Key Points
A white woman whose discredited accusations against Black teenager Emmett Till led to his lynching in 1955 has died in Louisiana, according to a coroner's report...
She was the last living person directly involved in the case.. Till, visiting from Chicago, was beaten, shot and mutilated in Money, Mississippi, on Aug. 28, 1955, four days after Donham, then 21, accused him of whistling at her...
The all-white jury acquitted both men after Donham testified that Till had grabbed her waist and made sexual remarks while at the general store she ran.. The men later confessed in a paid magazine interview that they killed Till..
In 2021, the US Justice Department closed its reopened investigation into Donham's role in the murder following the publication of a book whose author wrote that Donham told him she lied about Till making sexual advances..
Christopher Benson, a journalist and lawyer who co-wrote a 2004 book about Till's murder with the boy's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, and continues to work with the family and others on the case, said it was regrettable nobody could ever be held accountable..
