Full Transcript: In the Dark - S2 E2 The Route

In the Dark: S2 E2 The Route

: 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.

: Laatste keer op In the Dark.

: Weet je nog hoe je hoorde dat Curtis was gearresteerd voor de moorden?

: Op de radio. Ik dacht dat het gek was.

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

: Curtis Flowers is ter dood veroordeeld voor vier moorden. Die veroordeling was eigenlijk de zesde keer dat Flowers werd berecht en de zaak.

: 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.

: Als je een man berecht en je gaat zes keer voor dezelfde misdaad, nou, dan is er iets mis met het hele systeem.

: 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.

: In de jaren '60 was het een volledig zwarte school in een zwarte buurt. Maar in 1970 beval de federale regering de stad Winona haar scholen te integreren en blanke en zwarte leerlingen gingen hier samen naar school.

: 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.

: Hallo.

: 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.

: Om de twee weken gaan we.

: Oké.

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

: Kun je hem iets brengen?

: Mm-mm. Als je klaar bent met gefouilleerd worden en alles, kun je net zo goed je kleren uittrekken en daarheen gaan.

: Nou, ze zoeken je daar echt.

: Ja. Je scannen en alles.

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

: Hoeveel denk je dat je hebt uitgegeven?

: Shit, ik kan het niet optellen. Het was ongeveer honderdduizend dollar.

: Oh, mijn god.

: I’m telling you.

: Hoe kon je je dat veroorloven?

: 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.

: In de afgelopen 21 jaar en zes rechtszaken heeft Curtis Flowers elk archetype advocaat gehad: het vader-zoon advocatenteam, de spraakmakende zwarte nationalistische advocaat, de toegewijde openbare verdedigers.

: 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.

: Laat je jezelf aan dat moment denken? Zoals denk je aan hoe het zou zijn als hij...?

: 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.

: Mijn dochter was thuis en ze zei dat het klonk alsof er iets opgeblazen was of zo. Er was een hard geluid en toen ze keek, stond alles in brand. Het brandde overal.

: 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.

: En wat vind je daarvan?

: Wat denk je dat ik ervan vind? Dat iemand het waarschijnlijk in brand heeft gestoken.

: 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.

: Hallo. Bent u dominee Forrest?

: Ja, dat ben ik.

: Pastoor Forrest had het jaar daarvoor een beroerte gehad. Dus, Rosie deed het meeste praten.

: Maar we probeerden in de hele familie te kijken of we geld moesten inzamelen, advocaten moesten nemen, een advocaat voor hem moesten zoeken. Moeten we... We gingen gewoon praten en uitzoeken wat we konden doen om Curtis te helpen.

: [onhoorbaar]

: Ja. Wees er gewoon voor hem.

: 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.

: Hij moet zich ontspannen. Hij moet ontspannen, afkoelen.

: Van wie was de boodschap?

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

: En, heb je die vergadering nog gehad?

: Hebben we het gedaan? Nee.

: 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.

: Heb je eerder gehoord dat zoiets in Winona gebeurt?

: 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.

: Ik was in Mississippi om uit te zoeken wat er aan de hand was in de zaak van Curtis Flowers om uit te zoeken waarom de aanklager, Doug Evans, de zaak zes keer had berecht. Ik besloot mijn verslaggeving te beginnen met het bekijken van het bewijs dat Doug Evans aan de jury's presenteerde in die zes processen.

: Zoals ik het zag, kwam de zaak tegen Curtis Flowers neer op drie hoofdzaken: de route die Curtis volgens hem liep op de ochtend van de moorden, het pistool dat Curtis volgens hem gebruikte om de vier mensen in de winkel te vermoorden en de bekentenissen die Curtis aan zijn celgenoten aflegde. De route, het wapen, de bekentenissen. Ik besloot te beginnen met de route.

: Ik ging met onze producer, Natalie, om het zelf te bekijken.

: 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.

: Oké.

: So, let’s start walking.

: Naar rechts, eigenlijk.

: 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.

: Hij liep naar de parkeerplaats net buiten de fabriek en stal een pistool uit het handschoenenkastje van een auto.

: Then he’s going to walk home.

: Daarna liep hij helemaal naar huis, terug naar de westkant van de stad, zijn buurman.

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

: Curtis was een paar minuten bij hem thuis. Toen vertrok hij weer, deze keer om naar Tardy Furniture te gaan. Tardy Furniture was helemaal aan de andere kant van de stad, aan de kant van de stad waar Curtis net was. Dus ging hij terug naar het oosten om naar de winkel te gaan.

