In an unpublished memo obtained by The Associated Press, Carolyn Bryant Donham says she did not know what would happen to 14-year-old Till, who was living in Chicago and visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was kidnapped, killed and dumped in a river. Now 87, Donham was just 21 at the time. Her then-husband Roy Bryant and his half-brother JW Milam were acquitted of murder, but later confessed in a magazine interview. The contents of the 99-page manuscript, titled “I am More Than A Wolf Whistle,” were first reported by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. Historian and author Timothy Tyson of Durham, who said he received a copy from Donham while interviewing her in 2008, provided a copy to the AP on Thursday. Tyson had placed the manuscript on file at the University of North Carolina with an agreement not to make it public for decades, though he said he gave it to the FBI during an investigation the agency closed last year. He said he decided to go public now after the recent discovery of an arrest warrant on kidnapping charges that was issued for Donham in 1955 but was never served. “The potential for an investigation was more important than archival agreements, although those are important things,” Tyson said. “But this is probably the last chance for an indictment in this case.” A cousin of Till’s who heads the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, Deborah Watts, said the memoir is new evidence pointing to Donham’s involvement in the case and is especially important when combined with the arrest warrant. “I truly believe that these developments cannot be ignored by the authorities in Mississippi,” he said. In the memoir, Donham says she tried to help Till when her husband and brother-in-law spotted him and brought him to her in the middle of the night for identification. “I wished Emmett no harm, and I couldn’t stop harm from coming to him, not knowing what was planned for him,” Donham says in her daughter-in-law’s manuscript. “I tried to protect him by telling Roy that ‘it’s not him. It’s not him. Please take him home.’” The manuscript claims that Till, who had been dragged from a family home at gunpoint in the middle of the night, spoke and identified himself. Donham adds that she “always felt like a victim like Emmett” and “paid dearly with a changed life” for what happened to him. “I always prayed that God would bless Emmett’s family. I am truly sorry for the pain this has caused his family,” she says at the end of the manuscript, which is signed “Carolyn” but indicates it was written by her daughter-in-law Marsha Bryant. The memoir is notable not only because it is the most extensive account of the shocking episode Donham has ever recorded, but also because it contains inconsistencies that raise questions about her honesty over the years, said Dale Killinger, a retired agent of FBI who further investigated the case. since 15 years ago. For example, Donham claims in the memoir that he screamed for help after confronting Till inside the family’s grocery store in Money, Mississippi, but no one ever reported hearing her screams, Killinger said. Also, Donham has never previously mentioned that she and Roy Bryant talked about the kidnapping. In the manuscript, it says they did. “That seems ridiculous,” Killinger said. “How could you have an important event in your life and not talk about it?” The Justice Department closed its most recent investigation into the case in December, and Mississippi authorities have given no indication they plan to pursue a kidnapping warrant or other charges against Donham. But the Till family is pushing the authorities to act. Keith Beauchamp, a filmmaker whose documentary preceded the Justice Department investigation into Killinger that ended without charges in 2007, said the memoir shows Donham “is guilty of kidnapping and murdering Emmett Louis Till and that he does not hold her responsible for Her actions are an injustice to all of us.” “Our fight will continue until justice is finally served,” Beauchamp said. It was Beauchamp, along with two of Till’s relatives, who discovered the arrest warrant in Donham’s name earlier this month in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse. Tyson, the historian who provided the roughly 35,000-word manuscript to the AP, helped spur the government’s most recent investigation into the killing by publishing a book in 2017 in which he said Donham lied when she claimed Till grabbed her, whistled and made sexual advances. In the memoir, however, he claims Till did these things. During the most recent investigation, Donham told the FBI that she had never resigned, the Justice Department said. Tyson said Donham’s statements in the memoir exonerating herself of wrongdoing should be taken with “a good-sized shovelful of salt,” particularly her claim that Till identified himself with the men who took him from the family home and they later admitted to killing him. “Two big white men with guns came and dragged him out of his aunt and uncle’s house at 2 o’clock in the morning in the Mississippi Delta in 1955. I don’t believe for a minute that he identified himself,” Tyson said. . Neither Donham nor any of her relatives have returned messages and phone calls from the AP seeking comment. It is unclear where Donham currently lives or if she has an attorney. Her last known address was in Raleigh, North Carolina.

This story has been edited to clarify that Tyson provided a copy of the manuscript to the FBI for an investigation that ended last year, not in 2007.

Reeves reported from Birmingham, Alabama. He is a member of AP’s Race and Ethnicity Team.