Simpson's brother Emmett was an early suspect, too a fact Matthews had himself testified to in the second Flowers trial. Willie Hemphill. Burial will follow in Hemphill Star Cemetery, Boyce. What an Alabama crime spree might reveal about the Curtis Flowers investigation. You may also light a candle in honor of Willie James . His alibi is weak, according to In The Dark. LAYTON - Willie Morris Hemphill, 69, passed away August 11, 2018 at St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. So, if Curtis didnt do this terrible deed, who did? Share to Tumblr. His website is. Before he left on July 3, he said she gave him $30. Even so, they had to wade through a stack of rat-eaten files stored in an abandoned factory to realize he had been booked into jail. Evidence of false testimony by prosecution witnesses could potentially get Flowers' conviction overturned, Bennett Gershman, a former prosecutor who now teaches law at Pace University, told the APM reporting team. Search by Name. It took theIn the Dark team a full year to track Hemphill down in an Indianapolis courtroom (hes still getting into trouble). A defense expert responded in a sworn statement that the bloody footprints left behind by the popular shoe could havebeen anywhere between sizes 8.5 and 11. The U.S. Supreme Court decided 7-to-1 that prosecutors unconstitutionally eliminated black jurors during the trial proceedings for Timothy Tyrone Foster in 1987. analysis of his record of striking potential black jurors, Curtis Flowers' prosecution witness says testimony was all 'make believe', Recanted testimony, subjective science helps put Curtis Flowers on death row, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Mississippi Smoldering: Tom Mangold reports on the Curtis Flowers case in 2009, Dwelling in a land of disbelief: My University Years . The day in photos. NEWSPAPERS. The best result we found for your search is William Thomas Hemphill age 80+ in Highlands, NC. Finding the truly guilty person (or people) strengthens the case that Flowers is innocent. Obituaries Section. Editor's note: This endorsement editorial was updated on . "It just kind of jumped out," Ali said. It is with deep sorrow that we announce the death of Willie James Hemphill (Rock Hill, South Carolina), who passed away on November 9, 2017, leaving to mourn family and friends. On July 2, the podcast, which has been downloaded more than 24 million times in its second season, laid out a lengthy argument that a different man, Willie James Hemphill, committed the 1996 murders. Eight days later, Tardy and three others working for the store were killed execution-style. Maybe. 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. We encourage you to research and . Sarah Warnock and Jerry Mitchell/Clarion Ledger, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Find Willie Hemphill's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. Officers gave him a gunshot residue test, finding oneparticle of residue. American Public Media reports that Hemphills ex-girlfriend Monkra Moore said she and Hemphill lived together in 1996 and claimed that he was home in Winona at around 7am on the morning of the murders. The Tardy murders took place during a 24-day gap when the group carried out no robberies in Alabama. And in searching for Hemphill, she came upon a cousin with the same name who recalled three carloads of deputies showing up at his mobile home in 1996 looking for the other Hemphill. A surveillance camera revealed that the killer was wielding a 380 pistol that jammed repeatedly. Both men bounced from one traumatic living arrangement to another with no respite. INDIANAPOLIS At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. Miller, the Mississippi investigator who made the lineup and asked for the two to be interrogated, declined to answer questions from APM Reports. 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. Both his father, Archie, and his sonbelieve he will be free one day. And that's what I know," said David Goldberg, now retired from his job as a detective in the Norfolk Police Department. Baran found Hemphills booking card showing he had been arrested and jailed a few days after the killing. As the investigators interviewed for theWrong Man episodes on Flowers point out, the family members of the victims should have been considered suspects until evidence suggested otherwise. And in the first Flowers trial, in 1997, he testified that "there were numerous suspects" in the early days of the investigation. It was all make believe. In addition, one jailhouse snitch has recanted, he said. The whole time Ive been telling them, I dont remember the day, Fleming said. Photos. If Woods had been at the mall with Hemphill at the time of the murders roughly 10 a.m. she couldn't have been back in Winona any earlier than noon. Eight days before these murders, a side door key was stolen. A .380-caliber is hard to control. Store employees were threatened with death and forced to lie on the floor. Find records of Willie Hemphill . And that omission, a law professor and former prosecutor told the team, could mean a seventh new trial for Flowers, condemined to death for the murders of four people at Tardy Furniture Store. Now the spotlight is on three other deaths that are linked to the case. 