He is aiming to get bail, which is rare in capital murder cases. Wiilie Hemphill passed away in Bryan, Texas. Her sister says she was in the house with her and not where she said she was.. 4). His age is 79. The answer was yes many, many times. It takes no imagination at all to imagine Marcus Presley committing a crime like thatwe have the video from the pawn shop. If youve listened toIn the Darkor watchedWrong Manon the Starz channel, you either came away convinced that Curtis Flowers didnt kill four people in cold blood back in 1996 or you werent paying attention. Marcus Presley, the gunman in the Alabama crime spree, was staring up at Ali from among the six photos in the lineup. Resides in Greenwood, MS. Hallmon has since admitted he lied. The day in photos. Sarah Warnock and Jerry Mitchell/Clarion Ledger, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. And there he was. The justices wrote that it was as strong a prima facie case of racial discrimination as we have ever seen in the context of a Batson challenge. Willie James Hemphill Obituary. "We have never had any evidence that showed anything other than this defendant's guilt," Evans said. Marcus Presley sometimes accompanied by LaSamuel Gamble had committed a string of robberies in 1996 in and around Birmingham, with the same modus operandi. Search for Roberto Thorpe Living on Prison Blvd in Sparta, GA. Get started for free to find contact info for nearly any adult in the U.S. Includes Address(1) Phone(2) Email(1) See Results. At a hearing, the attorney generals office told the judge that prosecutors knew of no such gun. He spent 11 days in jail before authorities released him. You said that was an airtight alibi we talked to Twanda and she said she wasnt with you that day., Hemphill: They released me based on that. Hemphill said he was wearing his Filas when in walked into the Sheriffs Department. 0 Reputation Score Range. … A bunch of lies., Asked about Hallmons recantation, District Attorney Doug Evans, who has prosecuted Flowers in all six trials, said, Thats why the judge instructs the jury that a jailhouse informant is not very reliable, because they can change their statements very easily, for any reason. His father had, for just a few months, been the first sheriff in the county, but returned to farming his land. We went to boot camp together., The officers denial dont make me mad, he said. But the investigative file turned over to Flowers defense attorneys didnt mention the possible link. December 6, 1948 August 11, 2018. Curtis Flowers is on Mississippis death row, convicted of the murders after six trials, but his lawyers, APM Reports In the Dark podcast, the Starz TV program The Wrong Man and others have raised questions about his guilt. View More. What are we supposed to think? He freely admitted that he had been a suspect and even says that, although innocent, he would have made a more convincing suspect than Curtis. View Willie Hemphill results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. Visitation will be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m . Follow him onFacebookandTwitter. The show revealed that the district attorneys office bullied and threatened people into lying on the witness stand. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. Who was he? So, if Curtis didnt do this terrible deed, who did? "After a short time, we realized that he didn't know anything about the case.". <a . They have also lived in Franklin, NC and North Fort Myers, FL. View contact information: phones, addresses, emails and networks. "They were investigating that intently back then. The podcast, which uncovered evidence used by Flowers to get his conviction overturned, spoke with witness Clemmie Fleming. Yes and no. Just after the murders, police arrested and jailed him as a suspect, but then let him go. The fourth and fifth trials ended with hung juries. Willie James Hemphill was confronted in an Indianapolis courthouse last week, 23 years after police deemed him an initial suspect but later pursued leads against Flowers. Appendix III: List of Soldiers by Name Updated February 22, 2005 War of 1812 Discharge Certificates Appendix I: List of Units and Subunits Appendix II: List of Company/Detachment Commanders Appendix III: List of Soldiers by Name Appendix IV: List of Soldiers by Unit Appendix III: List of Soldiers by Name [table striped="true" responsive="true"]NameYearRegimentCompanyAbbey, Edward17951st . The second season of the In the Dark podcast is about the case of Curtis Flowers, who was tried six times for the same crime. Curtis Flowers was raised in a loving home by a gospel-singing father and a mother known for her culinary and entrepreneurial abilities. LOW HIGH. Ive been confused of the day from the beginning. Back in 1996, there had even been speculation in the media that the crimes could be connected, and investigators had told the local paper they were looking into it. Why was he questioned? Free this man. Menu. "If he's guilty, he's guilty.". The presence of Presley in the lineup raised some questions about the testimony of law enforcement witnesses who'd said under oath that Presley was never a suspect in the Tardy case. But maybe she didnt see anyone at all. Their size was a.380. Nationwide News Pty Ltd 2023. Willie James Hemphill Phone Numbers (662) ***-4391 It was June 21 just an hour before the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Curtis Flowers' conviction and reporters for In the Dark had intercepted Hemphill at a courthouse in Indianapolis. So, maybe Curtis didnt steal the gun after all. Law enforcement had interviewed a different suspect with a violent criminal history, Willie James Hemphill a fact which was not disclosed to the defense. "Yeah we was leaving. Willie James Hemphill was detained for 11 days following the Hardy Furniture murders and wore the same brand of shoes as the bloody footprints found at the scene. Only now, a new name has surfaced. Hemphill seemed surprised when reminded that he'd told In the Dark in June 2018 that he was with an old friend named Twanda Woods. Armstrong said a law enforcement officer told him the gun had been sent to the state Crime Lab, determining this .380 handgun wasnt the murder weapon. