Transcripción completa: In the Dark - S2 E2 The Route

En la oscuridad: S2 E2 La ruta

: If you haven’t listened to the first episode of In the Dark, stop, go back and listen to it first and this will make a lot more sense. One other note, this episode contains a word that’s offensive.

: La última vez en En la oscuridad.

: ¿Recuerda cómo se enteró de que Curtis había sido arrestado por los asesinatos?

: En la radio. Me pareció una locura.

: Curtis Giovanni Flowers murdered those four people. There’s no doubt in my mind.

: Curtis Flowers fue condenado a muerte por cuatro cargos de asesinato capital. Esa condena en realidad marcó la sexta vez que Flowers ha sido juzgado y el caso.

: It’s too long, way too long and Curtis Flowers is still in prison and they’re still dragging it on.

: I know Curtis didn’t do it. I will go to my grave believing Curtis didn’t do it.

: Si se juzga a un hombre y va seis veces por el mismo delito, pues algo falla en todo el sistema.

: On the west side of Winona in the middle of a neighborhood with lots of houses close together, there’s what looks like an abandoned parking lot. It’s nearly a block long, it’s overgrown, the grass isn’t mowed. It’s the kind of place you might drive by and never give a second thought.

: But if you slowed down and looked more closely, you’d notice a row of bricks poking out of the grass along the edge of the lot and a set of concrete steps that lead nowhere. If you got out of your car and walked onto the lot and headed all the way to the back, you’d find an old desk overturned in the grass. You’d see that someone had taken a silver marker and written the words ‘Merry Christmas’. This abandoned lot used to be a school.

: En los años sesenta, era una escuela sólo para negros y estaba en un barrio negro. Pero en 1970, el Gobierno Federal ordenó a la ciudad de Winona que integrara sus escuelas y los estudiantes blancos y negros empezaron a ir juntos a la escuela.

: But then four years later, on the night before Valentine’s Day, after all the students and teachers had left, a fire broke out. The flames lit up the sky and people could smell the smoke for miles. Within hours, the entire block-long brick building had burned to the ground. Nearly everyone I talked to about the fire Black and White, told me they think it was arson and that it was related to integration.

: Right next to the field where the school used to be, there’s a small, white house with a porch on the side. This is the house where Curtis Flowers’ parents live.

: Hola.

: Lola and Archie Flowers have been married for 54 years. Everything in their house is just so. The dining room table is set perfectly with cloth napkins. In the living room, there’s a curved, tan velvet couch with fringe on the bottom and a matching ottoman.

: Lola and Archi are both retired and although they have five other children and many grandchildren, they have devoted most of their time in the past 21 years to their son, Curtis. Curtis’ parents talk on the phone with him almost every day. They regularly make the 80-minute drive each way to Parchman Prison.

: Cada dos semanas, vamos.

: De acuerdo.

: We see him the first and third Tuesday of each month. We don’t miss a beat.

: ¿Puedes llevarle algo?

: Mm-mm. Cuando te cansas de que te registren y todo eso cada vez que vas, puedes dejarte la ropa y seguir por ahí.

: Bueno, allí sí que te registran.

: Sí. Escanearte a ti y a todo.

: From the beginning, Lola and Archie Flowers have believed their son is innocent and they spent a lot of money on Curtis’ case.

: ¿Cuánto crees que has gastado?

: Mierda, como si no pudiera sumarlo. Eran como ciento y pico de dólares.

: Oh, Dios mío.

: I’m telling you.

: ¿Cómo te lo puedes permitir?

: I used to work three jobs a day. He was working double [inaudible]. And then after that, we went and borrowed some from the bank and everything to pay for the next lawyers and stuff. We had some money then, but we don’t have it now.

: A lo largo de los últimos 21 años y seis juicios, Curtis Flowers ha tenido todos los arquetipos de abogado: el equipo legal de padre e hijo, el abogado nacionalista negro de alto perfil, los defensores públicos dedicados.

: When I met his parents, Lola and Archie, last summer, Curtis’ case had been taken on for free by a new team of lawyers from the Innocence Project in a high-powered East Coast law firm. Lola was feeling optimistic for the first time in a while. She was thinking ahead to the next family reunion.

: So we having the next one on Labor Day weekend, so I hope Curtis is out by then. Maybe it is a Supreme Court will say something. That’s what we’re waiting on now, to see what they’ve got to say.

: ¿Te permites pensar en ese momento? ¿Piensas en cómo sería si él...?

: Oh, yeah. I think about that all the time, you know, what a good time we’re going to have and everything. A lot of family say, “When they let him out, we’re all going to be there.” I say, “Yeah, we’re going to have a good time.”

: Curtis’ father, Archie, didn’t say much the first time I met him. He sat next to his wife and when she talked, he would just sigh or shake his head. I asked the Flowers if they had any photos of Curtis. They told me they only had one because in 1999, just before Curtis’ second trial their house burned down. Lola and Archie were out of town in Memphis when it happened. Their daughter was sleeping over at their house with some of their grandkids.

: Mi hija estaba en casa y dijo que sonaba como si algo hubiera explotado o algo así. Había un fuerte ruido y cuando ella miraba, todo estaba ardiendo. Se quemaba todo.

: As for the cause of the fire, according to the report from the fire department, which I got a copy of, there was no final determination as to what caused it. But Lola told me that after the fire, someone told her that they’d heard something from a White person in town.

: But somebody said they heard say, “If they let that nigger go, another house is going to burn.

: ¿Y qué opinas de eso?

: ¿Qué crees que pienso de ello? Que probablemente alguien le prendió fuego.

: Many years ago, around the time of the first trial, Curtis’ friends and family tried to organize people in town to help Curtis. I went with our producer, Samara, to talk to some of the people who were involved in it. Pastor Jimmy Forrest and his wife, Rosie.

