Relatives and members of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation found the 1955 arrest warrant for Carolyn Bryant while searching a Mississippi courthouse basement for evidence.

Patricia Sterling, Emmett’s cousin, has filed a federal lawsuit against the current Leflore County sheriff, Ricky Banks.

She wants him to arrest Ms Bryant, now known as Carolyn Bryant Donham, who was 21 when when she accused Emmett of making obscene comments towards her while she worked at the register of her family’s shop in Money, Mississippi in August 1955.

Emmett had allegedly whistled at her, according to a cousin who witnessed the interaction.

“We are using the available means at our disposal to try to achieve justice on behalf of the Till family,” Ms Sterling’s attorney, Trent Walker, said last week.

“But for Carolyn Bryant falsely claiming to her husband that Emmett Till assaulted her Emmett would not have been murdered,” Ms Sterling said in court papers. “It was Carolyn Bryant’s lie that sent Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam into a rage, which resulted in the mutilation of Emmett Till’s body into [an] unrecognisable condition.”