SEASON TWO
In this season, we investigate the case of Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Winona, Mississippi, who was tried six times for the same crime. Flowers spent more than 20 years fighting for his life while a white prosecutor spent that same time trying just as hard to execute him.
EPISODES
EPISODE 1
On the morning of July 16, 1996, someone walked into a furniture store in downtown Winona, Mississippi, and murdered four employees. Each was shot in the head. It was perhaps the most shocking crime the small town had ever seen. Investigators charged a man named Curtis Flowers with the murders. What followed was a two-decade legal odyssey in which Flowers was tried six times for the same crime. He remains on death row, though some people believe he's innocent.
EPISODE 2
The case against Curtis Flowers relies heavily on three threads of evidence: the route he allegedly walked the morning of the murders, the gun that investigators believe he used, and the people he supposedly confessed to in jail. In this episode, we meet the witnesses who said they saw Flowers walking through downtown Winona, Mississippi, the morning of the murders. Some of their stories now waver on key details.
EPISODE 3
Investigators never found the gun used to kill four people at Tardy Furniture. Yet the gun, and the bullets matched to it, became a key piece of evidence against Curtis Flowers. In this episode, we examine the strange histories of the gun and the man who owned it.
EPISODE 4
Over the years, three inmates have claimed that Curtis Flowers confessed to them that he killed four people at the Tardy Furniture store. But they've all changed their stories at one time or another. In this episode, we investigate who's really telling the truth.
EPISODE 5
No witness has been more important to the prosecution's case against Curtis Flowers than Odell Hallmon. He testified in four trials that Flowers had confessed to him while the two men were in prison together. Hallmon has an astonishingly long criminal history that includes repeated charges for drug dealing, assault, and robbery. So how reliable is his testimony and did he receive anything in exchange for it? In this episode, we investigate the veracity of the prosecution's star witness.
EPISODE 6
Odell Hallmon, the state's key witness in the Curtis Flowers case, is serving three consecutive life sentences. We wondered what he might say now that there are no deals to cut, and he will spend the rest of his days in prison. Would he stick to his story that Flowers had confessed to the Tardy Furniture murders? We wrote him letters and sent him a friend request on Facebook. Weeks went by and we heard nothing. And then, one day, he wrote back.
EPISODE 7
There's one critical aspect of the Curtis Flowers case that we haven't looked at yet — the makeup of the juries. Each of the four times Flowers was convicted, the jury was all white or nearly all white. So we decided to look more closely at why so few Black jurors had been selected. And it wasn't always happenstance.
EPISODE 8
After investigating every aspect of the Curtis Flowers case, we were nearly ready to present what we'd found to District Attorney Doug Evans. But first we tried to learn all we could about him: his childhood, his years as a police officer and his record as district attorney. Then, finally, we met the man who's spent more than two decades trying to have Flowers executed.
EPISODE 9
After re-examining the case, we'd found no direct evidence linking Curtis Flowers to the murders at Tardy Furniture. But we had one lingering question: How did Flowers become the main suspect? Why would investigators focus so much on Flowers based on so little evidence? In short, why Curtis? We decided to find out.
EPISODE 10
Prosecutors have always said that Curtis Flowers was the only serious suspect in the Tardy Furniture investigation. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. Who was he? Why was he questioned? When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case.
EPISODE 11
For the last episode of the season, we went to meet Jeffery Armstrong, who, a few years after Curtis Flowers first went to prison, found what might have been a key piece of evidence. What he found — and where he found it — offers hints that someone else may have committed the Tardy Furniture murders. Armstrong turned the evidence into the cops. And then, he says, it disappeared.
UPDATE
Two months after the season ended, we return to Winona to see what has changed. Turns out, a lot. Curtis Flowers' mother has died. The whole town is talking about the case. Flowers' defense lawyers are including our findings in their legal filings to the Supreme Court. Citizens are trying to file bar complaints against the district attorney, Doug Evans. One man has gone into hiding, his personal safety threatened because he spoke to us. In this update episode, we look at what's happened in Winona since our last episode and what happens next with Curtis Flowers' case.
UPDATE
In looking at the controversial Mississippi death penalty case, the justices will examine if District Attorney Doug Evans had a history of racial discrimination in jury selection.
UPDATE
With the U.S. Supreme Court set to hear Curtis Flowers' appeal in the coming months, we thought it was a good time to answer some of the questions you've asked us since the end of Season 2.
UPDATE
The controversial Mississippi prosecutor will win another four-year term and could decide if Curtis Flowers faces a seventh trial.
EPISODE 12
Season Two resumes with the U.S. Supreme Court weighing Curtis Flowers' case. We preview oral arguments and delve into the allegations at the heart of the appeal: that Doug Evans tried to keep African-Americans off the jury in Flowers' sixth trial.
EPISODE 13
After nearly nine years of appeals of his sixth trial, Curtis Flowers finally had his case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. At issue was whether DA Doug Evans tried to keep African-Americans off the jury in the 2010 trial. Flowers wasn't at the Supreme Court — he remains on death row in Mississippi — but the In the Dark team was. This is what we saw.
EPISODE 14
After months of deliberation, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its opinion in the Curtis Flowers case. In a 7-2 ruling, the justices threw out the conviction from his sixth trial, in 2010. The decision of what happens next — whether to release Flowers or begin a seventh trial — now lies with the same prosecutor who's pursued him from the beginning: Doug Evans.
EPISODE 15
It's been 11 days since the U.S. Supreme Court threw out Curtis Flowers' conviction. And the story has taken yet more surprising turns since. In recent days, there have been three other significant developments, including new details from a key witness, that may change Flowers' fate.
EPISODE 16
After nearly 23 years locked up, Curtis Flowers has a chance to get out on bail — if his lawyers can convince the judge to rule in his favor.
EPISODE 17
Curtis Flowers is no longer behind bars. For his family, it's a long-awaited reunion. But not everyone in Winona is happy.
EPISODE 18
District Attorney Doug Evans has prosecuted Curtis Flowers for 23 years and six trials. Now he says he's done.
EPISODE 19
After 24 years, the case against Curtis Flowers is finally over. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch asks the judge to dismiss the charges against Flowers for lack of evidence. Flowers is released from house arrest and free — truly free — at last.
EPISODE 20
During three years investigating the Curtis Flowers case, we'd talked to nearly everyone involved: lawyers, witnesses, jurors, family members, investigators, politicians, and many, many people around town. But there was one person we hadn't yet interviewed — Curtis Flowers. That is, until one day in early October, a few weeks after he'd been cleared of all charges. For the final episode of Season 2, we at long last talk to the man at the center of it all.
SOURCE NOTES
Go deep into our investigation with links to key documents in the case and source material from other findings that weren't included in the podcast.