: Hola. ¿Es usted el reverendo Forrest?

: Sí, así es.

: El pastor Forrest había sufrido un derrame cerebral el año anterior. Así que Rosie fue la que más habló.

: Pero lo que estábamos tratando de hacer era toda la familia era tratar de ver si necesitamos recaudar dinero, conseguir abogados, encontrarle un abogado. Necesitamos... Sólo íbamos a hablar y averiguar qué es lo que podemos hacer para ayudar a Curtis.

: [inaudible]

: Sí. Sólo hay que estar ahí para él.

: Rosie said her husband, Jimmy, took the lead back then on organizing a community meeting. Rosie told me that it felt like there was some momentum there, like they could really get something going. But then one day, before the meeting it happened, a woman came into the salon where Rosie worked, a Black woman whom Rosie refused to name. And this woman told Rosie that she’d been asked to deliver a message to her husband,, Jimmy from the White side of town. The message was brief.

: Necesita relajarse. Necesita relajarse, refrescarse.

: ¿De quién era el mensaje?

: We don’t know exactly, but we didn’t want our house burned or anything to happen to our family.

: Y entonces, ¿todavía tienes esa reunión?

: ¿Lo hicimos? No.

: No, we didn’t. Everybody just disappeared. We had planned to get together and talk about it. Nobody said… But so, we just didn’t do anything else. We backed off.

: Because it sounded like it’s a threat, right, that you received.

: It was. It was. It was. It was a threat. If you had been here… Matter of fact, if I had, if I knew enough about the law system, or lawyers or whatever, I would have investigated that incident. I would have tried to follow that up, but I didn’t know enough. We don’t have… The bad part about it, you can’t prove none of this stuff.

: ¿Habías oído hablar antes de cosas así en Winona?

: I have. And so, that’s what put the fear.

: This is season 2 In the Dark, an investigative podcast from APM Reports. I’m Madeleine Baran.

: This season is about the case of Curtis Flowers, a Black man from a small town in Mississippi, who’s spent the past 21 years fighting for his life and a White prosecutor, who spent that same time trying just as hard to execute him.

: Estuve en Mississippi para averiguar lo que ocurría en el caso de Curtis Flowers para saber por qué el fiscal, Doug Evans, había juzgado el caso seis veces. Decidí empezar mi reportaje examinando las pruebas que Doug Evans presentó a los jurados en esos seis juicios.

: En mi opinión, el caso contra Curtis Flowers se reducía a tres cosas principales: la ruta que, según él, recorrió Curtis la mañana de los asesinatos, el arma que, según él, utilizó Curtis para asesinar a las cuatro personas de la tienda y las confesiones que, según él, hizo Curtis a sus compañeros de celda. La ruta, el arma, las confesiones. Decidí empezar con la ruta.

: Fui con nuestra productora, Natalie, para comprobarlo por nosotros mismos.

: Okay, so we are standing in front of Curtis Flowers’ house where he was living in 1996 and what we’re about to do is walk the route that the State says Curtis walked that day.

: And it’s like 7 o’clock in the morning.

: Yeah. So, it’s about that time that he would have started out, according to the State.

: De acuerdo.

: So, let’s start walking.

: A la derecha, básicamente.

: According to Doug Evans, Curtis had walked everywhere that morning. He got up early on the morning of July 16th, left his house on the west side of town and started walking east. In the neighborhood where Curtis lived, the houses are small and close together. It’s hilly, the yards are short and some houses are practically up on the street.

: People are out in their yards, hanging out, waving to people as they drive by. According to Doug Evans, Curtis walked out of his neighborhood and he went east. He crossed over one of the town’s biggest streets, Highway 51, and kept going. Curtis turned down a street that led to a small sewing factory.

: We’re coming up to Angellica Drive.

: Se acercó al aparcamiento de la fábrica y robó una pistola de la guantera de un coche.

: Then he’s going to walk home.

: Luego, caminó hasta su casa, de vuelta al lado oeste de la ciudad, su vecino.

: We’re crossing 51. Now we’re back on Curtis’ side of town.

: Curtis estuvo en su casa durante unos minutos. Luego, volvió a salir, esta vez, para ir a Tardy Furniture. Tardy Furniture estaba al otro lado de la ciudad, en el lado de la ciudad donde Curtis acababa de estar. Así que se dirigió al este para ir a la tienda.

: We’re crossing another busy street.

: Pasó por delante de un bloque tras otro de casas y, a medida que se acercaba a Muebles Tardío, empezó a pasar por delante de negocios: un taller de chapa y pintura, una tintorería. Llegó a Tardy Furniture, entró y mató a las cuatro personas que estaban allí. Luego, salió por la puerta principal y se dirigió al oeste para volver a casa.

: En el camino, se detuvo en una tienda de conveniencia en la carretera 51 para comprar patatas fritas y un paquete de seis cervezas.

: Este es un paseo muy largo.

: Realmente lo es.

: By the time Natalie and I were done, we’d walked for an hour and 36 minutes. The route the prosecutor, Doug Evans, said Curtis Flowers took was long. It was nearly four miles. And it’s brazen. It would have taken Curtis all over the town of Winona that morning.

: When Curtis Flowers talked to investigators on the day of the murders and later when he testified in court, Curtis said he never walked that route. In fact, he said he was never on the east side of town at all that morning. He’d spent the whole morning in his own neighborhood on the west side.

: But the problem for Curtis Flowers was that the prosecutor, Doug Evans, had found witnesses, who placed Curtis at almost every point on that route. These route witnesses were one of the strongest parts of the State’s case. Each of them raised their right hand and swore an oath and testified to seeing Curtis that day as he walked by.

