完整的文字记录。在黑暗中 - S2 E2 路线

在黑暗中: S2 E2 路线

: 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.

: 最后一次在《黑暗中》。

: 你还记得你是如何听说柯蒂斯因谋杀罪被逮捕的吗？

: 在广播中。我认为这很疯狂。

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

: 柯蒂斯-弗劳尔斯因四项极刑谋杀罪被判处死刑。这次定罪实际上标志着弗劳尔斯已经第六次接受审判，并且该案件。

: 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.

: 如果你审判一个人，而你因同样的罪行去了六次，那么，整个系统就有问题了。

: 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.

: 早在20世纪60年代，这是一所全黑的学校，它位于一个黑人社区。但在1970年，联邦政府命令维诺纳市整合其学校，白人和黑人学生开始在这里一起上学。

: 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.

: 你好。

: 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.

: 每两个星期，我们就去一次。

: 好的。

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

: 你能给他带来什么吗？

: 当你每次去的时候都要被搜身的时候，你还不如不穿衣服，继续去那里。

: 嗯，他们真的在那里搜索你。

: 是的。扫描你和所有的东西。

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

: 你认为你花了多少钱？

: 妈的，好像我不能把它加起来。好像有十几万美金。

: 哦，我的天啊。

: I’m telling you.

: 你怎么能负担得起呢？

: 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.

: 在过去的21年和6次审判中，柯蒂斯-弗劳尔斯拥有各种典型的律师：父子法律团队、高调的黑人民族主义律师、专注的公设辩护人。

: 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.

: 你会让自己思考那一刻吗？比如你是否想到如果他......那会是什么样子？

: 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.

: 我女儿在家，她说听起来像是什么东西被炸毁了之类的。有一个巨大的噪音，当她看时，所有东西都在燃烧。它只是到处都在燃烧。

: 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.

: 你又是如何看待这个问题的呢？

: 你认为我怎么想的？那可能是有人放火烧了。

: 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.

: 嗨，你是福瑞斯特牧师吗？

: 是的，我是。

: 福雷斯特牧师在前一年中风了。因此，罗西做了大部分的谈话。

: 但我们想做的是在整个家庭中尝试看看我们是否需要筹集资金，找律师，为他找律师。我们是否需要......我们只是要讨论并找出我们能做什么来帮助柯蒂斯。

: [听不清]

: 是的。就在他身边。

: 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.

: 他需要放松。他需要放松，冷静下来。

: 这条信息是谁发来的？

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

: 那么，你们还有那个会议吗？

: 我们做到了吗？没有。

: 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.

: 你以前听说过在威诺纳发生过这样的事情吗？

: 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.

: 我在密西西比州是为了了解柯蒂斯-弗劳尔斯一案的情况，以弄清检察官道格-埃文斯为何对该案进行了六次审判。我决定在我的报告中，首先看一下道格-埃文斯在这六次审判中向陪审员提出的证据。

: 在我看来，对柯蒂斯-弗劳尔斯的指控主要有三点：他说柯蒂斯在案发当天早上走过的路线，他说柯蒂斯用来谋杀商店里四个人的枪，以及他说柯蒂斯对狱友的供词。路线、枪、供词。我决定从路线开始。

: 我和我们的制片人娜塔莉一起去亲自查看。

: 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.

: 好的。

: So, let’s start walking.

: 基本上是向右转。

: 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.

: 他走到工厂外的停车场，从一辆汽车的手套箱里偷了一把枪。

: Then he’s going to walk home.

: 然后，他一路走回家，回到镇上的西边，他的邻居。

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

: 柯蒂斯在他家待了几分钟。然后，他又离开了，这次是去了塔迪家具公司。塔迪家具公司一直在镇子的另一边，就在柯蒂斯刚才所在的镇子的一边。于是，他又向东走去，去了那家店。

: We’re crossing another busy street.

: 他走过一个又一个街区的房子，当他接近塔迪家具公司时，他开始经过一些企业：一家汽车修理厂，一家干洗店。他来到塔迪家具公司，走了进去，把那里的四个人都杀了。然后，他走出前门，向西走去，回到了家里。

: 在路上，他在51号公路上的一家便利店停下来，买了薯片和六包啤酒。

: 这是个漫长的步行过程。

: 它真的是。

: 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.

: 对陪审员来说，这些证人是可信的，是做正确事情的人。道格-埃文斯告诉他们，证人所说的，他们所有的个人故事，都是合在一起的。它作为一个故事、一条路线是有意义的，是一个关于一个人走路去谋杀的清晰、令人信服的故事。

: 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.

: 那是保密的。

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

: 它是保密的。我们不应该谈论这个问题。

: 哦。怎么会呢？

: 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.

: 走到那里。

: 走回去？

: 是的。

: 那你有没有对他说什么？

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

: 但很快就发现，波杰克是那种说一不二的人，是那种只喜欢讲故事的人。

: There’s a lot that I know.

