In 1996, four people were killed execution-style inside Tardy Furniture, which faces one of the busiest streets in the small town of Winona. Presley and Gamble had developed a simplemodus operandi. Law enforcement witnesses had testified under oath in Flowers sixth trial that Presley was never a suspect. 6209062-Willie-James-Hemphill-all-documents Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t11p6kj93 Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11.0 (Extended OCR) Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.7 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Page_number_confidence 7.04 Pages 1705 Ppi 300 Scanner Internet Archive Python library 1.8.5 Source So, if I am forced to pick an alternative perpetrator in this awful case I would lean toward the Birmingham Boys, Presley in particular. 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. Menu. So, if Curtis didnt do this terrible deed, who did? Willie Hemphill. Find out more about our policy and your choices, including how to opt-out. 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. "[I]t's almost like a hair trigger that would cause a reversal if you've got false testimony that is significant.". He attended Erskine College, where he earned a A.B. Curtis Flowers was raised in a loving home by a gospel-singing father and a mother known for her culinary and entrepreneurial abilities. And the case file doesn't contain the report Goldberg says he would have sent to Mississippi authorities, or any indication of what might have been done to substantiate it. But he believed Gamble's denial. "I don't know nothing about it.". What are we supposed to think? Only now, a new name has surfaced. ", If Evans and his prosecution witnesses knowingly or unknowingly withheld evidence from the defense of other suspects in the Winona killings, they could be in violation of the Brady rule, named after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says a criminal defendant must be given evidence that could point toward his innocence. Presley and Gamble did four of the June heists together and one crime was perpetrated by Presley alone. View Actual Score Check Background . Psychologist John R. Goff tested Flowers, concluding his IQ was 75. He allegedly stabbed a woman with a screwdriver, among other violent crimes. Flowers has remained imprisoned the entire time, for more than 20 years. Memphis is two hours north of Winona, just across the border with Tennessee. 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. So, if Curtis Flowers isnt guilty, who is? View Willie Smith results in Kingwood, TX including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. Born in 2 Jun 1941 and died in 27 May 2008 Gaffney, South Carolina Willie James Hemphill Willie married Janeen Winegar on August 10, 2003 in Las Vegas, Nevada. He also tried to shoot his own 12-year-old son who was hiding in a closet, though the boy survived. He testified in multiple trials that the other images in the photo lineup were just "filler pictures," chosen "at random" based on some resemblance to Flowers. He will be held in a county jail while its decided if he should face trial for a stunning seventh time. "I think we pretty much ruled him out from the get-go," Matthews testified. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. And why did Doyles brother, Emmett, run from law enforcement when they came to question him on the morning of the crime? And Hemphill had a history of committing crimes in Winona and Memphis. Both involved store employees who were shot execution-style, a .380 handgun that might have jammed, and a suspect wearing Fila shoes. Now the spotlight is on three other deaths that are linked to the case. 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. "You're confusing me. She lived in Winston, Mississippi, United States in 1930 and Beat 2, Winston, Mississippi, United States in 1940. And so, in the corridors of the courthouse last week, a female journalist with In The Dark confronted Hemphill about his airtight alibi. I was scared I was going to go to jail.. 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. His age is 79. Can Marcus Presleys affidavit be trusted? AVERAGE AGE. Montgomery County Sheriff Bill Thornburg searched Moores home and found a size 10.5 Fila Grant Hill shoebox in a dresser at her house. Again, he denied ever being there. Willie James Hemphill didn't come up until the sixth Flowers trial, and law enforcement officers said he was eliminated as a suspect in about five minutes. . So where was Hemphill during the day? 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. 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. Name. His full criminal history is too lengthy to reproduce here. Relatives were alarmed to see a swarm of police cars descending on their homes in search of Willie James. It was Geraldine. Search by Name. The day in photos. Selected filmography. used to implicate Flowers in the Tardy case. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. Willie James Hemphill; Willie James Hemphill, Age 44. aka Willie Jr Hemphill. The obituary was featured in The Bryan-College Station Eagle on August 16, 2009. But both denied having committed the Tardy murders and said they'd never even been to Mississippi. 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. APM lead investigative reporter Madeleine Baran found one page among the documents Evans did give the defense attorneys, a form someone named Willie James Hemphill, then 24, of Memphis had signed at the Winona Police Department five days after the murders waiving his rights to an attorney. Although Presley was only sixteen, he seems to have been the driving force behind these crimes. He died on May 27, 2008 at age 66. Maybe theyll cover that in their next season. She said that investigators have never questioned her about Hemphill's story. Information APM Reports obtained from the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department through a public records request shows Hemphill was held for 11 days in jail. July 2, 2019 | by Parker Yesko and Dave Mann. Law enforcement had interviewed a different suspect with a violent criminal history, Willie James Hemphill a fact which was not disclosed to the defense. His father had, for just a few months, been the first sheriff in the county, but returned to farming his land. He said he knew nothing about the burglary. If the state Supreme Court were to order a seventh trial for Flowers, the district attorney would face a difficult task, Saums said. Who was he? Her rough exterior portrayed a tough, independent woman. 