Emmett Till’s Family Seeks New Investigation Into Lynching

The family of Emmett Till is seeking a new investigation into his 1955 lynching after a report revealed a key witness fabricated her testimony.

The Associated Press reports two of Till’s cousins — Wheeler Parker and Deborah Watts — want authorities to reopen the investigation following the revelation that Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who alleged Till made advances toward, had lied.

In Timothy Tyson’s book, The Blood of Emmet Till, Donham said she “had fabricated the most sensational part of her testimony,” according to a Vanity Fair report from January. She told Tyson that her claim Till had made physical and verbal advances on her was “not true.”

According to Till’s family, a new investigation could help answer lingering questions surrounding his death.

Till was abducted and murdered at the age of 14 by two white men who accused him of having whistled at a white woman in a grocery store. His brutal killing, and the subsequent acquittal of the defendants by an all-white jury, helped spark the Civil Rights movement.