Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who accused 14-year-old Emmett Till of whistling and making sexual advances at her, which led to his lynching at the hands of her husband in 1955, has passed away. Mississippi Today confirmed the news with the Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana coroner's office, which revealed that Carolyn passed away in hospice care while battling cancer.
Till’s murder was a catalyst for the civil rights movement after his mother insisted on an open-casket funeral, as she famously said, "Let the world see what they did to my boy." Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam were acquitted of Till's murder, but they later confessed to the crime. Carolyn was never charged, and an unserved warrant for her arrest from 1955 was found last year in the basement of an old courthouse. However, a grand jury declined to indict her for Till's murder.
In 2004, 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley reported on Till's murder, where images of Carolyn were made public for the first time in years. You can check out the segment, along with the images, above.
Source: TMZ