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. Willie Headen; Willie James Lyons; Willie Love; Willie Mabon; Willie Smith; Willie Trice; Willie Williams; After nearly 23 years locked up, Curtis Flowers has a chance to get out on bail if his lawyers can convince the judge to rule in his favor. Search by Name. 1. Current Address: EHZR Hannah Dr, Rock Hill, SC. Hemphills name came up briefly in Flowers 2010 trial. Other facts may help explain why Hemphill initially was a suspect: The shoes he told In the Dark that he was wearing when he was questioned by investigators on July 21, 1996 Fila Grant Hill high-tops are the same type of sneaker that had left bloody footprints at the scene of the murders five days earlier. He told the Commonwealth, I think these (APM Reports) folks are just coming up with anything they can to discredit the case. Share to Pinterest. The ordeal of Curtis Flowers screams for correction. Email Address: w XMLS @yahoo.com +1 email. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008); The Social Network (2010) Despite raising earthshaking doubts about the justice system, the show ultimately conforms to the systems logic that crime, denuded of context, must be solved and punished. Curtis Flowers, as any prison guard who has ever worked with him can tell you, has no demons. Police received a call about the murders at 10:21 a.m. He's also targeted women in general and often women carrying purses. Sure, onceIn the Dark is over the heat will diminish slightly. In The Dark was clearly righteous in exonerating a black man condemned by a ludicrously unjust system. Doug Evans, the district attorney who prosecuted Flowers in all six trials, has declined to be interviewedby APM Reports and has not returned calls from the Clarion Ledger. "It just kind of jumped out," Ali said. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window). Born in 2 Jun 1941 and died in 27 May 2008 Gaffney, South Carolina Willie James Hemphill If the state Supreme Court were to order a seventh trial for Flowers, the district attorney would face a difficult task, Saums said. They also discovered an unfired .380 bullet, which might suggest the gun jammed. Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh has been sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife and son. He allegedly committed robberies to fund a drug habit. Since police, sheriff's deputies, jailers and highway patrol investigators work for the state, if they turn up anything that casts doubt on the defendant's guilt, the prosecutor must hand it over to the defense. Green is a reporter in Toronto. The two of them walked the same school halls from first grade through high school, he said. On 03/12/2020 Willie Hemphill filed a Prisoner - Other Prisoner lawsuit against Warden. He has been behind bars ever since. But he never cut ties with Winona, where his grandmother remained and where he committed a slew of small-time thefts in the years before and after the Tardy Furniture murders, according to public records. So, if Curtis Flowers isnt guilty, who is? Store employees were threatened with death and forced to lie on the floor. Obituaries Section. At the time of his first known arrest, in 1990, he was an 18-year-old high school dropout bouncing back and forth between his mother's house in Memphis, Tennessee, and Winona, where his grandmother lived. The funeral service will be 1pm Sunday at China Grove A.M.E. Zion Church. Its almost impossible to not hate him and to believe he is guilty. A Hearing. After learning that Willie James Hemphill was an initial suspect in the murders at Tardy Furniture, reporters for In the Dark wanted to find out if he'd ever broken the law before. And the investigative file not shared with the defense showed investigators had considered Marcus Presley, the gunman in the murders and a string of similar crimes that same summer in neighboring Alabama. It was June 21 just an hour before the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Curtis Flowers' conviction and reporters for In the Dark had intercepted Hemphill at a courthouse in Indianapolis. Hemphill: A lot of people dont like to talk to the press and the police., Reporter: She was actually pretty talkative., Hemphill: Maybe she dont recall the day in question., Reporter: She actually has a really clear memory of that day., Hemphill: I dont know what she told you. If Flowers did what he is accused of doing, he deserves his punishment, Armstrong said. And then Hemphill stormed off, ending the interview. Goldberg doesn't remember the alibis Presley or Gamble gave, but he said following up on those wouldn't have been his job. Steven McKenzie, the driver of the getaway car in the pawn shop murders, was arrested on August 1 in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. By the end of the two episodes devoted to the Flowers case, they had all abandoned Curtis as a suspect. Hemphill was held in jail for 11 days, according to county records, though it's not clear why he was held. APM Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who said he was a suspect early in the investigation. However, In the Dark's reporting has uncovered no clear evidence linking him to the Tardy murders. The shooter, Marcus Presley (16) and his accomplice, Lasamuel Gamble (18) were arrested in Norfolk, Virginia on August 9, 1996 after two weeks on the run. The July 16, 1996, killings of Tardy Furniture owner Bertha Tardy, 59, and three employees, Carmen Rigby, 45, Robert Golden, 42, and Derrick Stewart, 16, have haunted this town ever since. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark. Willie Hemphill Found 194 people in Mississippi, Illinois and 31 other states. LAYTON - Willie Morris Hemphill, 69, passed away August 11, 2018 at St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. "We did go to the mall, but it wasn't the day of the killing. Both men bounced from one traumatic living arrangement to another with no respite. