Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Winona, Mississippi, was tried six occasions for a similar crime. Season 2 of Within the Darkish examines the case in opposition to Flowers, who spent greater than twenty years combating for his life, as a white prosecutor tried simply as exhausting to execute him. Hear under or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Curtis Flowers has been tried six occasions for a similar crime. For twenty-one years, Flowers has maintained his innocence. He has gained enchantment after enchantment, however, each time, the prosecutor simply tries the case once more. What does the proof reveal? And the way can the justice system ignore the prosecutor’s report and maintain Flowers on dying row?
Episode 1: July 16, 1996
On the morning of July 16, 1996, somebody walked right into a furnishings retailer in downtown Winona, Mississippi, and murdered 4 staff. Every was shot within the head. It was maybe essentially the most stunning crime ever carried out within the small city. Investigators charged a person named Curtis Flowers. What adopted was a two-decade authorized odyssey through which Flowers was tried six occasions for a similar crime. He stays on dying row, although some individuals consider he’s harmless. For the second season of Within the Darkish, we spent a yr digging into the Flowers case. We discovered a city divided by race and a homicide conviction supported by questionable proof. All of it started that summer season morning in 1996, with a horrifying crime scene that left investigators puzzled.
Episode 2: The Route
The case in opposition to Curtis Flowers depends closely on three threads of proof: the route he allegedly walked on the morning of the murders, the gun that investigators consider he used, and the individuals he supposedly confessed to in jail. On this episode, we meet the witnesses who stated they noticed Flowers strolling by downtown Winona, Mississippi, on the morning of the murders. A few of their tales now waver on key particulars.
Episode 3: The Gun
Investigators by no means discovered the gun used to kill 4 individuals at Tardy Furnishings. But the gun, and the bullets matched to it, grew to become a key piece of proof in opposition to Curtis Flowers. On this episode, we study the unusual historical past of the gun and the person who owned it.
Episode 4: The Confessions
Through the years, three inmates have claimed that Curtis Flowers confessed to them that he killed 4 individuals on the Tardy Furnishings retailer. However they’ve all modified their tales at one time or one other. On this episode, we examine who’s actually telling the reality.
Episode 5: Privilege
No witness has been extra essential to the prosecution’s case in opposition to Curtis Flowers than Odell Hallmon. He testified in 4 trials that Flowers had confessed to him whereas the 2 males had been in jail collectively. Hallmon has an astonishingly lengthy legal historical past that features repeated costs for drug dealing, assault, and theft. So how dependable is his testimony and did he obtain something in alternate for it? On this episode, we examine the veracity of the prosecution’s star witness.
Episode 6: Punishment
Odell Hallmon, the state’s key witness within the Curtis Flowers case, is serving three consecutive life sentences. We puzzled what he may say now that there aren’t any offers to chop, and he’ll spend the remainder of his life in jail. Would he keep on with his story that Flowers had confessed to the Tardy Furnishings murders? We wrote him letters and despatched him a buddy request on Fb. Weeks glided by and we heard nothing. After which, sooner or later, he wrote again.
Episode 7: The Trials of Curtis Flowers
There’s one vital side of the Curtis Flowers case that we haven’t checked out but—the make-up of the juries. Every of the 4 occasions Flowers was convicted, the jury was all white or almost all white. So we determined to look extra intently at why so few Black jurors had been chosen. And it wasn’t at all times happenstance.
Episode 8: The D.A.
After investigating each side of the Curtis Flowers case, we had been almost able to current what we’d discovered to District Legal professional Doug Evans. However first, we tried to study all we may about him: his childhood, his years as a police officer, and his report as District Legal professional. Then, lastly, we met the person who’s spent greater than 20 years attempting to have Flowers executed.
Episode 9: Why Curtis?
After reëxamining the case, we discovered no direct proof linking Curtis Flowers to the murders at Tardy Furnishings. However we had one lingering query: How did Flowers turn out to be the primary suspect? Why would investigators focus a lot on Flowers, based mostly on so little proof? In brief, why Curtis? We determined to search out out.
Episode 10: Discovery
Prosecutors have at all times stated that Curtis Flowers was the one critical suspect within the Tardy Furnishings investigation. However we discovered a doc exhibiting that one other man, Willie James Hemphill, had additionally been questioned simply days after the murders. Who was he? Why was he questioned? Once we lastly discovered Hemphill, residing in Indianapolis, he had some very stunning issues to say concerning the case.
Episode 11: The Finish
For the final episode of the season, we went to satisfy Jeffery Armstrong, who, a number of years after Curtis Flowers first went to jail, discovered what may need been a key piece of proof. What he discovered—and the place he discovered it—presents hints that another person might have dedicated the Tardy Furnishings murders. Armstrong turned the proof over to the cops. After which, he says, it disappeared.
