Till family members oppose FBI exhumation News
Till family members oppose FBI exhumation

[JURIST] Members of the family of Emmett Till [Wikipedia profile], a 14-year-old black youngster killed after whistling at a white woman in 1955, are vehemently opposing the FBI's plan to exhume the boy's body [JURIST report]. Two suspects in the murder, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam, were acquitted by an all-white jury but later confessed [PBS report] to Look magazine, and new evidence presented in a documentary film [official website] has shown that they may have had two additional accomplices, prompting the latest FBI investigation [press release]. Bertha Thomas, president of the Emmett Till Foundation [backgrounder], spoke for the family when she stated that they would rather see the re-opened investigation end than witness the exhumation of Till's body 50 years after the crime. Family members say the FBI is simply grandstanding. AP has more.

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