Why did Carolyn Bryant accuse Emmett Till?

Carolyn Bryant accused 14-year-old Emmett Till of grabbing her, talking to her lustfully, and verbally threatening her at a grocery store in August 1955.

A few days after she made the accusations, her husband Roy Bryant and his brother JW Milam kidnapped Till from his home at gunpoint, beat him severely and dragged him to the bank of a river, and shot him in the head.

Till’s body was tied in barbed wires to a heavy metal fan before being dumped into the river. His corpse was completely disfigured when they pulled it out of the river.

Roy and Milam were arrested but later acquitted of murder by an all-White jury following the trial of Till’s murder, because Carolyn testified that Emmett abused her sexually and verbally.

A Leflore County in Mississippi grand jury rejected to indict Carolyn because they claimed there was “insufficient evidence to indict her on charges of kidnapping and manslaughter.”

“After hearing every aspect of the investigation and evidence collected regarding Carolyn Bryant’s involvement, the Grand Jury returned a ‘No Bill’ to the charges of both Kidnapping and Manslaughter,” the statement read.

Till’s family never got justice for their little boy. Carolyn was recently reported dead. Roy died in 1994, and Milam also died in 1980.