Emmett Tills family members said they were not surprised but still heartbroken after the Justice Department officially closed the investigation it had reopened into Tills brutal 1955 lynching and whether a white woman had recanted the claims that led to the Black 14-year-olds murder.

Im not surprised but my heart is broken, Tills cousin Thelma Wright Edwards said at a press conference Monday in Chicago. I had hope that we could get an apology, but that didnt happen. Nothing was settled. The case is closed and we have to go on from here.

On Monday, the Justice Department met with members of Tills family to tell them that the agency had closed the investigation it reopened in 2018 into the teens murder.

In 1955, white men lynched 14-year-old Till after Carolyn Bryant Donham claimed the boy had harassed her in a Mississippi grocery store. Bryant Donhams husband and his half-brother kidnapped, brutally beat and tortured the teen, shot him dead and threw his body into the Tallahatchie River. An all-white jury acquitted the men. Tills killing and the photos of his brutalized body from his funeral fueled the civil rights movement.

The DOJ reopened the investigation into Tills death after a 2017 book quoted Bryant Donham, who is still living, admitting that she had lied about what happened .

The DOJ and FBI examined whether Bryant Donham had recanted, as the book claimed , which could have led to new charges, including against her.

But after years of inquiry, officials concluded that there is insufficient evidence that Bryant Donham had, in fact, recanted her story, according to a press release from the DOJ.

When asked about the alleged recantation, [Bryant Donham] denied to the FBI that she ever recanted her testimony, the release said, adding that there is insufficient evidence to prove that she ever told [the books author] that any part of her testimony was untrue.

Officials noted that there also remains considerable doubt as to the credibility of her version of events, adding that Bryant Donhams story is contradicted by others who were with Till at the time.