Emmett Till cousin on inquiry: ‘What is the holdup?’

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The government is still investigating the brutal slaying of Emmett Till, a black teenager whose death helped spur the civil rights movement more than 60 years ago. A Justice Department report issued to Congress about civil rights cold case investigations lists the 1955 slaying of 14-year-old Emmett Till as being among the unit’s active cases, The Associated Press was the first to report Tuesday. In the 2017 book “The Blood of Emmett Till,” author Timothy B. Tyson quoted Donham as saying she wasn’t truthful when she claimed Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances. “At least America has reached the point where they will investigate and you can’t go out and just kill people.” The report said cold case investigators were ending reviews of the deaths of Elbert Williams in Brownsville, Tennessee, in 1940; Dan Carter Sanders in Johnston Township, North Carolina, in 1946; Peter Francis in Perry, Maine, in 1965; Lee Culbreath in Portland, Arkansas, in 1965; John Thomas Jr. in West Point, Mississippi, in 1970; and Milton Lee Scott in 1973 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.