Posted on 12/07/2021 6:03:40 AM PST by karpov
ATLANTA — The Justice Department announced on Monday that it had closed an investigation into the abduction and murder of Emmett Till, the African American teenager whose gruesome killing by two white men more than six decades ago in Mississippi helped begin the civil rights movement.
In a news release dated Dec. 6, federal officials said there was not enough evidence to pursue charges in the case, which was reopened after a historian claimed in a book that Carolyn Bryant Donham, the central witness whose account of an encounter with Emmett led to his death, had recanted the most salacious portions of her story — that he had grabbed her and made sexually suggestive remarks.
Citing the statute of limitations and Ms. Donham’s denial that she had ever changed her story, the Justice Department said it could not move forward with prosecuting her for perjury.
During a moment of the trial in which jurors were not present, Ms. Donham claimed that the teenager had made sexually vulgar comments toward her and physical contact. But in a book published in 2017, “The Blood of Emmett Till” by Timothy B. Tyson, the author wrote that Ms. Donham had recanted her testimony in a 2008 interview, saying that the earlier stories she told were “not true.”
“Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” Mr. Tyson, a researcher and historian at Duke University, quoted Ms. Donham as saying in the book.
Mr. Tyson’s claim generated outrage and renewed calls for the case to be reopened. Kristen Clarke, who leads the Justice Department’s civil rights division, delivered the news to the family in person that the case was formally closed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ask Trump and Sessions. It started on their watch.
No, its started under J Edgar Hoovers watch.
Why were they wasting their time investing something that they knew would come up with nothing, the case is 66 years old. I wonder how much taxpayer money was spent on this nonsense.
Few people know this, and the media always ignores it:
Louis Till, Emmet Till’s father, was found guilty of raping two Italian women and murdering one of them in 1944. The Army hanged him for it.
The investigation that they just closed started in 2018.
Just an aside: There were plenty of worse atrocities against blacks, including lynchings where everybody in town came out to watch.
Every single one of the perpetrators in clouding the Judge were DEMOCRATS! Try to find that in the Media reports.
Timing in such a way as to foment MORE civil unrest is not what we are paying DOJ for.
I wonder why the Deep State would want to foment civil unrest under Xiden. You'd think they'd wait until Trump wins in 2024 to pull this kind of stunt.
This was an attempt to rewrite history. Till grabbed the store owner’s wife around the waist and, the never ending “let’s exonerate the brother man decades later” movement is trying to claim that this never happened.
Bottom line: In 1955, when you messing with a man’s wife in rural Mississippi, you were fixing for an ass whipping. Till should not have been killed, but his myth that he just “whistled” at the woman is laughable.
Louis Till, Emmet Till’s father, was found guilty of raping two Italian women and murdering one of them in 1944. The Army hanged him for it.
What does that have to do with who murdered his son? You're not suggesting the killer came all the way from Italy when the father had already been hanged, to avenge a rape that happened 11 years before, are you?
Emmett Till’s murderers are already facing far more stringent judgement.
I hope they got right with God before they died.
Carolyn Donham said that she lied about her accusation that lead to Till’s death in a 2008 interview. Was the Justice Department supposed to ignore perjury that led to a murder?
“Was the Justice Department supposed to ignore perjury that led to a murder?”
You tell me: Was perjury in a state matter a federal offense at that time?
And to update the issue: When someone today falsely reports a string with a loop was seen in the neighborhood, do federal authorities bring perjury charges?
what a stupid thing to say. I was just pointing out that the media, as always, likes to leave out anything that might interfere with their narrative. Matter of fact, at the time of the Till murder in 1955, Look magazine made a big deal out of the fact that Louis Till, the father, had “given his life fighting in Italy” when in fact they knew he had been executed.
“Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him,” Mr. Tyson, a researcher and historian at Duke University, quoted Ms. Donham as saying in the book.
I didn’t go through the NYT wall. Is actual evidence presented that is material to the claim that she recanted her story? “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him” is a moral judgement, not a recantation.
That judgement neither affirms nor denies her original statements. If that’s all he’s got, Tyson’s claim is unfounded hype. It takes about three seconds to figure that out. Evidently, in FBI time three seconds = three years of paper shuffling.
By Emily Wagster Pettus and Michael Balsamo | Associated Press:
‘Officials also said that Timothy B. Tyson, the author of 2017’s “The Blood of Emmett Till” was unable to produce any recordings or transcripts in which Donham allegedly admitted to lying about her encounter with the teen.’
Donham denies ever having changed her testimony. The appearance to me is that Tyson hyped up the claim to sell books and stir the pot, or more charitably, that he abhorred the gross injustice of the case so much he was grasping at straws. The torture and murder of Till was indeed a horrific crime — he was only 14 years old.
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