmett Till’s photo is seen on his grave marker in Alsip, Ill. The FBI announced Wednesday, May 4, 2005, that Till’s body will be exhumed to conduct an autopsy, which was never performed, and determine the cause of death. The woman at the center of the trial of Emmett Till’s alleged killers has acknowledged that she falsely testified he made physical and verbal threats, according to a new book. Historian Timothy B. Tyson told The Associated Press on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017, that Carolyn Donham broke her long public silence in an interview with him in 2008. (Robert A. Davis/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)
FILE – In this Sept. 23, 1955, file photo, J.W. Milam, left, his wife, second left, Roy Bryant, far right, and his wife, Carolyn Bryant, sit together in a courtroom in Sumner, Miss. Bryant and his half-brother Milam were charged with murder but acquitted in the kidnap-torture slaying of 14-year-old black teen Emmett Till in 1955 after he allegedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant. The men later confessed in a magazine interview but weren’t retried; both are now dead. Citing “new information,” the U.S. Justice Department has reopened the investigation into Till’s death. (AP Photo, File)
Later, her husband, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, took Till from his bed and ordered him into the back of a pickup truck and beat him before shooting him in the head and tossing his body into the Tallahatchie River. They were both acquitted of murder following a trial in which Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett grabbed and verbally threatened her.
In 2007, a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict Donham on any charges.