: We’re crossing another busy street.

: Hij liep blok na blok huizen voorbij en toen hij dichter bij Tardy Furniture kwam, begon hij bedrijven te passeren: een autoschadezaak, een stomerij. Hij kwam aan bij Tardy Furniture, liep naar binnen en vermoordde alle vier de mensen daar. Toen liep hij de voordeur uit en ging naar het westen om terug naar huis te gaan.

: Onderweg stopte hij bij een supermarkt op Highway 51 om chips en een sixpack bier te kopen.

: Dit is zo'n lange wandeling.

: Dat is het echt.

: 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.

: Voor de juryleden kwamen deze getuigen geloofwaardig over, als mensen die het juiste deden. Doug Evans vertelde hen dat wat de getuigen zeiden, al hun individuele verhalen, in elkaar pasten. Het klopte als één verhaal, één route, een duidelijk, overtuigend verhaal over een man die een moord wilde plegen.

: 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.

: Dat is vertrouwelijk.

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

: Het is vertrouwelijk. We mogen daar niet over praten.

: Oh. Hoezo?

: 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.

: Daarheen lopen.

: Teruglopen?

: Ja.

: En heb je iets tegen hem gezegd?

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

: Maar het werd al snel duidelijk dat Bojack het soort man is die veel zegt, het soort man dat gewoon graag verhalen vertelt.

: There’s a lot that I know.

: Bijvoorbeeld, Bojack vertelde me dat ISIS in Winona was.

: ISIS. ISIS was hier.

: Zoals hier in Winona?

: Hier, in Winona.

: En die ene keer dat de rivier in Winona plotseling van richting veranderde en achteruit begon te stromen.

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

: En hij vertelde me ook dat hij zich zorgen maakte dat mijn microfoon berichten naar de Russen zou sturen.

: 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.

: Ik mag het niet zeggen.

: Denk ik.

: 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.

: Hoi, Hoe gaat het met je?

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

: Oh, ja.

: 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.

: Je was bezorgd dat er iets aan de hand was met je kinderen, hè?

: Hij zei dat hij me die dag op het bureau wilde spreken.

: 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.

: Toen ik daar aankwam, begon hij over de Flower zaak.

: En hebben ze je gevraagd of je Curtis een dag van de moorden hebt gezien, of...?

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

: Mary Jeanette zei dat ze de onderzoeker vertelde dat ze zich herinnerde dat ze Curtis op de ochtend van de moorden, zeven maanden eerder, voorbij zag lopen op het trottoir.

: 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 heeft 21 jaar lang bij elk proces van Curtis Flowers moeten getuigen. Ze zei dat dit alles haar familie tegen haar heeft gekeerd. Ze zei dat haar familie gelooft dat Curtis onschuldig is en dat ze denken dat ze naar de politie is gegaan met een verzonnen verhaal zodat ze de $30.000 beloning kon krijgen die in de zaak was uitgeloofd.

: 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.

: Dus je eigen familie beschuldigde je ervan een leugenaar te zijn.

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

: We vonden een andere getuige, Danny Joe Lot, liggend op een bankje voor een Dollar General Store, zijn armen over zijn ogen geslagen om de middagzon tegen te houden.

: Ben jij Danny Joe Lot?

: Zeker weten.

: Geweldig.

: 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.

: Ze hebben me.

: Wie heeft je te pakken?

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

: En ze zeiden dat je in de auto moest stappen.

: Ja.

: 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.

: Ik bleef praten met getuigen en naarmate ik dat deed, werd het steeds verdachter, niet van de getuigen maar van het onderzoek. Sommige mensen leken nogal geschrokken. Ze spraken met me door hordeuren of uit autoramen.

: 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.

: Weet je [onhoorbaar] om daarover te praten.

: Dat zijn vrouw niet wil dat hij daarover praat.

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

: Toen ik hem vroeg waarom, zei hij dat zijn vrouw zich onder druk gezet voelde door de politie.

: Ze werd onder druk gezet om te praten [onhoorbaar].

: 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.

: Ze wilden alles.

: 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.

: In the Dark wordt ondersteund door Quip.

: When you think of the things you do every day, brushing your teeth probably isn’t top of mind, but for something that’s so important to your health, it should be. That’s why Quip wants to help you brush better. For starters, Quip is an electric toothbrush that’s a fraction of the cost of bulkier brushes, while still packing just the right amount of vibrations to help clean your teeth. Quip’s built-in timeer helps you clean for the dentist-recommended two minutes with guiding pulses that remind you when to switch sides.

