Within the Darkish: Season 2
Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Winona, Mississippi, was tried six instances for a similar crime. Season 2 of Within the Darkish examines the case in opposition to Flowers, who spent greater than twenty years preventing for his life, as a white prosecutor tried simply as arduous to execute him. Hear under or wherever you get your podcasts.
Trailer
Curtis Flowers has been tried six instances for a similar crime. For twenty-one years, Flowers has maintained his innocence. He has received attraction after attraction, 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 file and maintain Flowers on demise 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 surprising crime ever carried out within the small city. Investigators charged a person named Curtis Flowers. What adopted was a two-decade authorized odyssey wherein Flowers was tried six instances for a similar crime. He stays on demise row, although some individuals imagine he’s harmless. For the second season of Within the Darkish, we spent a 12 months 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 imagine 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 way of 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, turned a key piece of proof in opposition to Curtis Flowers. On this episode, we look at 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 felony 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 would possibly say now that there are not any offers to chop, and he’ll spend the remainder of his life in jail. Would he follow his story that Flowers had confessed to the Tardy Furnishings murders? We wrote him letters and despatched him a good friend 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 important facet of the Curtis Flowers case that we haven’t checked out but—the make-up of the juries. Every of the 4 instances 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 facet of the Curtis Flowers case, we had been almost able to current what we’d discovered to District Lawyer Doug Evans. However first, we tried to study all we may about him: his childhood, his years as a police officer, and his file as District Lawyer. Then, lastly, we met the person who’s spent greater than 20 years making an attempt 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 change into the primary suspect? Why would investigators focus a lot on Flowers, based mostly on so little proof? Briefly, why Curtis? We determined to search out out.
Episode 10: Discovery
Prosecutors have at all times stated that Curtis Flowers was the one severe 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? After we lastly discovered Hemphill, residing in Indianapolis, he had some very shocking issues to say concerning the case.
Episode 11: The Finish
For the final episode of the season, we went to fulfill 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—gives hints that another person could 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 legal professionals are together with our findings of their authorized filings to the Supreme Court docket. Residents try to file bar complaints in opposition to the District Lawyer, 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 Court docket has agreed to listen to Curtis Flowers’s attraction. Now the Justices will look at whether or not District Lawyer 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 Court docket
We resume Season 2 with the U.S. Supreme Court docket weighing Curtis Flowers’s case. We preview oral arguments and delve into the allegations on the coronary heart of the attraction: that Doug Evans tried to maintain African People 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 Court docket. At subject was whether or not District Lawyer Doug Evans tried to maintain African People off the jury within the 2010 trial. Flowers wasn’t on the Supreme Court docket—he stays on demise row in Mississippi—however the Within the Darkish group was. That is what we noticed.
Episode 14: The Determination
On Friday, June twenty first, after months of deliberation, the U.S. Supreme Court docket 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 for the reason that U.S. Supreme Court docket threw out Curtis Flowers’s conviction. However the story didn’t finish there. In latest days, there have been three different important 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 legal professionals can persuade the choose 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 glad.
Episode 18: The Recusal
District Lawyer Doug Evans has prosecuted Curtis Flowers throughout twenty-three years and 6 trials. Now he says he’s executed.
Episode 19: Freedom
After twenty-four years, the case in opposition to Curtis Flowers is lastly over. Mississippi legal professional normal Lynn Fitch asks the choose to dismiss the fees in opposition to Flowers for lack of proof. Flowers is launched from home arrest and free—really free—eventually.
Episode 20: Curtis Flowers
Throughout three years investigating the Curtis Flowers case, we’d talked to almost everybody concerned: legal professionals, witnesses, jurors, members of the family, investigators, politicians, and lots of, many individuals round city. However there was one particular person 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 discuss 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 as a result of Within the Darkish’s reporting. Now he’s again in Winona, Mississippi, the place his saga started. What introduced him house, 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 applications in long-form audio journalism. The present is a two-time Peabody Award winner and, in 2019, turned 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 instances for a similar crime. In 2019, after Within the Darkish revealed prosecutorial misconduct on the coronary heart of the case, the U.S. Supreme Court docket reversed Flowers’s conviction, and he was freed. Season 3, a couple of crime dedicated by a gaggle of U.S. Marines, is accessible now.