Replace: Again to Winona
Two months after the season ended, we return to Winona to see what has modified. Curtis Flowers’s mom has died. The entire city is speaking concerning the case. Flowers’s protection attorneys are together with our findings of their authorized filings to the Supreme Courtroom. Residents try to file bar complaints in opposition to the District Legal professional, Doug Evans. One man has gone into hiding after his private security was threatened as a result of he spoke to us. On this replace episode, we have a look at what’s occurred in Winona since our final episode, and what occurs subsequent within the Curtis Flowers case.
Replace: SCOTUS Takes the Case
The U.S. Supreme Courtroom has agreed to listen to Curtis Flowers’s enchantment. Now the Justices will study whether or not District Legal professional Doug Evans had a historical past of racial discrimination in jury choice.
Replace: Q. & A., and A Hearth in Winona
We reply your questions and report on a hearth in Winona.
Episode 12: Earlier than the Courtroom
We resume Season 2 with the U.S. Supreme Courtroom weighing Curtis Flowers’s case. We preview oral arguments and delve into the allegations on the coronary heart of the enchantment: that Doug Evans tried to maintain African Individuals off the jury in Flowers’s sixth trial.
Episode 13: Oral Arguments
After almost 9 years of appeals of his sixth trial, Curtis Flowers lastly had his case argued earlier than the U.S. Supreme Courtroom. At concern was whether or not District Legal professional Doug Evans tried to maintain African Individuals off the jury within the 2010 trial. Flowers wasn’t on the Supreme Courtroom—he stays on dying row in Mississippi—however the Within the Darkish workforce was. That is what we noticed.
Episode 14: The Determination
On Friday, June twenty first, after months of deliberation, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom handed down its opinion within the Curtis Flowers case. In a 7–2 ruling, the Justices threw out the conviction from his sixth trial, in 2010. The choice about what occurs subsequent—whether or not to launch Flowers or start a seventh trial—now lies with the identical prosecutor who has pursued him from the start: Doug Evans.
Episode 15: Revelations
It’s been eleven days because the U.S. Supreme Courtroom threw out Curtis Flowers’s conviction. However the story didn’t finish there. In latest days, there have been three different vital developments, together with new particulars from a key witness, that will decide Flowers’s destiny.
Episode 16: A Listening to
After almost twenty-three years locked up, Curtis Flowers has an opportunity to get out on bail—if his attorneys can persuade the decide to rule in his favor.
Episode 17: Residence
After nearly twenty-three years, Curtis Flowers is now not behind bars. For his household, it’s a long-awaited reunion. However not everybody in Winona is pleased.
Episode 18: The Recusal
District Legal professional Doug Evans has prosecuted Curtis Flowers throughout twenty-three years and 6 trials. Now he says he’s performed.
Episode 19: Freedom
After twenty-four years, the case in opposition to Curtis Flowers is lastly over. Mississippi lawyer normal Lynn Fitch asks the decide to dismiss the costs in opposition to Flowers for lack of proof. Flowers is launched from home arrest and free—actually free—eventually.
Episode 20: Curtis Flowers
Throughout three years investigating the Curtis Flowers case, we’d talked to almost everybody concerned: attorneys, witnesses, jurors, relations, investigators, politicians, and plenty of, many individuals round city. However there was one individual we hadn’t but interviewed—Curtis Flowers. That’s, till sooner or later in early October, a number of weeks after he’d been cleared of all costs. For the ultimate episode of Season 2, we speak in the end to the person on the heart of all of it.
Replace: 5 Years Later
After almost twenty-three years behind bars, Curtis Flowers was freed, partially attributable to Within the Darkish’s reporting. Now he’s again in Winona, Mississippi, the place his saga started. What introduced him residence, and the way is he doing? We visited him to search out out.
About Within the Darkish
Within the Darkish is among the many most revered packages in long-form audio journalism. The present is a two-time Peabody Award winner and, in 2019, grew to become the primary podcast to win a George Polk Award, one of many prime honors in investigative journalism. The present’s first season, launched in 2016, requested why the homicide of eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling went unsolved for almost twenty-seven years. Season 2 examined the case of Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Mississippi who confronted execution after being tried six occasions for a similar crime. In 2019, after Within the Darkish revealed prosecutorial misconduct on the coronary heart of the case, the U.S. Supreme Courtroom reversed Flowers’s conviction, and he was freed. Season 3, a couple of crime dedicated by a bunch of U.S. Marines, is obtainable now.
