carolyn bryant donham family carolyn bryant donham family

Her memories take her back to a local Black church where she gets to cloak herself in goodness by listening to the glorious singing of the choir and the joyful noise from the congregation. What she writes in the memoir does not give the same account that she had told authorities in the past. Emmett Till, 14, was tortured to death on an August night in 1955 in a sweltering farm shed in Mississippi. She is the white woman who is infamous for her role in the murder of Emmet Till.In 1955, Till (14-year-old) was kidnapped, tortured, and murder by Carolyn's ex-husband "Roy Bryant" and J. W. Milam (Roy's half-brother). She was uneasy when her uncle, Mose Wright, invited the boy to come and stay with him outside the tiny Delta town of Money in August 1955. She was the daughter of a plantation manager and a nurse. Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Furthermore, this incident spreadprotests and also influencedthe African-American Civil Rights Movement (195468). The couple moved to Indianola, in Sunflower County, with their kids. The 100-page document titled, I Am More Than A Wolf Whistle, was dictated to her daughter-in-law in 2008 and 2009. Milam died in 1980 and Bryant died in 1994. A note on the back of the warrant says Bryant Donham was not arrested because she could not be located at the time, according to the New York Times, which cited filmmaker Keith A. Beauchamp, who was part of the team that discovered the warrant. Mrs. Till worried that this would go against him in the Deep South. Go to main menu . An all white male jury brought in a verdict of not guilty after being out one hour and 7 minutes. The surviving family of Emmett Till, the Chicago boy was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, is looking to revive the long-abandoned kidnapping case against Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who accused him of whistling at her who was also involved in his abduction. . In 2007, a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict Donham on any charges. He recalled them asking the person if this was the boy and that they replied in a voice that was 'lighter than a man' that it was. The two white men, who were subsequently tried and acquitted by an all-white jury, then confessed to their crimes in a paid interview with Look magazine. Before she became notorious for accusing Emmett Till of sexual harassment, Carolyn Donham was born in 1934, the daughter of a plantation manager and a nurse in Indianola, Mississippi. At multiple junctures in the story, Donham describes her ache for Tills mother and makes a show of empathizing with her by equating the loss of her adult son who died from a lung illness with the grieving Black mothers loss. For Donham, I have only questions, and contempt. She became a grandmother who relishes the loyalty and love of her family and friends despite being haunted by this old murder. Carolyn Bryant Donham, right, accused Emmett Till, left, of flirting with her in 1955 before he was beaten, tortured and shot by her husband and brother-in-law. Carolyn Bryant Donham, 88, can be seen at her Kentucky home for the first time in two decades, in exclusive DailyMail.com photos. At its core, it is full of lies as well as offensive tropes about Black people, especially Black children, who are depicted as amounting to pets or mascots who eventually become threats. In the aftermath of her son's death Mrs. Till insisted that he have an open casket, so that the world could see just what men driven by violent racial hatred had done to her son. . The site of Emmett Tills kidnapping in Money, Mississippi. A group from the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation working with filmmaker Keith Beauchamp have uncovered the decades-old warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham, the wife of one of 14-year-old Emmett Till's murderers in 1955. At about 8 p.m., Donham writes, there were nine young people on the porch. When the not-guilty verdict was reached by the all-white jury, she writes, we breathed a sigh of relief and joy. Like our content? Early last month, an unserved arrest warrant for Donham - pictured on the lawn of her husband's defense attorney's office in 1955 - was found in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse, prompting Till's family and activists to mobilize and call for justice, Donham, pictured with her two sons, Roy Jr and Thomas, and then-husband Roy Bryant in September 1955, had claimed Till, a whistled at her. The jury deliberated for barely an hour. But the case was closed in December after the DOJs Civil Rights Division concluded it could not prove Bryant Donham had lied. Or I should say, where was this man?. While Emmetts killing remains a touchstone moment in the United States long struggle with racial injustice and inequality, to this day, no one has been held criminally responsible. But more than 60 years later, she finally admitted that her accusation was a lie. Ed Clark/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty ImagesRoy Bryant (left) and J.W. By Laura Collins, Chief Investigative Reporter, In Kentucky and Daniel Bates and Greg Woodfield For Dailymail.com, Published: 15:23 EST, 1 August 2022 | Updated: 15:42 EST, 10 February 2023. 