: Although none of the witnesses testified that they saw Curtis carrying a gun or saw any blood on him, their testimony was powerful. Most of these route witnesses knew Curtis. A lot of them had known Curtis their entire lives. Most of them were Black and had grown up in the same neighborhood as Curtis. When Doug Evans put them on the stand and asked them to describe who they saw that morning, these witnesses could not have been more clear. They would point to Curtis and be like. “It was Curtis. There he is. I’ve known him for years.”

: It was hard for Curtis’ lawyers to break the spell of the route they tried cross examining each of the witnesses. But it didn’t seem to do much. If anything, as the trials went on, the witnesses seemed to get even more certain and even more angry at the defense attorneys for doubting them. It was easy to see how a jury would be convinced by these route witnesses.

: Para los miembros del jurado, estos testigos resultaron creíbles, como personas que hacían lo correcto. Doug Evans les dijo que lo que decían los testigos, todas sus historias individuales, encajaban. Tenía sentido como una historia, una ruta, una historia clara y convincente sobre un hombre que caminaba para cometer un asesinato.

: But there was something I found odd about this route and about these witnesses. I managed to track down the original statements that the route witnesses gave to law enforcement. There were at least 12 witnesses, who’d given statements about seeing Curtis Flowers walking on the day of the murders. Most of them testified at trial.

: The statements are pretty basic. “Did you see Curtis Flowers. Do you remember what he was wearing?” that kind of thing. But it’s when the statements were given that stood out to me. The first statement from a route witness naming Curtis didn’t come until a month after the murders.

: Some statements weren’t given until four, five or even nine months later. This seems strange to me because what the witnesses were describing seemed totally unremarkable. They were describing a man they knew, who lived in their neighborhood walking past them, a man who wasn’t doing anything strange. He was just walking. That was it.

: I couldn’t see any reason why on the morning of the murders, anyone would have connected that to an execution-style quadruple murder in a different part of town. And if you didn’t make that connection in your mind that day, how in the world would you be able to make it weeks or months later? And even if you did remember it, why would you wait so long to tell the cops? That’s what I wanted to find out when I set out with our producer, Natalie, to find these witnesses last summer.

: I wasn’t sure what to expect. A lot of people in Winona told me that these witnesses, they don’t talk about their testimony. They don’t talk at all about the case. I couldn’t find a record of any of the witnesses ever giving an actual interview to a reporter. And when we found one of our first witnesses and asked him about his testimony, we didn’t exactly get off to a promising start.

: Eso es confidencial.

: This guy’s name is James Edward Kennedy, but everyone just calls him Bojack.

: Es confidencial. Se supone que no debemos hablar de eso.

: Oh. ¿Cómo es eso?

: We’re not supposed to talk about it because other people have gotten the wrong impression about talking to people like you all. So, me, myself, I don’t talk about it.

: You don’t?

: Mm-mm. I’m not going to talk about that, period, becuase it’s confidential and it caused confusion on both sides.

: Bojack had talked to the district attorney’s investigator, John Johnson, in September of 1996, two months after the murders. He said that he’d seen Curtis Flowers walking by his house, smoking a cigarette on the morning of July 16th 1996, near the factory where Curtis had supposedly stolen the gun.

: Bojack had testified in five of Curtis Flowers’ trials and over all of those trials, Bojack never wavered. He was absolutely certain he had seen Curtis that day. I ended up talking to Bojack for nearly four hours over two days. And eventually, he did tell me a story of what he’d seen on the day of the murders. It was more or less the same one he told in court five times about seeing Curtis that day. Bojack told me he was out on his porch at the time when he saw him.

: Caminando hacia allí.

: ¿Regresando a pie?

: Sí.

: ¿Y le has dicho algo?

: Oh, yeah. “Hey, man. What are you doing down here this early in the morning?” and he mumbled something and he never stopped.

: Pero rápidamente quedó claro que Bojack es el tipo de hombre que dice muchas cosas, el tipo de hombre al que le gusta contar historias.

: There’s a lot that I know.

: Por ejemplo, Bojack me dijo que ISIS estaba en Winona.

: ISIS. El ISIS estuvo aquí.

: ¿Como aquí en Winona?

: Aquí, en Winona.

: Y aquella vez que el río en Winona cambió de repente de dirección y empezó a fluir hacia atrás.

: And then the rivers backwards. They didn’t put that in the paper.

: Y además, me dijo que le preocupaba que mi micrófono pudiera estar transmitiendo mensajes a los rusos.

: If Russia can hack into the election don’t you think they’re going to hack into what you say?

: Bojack wasn’t saying any of these things with any real seriousness. It didn’t seem at all as though he really thought my microphone was in communication with Vladimir Putin. He was just messing with me. Bojack was happy to tell me about all kinds of things, but the only thing he wouldn’t talk about was how he had ended up giving a statement to law enforcement two months after the murders.

: No tengo la libertad de decirlo.

: Supongo que sí.

: That is all i want to tell you, that I’m not at liberty to say.

: I didn’t think it would be like a big question, actually,.

: That’s it. I’m not going to say anything more. I mean, I’m looking at, in the back of my mind, it’s telling me not to talk no more. It’s telling me not to talk no more.

: As the summer went on, Natalie and I kept talking to witnesses and slowly, we started to piece together just how these route witnesses came to be giving statements to investigators. It turned out it wasn’t like they just picked up the phone and called the cops to report what they’d seen. In the Curtis Flowers case, it worked the other way.

: Hola, ¿cómo te va?

: All right. I’m Mary. Do you all want me?

: Ah, sí.