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. We encourage you to research and . The first of these events took place last month when the US Supreme Court tossed out Flowers conviction. I dont think they learned anything.. He allegedly committed robberies to fund a drug habit. Menu. Nor was there any record of the evidence gathered from Hemphill. 0 Rate Willie. Presley and Gamble made three runs to Boston during the summer of 1996: once after their June crime spree, once after the pawn shop murders and once immediately after the furniture store murders in Winona. Their names are Michael Lee Boies , Crystal Davis , and six others. Armstrong questions whether Flowers could have carried out the killings of four people execution-style. Sure, onceIn the Dark is over the heat will diminish slightly. When Flowers went back on trial, Armstrong heard no mention of the gun by either prosecutors or defense attorneys. Hallmon is now serving three life sentences in Parchmanwithout the possibility of parole. In 1996, four people were killed execution-style inside Tardy Furniture, which faces one of the busiest streets in the small town of Winona. Marcus Presley and Lasamuel Gamble werent raised at all. For Ali and the other lawyers working on Flowers' appeal at the time, this was a significant revelation. How did your name get involved in this?, Hemphill: I wasnt in the city. It took the In the Dark team a full year to track Hemphill down in an Indianapolis courtroom (he's still getting into trouble). Robert Reid Hemphill's brother, James Calvin Hemphill, was born in Due West, South Carolina, on May 18, 1850. And Hemphill had a history of committing crimes in Winona and Memphis. Phone Number: (704) 751-NZMM +2 phones. "I was out of the whole jurisdiction in another state.". And Hemphill had actually lived for a time in Winona. View More. "Because once you get people on a roll to admitting to crimes, they just don't stop. Sign the Guest Book . Thats just standard procedure. Actually,In the Dark hasnt weighed in on the guilt-innocence issue (thats not what they do), but their careful dissection of DA Doug Evans case against Flowers has left the case in a shambles. The crime had a random and senseless quality to it. If you recall our last conversation, I wasnt in the city., Reporter: You said you were in Memphis with Twanda Woods. The Dallas Morning News Homepage. Soon that would change. Willie James Hemphill has done many terrible things. They also discovered an unfired .380 bullet, which might suggest the gun jammed. Hemphill said investigators tape recorded the interrogation and took notes, none of which was in the file given to Flowers defense attorneys. In addition, he won an Emmy for the television show The West Wing.. Contacts (5) Locations (10) Family (3) Social (2) Six trials and six successful appeals. One of them wore Grant Hill Fila sneakers. The host, Madeleine Baran, carefully noted that only some of evidence seemed to point in Hemphills direction, even though a flimsy case was enough to almost execute the man her show just found innocent. Willie James Hemphill is confronted by reporters at an Indianapolis courthouse in June 2019. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. Willie Ray Hemphill, Jr., 49, of Bryan, passed away Thursday, August 13, 2009 at his residence. 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. Hemphill supposedly had an alibi for the time of the murders, but when In The Dark dug into it, they were able to determine his alibi was barely credible if at all. Who was he? Hemphill certainly sounds like a career criminal who is fully capable of committing violence; but he doesnt come off as a psychopathic killerand whoever did the deed at the Tardy furniture store was either a hired killer (or killers) or enjoyed killing people for kicks. We developed information that Doyle was missing from work that morning for about 30 or 40 minutes, which was about the time of the murders, he said. Sure, he had worked at Tardys in the past. . The show has won rightful fame for its work helping to save Flowers life. By his own account, someone told investigators that they'd seen him on Front Street that morning, though Hemphill has said repeatedly that he wasn't there. 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. 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. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. The podcasts reporters spent months methodically proving that prosecutors systematically denied black people a seat in the jury box, and how a man who is likely innocent has been repeatedly sentenced to death. The answer was yes many, many times. 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. 