Further Investigation
After relocating to Texas for several years, Milam and Bryant returned to Mississippi. Milam died of cancer in 1980, at the age of 61. Bryant worked as a welder while in Texas, until increasing blindness forced him to give up this employment. At some point he and Carolyn divorced. In 1980 he married for a second time. He operated a store in Ruleville, Mississippi and was convicted in 1984 and 1988 of food stamp fraud. In 1994, at the age of 63, he died of cancer. Emmett's mother married Gene Mobley, became a teacher, changed her surname to Till-Mobley, and continued her life as an activist working to educate people about what happened to her son. In 1992, Till-Mobley had the opportunity to listen while Bryant was interviewed about his involvement in Till's murder. With Bryant unaware that Till-Mobley was listening, he asserted that Emmett Till had ruined his life, expressed no remorse, and stated "Emmett Till is dead. I don't know why he can't just stay dead."
In 1996, documentary filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, who was greatly moved by Till's open casket photograph, started background research for a feature film he planned to make about Till's murder, and asserted that as many as 14 people may have been involved, including Carolyn Bryant Donham, who had also remarried. Mose Wright heard someone with "a lighter voice" affirm that Till was the one in his front yard immediately before Bryant and Milam drove away with Till. Beauchamp spent the next nine years creating The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, released in 2003. That same year, the Public Broadcasting Service aired an installment of American Experience titled "The Murder of Emmett Till". A 1991 book written by Stephen Whitfield, another by Christopher Mettress in 2002, and Mamie Till-Mobley's own memoirs the next year all posed questions as to who was involved in the murder and cover-up, leading federal authorities to resolve the questions about the identity of the body pulled from the Tallahatchie River. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it was reopening the case to determine whether anyone other than Milam and Bryant was involved. David T. Beito, professor at the University of Alabama, states that Till's murder "has this mythic quality like the Kennedy assassination".
The body was exhumed and an autopsy conducted by the Cook County coroner in 2005. Using DNA from Till's relatives, dental comparisons to images taken of Till, and anthropological analysis, the body exhumed was positively identified as Till's. It had extensive cranial damage, a broken left femur, and two broken wrists. Metallic fragments were found in the skull consistent with being shot with a .45 caliber gun.
In February 2007, a Leflore County grand jury, composed primarily of black jurors, and empaneled by Joyce Chiles, a black prosecutor, found no credible basis for Beauchamp's claim that 14 people took part in Till's abduction and murder. Beauchamp was angry with the finding, but David Beito and Juan Williams, who worked on the reading materials for the Eyes on the Prize documentary, were critical of Beauchamp for trying to revise history and taking attention away from other cold cases. The grand jury also failed to find sufficient cause for charges against Carolyn Bryant Donham. Neither the FBI nor the grand jury found any credible evidence that Henry Lee Loggins, identified by Beauchamp as a suspect who could be charged, had any role in the crime. Other than Loggins, as of 2010 Beauchamp refuses to name any of the people he alleges were involved.
Read more about this topic: Emmett Till