Sixty three years after African-American teenager Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi, shocking the nation, the federal government has reopened the investigation into his death.
In a March report, the U.S. Department of Justice told Congress it is re-investigating the 1955 slaying in Money, Mississippi, after receiving “new information.”
The federal report does not indicate what that new information might be, according to The Associated Press.
The report was issued following the publication of The Blood of Emmett Till, a 2017 book that said the woman at the center of the case admitted lying about the events that led to the 14-year-old Chicago teen’s death.
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Till was visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta, when he was falsely accused of whistling at and flirting with a white woman named Carolyn Bryant Donham at a local store.
Days later, the teenager was abducted from the home where he was staying, and he was beaten and shot. His mutilated body was found in the Tallahatchie River.
Till’s mother, Mamie Till, left his casket open at the funeral. The images of his mangled body awakened the nation about racial hatred in the South.
The book, by Timothy B. Tyson, quotes Donham as admitting that she lied when she testified that Till assaulted her.
Two white men, Donham’s husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, were charged with murder but acquitted. The men later confessed in a magazine interview, but were never retried.
The case was closed in 2007 with authorities saying the suspects were dead.
