Justice Department Closes Emmett Till Investigation

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has told relatives of Emmett Till that it is ending its investigation into the 1955 lynching of the Black teenager.

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Officials spoke to the family Monday. Till was abducted, tortured and killed after witnesses said he whistled at a white woman in Mississippi.

The killing galvanized the civil rights movement after Till’s mother insisted on an open casket.

Two men who were acquitted by an all-white jury died years ago.

Officials reopened an investigation after a 2017 book quoted Carolyn Bryant Donham as saying she lied when she claimed that Till grabbed her.

But Donham told the FBI that she had never recanted her accusation.