: Next, Quip subscription plans are for your health, not just convenience. They deliver new brush heads on a dentist-recommended schedule every three months for just $5, including free shipping worldwide. Let Quip do the thinking for you when it comes to your teeth. Quip starts at just $25 and if you go to getquip.com/dark right now, you’ll get your first refill pack free with a Quip electric toothbrush. That’s your first refill pack ree at getquip.com/dark, spelled G-E-T-Q-U-I-P.com/dark.

: Ed McChristian woont in een net stenen huis met één verdieping. Toen ik aankwam, stond er een airconditioner in het raam te blazen.

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

: Ed McChristian droeg een blauwe spijkerbroek en een T-shirt dat steeds meer doorweekt raakte van het zweet terwijl we in tuinstoelen zaten op een strookje beton voor zijn huis. In zijn rechterhand hield hij een klein blauw washandje dat hij om de minuut of zo naar zijn hoofd bracht om het zweet af te vegen. En dan vouwde hij het blauwe washandje netjes op en drukte het op zijn spijkerbroek om het af te drogen.

: Ik stelde Ed McChristian al mijn gebruikelijke vragen. Hij vertelde me hoe hij Curtis Flowers langs zijn huis zag lopen op de dag van de moorden. Hij vertelde mij dat hij geen contact had opgenomen met de politie om hen hierover te vertellen, dat de politie contact met hem opnam, dat hij een verklaring gaf aan John Johnson op het politiebureau. Ed McChristian had ongeveer een maand na de moorden met John Johnson gesproken. In de rechtbank getuigde Ed McChristian altijd dat hij zeker was van wat hij zag, Curtis Flowers die op de ochtend van 16 juli 1996 langs zijn huis liep.

: 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.

: Hoe zeker ben je dat het die ochtend was dat je Curtis zag.

: 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.

: Ze hadden het voor me opgeschreven. Dus ik hoefde er alleen maar heen te gaan en ze stelden me de vraag en ik gaf antwoord.

: 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?

: Geen

: 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.

: Ze zeiden alleen maar dat ze me elke keer zouden dagvaarden.

: 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.

: Ze vertrokken en toen ze de hoek omreden en een blok of twee verwijderd waren van Tardy Furniture, zagen ze verderop een man over een veld rennen, in westelijke richting, alsof hij wegliep uit de richting van Downtown. Clemmie herkende hem meteen. Het was haar buurman, 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.

: Weet je toevallig waar Roy Harris woont?

: Ik heb geen idee.

: Oké. Oké.

: Weet je waar Roy Harris woont?

: Who’s that?

: Roy Harris.

: Roy Harris. I can’t place him.

: Oké. Weet je toevallig waar Roy Harris woont? Nee. Oké.

: Uiteindelijk stopten we in een café en vroegen de dames van het lunchbuffet of zij wisten waar we hem konden vinden.

: 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, is dat hem daar?

: De kassier wees naar een oudere man die met een vrouw aan een tafel zat. Ze waren aan het lunchen. Het waren Roy Harris en zijn vriendin, Joanne Young.

: I don’t want to interrupt your lunch.

: [Ga zitten.

: Leuk je te ontmoeten. Hoi.

: Leuk je te ontmoeten. Mijn naam is 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.

: Hoi.

: Kom binnen. Willen jullie allemaal dat ik naar Roy ga om hem te zoeken?

: Eigenlijk niet. Helemaal niet.

: 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.

: Dus, hij kan horen dat er iemand praat.

: 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.

: Ik bedoel, echt, Roy, ze wil je wat vragen stellen.

: Ik weet het. Ik weet het.

: Bedankt.

: 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.

: Wat zei hij toen jullie elkaar ontmoetten?

: Wat zei hij toen jullie elkaar ontmoetten? Toen hij je naar het politiebureau bracht, wat zei hij toen tegen je?

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

: Oh. En hoeveel foto's hebben ze je laten zien?

: Hoeveel foto's hebben ze je laten zien?

: Eén.

: Eentje maar.

: 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.

: Dus, hij bleef je ondervragen?

: 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.

: Ik was bang voor Johnson.

: Waarom was je bang voor 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. Oké.

: Wat dacht je dat hij zou doen?

: Wat denk je dat hij zou doen?