: I talked to a route witness, named Mary Jeanette Fleming, who told me that how she got involved in this 21-year-long death penalty case isn’t entirely clear to her. She said that one day, about seven months after the murders, she was working her shift at McDonald’s when in walked the Police Chief of Winona.

: He came up to McDonald’s and told me to come to the police station and I asked why we’re going to do that, that it was something that happened to one of my kids and he never did tell me something anyway.

: Te preocupaba que pasara algo con tus hijos, ¿no crees?

: Sólo dijo que quería hablar conmigo en la estación ese día, ya sabes.

: Mary Jeanette asked her boss if she could leave work right then in the middle of her shift, and he said Okay. And then she drove herself down to the Winona Police Station. She said she still didn’t know what it was about. And then, she ended up in a room with an investigator.

: Así que, cuando llegué, sacó el tema del caso Flower.

: Y entonces, ¿le preguntaron si vio a Curtis un día de los asesinatos, o...?

: Yes, ma’am. That’s what he asked me.

: Mary Jeanette dijo que recordaba haber visto a Curtis pasando por delante de ella en la acera la mañana de los asesinatos, siete meses antes.

: So, I just, you know, told him I had seen him that morning. I didn’t want no police over there anyway.

: Mary Jeanette Fleming ha tenido que testificar en todos los juicios que ha tenido Curtis Flowers durante 21 años. Dice que todo esto ha puesto a su familia en su contra. Dijo que su familia cree que Curtis es inocente y que piensan que fue a la policía con una historia inventada para poder conseguir la recompensa de $30.000 que se había ofrecido en el caso.

: My own folk was against me, telling me I was lying to get more of that stuff like that. I didn’t want no damn pay.

: Why do you think they didn’t want him to tell that story?

: Because they were friends to him. [inaudible] tell me he was a church man. Well, oh so what? Me too. You know, so, he didn’t win the deal. No, he couldn’t have killed that many people that one time. I didn’t say he did do it. I said I’d seen him that morning headed in that direction. I told them I don’t know what he went to.

: Así que tu propia familia te acusó de ser un mentiroso.

: Yeah. My own. Definitely, I got so sick, I’ve still got that [star].

: Encontramos a otro testigo, Danny Joe Lot, tumbado en un banco frente a una tienda de Dollar General, con los brazos colgados sobre los ojos para tapar el sol de la tarde.

: ¿Eres Danny Joe Lot?

: Claro que sí.

: Genial.

: Back in 1997, Danny Joe had given a detailed statement to the DA’s investigator, John Johnson. It was about 10 months after the murders when he gave it. When I found Danny Joe, he’d clearly been drinking and by his own account, Danny Joe’s memory was terrible. He told me that back in 1996, he would get drunk almost every day. He told me he was actually drinking a beer the morning some officers pulled up in May 1997, 10 months after the murders and told him to go with them down to the police station.

: Me han pillado.

: ¿Quién te ha pillado?

: I don’t know. Them White men, one of them the police. I dont know.

: Y te dijeron que entraras en el coche.

: Sí.

: Were you scared? Like they just come by. You don’t know where they are.

: Hell, yeah, I was scare. I didn’t know who they were. I just got in. I

: Danny Joe Lot had been picked up a lot by the police over the years, but this time was different. This time he said they didn’t put handcuffs on him and they let him ride in the front seat.

: They said, “We ain’t going to… We ain’t putting no handcuffs on you.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “Get in the front seat.” I got in the front. He said, “You ain’t dead and now we’ve got to ask you a question about Curtis.”

: Danny Joe told me that once he got to the police station, he was put into a room with the same investigator who talked to many of the other witnesses, John Johnson, the investigator for the District Attorney’s office. That’s when he gave a statement about seeing Curtis.

: Seguí hablando con los testigos y a medida que lo hacía, se volvía más y más sospechoso, no de los testigos sino de la investigación. Algunas personas parecían un poco asustadas. Me hablaron a través de las puertas de las pantallas, o por las ventanas de los coches.

: I don’t need to talk about it, okay, beucase I [inaudible].

: I knocked on one woman’s door and she wouldn’t come out at all. All she would say was that if Curtis had another trial, she would refuse to testify.

: I don’t want to be nowhere invovled.

: I went to see a really minor witness. She didn’t even testify at trial because all she said was that she saw Curtis in his own neighborhood on the day of the murders. But when I went to see this woman, she told me she actually did not see Curtis that day.

: No. No, I didn’t see Curtis.

: And then she closed the door on me. One day, I ended up talking to a man, whose wife was a witness, but she never testified at trial. When I stopped by, his wife was taking a nap. And at first, he was very friendly and invited me inside. But when I asked about his wife’s statement about seeing Curtis, he said I should go.

: Ya sabes [inaudible] para hablar de eso.

: Que su esposa no querría que hablara de eso.

: She’s not going to talk to you about it. I know that [inaudible].

: Cuando le pregunté por qué, me dijo que su mujer se había sentido presionada por las fuerzas del orden.

: La presionaron para que hablara [inaudible].

: That they’d asked about things she knew nothing about. He wouldn’t explain what he meant. On the way out, he made this really cryptic remark. He said they wanted everything.

: Lo querían todo.

: They wanted her to make some commitments that she couldn’t make. And then he told me. I’ve said more than I probably should have. And the interview was over.

: And then one day, I met a witness named Ed McChristian. That’s after the break.

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: Ed McChristian vive en una pulcra casa de ladrillo de una sola planta. Cuando me acerqué, un aire acondicionado sonaba en la ventana.

: Can we sit down for sec? Do you mind. It’s just so hot.