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. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. Miller would not comment. Although authorities quicklysettled on Flowers as their main suspect, he wasnt arrested until seven months later. Police received a call about the murders at 10:21 a.m. I knew his sisters, I knew his brother, he said. 1.58 3.33 /5. Its a pretty cold-hearted human being that can kill four people.. The Dallas Morning News Homepage. 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. The two of them walked the same school halls from first grade through high school, he said. Gamble told me that they saw a few licks while they were in Mississippi. Flowers, who had been fired from the store 13 days before the murders, reportedly owed a small amount of money to one of the owners. 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. Asked if she remembered where she was when the murders happened, she recalled the morning clearly. Grief Support. Menu. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. ROCK HILL - Willie Abraham Williams, 69, of 1138 Hickory Lane, Rock Hill, S.C., was called home Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008, at Hospice & Community Care.He was born Sept. 7 . Share Obituary. Share to Twitter. Yet despite a number of theft and drug charges, probation violations, at least four domestic violence convictions and a girlfriend who alleges he stabbed her 13 times Hemphill has managed to avoid a long stint in prison. If you recall our last conversation, I wasnt in the city., Reporter: You said you were in Memphis with Twanda Woods. Willie James Hemphill is confronted by reporters at an Indianapolis courthouse in June 2019. A bloody shoe print found in the store (left), and an investigator's sketch comparing the print to the Fila Grant Hill sneakers. Officers gave him a gunshot residue test, finding oneparticle of residue. Early voting has begun. Willie James Hemphill Addresses Click Here For Willie James Hemphill's Last Known Address 1241 Hatfield Dr, Evansville, IN 47714 1001 Mississippi Ave, Greenwood, MS 38930. Told that Woods had a clear memory of being in Winona on the morning of July 16 and learning, outside the Piggly Wiggly, that the murders had just happened, Hemphill interrupted and altered his story. Fleming had said six times since 1996 she saw Flowers running from the store on the morning of the murders. According to testimony in Flowers' first trial, authorities found $255 hidden in the headboard of Flowers' girlfriend. Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh has been sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife and son. But at Curtis Flowers' trials, the prosecution downplayed any investigation of other suspects. Hemphill said investigators tape recorded the interrogation and took notes, none of which was in the file given to Flowers defense attorneys. The best result we found for your search is William Thomas Hemphill age 80+ in Highlands, NC. Illuminating Journalism from American Public Media. Reporters also poked holes in Hemphill . Find an Obituary . Marcus Presley sometimes accompanied by LaSamuel Gamble had committed a string of robberies in 1996 in and around Birmingham, with the same modus operandi. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. No one was going to all that trouble over the approximately $400 investigators say was in the till that morning. Hemphill, Willie Mae Willie Mae Hemphill, Born March 8, 1926. The crime itself was extraordinary, but the case drew In The Darks attention because a local prosecutor had tried Flowers six times for the murders. 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. Reporters spent months combing through police and court records in Mississippi, Tennessee and Indiana to compile his extensive, and at times violent, criminal history. . "It just kind of jumped out," Ali said. It happens. Like LaSamuel Gamble, Hemphill wore Fila shoes and had a criminal record. Sure, he had worked at Tardys in the past. 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. Presley wasnt the only suspect defense attorneys didnt know investigators had seriously considered. December 6, 1948 August 11, 2018. An APM Reports investigation of Hallmon's criminal history shows that at least seven felony charges against him fell away between 2001 and 2016. But attempting to deliver another black man into that same system goes against its good work. UNLOCK PROFILE. The suspicion that the crimes could be connected was a matter of public record at the time. 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. I knew Curtis had started to get involved in crack. He allegedly committed robberies to fund a drug habit. 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. 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. It might mean letting someone get away with an abominable crime. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. Reporter: Mr Hemphill. Twenty-two years on death row. <a . View the profiles of professionals named "Willie Hemphill" on LinkedIn. According to court records, he was "swinging a machete and causing a. "Best I remember is somebody brought it to the attention of the investigators that they wanted us to talk to him, and he came in and we talked to him," Matthews said on the stand in the sixth trial. And the gun that Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important . An investigative team from American Public Media has uncovered evidence that law enforcement had at least two other suspects in the 1996 quadruple homicide in Winona that put Curtis Flowers on death row information that was not shared with his defense attorneys. Soon that would change. 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. His mothers mutt, Patches, was barking in the crawl space, causing him to find a gunbeneath the house she was renting. SEND FLOWERS. In the sixth trial, inmate Odell Hallmon testified that Flowers told him about carrying out the Tardy murders, helping lead to Flowers conviction. Share to Pinterest. Store employees were threatened with death and forced to lie on the floor. His alibi is weak, according to In The Dark. In 1880 James, now 16, has an additional. Willie James McDaniel Funeral services for Willie James McDaniel will be held at 12:00 p.m., Wednesday, January 26, 2022, at Hemphill Star Church in Boyce, La. An August 15, 1996, article in The Winona Times reported that law enforcement officials in three states "released statements that they believe [Presley and Gamble] could be linked to Winona's case.". He told APM Reports that he was arrested and questioned in the . When reporters talked to Hemphill last year, he said investigators cleared him because he had an alibi he called it "airtight." He's also targeted women in general and often women carrying purses. Includes Address(1) Phone(2) Email(1) See Results. