The investigation reopened in the brutal murder of Emmett Till

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.- The US government has reopened its investigation into the murder of Emmett Till, the black teen whose murderous brutality in Mississippi shocked the world and inspired the rights movement more than 60 years ago

. The Department of Justice told Congress in a report in March that it was reviewing the murder of Till in Money, Miss, in 1955 after receiving "new information." The case was filed in 2007 with authorities saying the suspects were dead;

Deborah Watts, a cousin of Till's, said she was unaware that the case had been reopened before being contacted Wednesday by the Associated Press.

The federal report, sent annually to legislators under a law that bears the name of Till, does not indicate what the new information might be.

But it was published in late March after the publication last year of The Blood of Emmett Till, a book that a representative of Mississippi declined to comment on Thursday whether the authorities Federal authorities had given him new information since they reopened the investigation.

"It's probably still an open case until all parties have died," said District Attorney Dewayne Richardson, whose tour includes the community where Till was kidnapped.

Richardson said that The Book, by Timothy B. Tyson, quotes a white woman, Carolyn Donham, who acknowledged in an interview in 2008 that she was not truthful when she testified that Till caught her, whistled and made badual advances in a store in 1955.

Two white men – Donham's husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, JW Milam – were accused of murder but were acquitted in the badbadination of Till, who had stayed with relatives in northern Mississippi at the time. The men later confessed to the crime in a magazine interview, but were not retried.

Donham, who is 84 years old this month, lives in Raleigh, North Carolina A man who came to the door of his residence declined to comment on the reopening of the FBI's investigation.

"We do not want to" Paula Johnson, co-director of a university group that examines the unresolved murders of civil rights, said that she could not think of anything else other than Tyson's book that could have prompted him The Department of Justice reopened the inquiry Till.

"We are glad that this is the case so that eventually or finally someone can be held responsible for his murder, "said Johnson, who runs the Cold Case Justice Initiative in Syracuse.The Justice Department declined to comment on the state of the investigation.

The government investigated 115 cases involving 128 victims under the "cold case" law named for Till, according to the report.One has resulted in a federal conviction since the adoption of the law, that of Ku Klux Klansman's James Ford Seale for abducting two black teenagers, Charles Moore and Henry Dee, who were killed in Mississippi in 1 964. At least 109 investigations were closed The latest report indicates that prosecutions by the federal authorities resulted in additional convictions, the last time an Alabama soldier was convicted of 39, shooting a black man, Jimmie Lee Jackson, at a demonstration in 1965. The murder of Jackson was a boost for Selma's voting rights in Montgomery later in the year.

Watts, co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, said it was "wonderful" that the murder of his cousin be changed.

"None of us wants to do anything that would compromise an investigation or hindrance, but we are also very interested in justice being done," she said

. If it remained, Till was beaten and shot, and his body was found sealed down by a cotton fan in the Tallahatchie River. Her mother, Mamie Till, left her casket open. The images of his mutilated body testify to the depth of racial hatred in the Great South and help to give impetus to subsequent civil rights campaigns.

Till's relatives urge Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reopen the case last year.

Donham, then 21 years old and known as Carolyn Bryant, testified in 1955 as a prospective defense witness in the Bryant and Milam trial. With jurors coming out of the courtroom, she said that a "n —- man" that she did not know took hold of her arm.

"What did he say when he caught your hand? , according to a transcript of the lawsuit published by the FBI ten years ago.

"He said," How about a date, baby? she said, and Bryant said she walked away, and a few moments later, the young man "grabbed me at the cash register," gripping her by the waist with both hands and pulling towards him.

"He said:" What is baby? Do you take it? ", she testified Bryant also said that he told her "you do not need to be afraid of me", claiming that he used an obscenity and mentioned something that "I do not want to be afraid of me", saying that he used an obscenity and mentioned something that he had done "with white women before."

A judge ruled the evidence inadmissible.A wholly white jury released her husband and the other man even without her.The testimonies indicated that one woman could have been in a car with Bryant and Milam when they kidnapped Till, but no one else has ever been charged.

In the book, author Tyson wrote that Donham told him his testimony about true.

"Nothing of that boy could never justify what happened to him, "quotes the book saying:

Sen. Doug Jones, D-Alabama, introduced legislation this week that would allow the government to disclose information about unresolved civil rights killings. In an interview, Jones said the killing of Till or any other case would probably not be covered by this legislation if the authorities were actively investigating.

"You should leave to the judgment of some of the law enforcement agencies Jones said: