Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Angry employee shoots lady boss dead in the face, kills three others & walks free!
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: Again, I gets fired from his job at a furniture store,
- 0:08Speaker 1: and then mysteriously, a few days later, the female owner
- 0:12Speaker 1: of the store is gunned down in to store, multiple
- 0:15Speaker 1: shots to her face, along with three other employees, including
- 0:20Speaker 1: a teen boy who was working there. Despite a mountain
- 0:26Speaker 1: of evidence, and even after the killer is convicted, Bam reversal,
- 0:32Speaker 1: not once, not twice, six times. I'm Nancy Grace. This
- 0:38Speaker 1: is crime stories. Crime stories with Nancy Grace, with shocking disbelief.
- 0:54Speaker 1: Oh look a steer at Tardy Furniture Company. The sight
- 0:58Speaker 1: of wine was quadruple shooting. Friends and relatives identify the
- 1:03Speaker 1: dead as Tardy Furniture store owner Bertha Tardy, her bookkeeper
- 1:07Speaker 1: Carmen Rigby, and a newly hired employee, Robert Goldman. The
- 1:12Speaker 1: fourth victim, Derek Bobo Stewart, like the others, the teenage
- 1:16Speaker 1: all star baseball player, was shot in the back of
- 1:18Speaker 1: the head execution style. On July sixteenth, somebody goes into
- 1:28Speaker 1: the Tardy Furniture store, steals three hundred and eighty sething
- 1:33Speaker 1: dollars out of the cash register, and leaves four bodies
- 1:36Speaker 1: on the floor. Locals described Tardy as a person who
- 1:41Speaker 1: was well known and well liked here that says she
- 1:43Speaker 1: was very active in her community and her church. For
- 1:46Speaker 1: those reasons, many here are having a hard time believing
- 1:50Speaker 1: her family business has become the site of such a
- 1:52Speaker 1: gruesome crime. Oh my stars, as we learn in the
- 1:59Speaker 1: recent break he news out of the Supreme Court the
- 2:03Speaker 1: death penalty conviction and a quadruple murder four people dead
- 2:09Speaker 1: has been overturned. Curtis Flowers sent us to death for
- 2:15Speaker 1: a quadruple shooting, leaving four dead in a furniture story
- 2:19Speaker 1: when known to Mississippi. His case now overturned. The victim's
- 2:26Speaker 1: birth up Tarty three employees, Carmen Rigby, Robert Golden, and
- 2:30Speaker 1: Derek Stewart. Stewart was just sixteen years old. Flowers had
- 2:35Speaker 1: been arrested for the shooting seven months after it happened.
- 2:40Speaker 1: He has had six trials, but now we learned the
- 2:45Speaker 1: Supreme Court has overturned the conviction. Big question what connects
- 2:53Speaker 1: him to the four brutal murders? I mean, as he grazes,
- 2:57Speaker 1: this is crime story. Thank you for being with us
- 2:59Speaker 1: with me. Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina family lawyer Cloyd Steier
- 3:03Speaker 1: thirty six years Seattle, PD author Seattle's Forgotten serial Killer,
- 3:08Speaker 1: Gary gen Grant. Doctor Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst out of la AT.
- 3:14Speaker 1: Doctor Bethany Marshall dot com, renowned medical examiner out of
- 3:18Speaker 1: South Carolina, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide. Doctor Michelle
- 3:22Speaker 1: Dupree joining me right now. Investigative reporter from the Mississippi
- 3:26Speaker 1: Center for Investigative Reporting, author of the upcoming book Race
- 3:31Speaker 1: Against Time. Jerry Mitchell. Jerry Mitchell. First of all, I'll
- 3:37Speaker 1: get into the legalities later regarding the Supreme Court overturning
- 3:41Speaker 1: this conviction after six trials. First, let's talk about the evidence.