: Ed McChristian llevaba unos vaqueros azules y una camiseta cada vez más empapada de sudor mientras estábamos sentados en sillas de jardín en una pequeña franja de hormigón frente a su casa. Llevaba un pequeño paño azul en la mano derecha y, cada minuto más o menos, se lo llevaba a la cabeza para limpiarse el sudor que corría por ella. Luego, doblaba cuidadosamente el paño azul y lo presionaba sobre sus vaqueros para secarlo.

: Le hice a Ed McChristian todas mis preguntas habituales. Me contó que vio a Curtis Flowers pasar por su casa el día de los asesinatos. Me dijo que no se puso en contacto con las fuerzas del orden para contárselo, que las fuerzas del orden se pusieron en contacto con él, que hizo una declaración a John Johnson en la comisaría. Ed McChristian había hablado con John Johnson aproximadamente un mes después de los asesinatos. En el juicio, Ed McChristian siempre testificó que estaba seguro de lo que vio, Curtis Flowers pasando por su casa la mañana del 16 de julio de 1996.

: He just passed, just like that. I never gave him a thought. I mean, you don’t know nothing didn’t happen, so I just looked up and seeing who he was and recognized him. That was it.

: ¿Qué tan seguro estás de que fue esa mañana cuando viste a Curtis.

: I wasn’t even really sure. They had more about it than I did.

: I wasn’t even really sure. They had more about it than I did. What did that mean? And then, Ed McChristian told me how it came to be that he gave such a detailed statement about seeing Curtis Flowers on July 16th 1996. He said that statement he gave, it didn’t start with him. It started with John Johnson.

: Ed McChristian told me Curtis Flowers did walk by his house at some point that summer, but he never remembered which day it was. They said that wasn’t a problem because when he walked into that room at the police station, John Johnson already knew what day he’d seen Curtis, that he’d seen Curtis Flowers on July 16th 1996.

: Lo tenían anotado en una libreta para mí. Así que sólo tuve que ir allí, me hicieron la pregunta y respondí.

: Ed McChristian said it’s still not clear to him exactly how John Johnson knew this. He said Johnson told him that someone had turned him in, that someone had said that Ed McChristian had seen Curtis on July 16th. Johnson wouldn’t say who this person was. The whole thing was kind of unsettling.

: Somebody had told them I’d seen him, so I couldn’t say I didn’t see him.

: So, Ed McChristian said, “Yes, I did see Curtis Flowers on July 16th 1996.” He gave the statement and testified to it in six trials.

: And so, if you hadn’t been like called in there and they hadn’t said like, “July 16th 1996,” would you have even remembered that day?

: No

: Ed McChristian told me that every time another one of Curtis’s trials came up and he found out he had to testify again, he didn’t want to go, but he didn’t think he had a choice. He told me he’s not sure exactly what would happen to him if he straightup refused to testify, but that whatever it would be, it wouldn’t be good, like he might have to pay a fine or could even be thrown in jail.

: Todo lo que hicieron fue decirme que me citarían cada vez.

: So you didn’t have a choice.

: Mm-mm. Every time, I’d get a subpoena.

: Did you ever say like, “I’m not doing this”?

: You don’t know how bad I wanted to. And I never did say it, but I sure wanted to. Don’t do not good.

: We had talked to almost all the witnesses on the route that the prosecutor, Doug Evans, said Curtis had walked on the morning of the murders. I had just two witnesses left and the story that these two witnesses told was critically important to the State’s case against Curtis. Their names were Roy Harris and Clemmie Fleming.

: They didn’t talk to law enforcement until about nine months after the murders. Clemmie and Roy gave separate statements to John Johnson. But what they told him was more or less the same story. Clemmie and Roy said they were in a car together on the morning of the murders. Roy was driving, Clemmie was in the passenger seat. Clemmie had asked Roy to give her a ride to Tardy Furniture to pay her furniture bill.

: Roy and Clemmie pulled up outside the store. It was right around the time of the murders, but Clemmie decided not to get out of the car because even though she had driven all the way down here, she later explained she wasn’t feeling well because she was five months pregnant.

: Salieron y, al doblar la esquina y alejarse una o dos manzanas de Tardy Furniture, vieron a un hombre delante, corriendo por un campo, hacia el oeste, como si huyera en dirección al centro. Clemmie lo reconoció enseguida. Era su vecino, Curtis Flowers.

: She pointed him out to Roy, but Roy didn’t know him. They didn’t talk to Curtis. They couldn’t remember what clothes he was wearing or what kind of shoes. They didn’t describe seeing any blood on him or seeing a gun, but what they did see was bad enough; Curtis Flowers running west around the time of the murders, just a block or two from Tardy Furniture. Clemmie and Roy both testified in the first trial, but almost as soon as that first trial ended, the story of Clemmie and Roy began to fall apart.

: Last summer, I went with our producer, Samara, to find Roy Harris. He lives in a little town about a half hour from Winona. Roy didn’t have a listed phone number and we couldn’t find anyone who had an address for him, so we just started stopping into gas stations and truck stops, asking if anyone knew him.

: ¿Sabe por casualidad dónde vive Roy Harris?

: No tengo ni idea.

: De acuerdo. Muy bien.

: ¿Sabes dónde vive Roy Harris?

: Who’s that?

: Roy Harris.

: Roy Harris. I can’t place him.

: De acuerdo. ¿Sabe por casualidad dónde vive Roy Harris? No. De acuerdo.

: Finalmente, nos detuvimos en una cafetería y preguntamos a las señoras que trabajaban en el buffet del almuerzo si sabían dónde encontrarlo.

: Actually, we’re trying to meet with a man named Roy Harris, but we can’t figure out where he lives.

: Isn’t that him?

: Oh, ¿es ese de ahí?

: La cajera señaló a un hombre mayor sentado en una mesa con una mujer. Estaban almorzando. Eran Roy Harris y su novia, Joanne Young.