0:46. What to Know About the Real Carolyn Bryant Donham and Where She Is Now. Down through the decades, Carolyn Bryant Donham (she would divorce, then marry twice more) was a mystery woman. Evidence indicates a woman, possibly Donham, identified Till to . In court Donham testified that Till 'grabbed' her hand and said, 'How about a date baby?' Roy Bryant Jr. is the first son of the infamous Carolyn Bryant and her spouse Roy Bryant the two key individuals involved in the Emmett Till death . He had been weighted down by the 75lb-fan of a cotton gin, tied around his neck with barbed wire garrote. ': Ohio residents demand evacuation, Putin accuses Ukraine of 'terrorist attack' in Russia. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/17/opinion/carolyn-bryant-donham-memoir.html. ryant Donham. Historical archives are full of narratives of white girls and women making up stories about being sexually assaulted by Black males because they were bored, wanted attention, or needed a cover for illicit consensual sexual relationships or some other unacceptable behavior, even simply arriving late from school or past curfew. Later she told the FBI that her husband heard about it from someone who witnessed the exchange. Speaking recently on the discovery of the Donham's unserved arrest warrant, Beauchamp said that as far as he was concerned Donham is a woman, 'who has been evading justice for over 66 years now. Tyson shared a photo with the Clarion Ledger of his notes: That pt wasnt true50 yrs ago. Meanwhile, activists and protestors last weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina stormed a senior-citizens apartment building looking for her and demanding that she come out and face your demons.. The haunting image of the black teens body, photographed in Jet magazine after Tills mother decided to hold an open casket ceremony for her son, fueled the civil rights movement. A 2017 book quoted her recanting her claims . I just dont rememberNothing that boy ever did could justify what happened to him.. Fortunately, with a video recording, the man was able to document the disturbing lie. The feature film "Till" is based upon the heartbreaking . After falling in love at age 14 to Roy Bryant, they married, gave birth to their first two sons, and moves to Money, Mississippi in 1953. On August 28, 1955, a 14-year-old African-American named Emmett Till was kidnapped from his relative . "I have always prayed that God would bless Emmett's family. When they asked, Is that him? she said no. Instead of paying, Donham claims that he grabbed her hand, cornered her when she tried to get away, grabbed her hips and made lewd remarks. Mr. and Mrs. J.W. The power of this historical document is that it confirms her own guilt. | Source: Getty Images / Getty, It is my fervent desire that my story will shed light on what happened, at least as I knew and remembered it, and illuminate my small part in this tragedy.. Wanna see the hanging tree? The perpetrators were Roy Bryant and his half-brother, J.W. Priscilla Sterling, Till's cousin, urged Mississippi Fourth Circuit Court District Attorney W. Dewayne Richardson during a news conference Thursday to issue the warrant for Carolyn Bryant Donham's . The long-missing document seeks the arrest . Less than a year after the trial ended, in 1956, Bryant and Milam confessed to the gruesome murder in an interview in Look magazine. Do I think he should have been killed for doing that? Biden signs bill making lynching a federal hate crime into law. In 2017 the book, 'The Blood of Emmett Till,' written by historian Timothy B Tyson, and including quotes from Donham whom Tyson interviewed for the work, muddied the waters still further, casting doubt on Donham's courtroom testimony. Till's cousin, Priscilla Sterling, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, to compel the current Leflore County sheriff, Ricky Banks, to serve an arrest warrant on Carolyn Bryant in the kidnapping that led to the brutal lynching of Till, a Black teenager. The thought of people laughing and cheering as someone was being lynched made her sick, she says. Gene Herrick/Associated Press. The front porch was always full of people playing checkers with bottle caps. AP A pack of typed pages reading "I am more than a wolf whistle," the story of Carolyn Bryant Donham as . Donham then introduces readers to Annie Freeman, the petite housekeeper with wrinkle-free skin the color of hot chocolate. She waxes nostalgically, as old racists often do, about Annies warm hugs, which would make all the hurt and pains disappear. Shes not specific about those pains. Donham, who is white, accused Till of whistling at her andgrabbing her - a violation of the South's racist societal codes at the time - prompting her then-husband Roy Bryant to brutally murder the boy in return. Donham, a high school dropout, used her good looks to compete in beauty pageants, winning