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. 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. But his demeanor when approached by In the Dark investigative reporters was consistent with innocence. Willie Dixon - The Big Three Trio 1947-1952 (Roots N' Blues C 46216) FLAC . Share to Facebook. Willie James Hemphill didn't come up until the sixth Flowers trial, and law enforcement officers said he was eliminated as a suspect in about five minutes. Their size was a.380. Doyle, he said, used to work for Tardy Furniture.. The funeral service will be 1pm Sunday at China Grove A.M.E. Zion Church. A burglary took place at Tardy Furniture just eight days before the killings. Share to Reddit. Shooting a handgun with accuracy is more difficult than people think, said private investigator Charlie Saums of Ridgeland. But there was a three-week gap in the Alabama crime spree right at the time of the Tardy murders. What an Alabama crime spree might reveal about the Curtis Flowers investigation. According to the ledger, about$287 was missing from the cash drawer the morning of the murders. 0.68 2.43 /5. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. As far as him telling me he killed some people, hell, naw, he aint ever told me that. 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. Investigators John Johnson and Jack Matthews denied on the stand knowing anything about them. Willie James Hemphill, 38. More importantly, Woods said she was certain that she didn't make the trip with Hemphill that day. Flowers, the individuals I reference as the Birmingham boys. In October 2015, some 20 years after the murders, Katie Ali, one of Flowers attorneys in his appeal, recognized him in the photo lineup law enforcement used to implicate Flowers: In those Alabama crimes, store employees were shot execution-style with a .380 handgun the same type weapon used in the Tardy Furniture Store killings that might have jammed, and a suspect was wearing Fila shoes the same type shoe found from a bloody shoe print at the scene. 1. When Snow told police that the man she saw was about 5-foot-6, investigator John Johnson corrected her, saying she had already given the heights as 5-foot-10, according to an audio tape obtained by APM Reports. Six trials and six successful appeals. It would indeed have been a solid alibi except it didn't check out. 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. Hallmon has since admitted he lied. View Tommy Hemphill results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. The fourth and fifth trials ended with hung juries. 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. In 1996, Mississippi investigators told the local paper they were looking into a possible connection. Nationwide News Pty Ltd 2023. It was still in the morning time.". Why was he questioned? Matthews never responded. It took the In the Dark team a full year to track Hemphill down in an Indianapolis courtroom (he's still getting into trouble). Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results Willie James Hemphill (1952 - 2006) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. 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. Their pattern was to spend a week or so lying low before going on another rampage. But there was no mention of the Alabama crimes and suspects in the investigative files the prosecution had turned over to Flowers' defense attorneys. 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. District Attorney Doug Evans insisted he'd given the defense access to all records of the investigation. Maybe Doyle did the deed and reported his gun stolen to throw everyone off the scent. When In The Dark spoke to Woods, she denied the two were together. Visitation will be observed from 10:00 a.m. until the time of service. Following his release from prison in 2013,Hallmon tried to run over a Carroll County sheriff's deputy while escaping a drug bust. Willie James Hemphill Birth 27 May 1919 Death 14 Jul 2000 (aged 81) Burial. Law enforcement clearly saw Hemphill as a prime suspect. The similarities between the crimes were striking. Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. A series of Willie James Hemphill mugshots ranging from 2000 through 2016. Asked to clarify what he'd just said, Hemphill became agitated. But the investigative file turned over to Flowers defense attorneys didnt mention the possible link. Contacts (5) Locations (10) Family (3) Social (2) James Graham, was a blues pianist and her mother, Virgie Lee Graham, was skilled in many instruments, though she did not . After the second stick up, the two men argued about whether they should have killed the witness. He took the gun and placed it into a nearby shed. I just didnt know how to say it. Hemphill, now almost 50, hasnt been arrested for violence in more than a decade, according to the rap sheet assembled on In The Darks website. He said that while in jail he talked to Evans about the Flowers case, and he saw a chance to gain his freedom. How did your name get involved in this?, Hemphill: I wasnt in the city. Nor was there any record of the evidence gathered from Hemphill. Authorities put together alineup later that day of black-and-white photos, and she identified Flowers from the lineup as the man she briefly saw that morning when she came outside to move her car. Hemphill was held in jail for 11 days, according to county records, though it's not clear why he was held. Hemphills name came up briefly in Flowers 2010 trial. He said he began working at Tardy Furniture on June 29, 1996. 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. Not the right Willie? 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. District Attorney Doug Evans argues that Flowers, enraged with losing his job, stole a gun out of a parked car at the Angelica garment factory, cooled his heels at home for an hour or so, then marched to the furniture store with murder in his eye, did the foul deed, and raced home.