: 例如，波杰克告诉我，ISIS在威诺纳。

: ISIS。ISIS在这里。

: 像在维诺纳这里？

: 在这里，在威诺纳。

: 还有那一次，维诺纳的河流突然调转方向，开始倒流。

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

: 而且，他还告诉我，他担心我的麦克风可能会向俄罗斯人传递信息。

: 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.

: 我不方便说。

: 我猜。

: 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.

: 嗨，你好吗？

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

: 哦，是的。

: 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.

: 你担心你的孩子出了问题，你认为呢？

: 他只是说说他想在那天的车站和我谈谈，你知道。

: 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.

: 所以，当我到了那里，他提出了关于花的案件。

: 那么，他们有没有问过你，比如你在谋杀案发生的当天有没有看到柯蒂斯，或者......？

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

: 玛丽-珍妮特说，她告诉调查员，她记得在七个月前的谋杀案发生的早晨，她看到柯蒂斯在人行道上从她身边走过。

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

: 21年来，玛丽-珍妮特-弗莱明不得不在柯蒂斯-弗劳尔斯的每次审判中作证。她说，所有这些都使她的家人与她反目。她说，她的家人相信柯蒂斯是无辜的，他们认为她向警方编造了一个故事，以便获得本案的$3万奖金。

: 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.

: 所以，你自己的家人指责你是个骗子。

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

: 我们发现另一名证人丹尼-乔-洛特（Danny Joe Lot）躺在一家Dollar General商店门口的长椅上，他的双臂耷拉在眼睛上，挡住了下午的阳光。

: 你是Danny Joe Lot吗？

: 当然是。

: 很好。

: 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.

: 他们抓住了我。

: 谁抓住了你？

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

: 他们还叫你上车。

: 是的。

: 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.

: 我不断地与目击者交谈，随着我的交谈，变得越来越可疑，不是对目击者，而是对调查的怀疑。有些人似乎有点吓坏了。他们通过纱门和我说话，或者从车窗里出来。

: 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.

: 你知道[inaudible]要谈这个问题。

: 他的妻子不希望他谈论这个问题。

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

: 当我问他为什么时，他说他的妻子感到受到执法部门的压力。

: 她被逼着说话[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.

: 他们什么都想要。

: 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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: 埃德-麦克里斯蒂安住在一栋整洁的单层砖房里。当我走过去的时候，窗外有一台空调在轰鸣。

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

: 埃德-麦克克里斯蒂安穿着蓝色牛仔裤和一件T恤，当我们坐在他家门前一小块水泥地上的草坪椅上时，汗水越来越多地浸透了他的T恤。他的右手拿着一块蓝色的小毛巾，每隔一分钟左右，他就会把毛巾举到头上，擦掉流下来的汗水。然后，他将蓝色毛巾整齐地折叠起来，压在他的牛仔裤上，把它擦干。

: 我问了埃德-麦克里斯蒂安所有的常规问题。他告诉我，在谋杀案发生的那天，他是如何看到柯蒂斯-弗劳尔斯从他家门口走过的。他告诉我，他没有与执法部门取得联系，告诉他们这件事，执法部门与他取得了联系，他在警察局向约翰-约翰逊作了陈述。艾德-麦克克里斯蒂安在谋杀案发生后一个月左右曾与约翰-约翰逊交谈。在法庭上，埃德-麦克克里斯蒂安总是作证说，他确信他所看到的，柯蒂斯-弗劳尔斯在1996年7月16日上午从他家门口走过。

: 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.

: 你有多确定你是在那天早上看到柯蒂斯的。

: 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.

: 他们把它写在了一个垫子上给我。因此，我所要做的就是去那里，他们问我问题，我回答。

: 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?

: 没有

: 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.

: 他们所做的一切，他们会告诉我，他们每次都会传唤我。

: 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.

: 他们离开了，当他们开车到拐角处，离塔迪家具公司大约一两个街区时，他们发现前面有一个人，正穿过一片田野，向西跑去，好像是从市中心的方向跑过去的。克莱米一眼就认出了他。那是她的邻居，柯蒂斯-弗劳尔斯。

: 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.

: 你是否碰巧知道罗伊-哈里斯住在哪里？

: 我不知道。

: 好的。好的。

: 你知道罗伊-哈里斯住在哪里吗？

: Who’s that?

: 罗伊-哈里斯。

: Roy Harris. I can’t place him.

: 好的。 你知道罗伊-哈里斯住在哪里吗？不知道，好吧。

: 最后，我们停在一家咖啡馆里，问负责自助午餐的女士们是否知道在哪里可以找到他。

: 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?

: 哦，那是他吗？

: 收银员指着一个和一个女人坐在一张桌子上的年长男子。他们正在吃午餐。那是罗伊-哈里斯和他的女朋友乔安-杨。

: I don’t want to interrupt your lunch.