at least two. Keith Beauchamp, a filmmaker from New York whose research and documentary, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, prompted the Department of Justice to reopen the case in 2004, believes the memoir is damning evidence. The prospect that the woman at the center of Emmetts case had recanted her testimony which the US Justice Department said in a memo would contradict statements she made during the state trial in 1955 and later to the FBI sparked calls for authorities to investigate the case anew. Is it really fathomable that Till would have stood there with such cockiness and maturity in this life-threatening circumstance? Carolyn Bryant was born in 1934 in her birthplace, Indianola, Mississippi, United States, and her age is currently 88 years old. Therefore, Carolyn Bryant Donhams age isEighty-two (82) years old, as of 2018. The DOJ, which had already re-examined and closed the case in 2007, reopened the probe into Emmetts killing in 2018. The Black boy was lynched, while visiting family in Mississippi. Discovery Company. As for Tills surviving loved ones, they were satisfied to hear that Bryant had finally confessed to lying. After hearing every aspect of the investigation and evidence collected regarding Donhams involvement, the Grand Jury returned a No Bill to the charges of both Kidnapping and Manslaughter, the statement said. In 1955, Till (14-year-old) was kidnapped, tortured, and murder by Carolyns ex-husband Roy Bryant andJ. W. Milam (Roys half-brother). See what we found, This US state will restrict drag shows. Then when Bryant and Milam were acquitted at the trial, the killers kissed their wives, lit cigars and posed for pictures. On August 24, 1955, a 14-year-old black boy Till from Chicago skipped his morning church and went to Bryants grocery store. But according to an account by the author Douglas O. Linder, Donham was in the truck with Bryant and Milam earlier on the day of the kidnapping looking for their target when they seized another Black man before throwing him out of the truck after Donham said he wasnt the right N-word. When the case was filed in her favor, she claimed that the child approached her from behind and whistled at her. Tyson admitted that he had not caught the womans confession on tape because he was in the midst of setting up the recorder but he scrawled her statement on his notepad. Donham's husband at the time Roy Bryant (pictured with one of the couple's sons at his trial) and his brother JW Milam were tried for Till's murder. Donham was the wife of Roy Bryant, one of Till's two murderers. What happened next has been a source of contention for close to 70 years. Bored one afternoon, she goes on a date with her boyfriend. I didnt say anything, and one of the reasons I didnt ever say anything more about it, was because I was afraid that, what I was worried about was hes gonna go find and beat him up, she told FBI agent Dale Killinger. Copyright 2023 Interactive One, LLC. From left: J.W. She casually called the murdered boy the N-word at trial, referring to Till as a N-word man, even though by the time of the trial, everyone knew he was a boy. Holding good fat offices and saying not a word., Tills family members say the Mississippi authorities are continuing to protect Donham because she is an elderly white woman. Mind-bending optical illusion that makes your brain IMAGINE a color that doesn't exist leaves the internet baffled, King Charles will offer Prince Harry and Meghan a Buckingham Palace apartment when they visit UK after kicking them out of Frogmore Cottage, 'Hallucinogens have helped me to clean the windscreen of my troubled mind': Prince Harry extols the use of Class A drug in cosy online chat with 'toxic trauma therapist' Gabor Mat, 'Once you sign up, you do what you're told': Duke of Sussex tells trauma expert Gabor Mat 'a lot of us' in the Army 'didn't necessarily agree or disagree' with the West's invasion of Afghanistan but did 'what you're trained to do', Carolyn Bryant Donham, now 88, has managed to go unseen since 2004, going on to live a long life - and now spending her final days in apparent tranquility - despite her role in 14-year-old Emmett Till's lynching in 1955, At the time Donham was a 21-year-old married mother-of-two who accused the young black boy of whistling at her - a violation of the South's racist societal codes - at a Mississippi store, setting off his brutal murder, Today, she is living in a small apartment community in Kentucky with her son, Thomas Bryant, 71, and their pet shih tzu, as seen in these exclusive DailyMail.com photos, Donham, who waswearing a nasal cannula looped over her ears and into her nose, suffers from cancer, is legally blind, and is receiving end of life hospice care in her home, When approached by DailyMail.com, Donham stood by silently behind her son, who shook his head when asked if either would speak about Till, Till's beaten and mutilated body was thrown in the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi, weighted down with a large fan from a cotton gin, before being pulled out three days