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

: Maar je was bang voor hem.

: 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.

: Maar het klinkt alsof je je bedreigd voelde.

: Ja, dat deed ik. Zeker weten.

: 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].

: Ik kon de video opsporen die John Johnson nam van Clemmie Fleming nadat Roy zich had herroepen.

: 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.

: [Waar ging je heen en wat probeerde je die ochtend te doen?

: [onhoorbaar].

: John Johnson en de andere onderzoeker nemen Clemmie een heel verhaal mee.

: Goed, Clemmie, vanaf dat moment, toen je hem voor het eerst zag, wat waren zijn acties ? Wat was hij aan het doen?

: Hij was aan het rennen.

: Oké. In welke richting?

: Hij rende naar de [onhoorbaar].

: Naar of... Oké. Met andere woorden, het zou weg zijn van Tardies.

: Mm-hm. Ja.

: Oké.

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.

: In uw verklaring of getuigenis had u [onhoorbaar] dat hij rende alsof iemand achter hem aan zat.

: Mm-hm.

: Dan vertelt John Johnson aan Clemmie waarom ze deze opname wilden maken.

: Wat we vanmorgen willen weten, Clemmie, de dag dat je binnenkwam en deze verklaring aflegde, heb ik je ertoe gebracht iets te zeggen?

: Nee.

: Was uw verklaring vrij en vrijwillig?

: Ja.

: Heb ik je geld aangeboden of een beloning of enige dankbaarheid als je de verklaring zou afleggen?

: Nee.

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

: Nee.

: Het gaat zo verder.

: Was je eerlijk in je verklaring die dag, 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.

: Ja.

: En hartelijk dank. En daarmee is de verklaring beëindigd.

: 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 zei dat zij en Clemmie samen naar de plaats delict gingen om het te controleren.

: 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.

: En Latarsha zei dat de reden dat ze dit denkt is vanwege wat haar is overkomen. In 1996 was Latarsha 19 jaar oud en ze zei dat ze op een dag op school was toen de politie opdook en haar vertelde dat ze mee moest komen.

: 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.

: Hoi.

: Hoi.

: 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

: Ik wil gewoon weten hoe dit voor jou is geweest.

: 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 vertelde me min of meer hetzelfde verhaal als ze in de rechtbank getuigde over het feit dat ze Curtis zag weglopen van de Downtown op de ochtend van de moorden, hoewel sommige details waren veranderd. Clemmie vertelde me dat ze nooit bij het onderzoek betrokken wilde worden. Ze vertelde me dat ze nooit uit zichzelf naar voren zou zijn gekomen en dat de enige reden dat ze met de rechercheurs heeft gepraat is dat iemand haar op het werk heeft horen praten en haar heeft aangegeven.

: 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…

: Hoe belangrijk denk je dat het is wat je te zeggen hebt?

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?

: Nee.

: Ja.

: Wie is dat?

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

: Zo. Uh-huh.

: Ja.

: Toen ik Clemmie meer vragen wilde stellen over haar getuigenis en wat ze zag, raakte ze geïrriteerd.

: Wat gebeurde er daarna?

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

: Nou, zoals, ik...

: 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?

: Ik denk veel.

: 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.

: Ik dacht aan hoe Doug Evans had benadrukt hoeveel getuigen er waren en hoe hun verhalen Curtis allemaal in elkaar pasten. Het moest vernietigend bewijs zijn. En tijdens het proces was dat zeker het geval. Het hielp de jury om Curtis te veroordelen en ter dood te veroordelen. Als ik er nu naar kijk, ben ik het eens met de aanklager, Doug Evans, dat al deze getuigen wel degelijk bewijs opleveren, maar geen bewijs dat Curtis Flowers die ochtend in de stad rondliep.

: 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.

: Volgende keer in In the Dark.

: 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.

: Slangen?

: 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 wordt gerapporteerd en geproduceerd door mij, Madeleine Baran, Senior Producer, Samara Freemark, Producer, Natalie Jalonski, Associate Producer, Rehman Tungekar en verslaggevers, Parker Yesko en Will Craft. In the Dark is geredigeerd door Catherine Winter. Webredacteuren zijn Dave Mann en Andy Kruse. De hoofdredacteur van APM Reports. is Chris Worthington. Originele muziek door Gary Meister en Johnny Vince Evans. Deze aflevering is gemixt door Veronica Rodriguez en Corey Schreppel.

Automatisch audio naar tekst omzetten met Sonix