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. The investigative file contained no indication of what Hemphill said or why he was eliminated as a suspect. He didnt mark it or put it in an evidence bag, he told the Clarion Ledger. They fell out and broke. By the time Presley and Gamble were arrested, Doug Evans wasnt interested in alternative scenarios; he knew Curtis was the killer. So, maybe Curtis didnt steal the gun after all. How do we create a person's profile? Sympathy Ideas. She lived in Winston, Mississippi, United States in 1930 and Beat 2, Winston, Mississippi, United States in 1940. Willie Hemphill in Virginia. An early suspect in the murders, Willie James Hemphill, who has a long criminal history, lived less than a mile from where Armstrong found this gun in 2011. Asked to clarify what he'd just said, Hemphill became agitated. The second best result is William E Hemphill Sr . More importantly, Woods said she was certain that she didn't make the trip with Hemphill that day. Hemphills name came up briefly in Flowers 2010 trial. LOW HIGH. Willie married Janeen Winegar on August 10, 2003 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The killer or killers could have used the key to enter the side door, perhaps hiding before the store opened. Share Obituary. Baran said she reached out to the two state investigators who questioned Hemphill, Matthews and Wayne Miller. Their pattern was to spend a week or so lying low before going on another rampage. Hemphill, Willie Mae Willie Mae Hemphill, Born March 8, 1926. Investigators John Johnson and Jack Matthews denied on the stand knowing anything about them. When Baran and her producer eventually tracked down the right Hemphill, he told them, Yeah, they actually had me as a suspect in that.. 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. The district attorneys office isnt commenting. Flowers through six trials present Presley and Gamble as an alternative theory of the crime? View Tommy Hemphill results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. Prosecutors said repeatedly at trial that the only suspect seriously investigated was Flowers. Injustice flourishes in the darkness, and the sun is now blazing in the heavens (at least for Curtis Flowers). At a hearing, the attorney generals office told the judge that prosecutors knew of no such gun. Prosecutors claimed Flowers wore a size 10.5 shoe, and a state expert testified that the 10.5 size was consistent with the bloody footprints. The ugly facts of Hemphills past werent ugly enough for the podcast In The Dark emphasized its clear disdain of him. View Actual Score Check Background . 1809 Gatewood Aven, Greensboro, NC 27405-6727 is the last known address for Willie. But how could a single person (especially a man like Curtis Flowers) dispatch four victims with a bullet to the back of the head? And then Hemphill stormed off, ending the interview. 1. An APM Reports investigation of Hallmon's criminal history shows that at least seven felony charges against him fell away between 2001 and 2016. Updated: June 22, 2016 . Past Addresses: Shelby NC, Shelby NC +7 more. If it hadnt been for a single slip of paper in the prosecutors file with Willie James Hemphills name on it, theIn the Dark squad wouldnt have known about the man. The funeral service will be 1pm Sunday at China Grove A.M.E. Zion Church. Yes and no. . The bodies of Derrick Stewart, 16, Robert Golden, 42, Carmen Rigby, 45, and Bertha Tardy, 59, were found spread throughout the store and in the back office. Search by Name. . A photo array that contains Marcus Presley (No. It takes no imagination at all to imagine Marcus Presley committing a crime like thatwe have the video from the pawn shop. In that 1963 ruling, the court said: "The suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment.". Matthews never responded. Hours after the killings, authorities interviewed Flowers, who said he had been babysitting the children of his girlfriend, Connie Moore, and also gone to his sister's home and a nearby store. Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. But In The Dark was apparently unsatisfied with exonerating the innocent: It needed the narrative closure of guilt, and found its key to that in Hemphill. James appears the first time in the 1870 Federal Census as a six year-old, living with two brothers and a sister on his parents farm in Lampasas County, Texas. The suspects include the gunman in an Alabama crime spree that summer that bore several similarities to the Winona killings and a violent career criminal who at the time of the murders was living with a girlfriend across from the furniture store. The similarities between the crimes were striking. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case . He told them that a day or two after the murders he was driving back to Winona from Memphis when his stepfather called him and told him carloads of law enforcement officers had descending on his parents house looking for him. The podcast has never cared about the fundamental horrors of the justice system; it just wants to ensure that those horrors only happen to the correct people. Presley wasnt the only suspect defense attorneys didnt know investigators had seriously considered. 