Emmett Till Accuser Carolyn Bryant Donham Dies At 88; Wolf Whistle Claim Led To Brutal Murder

Greg Evans
·2 min read
3
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman whose claim that 14-year-old Emmett Till whistled at her during a grocery store visit led to the Black teenager’s brutal murder in August 1955, died of cancer Tuesday in Westlake, Louisiana. She was 88.

Donham’s death while under hospice care was confirmed today in a report filed by the Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, coroner’s office.

More from Deadline

Donham, known as Carolyn Bryant at the time of Till’s lynching, was the 21-year-old owner-cashier of a small general store in Money, Mississippi, when she first encounter Till, a Chicago boy who was visiting relatives in town. After Donham told her then-husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam that Till had whistled at her in the store – a claim that has been much disputed and remains unfounded – the two men abducted, tortured and murdered the boy.

The crime went unpunished – an all-white jury acquitted the two men, who later confessed to the crime in an interview with Look magazine. Just last year, a grand jury, investigating evidence that an old arrest warrant had been issued against Carolyn Bryant but was never served, declined to indict the woman for lack of new evidence.

The murder of Emmett Till would become a seminal event in the history of American Civil Rights. Till’s mother Mamie Till Mobley insisted that her son’s casket be left open at his funeral in Chicago in order to “let the world see what they did to my boy.” A photograph of Emmett’s disfigured face was published in Jet magazine, igniting a firestorm of outrage.

Till historian Timothy B. Tyson said in 2017 that Donham admitted she had lied during her husband’s trial to make Till’s conduct at the grocery store seem “menacing” and “sexual.”

Before her death in 2003, Mamie Till Mobley said she had forgiven her son’s murderers.

The Till murder has been the subject of numerous documentaries and films, most recently last year’s Till, starring Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till, Jalyn Hall as Emmett Till, and Haley Bennett as Carolyn Bryant.


Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.