FILE – In this Sept. 23, 1955, file photo, J.W. Milam, left, his wife, second from left, Roy Bryant, far right, and his wife, Carolyn Bryant, sit together in a courtroom in Sumner, Miss. Bryant and his half-brother Milam were charged with murder but acquitted in the kidnapping and torture slaying of 14-year-old black teen Emmett Till in 1955 after he allegedly whistled at Carolyn Bryant. (AP Photo, File)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – The government is still investigating the brutal slaying of a black teenager that 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. Till, who was from Chicago, was abducted and beaten to death hours after he whistled at a white woman while visiting Mississippi. His body was found in a river days later.
The investigation, closed in 2007, was reopened after a book published two years ago indicated a key witness had lied.
A cousin who was with Till the night he was abducted said he was encouraged that the case is still under review but anxious for a resolution.
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“We want them to go ahead and do something,” said the Rev. Wheeler Parker, 80. “What is the holdup?”
The Justice Department refused comment in emails sent Monday and Tuesday.
FILE – In this Aug. 27, 2015 file photo, Deborah Watts of Minneapolis, sits in a Jackson, Miss., hotel and speaks about events in Mississippi and Illinois that commemorate the 60th anniversary of the slaying of her cousin, Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old from Chicago, who was visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta when witnesses said he violated the Jim Crow social code by whistling at a white woman. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
The department has closed its investigations into six other apparently racially motivated killings dating from 1940 to 1973 because authorities have been unable to make any headway in them, according to the report, which was posted to a Justice Department website with no announcement. In each case, suspects or witnesses died or the law prohibited charges against people who had already been tried and acquitted.
The government’s report is required under a law named for Till, whose slaying incensed the nation and has been credited with helping build support for civil rights.
Till was abducted from a relatives’ home after whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, at a country store in Money, Mississippi.