later on August 28, Donham's then husband Roy Bryant and his brother John Milam were later tried and acquitted of Till's murder, while she went on to evade charges or any consequences in a case that shocked the world for its brutality, An unserved warrant for Donham's arrest was discovered by a team led by relatives of Till last month, bringing the case back into focus. They then dumped his body in a river. "To this day, the warrant issued for Carolyn Bryant remains unserved. Carolyn Bryant Donham Age, Date of Birth, Birthday, Family, Early Life. A police note on the back of the warrant says that she wasn't arrested because she was not in the county. She gives a litany of ways how writers have misrepresented her and gotten facts about her life wrong: Lies and half-truths appeared in thousands of news stories, and then made their way into books, plays, movies, and novels. Introduction : Personal Life, Parents and Family Details : Career, Profession and Occupation : Murder of Emmett Till : Interesting Facts, Height and Trivia : Related postsMollie Tibbetts Wiki, Father Dad, Read More Carolyn Bryant Wikipedia, Death Date . A warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham identified as "Mrs. Roy Bryant" on the document was discovered last week. Likewise, she was born into an Irish family. Chicago teen Emmett Till was visiting relatives in the Deep South in the face of his mother Mamie Till's misgivings. From a religious point of view, she is a Christian. The claim comes in a memoir by Carolyn Bryant Donham that was obtained by The Associated Press. Roy Bryant (left) and J.W. After Carolyn Bryants recantation, the Department of Justice reopened Tills murder case. All Rights Reserved. Accounts from that day differ, but witnesses alleged Emmett whistled at Bryant (now Donham) at the market she owned with her husband in Money, Mississippi. After three years of investigation, in 2007, then District Attorney Joyce Chiles of Greenwood empaneled a grand jury to hear the case against Donham and what amounted to extensive evidence, including thousands of pages of documents, some uncovered by filmmaker Keith Beauchamp. Getty ImagesThe haunting image of Emmett Tills disfigured body from his open-casket funeral fueled the civil rights movement. Emmetts legacy, however, lives on: In March, President Joe Biden signed into law the landmark Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which made lynching a federal hate crime. The adultification of Black children continues unabated as a means of justifying deadly force visited upon their bodies. In 2007, a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict Bryant Donham on charges. 'I tried to protect him by telling Roy that, 'He's not the one. Yet in a statement Donham gave in 1955, she said that she did not go to this Negros house but instead Bryant took the boy to her to identify. She belongs toCaucasian-White and Irish Ethnicity. The legal system has declined for decades to charge Donham with a crime, and on Friday an aide to the Mississippi attorney general made clear that there are no plans to reopen the case against Donham now. Furthermore, she is a high school dropout. She writes: We got him, but we want to be sure its him, her husband said to her as he and two other men walked into the store holding Till by his arms. Till was later murdered by her husband and brother-in-law. She went further and said he put his hands on her waist and told her, 'You needn't be afraid of me baby. Bryant Donham is in her late 80s. All Rights Reserved. The reader is left with the feeling that Carolyn Bryant Donham thinks shes done a noble thing by telling her story. She was last seen in 2004 when she was known to be living in Raleigh, North Carolina. It really speaks to history, it shows what black people went through in those days.. "The Leflore County Sheriff is complicit in the trio's escape from justice even though both Roy Bryant and J.W. CNN investigates the claim, Audio reveals what happened moments before deadly train crash in Greece, Video shows aftermath of violent turbulence on airplane, See the moment verdict was read in Murdaugh trial, Prince Harry and Meghan are reportedly 'distressed' after being asked to 'vacate' Frogmore Cottage, See Marjorie Taylor Greene's reaction when GOP official corrects her lies, Exploring the many forms of justice for Emmett Till nearly 70 years after his murder. Lamar Bryant and Roy Bryant Jr. are former United States Air Force personnel best known as the sons of Carolyn Bryant the eyewitness and plaintiff in the Emmett Till trial who got away with murder. In a federal lawsuit filed earlier this week, a family member of Emmett Till is demanding that Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks serve an arrest warrant from 1955 on Carolyn Bryant Donham for her . His badly disfigured body was found in the Tallahatchie River three days later. Moreover, Donham and Roy ran a small Bryants Grocery & Meat Market in Money, Mississippi. Shortly thereafter, he succumbed to his injuries. Her then-husband, Roy Bryant, and brother-in-law, J.W. Updated