: I don’t want to interrupt your lunch.

: [inaudible] siéntate [inaudible].

: Encantado de conocerte. Hola.

: Encantada de conocerte. Me llamo Joanne.

: Hi. I’m Madeleine.

: Joanne told us that talking with Roy wasn’t going to be easy because Roy was almost entirely deaf. He lost most of his hearing when he was a teenager when a tractor ran over his head. He didn’t know sign language. He didn’t use a hearing aid. We made plans to meet up with them a few days later at Joanne’s house.

: Hola.

: Entra. ¿Queréis que vaya a buscar a Roy?

: En realidad no. En absoluto.

: Joanne was wearing a long, flowing skirt and red lipstick. Roy was wearing a baseball cap a T-shirt and jeans. We sat down at Joanne’s kitchen table and right away, Joanne took charge of the interview.

: He can hear the words, but he can’t make it out what it is.

: Así, puede oír que alguien está hablando.

: Right, but what it is, he don’t. He can read your lips. My lips, he can read me good.

: Yeah. Yeah. That’s why it’s good to have you here.

: Quiero decir, realmente, Roy, ella quiere hacerte algunas preguntas.

: Lo sé. Lo sé.

: Gracias.

: Roy Harris told me that the morning of the murders, he did see a man running across the street, a block or two from Tardy Furniture. But he also told me that when he saw that man, it was much earlier in the morning and that he was alone in the car. Clemmie wasn’t with him. Roy said he didn’t take Clemmie for a ride until later that morning after he’d seen the man and that when he was in the car with Clemmie, they didn’t see anyone running.

: But she didn’t see nobody running. The only time I’ve seen somebody running is when I was by myself. She wasn’t with me when I’d seen the fellow running. And when I took her, we didn’t see nobody running.

: Nine months or so after the murders, law enforcement told Roy Harris they wanted to talk to him. Roy didn’t know how they’d found him. He figures that somehow, someone must have told someone about the man he’d seen running. Roy said he went down to the police station and just like so many of the other witnesses, he ended up in a room with John Johnson, the investigator for the District Attorney’s office.

: ¿Y qué dijo cuando se conocieron?

: ¿Qué te dijo cuando os conocisteis? Cuando te llevó a la comisaría, ¿qué te dijo?

: He showed me Curtis Flowers’ picture, like a school picture.

: Oh. ¿Y cuántas fotos te mostraron?

: ¿Cuántas fotos te han enseñado?

: Uno.

: Sólo uno.

: Mr. Flowers’ picture. He asked me was that the fellow I’d seen running and I told him no. I told him that wasn’t the fellow.

: Roy Harris said that John Johnson pushed him on this point. Wasn’t it Curtis Flowers he saw and wasn’t Roy in the car with Clemmie when they saw the man?

: And so, he kept on and kept on and kept on. He tried to make me, you know, say you did, you know, she was with me. But I told him she wasn’t.

: Entonces, ¿él siguió interrogando a usted?

: Kept on, kept on, kept on. and I didn’t want to agree with it.

: But eventually, Roy said, he broke down and told John Johnson. “Fine. I saw Curtis Flowers with Clemmie on the morning of the murders.” Roy said he did it because he wanted to get out of there. He just wanted it to be over.

: Tenía un poco de miedo de Johnson.

: ¿Por qué tenías miedo de Johnson?

: Afraid he’d go have somebody do something to me or something like that, you know, because he was trying to get me all messed up anyway. So…

: Oh. Bien.

: ¿Qué crees que podría hacer?

: ¿Qué crees que podría hacer?

: I don’t know. Anything. Aint no telling what.

: Pero tú le tenías miedo.

: Yeah, because he knew what I couldn’t hear good and he was trying to get me in trouble, you know, like you know, by saying the wrong thing, you know, and stuff like that, he’d get me locked up, you know.

: Pero parece que se sintió amenazado.

: Sí, lo hice. Claro que sí.

: I tried to talk to John Johnson about this, but he did not respond to my request for an interview. Roy testified in the first trial that he and Clemmie saw Curtis that day, but after that first trial, Roy Harris went to Curtis’ lawyers and told them that the testimony he’d given was not true.

: After Roy Harris recanted his testimony, the prosecutor, Doug Evans, had a problem. The story of Roy and Clemmie had been one of the strongest pieces of evidence about Curtis’ route at the first trial. Now, that story was falling apart. If Clemmie also changed her story that would be even worse. If that happened., Doug Evans would no longer have a story of Curtis running away from downtown. All he would have would be some stories of Curtis walking around. And so, after Roy changed his story, Doug Evans’ investigator, John Johnson, moved to lock down Clemmie’s story.

: And this thing’s recording. Clemmie, for the sake of the record, my name is John Johnson. I also am [inaudible].

: He conseguido localizar el vídeo que John Johnson grabó de Clemmie Fleming después de que Roy se retractara.

: Today’s date is February the 8th, 1999. We’re in the District Attorney’s office in Winona, Mississippi and we’ve asked you to come in and make another statement to us concerning Curtis Flowers [inaudible].

: Clemie looks young in the video. She’s just 22 then. She’s barely talking above a whisper. She’s wearing white spandex-y shorts and a long-sleeved striped polo shirt. Her hair is straight and down to her ears. She’s wearing silver earrings. She’s in a room with John Johnson and another investigator. Both of the investigators are off camera Clemmie is sitting in a blue office chair and she keeps swiveling left and right.

: [inaudible] ¿a dónde ibas y qué intentabas hacer esa mañana?

: [inaudible].

: John Johnson y el otro investigador llevan a Clemmie a través de toda una historia.

: Muy bien, Clemmie, desde ese momento, cuando lo viste por primera vez, ¿cuáles fueron sus acciones? ¿Qué estaba haciendo?