: [听不清]坐下来[听不清]。

: 很高兴见到你。 你好。

: 很高兴见到你。 我的名字是乔安。

: 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.

: 你好。

: 进来吧。你们都想让我去找罗伊并找到他吗？

: 实际上没有。 一点也不。

: 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.

: 所以，他能听到有人在说话。

: 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.

: 我是说，真的，罗伊，她想问你一些问题。

: 我知道。 我知道。

: 谢谢。

: 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.

: 那么，你们见面时他说了什么？

: 你们见面时他说了什么？当他把你带到警察局时，他对你说了什么？

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

: 哦。那他们给你看了多少照片？

: 他们给你看了多少照片？

: 一。

: 只有一个。

: 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.

: 那么，他他一直在询问你？

: 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.

: 我有点害怕约翰逊。

: 你为什么害怕约翰逊？

: 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…

: 哦。 好的。

: 你认为他可能会做什么？

: 你认为他可能会做什么？

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

: 但你却害怕他。

: 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.

: 但听起来你感觉受到了威胁。

: 是的，我做到了。 我当然这么做了。

: 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].

: 我设法找到了约翰-约翰逊在罗伊翻供后拍摄的克莱米-弗莱明的录像。

: 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.

: [听不清]你要去哪里，那天早上你想做什么？

: [听不清]。

: 约翰-约翰逊和另一位调查员带着克莱米听了一整个故事。

: 好吧，克莱米，从那一刻起，当你第一次看到他时，他的行动是什么？他在做什么？

: 他在跑步。

: 好的，在哪个方向？

: 他就像朝着[听不清]的方向跑。

: 好吧，换句话说，应该是远离Tardies。

: 嗯，嗯。是的。

: 好的。

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.

: 我想在你的陈述或证词中，你有[听不清]他在跑，好像有人在追他。

: 嗯，嗯。

: 然后约翰-约翰逊告诉克莱米，他们为什么要做这个录音。

: 基本上，我们今天早上想知道的是，克莱米，在你进来做这个声明的那天，我有没有引导你说什么？

: 没有。

: 你的声明是自由和自愿的吗？

: 是的。

: 如果你愿意发表声明，我有没有给你钱或任何奖励或任何感激之情？

: 没有。

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

: 没有。

: 它是这样发展的。

: 你那天的陈述是否属实，克莱米。

: 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.

: 是的。

: 非常感谢你们。发言到此结束。

: 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.

: 玛丽-艾拉说她和克莱米一起去犯罪现场查看。

: 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.

: 拉塔莎说，她之所以这样想，是因为发生在她身上的事情。早在1996年，拉塔莎19岁，她说有一天她在高中，警察出现了，告诉她需要跟他们走。

: 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.

: 你好。

: 你好。

: 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

: 我只是想知道这对你来说是什么样子。

: 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.

: 克莱米告诉我，她在法庭上作证时所说的关于在谋杀案发生的那天早上看到柯蒂斯从市中心逃跑的故事大致相同，尽管有些细节已经改变。克莱米告诉我，她一开始就没想过要参与调查。她告诉我，她自己是不会站出来的，她与调查人员交谈的唯一原因是有人在工作中无意中听到了她的谈话，并告发了她。

: 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…

: 你甚至认为你要说的东西有多重要？

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?

: 没有。

: 是的。

: 那是谁？

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

: 所以。嗯，嗯。

: 是的。

: 当我试图向克莱米问更多关于她的证词和她所看到的问题时，她变得很恼火。

: 那么，之后又发生了什么？

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

: 嗯，就像，我...

: 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?

: 我觉得很有道理。

: 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.

: 我想到了道格-埃文斯是如何强调有多少证人，以及他们的故事是如何将柯蒂斯的故事合在一起的。这本应是令人震惊的证据。而在审判中，这当然是。它有助于引导陪审员给柯蒂斯定罪并判处他死刑。当我现在看时，我同意检察官道格-埃文斯的观点，即所有这些证人加起来确实是确凿的证据，但不是柯蒂斯-弗劳尔斯那天早上在城里走动的证据。

: 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.

: 下一次在《黑暗中》节目中，我们将看到。

: 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.

: 蛇？

: 嗯，嗯。

: 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.

: 黑暗中》由我、高级制片人马德琳-巴兰、制片人萨马拉-弗莱马克、副制片人娜塔莉-贾隆斯基、副制片人雷曼-通格卡尔和记者帕克-耶斯科、威尔-卡夫特报道和制作。黑暗中》的编辑是Catherine Winter。网络编辑是Dave Mann和Andy Kruse。APM报告的主编。是克里斯-沃辛顿。原创音乐由Gary Meister和Johnny Vince Evans制作。本集由Veronica Rodriguez和Corey Schreppel混音。

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