April 7, 2022. Carolyn Bryants alleged confession highlights a horrific recurrence of white women weaponizing lies against black men that still persists today. He was an ex-soldier. She was afforded the opportunity to evade justice for 67 years and now, in her own words, she gives her own narrative to this dark chapter in American history when the perfect ending to this grave injustice should be justice., Donham was in her early 70s when she pulled up a chair and sipped coffee while dictating her memories to her daughter-in-law Marsha. A Warner Bros. Where was the remorse? The FBI investigated but Tyson could provide no recordings, transcript or even notes to back up this incendiary claim. Thats not the nigger. She has since remarried and is named Carolyn Bryant Donham. If you read between the lines, her surprise is disingenuous. She fails to mention that on that same day, she assisted her husband and accomplices during previous attempts to search for and identify her alleged attacker. His cries and moans went on for hours, heard by the nearby farmers. The team discovered the warrant on Tuesday, June 21, 2022, in an archived file folder in the Leflore County Courthouse. Wheeler Parker Jr., said Tuesday that state officials have assured the family no stone would be left unturned in the fight for justice. But they were both acquitted of murder by an all-White jury following a trial in which Carolyn Bryant testified that Emmett grabbed and verbally threatened her. "The two are now dead, but the woman who inspired the killing, Carolyn Bryant Donham, is still alive. . Your effort and contribution in providing this feedback is much directeur de recherche uqam; rama foods ontario ca killing; how to clean police outer carrier. "It was Carolyn Bryant's lie that sent Roy Bryant and J.W. Cousin of murdered Black teenager tries to compel sheriff to enforce 1955 warrant against Carolyn Bryant Donham, now 89 A relative of Emmett Till has filed a lawsuit seeking the arrest of the . Milam later took Emmett from his bed in the middle of the night, ordered him into the back of a pickup and beat him before shooting him in the head and tossing his body into the Tallahatchie River. Milam died of bone cancer at 61 in 1981 and Bryant died in 1994 also from cancer, Up until now, Donham (pictured left with her daughter Carol Ann) had not been seen in public since 2004 (right) when she was approached by CBS's 60 Minutes in North Carolina. But unable to locate her, they left the building, Lead Counsel for the Black Lawyers for Justice, Malik Shabazz, and other activists stormed a senior living center in search of her on July 6, The only reason she was never served with that warrant, Beauchamp said, 'was because of the protection of white womanhood.'. Later, her husband, Roy Bryant and J.W. The manuscript by Carolyn Bryant Donham . While reading the language that Donham attributed to a 14-year-old Black boy, one cant help but recall the similar ventriloquizing of Michael Brown Jr., the unarmed Black teenager who was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 by a white cop who described Brown as a hulking figure who grabbed his gun and allegedly said, Youre too much of a p-ssy to shoot me., Emmett Till is shown in an undated photo. Carolyn Bryant Donham the white woman whose false assault allegations led to Emmett Till's slaying in 1955 Mississippi is reportedly living out her final days in Kentucky. Instead, in a memoir dictated to her former daughter-in-law and recently leaked, Donham claims that she lied in a bid to save Till and casts herself as a victim not perpetrator of the scene. Donhams narrative continues with details about the discovery of Tills body, the arrests of her husband and his half-brother, her awareness of a warrant for her arrest and the stress of constantly moving around to escape harassment. The True Story Of Carolyn Bryant Donham, Emmett Tills Accuser. Last year, a five-member search group, including members of Till's family. The grand jury declined to bring any indictments. Milam, pose five days before their husbands went on trial on a charge they murdered 14-year . A timeline of Emmett Till's accuser's changing stories. They discovered the document inside a file folder that had been stored in a box in the basement of LeFlore County Circuit Court in Greenwood, Mississippi. Whoopi Goldberg will also star. We loved her, yes, but she was not invited to family outings, picnics, church activities or other family gatherings. The original court, District Attorney, and investigative records related to the 1955 investigation have been apparently lost, the FBI said in a 2006 report. Milam (right) were acquitted of murder charges just a month after they killed Till. District Attorney DeWayne Richardson, who would oversee prosecuting Donham in the Fourth Circuit Court District of Mississippi, has remained silent. Clearly, she has learned nothing from the past. As recent as May 2020, a video of a white woman named Amy Cooper went viral when she feigned hysteria and claimed to police that she was being threatened by a black man named Christian Cooper. During the 1950s, the couple ran a small grocery, Bryant's Grocery & Meat Market, that sold provisions to black sharecroppers and their children. Roy and Carolyn Bryant and J . In 1955, Carolyn Bryant accused 14-year-old Emmett Till of sexually harassing her. She died in 2003 at the age of 81, She rejected the undertaker's advice to have a closed casket or his offer to 'touch up' Till's appearance saying, 'Let the people see what I've seen. Till was later murdered by her husband and brother-in-law. Please take him home.'