The federal government has reopened its investigation into the slaying of Emmett Till, the black teenager whose brutal killing in Mississippi shocked the world and helped inspire the civil rights movement more than 60 years ago.
The Justice Department told Congress in a report in March it is reinvestigating Till’s slaying in Money, Mississippi, in 1955 after receiving “new information.” The case was closed in 2007 with authorities saying the suspects were dead; a state grand jury didn’t file any new charges.
Deborah Watts, a cousin of Till, said she was unaware the case had been reopened until contacted by The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The federal report, sent annually to lawmakers under a law that bears Till’s name, does not indicate what the new information might be.
JUST IN: Citing “new information,” the Justice Department is re-opening the investigation into the 1955 slaying of Emmett Till https://t.co/ED3Ez2Ov4u
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (@PittsburghPG) July 12, 2018
It’s not clear to me why the case would be re-opened, unless the new information indicates that the two men who were tried and acquitted by a racist jury didn’t commit the crime. The woman who claimed, at the time, that Till either offended her or assaulted her in some way has recently granted an interview recanting her testimony. Unless they’ve got different perpetrators in mind and evidence to support it, this will remain a horrifying event and miscarriage of justice forever.