: Estaba corriendo.

: Bien. ¿En qué dirección?

: Estaba corriendo como hacia el [inaudible].

: Hacia o... De acuerdo. En otras palabras, habría sido lejos de Tardes.

: Mm-hm. Sí.

: De acuerdo.

Throughout the interview. John Johnson and the other investigator keep guiding Clemmie back to the statements she gave at trial. They keep reminding her of what she’d said in the past.

: Creo que en su declaración o testimonio, tenía [inaudible] que corría como si alguien lo persiguiera.

: Mm-hm.

: Luego John Johnson le cuenta a Clemmie por qué querían hacer esta grabación.

: Básicamente, lo que queremos saber esta mañana, Clemmie, el día que viniste e hiciste esta declaración, ¿te llevé a decir algo?

: No.

: ¿Su declaración fue libre y voluntaria?

: Sí.

: ¿Te ofrecí dinero o alguna recompensa o alguna gratitud si hacías la declaración?

: No.

: And also, you know, I didn’t guide you as to the facts of what you saw that morning?

: No.

: Esto es así.

: ¿Fue sincero en su declaración ese día, Clemmie.

: I wouldn’t be lying like that. Mm-hm.

: And you’ve been unfaithful in your testimony. Under oath, you’ve raised your hand and swore to tell the truth. Is that correct?

: I wouldn’t be lying.

: And in fact, you told the truth then, did you not? I think that’s all that we need, Clemmie. We just want to record the fact that, you know, you’ve the truth, that we hadn’t guided you as to what to say, that your statement’s free and voluntary and that, you know, you have not backed away from being a truthful witness.

: Sí.

: Y muchas gracias. Y con esto concluye la declaración.

: I’ve talked to a lot of people who know Clemmie:, her friends, her family, and they all said that despite what Clemmie has told law enforcement and despite Clemmie’s testimony in all six trials, they do not believe that she actually saw Curtis that day.

: I talked to Clemmie’s sister, Mary Ella, who told me that Clemmie couldn’t have seen Curtis Flowers on the day of the murders because, she said, Clemmie was with her the whole day. She said she remembers it because that morning, she and Clemmie had planned to go down to Tardy Furniture together, so that Clemmie could pay her furniture bill. But while they were getting ready to leave, someone came by Mary Ella’s house and told them that there had been a shooting at Tardy Furniture.

: Mary Ella dijo que ella y Clemmie fueron juntas a la escena del crimen para comprobarlo.

: And when we get down there, they had it all taped off and I told Clemmie, I said, “I’m glad we didn’t go down there because we probably would have been, you know, caught up in there,” and she said, “Sure would have.”

: Mary Ella didn’t find out that Clemmie had given a statement to law enforcement until the first trial. Mary Ella wasn’t at the trial. It was being held in Tupelo, about 100 miles away but someone passed along word to Mary Ella that her sister, Clemmie, was up there on the stand, testifying under oath that she saw Curtis on the morning of the murders.

: Mary Ella’s first reaction was to race to the courthouse to tell the jurors exactly what she told me that Clemmie’s story couldn’t possibly be true. But by the time she got there, the trial was almost over and the defense decided not to try to call her as a last-minute witness. Mary Ella did end up testifying for Curtis’ defense in the second trial.

: And it was like they were using me and Clemmie against one another. It like Clemmie’s word against mine and Clemmie won.

: I went to talk to one of Clemmie’s best friends from back then, her cousin, a woman named Latarsha Blissett. Latarsha and Clemmie still live just a block apart. Latarsha lives in a trailer with her husband. It’s in the backyard behind her mother’s house. Latarsha said she remains convinced that Clemmie made up the story and that she did it because she felt pressured by law enforcement and because she thought she might be able to get some money.

: Y Latarsha dijo que la razón por la que piensa esto es por lo que le ocurrió a ella. En 1996, Latarsha tenía 19 años y dijo que un día estaba en el instituto cuando apareció la policía y le dijo que tenía que ir con ellos.

: I was scared, but it was the police, so I’m going to go. I know I aint did nothing wrong because I will never do nothing that gives me no trouble, but I don’t know. I just went. I was just doing what a kid’s got to do.

: Latarsha said she was taken to a police station and put in a room with two investigators. She said one of them was John Johnson. She doesn’t remember who the other person was. She said they asked her about Curtis Flowers, whether she’d ever dated him, whether she knew what kind of shoes he wore, whether she knew anything that would connect Curtis to the murders at Tardy Furniture. She told them no, no and no. But she said they also asked her this other kind of question.

: They were asking me was I trying to buy a mobile home. They asked me if I knew what $30,000 dollars could buy. “If, you know, you’re trying to get a mobile home do you know what, you know, this amount of money could buy?”

: Well, every time they were asking me something, they always would ask me do I know what this certain amount of money could do. So, they didn’t just say, “Well, hey, we’ll give you blah-dy, blah-dy, you go buy that trailer, or we’ll give you…” They didn’t do that, but they ended everything with this money to let me know that it’s on the table. So, I didn’t pick up on that.

: Latarsha said that although the investigators implied that she could get money, they never actually said that if she connected Curtis to the crime, she would get a reward. Latarsha said she didn’t tell them anything because she didn’t know anything, but when she found out that her cousin, Clemmie, had talked to law enforcement and that Clemmie had told them that she had seen Curtis that day, Latarsha did not believe Clemmie’s story. Not at all.

: It was time to go talk to Clemmie. Natalie and I went to see her late one afternoon. Clemmie is now 42. She still lives in her childhood home in Winona. It’s a small, one-story house about a block from where Curtis grew up.

: Hola.

: Hola.