4). "False testimony is a corruption of the truth-finding process of a trial," Gershman said. 23 Matches for Willie Hemphill . Lab officials, however, say the gun never arrived and was never tested. Whoever killed four innocent people in the Tardy Furniture store on that fateful day in 1996 was familiar with armed violence and kind of liked it. His mother lived there, and he had gone to school there on and off. In the Flowers case, Evans and investigators asserted that Flowers was the main suspect from the beginning, including up to his sixthand, so far, final trial. Podcasts should stick to exonerating the innocent. After a multistate manhunt, Presley and Gamble were arrested in Norfolk, Virginia. 614 records for Willie Hemphill. Katie Ali had been researching parallels between the Tardy Furniture murders and a string of similar crimes that had happened that same summer in neighboring Alabama. Mississippi Highway Patrol Lt. Wayne Miller, the investigator who created the lineup, testified that the only suspect pictured in the lineup was Flowers. "I think we pretty much ruled him out from the get-go," Matthews testified. Record for Willie James Hemphill 27 May 1919 - 14 July 2000 in Quantico National Cemetery, Triangle, Prince William, Virginia, United States from BillionGraves GPS Headstones. 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. UNLOCK PROFILE. James Mather is a British sound editor. But Curtis Flowers is somehow still not cleared of the gruesome quadruple murder on July 16, 1996. For Flowers, the new information including Flemings changed story adds weight to his case for a full acquittal. They did, however, find bullets, bullet fragments and shell casings at the crime scene. 0 Add Rating Anonymously. Again, he denied ever being there. Send Flowers. Flowers, the individuals I reference as the Birmingham boys. He said he began working at Tardy Furniture on June 29, 1996. The murders rocked the small town. He told APM Reports that he was arrested and questioned in the . Doyle, he said, used to work for Tardy Furniture.. OBITUARIES. Afraid that he would be shot on sight if he didnt surrender, Hemphill turned himself in at the local police station (wearing Grant Hill Filas, the shoes investigators had linked to a bloody footprint at the crime scene) and was immediately handcuffed and booked into the local lock-up. He also tried to shoot his own 12-year-old son who was hiding in a closet, though the boy survived. Passed away February 25, 2012. More: Curtis Flowers' prosecution witness says testimony was all 'make believe', More: Recanted testimony, subjective science helps put Curtis Flowers on death row, Supreme Court rules jury selection in Ga. trial unconstitutional. They have also lived in Franklin, NC and North Fort Myers, FL. "Yeah we was leaving. Willie James Hemphill has done many terrible things. "After a short time, we realized that he didn't know anything about the case.". Although Presley was only sixteen, he seems to have been the driving force behind these crimes. Shortly after the killings, police arrested Hemphill, then 24, who was wearing a pair of the Grant Hill Fila shoes. The FBI checked it out. Current Address: EHZR Hannah Dr, Rock Hill, SC. 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. Flowers was convicted and sentenced to death in the first three trials, but each time, the verdict was overturned on appeal for prosecutorial misconduct in the first and second trials, and for racially discriminatory jury selection in the third. He said he knew nothing about the burglary. Because Mr. Evans didnt tell them about the Alabama connection. He quoted Bertha Tardy as saying he would have to be responsible for paying for the batteries. The podcast, which uncovered evidence used by Flowers to get his conviction overturned, spoke with witness Clemmie Fleming. "I can't recall seeing him that day," Woods said. But both denied having committed the Tardy murders and said they'd never even been to Mississippi. If, hypothetically, theIn the Dark team was charged with defending Curtis in a seventh trial even an all-white jury selected entirely of Winona residents couldnt find him guilty. Evans has spoken to the Greenwood Commonwealth, most recently about APM Reports analysis of his record of striking potential black jurors vs. white juries 4 1/2 times more often. Look, Ive got something yall need to get, he said he told them. That day in October 2015, Ali was looking at a photo lineup that law enforcement had used to implicate Flowers in the Tardy case. By licks he meant places to rob.. Each victim had been murdered execution styleone or two bullets to the back of the head. So, if I am forced to pick an alternative perpetrator in this awful case I would lean toward the Birmingham Boys, Presley in particular. But he believed Gamble's denial. He's also targeted women in general and often women carrying purses. APM Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who said he was a suspect early in the investigation. He told the Commonwealth, I think these (APM Reports) folks are just coming up with anything they can to discredit the case. One, Rigby,was killed with two shots to the head. When he