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. Eight days later, Tardy and three others working for the store were killed execution-style. But attempting to deliver another black man into that same system goes against its good work. The district's Republicans should nominate James Hemphill as their candidate for Congress in the May 3 primary. . "You're confusing me. Hemphill said investigators told him he was a suspect because witnesses had placed him on Front Street near Tardy Furniture Store on the morning of the murders and because of the kind of shoe he wore: Fila Grant Hills, the shoe investigators determined had made the bloody shoe prints inside the store. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results willie james hemphill (1955 - 2006) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. Nine days later, on July 25, 1996, the bodies of two innocent people were discovered in a pawn shop in Birmingham, Alabama. I know he didnt do it, Archie Flowers said. He died on July 14, 2000 at age 81. The Dallas Morning News Homepage. They fell out and broke. 704-***-**** View Phone. In The Dark also found out that prosecutions star witness, Odell Hallmon, secretly received special treatment prosecutors dropped charges in seven felony cases against him in exchange for his false testimony that Flowers made a jailhouse confession. He lived near Tardy Furniture at the time of the murders, and near where a gun that might have been the murder weapon was found. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. He explained his suspicion that the gun might have something to do with the Tardy murders. | BillionGraves We are testing a new layout for the record page. But there was no mention of the Alabama crimes and suspects in the investigative files the prosecution had turned over to Flowers' defense attorneys. Miller also asked the investigator to interrogate Presley and Gamble about the Tardy Furniture murders. James Mather is a British sound editor. Find an Obituary . Episode 10 of the In the DarkPodcast was largely dedicated to the strange case ofWillie James Hemphill, a local bad boy with a violent streak who was continually getting cross-ways with the law. Asked if she remembered where she was when the murders happened, she recalled the morning clearly. "False testimony is a corruption of the truth-finding process of a trial," Gershman said. Podcasts should stick to exonerating the innocent. The second best result is William E Hemphill Sr . Before he left on July 3, he said she gave him $30. He wouldnt have had the (mental) capability, he said. A surveillance camera revealed that the killer was wielding a 380 pistol that jammed repeatedly. The obituary was featured in The Bryan-College Station Eagle on August 16, 2009. The murders rocked the small town. The FBI checked it out. It remains unclear why Mississippi investigators ruled them out as suspects. Find 23 people named Willie Hemphill along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. Contacts (5) Locations (10) Family (3) Social (2) Illuminating Journalism from American Public Media. In The Darks reporting on the case documented the inequities and outright barbarism of Mississippis criminal justice system. In the sixth, he was again convicted and sentenced to death, and his latest appeal was ongoing when the podcast started. Doyle, he said, used to work for Tardy Furniture.. . 1 hr 4 min . Willie Hemphill's passing at the age of 97 has been publicly announced by Arnold Family Funeral Services Inc. - Hillside Chapel in Altadena, CA.Legacy invites you to offer condolences and share memori But both denied having committed the Tardy murders and said they'd never even been to Mississippi. with Reverend Shane Russell officiating, assisted by Max Bennett. According to Yesko and Mann (2019), Hemphill dropped out of high school and was living back and forth from his mother's house to his grandmother's. Find an Obituary. And he's shown a quick and violent temper, particularly with women who don't comply with his demands. Psychologist John R. Goff tested Flowers, concluding his IQ was 75. ", "I was nowhere near the scene," he said. A shoeprint in a pool of blood found in the Winona furniture store was found to be from a Grant Hill Fila shoethe footwear Gamble, McKenzie (and just about every other young man in America) was wearing while in Mississippi. "I was coming out of Piggly Wiggly and there was a woman, I will never forget her name. In 1880 James, now 16, has an additional. Courtroom testimonyshows that Presley was the shooter in the pawn shop murders in Birmingham even though, prior to being shown video of the crime, he insisted that Gamble had been the gunman. Belfast (2021; co-nominated with Denise Yarde, Simon Chase and Niv Adiri) References External links. At the time, investigators in Mississippi told the media they were looking into whether the crimes could be connected to the murders at Tardy Furniture. EPISODE 16. January 5, 1960 - August 13, 2009. Are you a sl*t? During the sixth Flowers trial, Matthews, who worked with Miller at the Mississippi Highway Patrol, said the only suspect in the case aside from Flowers was Doyle Simpson, whose gun the prosecution argued Flowers stole and used as the murder weapon. For starters, a key prosecution witness who testified she saw Flowers sprinting from the front of the store at the time of the murders, has been discredited, he said. But it isnt necessary to prove a case against any of these people; the real scandal is that the existence of alternative suspects was systematically withheld from defense counsel. He told APM Reports that he was arrested and questioned in the . This score is (-15%) Above the National Average View Actual Score View Reputation Details . If you recall our last conversation, I wasnt in the city., Reporter: You said you were in Memphis with Twanda Woods.