. For now, she says, life presses onward, my journey through the forest continues . As it was, according to Donham's early accounts, Emmett's only 'offense' was to wolf whistle at a white woman when he entered the grocery store that she ran with her husband who was out of town that day. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. An arrest warrant, charging Carolyn Bryant Donham for the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955, was discovered last week that seeks evidence to arrest and prosecute Donham. Emmett Till's family calls for justice after finding an unserved arrest warrant in his case. All That's Interesting is a Brooklyn-based digital publisher that seeks out stories that illuminate the past, present, and future. Carolyn Bryant Donham arrest warrant. Then, she was a 21-year-old mother-of-two, a so-called 'crossroads Marilyn Monroe.'. When her husband returned home, days after the store incident, Donham writes, she attempted to hide the assault from him to protect the Black boy who she saw as a man. The words out of her mouth and the words in her manuscript are direct evidence. She suffers from cancer, is legally blind, and is receiving end of life hospice care in the small, shared apartment - the exact location of which DailyMail.com has chosen not to disclose. In 2017, Carolyn Bryant Donham was back in the headlines after author Timothy Tyson revealed that Bryant admitted to him in a 2008 interview that her 1955 accusation against Till was false. Donham was one of the kissed wives. And according to archived FBI documents . All of this . This, by the way, is the same reason Milam gave to Look for murdering the boy. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. In the fall of 1957, Carolyn and her family were living in Morgan City, Louisiana. Carolyn Bryant Donham (R) accused Emmett Till (L) of whistling at her in a store in 1955, after which he was lynched (Bettmann Archive via Getty Images and 60 Minutes/CBS News) . The men still faced kidnapping charges in Leflore County. Donham's family . Check the full bio for relationship details. We . The 82-year-old woman made the admission in the book The Blood of Emmett Till by author Timothy Tyson in2007. Dressed in blue top and khaki slacks, she waited for a visit from her hospice nurse, greeting her at the door and waving her off with her little dog at her feet and the promise of seeing her 'next week.'. Worse still, Carolyn Bryant Donham shows no remorse, and ultimately, she damns herself. Racist Ex-University Of Kentucky 'Karen' Sophia Rosing Is Charged For Assaulting Black Student, Mississippi Cops Beat, Waterboarded Handcuffed Black Men, Shot 1 For Dating White Women': Lawyers. Milam admitted to the crime," it continued. In 1955, Carolyn Bryant Donham (then just Carolyn Bryant), a 21-year-old white woman, accused Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy, of making an unwelcome advance at her. According to AP, following the search into . She was hired help, Donham writes. In fact, her ex-husband Roy when heard this story he decided to take revenge. She describes the store owned by the Bryants, which doubled as their home, as a box with not much room to maneuver around. Milam, his wife, Carolyn Bryant and her husband, Roy Bryant, in a courtroom in Sumner, Mississippi, on Sept. 23, 1955. Donham set off the case in August 1955 by accusing the 14-year-old Till of making improper advances at a family store in Money, Mississippi. 2. It would have been better if she had stayed silent. Later, she met Roy Bryant, an ex-soldier who she married and had two sons with. I know where it is, he says. Hers was no small part in the case: Her false accusation that Till made lewd comments, grabbed her and whistled at her cannot be separated from his lynching. Law enforcement have not said if they plan to 'bother' the woman who is now living out her final days in relative seclusion many miles away, but the smart money says it is unlikely despite the Till family's calls for her arrest. Her sister-in-law Juanita told the FBI that she wasnt in the store that day, Killinger said. She stood by silently as he shook his head when asked if he or his mother would speak about Till. Two nights later, Donham's then-husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. That's not him. In his book The Blood of Emmett Till, Tyson described Bryants recollection of the event as such: In her memoir she recounts the story she told at the trial using imagery from the classic Southern racist horror movie of the Black Beast rapist.