showed up the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department two days later, he said, they immediately cuffed him and that the investigators made it clear he was a suspect. Where were you?, Hemphill: I was in your p***y. And if the two had spent just an hour at the mall assuming the mall, which is now closed, opened as early as 9 a.m. they'd have needed to leave Winona no later than 7 o'clock that morning. The murder weapon in the Tardy Furniture case was a .380, and an unfired round was found at the scene; investigators believe that might indicate that the gun had jammed. In the months before the Tardy Furniture murders, Presley hit a grocery store, a fireworks retailer, three gas stations and three liquor stores. Prior to his death, Doyle came across as a passive man working hard to stay out of trouble. 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. The podcasts decision to try to figure out who may have actually committed the murders at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi isnt surprising. Why was he questioned? Investigators said the Simpson brothers were eliminated quickly because they were both at work at the time of the murders. At first he was reluctant to divulge who he was with that morning, but later said it was a woman named Twanda Woods. "They were investigating that intently back then. He is aiming to get bail, which is rare in capital murder cases. Willie James Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Willie James Hemphill. But that doesnt mean that he killed those four people at Tardy Furniture. … 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. Willie Dixon - The Big Three Trio 1947-1952 (Roots N' Blues C 46216) FLAC . A burglary took place at Tardy Furniture just eight days before the killings. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark. "They wanted to put all these robberies onto Marcus and LaSamuel.". In a sworn statement, one of those criminals, Marcus Pressley, told Flowers' lawyers thattwo of his accomplices in the Alabama crimes were in Mississippi at the time of the Tardy murders. 2. We know that Willie James Hemphill had been residing in Gaffney, Cherokee County, South Carolina 29341. 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. Willie James Hemphill was born on June 2, 1941. (1870), A.M. (1872), and LL.D. Hallmon has since admitted he lied. "[I]t's almost like a hair trigger that would cause a reversal if you've got false testimony that is significant.". Share via email. The Dallas Morning News. In the sixth, he was again convicted and sentenced to death, and his latest appeal was ongoing when the podcast started. He died on May 27, 2008 at age 66. By the end of the two episodes devoted to the Flowers case, they had all abandoned Curtis as a suspect. 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. Service: 11 am Saturday, March 3, 201. Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh has been sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife and son. And why didnt DA Doug Evans even consider the Presley-Gamble connection? Her new position on exactly what happened that morning is likely to be heard by a jury if Fleming faces one for a seventh time. Simplistic journalism ethics call for reporters to follow the facts wherever they might lead. Montgomery County Sheriff Bill Thornburg searched Moores home and found a size 10.5 Fila Grant Hill shoebox in a dresser at her house. Hemphill's Timeline Willie James Hemphill has an extensive criminal record starting in 1990, just when Hemphill was eighteen-years old. 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). According to the July 8, 1996, police report, store owner Bertha Tardy reported to police that a burglar or burglars smashed through a skylight, tried to break into the safe and stole the side door key. State investigator Jack Matthews, one of those who had read Hemphill his rights, said hed only talked to Hemphill for a short time before realizing he didnt know anything. Inside the store, authorities discovered bloody footprints left behind by a Grant Hill Fila basketball shoe. And there he was. After examining the autopsy reportsand crime scene photographs, Baden said the evidence suggests one person maintained control while another person carried out the execution-style killings. They contained no mention of the Alabama suspects. Later, he said, one of the officers, Vince Small, came by, and he handed the officer the gun. James Graham, was a blues pianist and her mother, Virgie Lee Graham, was skilled in many instruments, though she did not . Reporters also poked holes in Hemphill . 0 Reputation Score Range. Visitation will be observed from 10:00 a.m. until the time of service. He wouldnt have had the (mental) capability, he said. While talking to them, he said he told them about his discovery. Jessie Mae Hemphill [1]1923-2006 Blues musician, singer, songwriter, guitarist, percussionist Blues musician and vocalist Jessie Mae Hemphill [2] was a paradox. Willie James Hemphill, age 37, Justice, IL Search Report.

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