: Clemmie opened the door. It was hot out. She was wearing red shorts and a T-shirt and she was holding a plastic bag of lettuce in one hand. She looked at me with suspicion. She didn’t invite me inside. Our entire conversation took place with her in the doorway, sometimes sort of closing the door a little bit, then opening it a little bit, like she was going to end this conversation at any moment

: Sólo quiero saber cómo ha sido esto para ti.

: I don’t like it. Everytime you look up, somebody’s saying negative stuff and say I lied and why did I lie on him and I got him killed, I’m about to get him get killed and all kinds of negative stuff. And I don’t like it.

: Clemmie me contó más o menos la misma historia que testificó en el juicio sobre haber visto a Curtis huyendo del centro la mañana de los asesinatos, aunque algunos de los detalles habían cambiado. Clemmie me dijo que, en primer lugar, nunca quiso involucrarse en la investigación. Me dijo que nunca se habría presentado por sí misma y que la única razón por la que habló con los investigadores es porque alguien la oyó hablar de ello en el trabajo y la delató.

: Why didn’t you want to tell anybody about it, do you think?

: Becuase I didn’t know was going to get this, you know, this [inaudible] and I had to go to court and, you know, and people criticize you, you know how they…

: ¿Qué importancia crees que tiene lo que tienes que decir?

I don’t know. I ain’t the only one testifying. Yeah, other people testified, so…

: Yeah. Do you have a sense of who’s the most important witness?

: No.

: Sí.

: ¿Quién es ese?

: I don’t… I mean, I think you’re placing him closest to the store, you know.

: Así que. Uh-huh.

: Sí.

: Cuando intenté hacer más preguntas a Clemmie sobre su testimonio y lo que vio, se molestó.

: Entonces, ¿qué pasó después?

: I don’t know. I don’t know. Did you even read it in the paper?

: Bueno, como, yo...

: I know you all saying my statement [and still] because I don’t testify when [inaudible] world with this stuff. [inaudible] I had it happen and I’m not going to let nobody criticize me. Back then, I let you do anything you ever said to me. I ain’t going to do it no more. I ain’t going to let nobody just walk up and shit and me. So, they just like I’m not going to let no body just criticize me. So, I won’t… I just wish that I… This shouldn’t have happened. I hate my [inaudible]. I don’t like it and I just want to live a normal life. I don’t care nothing about it. It had to happen.

: I told Clemmie what I’d heard from her friends and family, how they thought her story about seeing Curtis wasn’t true and how a lot of them figured that she’d been pressured by law enforcement into saying it. Clemmie said all those people had it wrong. She told me that her story is the truth, but she also told me that even if her story wasn’t true, coming forward now and saying that probably wouldn’t help Curtis’ case anyway.

: It ain’t going to help nothing. If I did say it, it ain’t going to help him nothing because you’ve got other people testifying saying they’d seen him. So, what will my testifying help?

: Creo que mucho.

: So, what they want me to do? Tell a lie and say I didn’t see him? I’d seen him and like I can’t erase it make it go away. If it happened, it happened. That’s the truth. So, now you know the truth.

: What do you think you’ll do if there’s a seventh trial?

: You know, I ain’t going to be [inaudible] caring about this stuff. I just wish it will go away. And I ain’t [inaudible]. I ain’t going to go [inaudible].

: You’re not going to do it?

: Mm-mm. I don’t want to and ain’t nobody going to force me. I just ain’t going to do it.

: Clemmie wouldn’t tell me exactly why she would refuse to testify if she was called for another trial and she wouldn’t answer any more questions.

: I was at the end of the route. By the time I was done, I talked to every person who’s still alive, who testified about seeing Curtis Flowers on the morning of the murders. And after having done all that, I thought back on how Doug Evans had presented these witnesses to the jurors, how he described them as reliable, credible, as people with excellent memories, people with no reason to lie.

: Pensé en cómo Doug Evans había hecho hincapié en la cantidad de testigos que había y en cómo sus historias han visto encajar a Curtis. Se suponía que era una prueba condenatoria. Y en el juicio, ciertamente lo fue. Ayudó a que los jurados condenaran a Curtis y lo sentenciaran a muerte. Cuando lo miro ahora, estoy de acuerdo con el fiscal, Doug Evans, en que todos estos testigos se suman a una prueba sólida, pero no a una prueba de que Curtis Flowers anduviera por la ciudad esa mañana.

: Instead, when I look at all these witnesses, all of these people I’d spent so much time with, I see evidence of a different kind, evidence that law enforcement was willing to rely on testimony from people who couldn’t plausibly remember what they saw in any kind of detaile, evidence that law enforcement was willing to pressure people and evidence that so many of these people were just plain scared. So, yes, these witnesses were evidence, but not the kind of evidence the jury had ever heard.

: A continuación, en "En la oscuridad".

: You don’t want to walk in the grass near here.

: Oh, no? What’s there?

: No. You’ve got all kinds of snakes in the grass.

: ¿Serpientes?

: Mm-hm.

: There’s a lot more information about these route witnesses and how some of their accounts contradict each other, how their testimony has changed over the six trials. It’s way more than we could ever get into even five episodes of this podcast, but it’s worth checking out. We have it all on our Web site, inthedarkpodcast.org.

: In the Dark está redactado y producido por mí, Madeleine Baran, productora principal, Samara Freemark, productora, Natalie Jalonski, productor asociado, Rehman Tungekar y los reporteros Parker Yesko y Will Craft. En la oscuridad está editado por Catherine Winter. Los editores web son Dave Mann y Andy Kruse. El redactor jefe de APM Reports. es Chris Worthington. Música original de Gary Meister y Johnny Vince Evans. Este episodio fue mezclado por Verónica Rodríguez y Corey Schreppel.

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