JACKSON, Miss. (AP) A relative of Emmett Till is suing to try to make a Mississippi sheriff serve a 1955 arrest warrant on a white woman in the kidnapping that led to the Black teenagers brutal lynching.

The torture and killing of Till in the Mississippi Delta became a catalyst for the civil rights movement after his mother insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago and Jet magazine published photos of his mutilated body.

Last June, a team doing research at the courthouse in Leflore County, Mississippi, found an unserved 1955 arrest warrant for Carolyn Bryant, listed on that document as Mrs. Roy Bryant.

Tills cousin Patricia Sterling of Jackson, Mississippi, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the current Leflore County sheriff, Ricky Banks. The suit seeks to compel Banks to serve the warrant on Carolyn Bryant, who has since remarried and is named Carolyn Bryant Donham.

We are using the available means at our disposal to try to achieve justice on behalf of the Till family, Sterlings attorney Trent Walker told The Associated Press on Friday.

The AP left a phone message for Banks on Friday, seeking comment. The sheriff did not immediately respond. Court records showed that the lawsuit had not been served on him by Friday.