- 3:45Speaker 1: It actually connects this guy, forty nine year old Curtis Flowers,
- 3:50Speaker 1: to the brutal murders of four people, including the owner
- 3:55Speaker 1: of the furniture store, fifty nine year old Berth Attardi,
- 3:58Speaker 1: and a sixteen year your old boy, Oh, I can
- 4:03Speaker 1: hardly take it in. What happened, well, Curtis Flowers was
- 4:06Speaker 1: working in the summer of nineteen ninety six ass party
- 4:09Speaker 1: furniture there in Oneona, and so uh. During the course
- 4:14Speaker 1: of working for him, one day he loaded batteries into
- 4:18Speaker 1: the back of truck. He didn't tie them down. They
- 4:20Speaker 1: fell out. Um, he didn't show back up to work basically,
- 4:25Speaker 1: and then called this uh and talked to miss tardy
- 4:28Speaker 1: and said, do I still have a job? And Miss
- 4:30Speaker 1: Tardy said no, uh, and we're going to do. You're saying,
- 4:33Speaker 1: batteries fell off of a truck. Yeah, liket like car batteries,
- 4:39Speaker 1: Carter batteries, Okay, because in my mind all I thought
- 4:42Speaker 1: of those triple A batteries. I'm like, it's not that
- 4:45Speaker 1: big of a deal. No, no, not like flashlight. I like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
- 4:51Speaker 1: I've got I've got my j D. I don't have
- 4:54Speaker 1: my degree in you know, auto repair. I know, yes,
- 4:57Speaker 1: I know what a car battery looks like, but have
- 5:00Speaker 1: and he fell off? I mean, how why was it
- 5:02Speaker 1: such a big deal? Well, I don't know. I don't
- 5:04Speaker 1: know the exact number, but there was enough enough that
- 5:06Speaker 1: it was going to be an expense deductor from his paycheck.
- 5:09Speaker 1: And then he just left. Yeah, he never he called her. Yeah,
- 5:14Speaker 1: he just never showed back. Then he called to a
- 5:17Speaker 1: job because he did not secure the batteries. Is that
- 5:20Speaker 1: what happened? He didn't have them secured correctly, so he
- 5:22Speaker 1: got fired. Yeah, he didn't. He didn't he didn't get fired.
- 5:27Speaker 1: Take a listen to this. My understanding his Curtis Flowers
- 5:30Speaker 1: became a suspect almost right away, largely based on a
- 5:35Speaker 1: conversation that the Mississippi Sheriff's Department Police Department had with
- 5:41Speaker 1: the daughter of one of the victims, Roxyanne Ballard. The
- 5:45Speaker 1: daughter mentioned that Curtis Flowers had gotten into some sort
- 5:48Speaker 1: of dispute or money. Flowers had been working for birth Attargey.
- 5:54Speaker 1: He had been fired from that job for failing to
- 5:58Speaker 1: show up. He didn't show up because he damaged some
- 6:01Speaker 1: batteries he was told he would have to replace. There
- 6:05Speaker 1: was apparently a check made out to him on the desk.
- 6:09Speaker 1: It's my understanding of how they got fairly quickly from
- 6:12Speaker 1: a universe of suspects to Curtis Flowers. You were hearing
- 6:16Speaker 1: our friends at Stars their investigative series The Wrong Man,
- 6:20Speaker 1: Jerry Mitchell. What happened? So about eight days before the killing,
- 6:26Speaker 1: there was a burglary, like someone broke in the roof
- 6:29Speaker 1: of Tardy Furniture and stole this is kind of interesting,
- 6:33Speaker 1: stole the side door key. What does that mean? Well, say,
- 6:37Speaker 1: there's a side door to this furniture place. You could
- 6:42Speaker 1: enter from you follow I'm saying you wouldn't have to enter.
- 6:45Speaker 1: B Did you say they came through the roof, Yes,
- 6:48Speaker 1: they did, and all they wanted was a side door key. Yeah.
- 6:53Speaker 1: Very interesting because that means they want to get in
- 6:55Speaker 1: at a later date and they want to get in.
- 6:57Speaker 1: I mean, if they were just coming into row, they
- 7:00Speaker 1: could have done it, they could have taken it right
- 7:01Speaker 1: then whatever money was was there. But instead all they
- 7:05Speaker 1: took was a key. Okay, go ahead. Sorry, I'm just
- 7:08Speaker 1: ruminating on what you're saying, Jerry Mitchell, and so on
- 7:12Speaker 1: the morning of July sixteen, so you you essentially, as
- 7:20Speaker 1: it was mentioned earlier, the four people who worked there
- 7:24Speaker 1: at at the store were killed and and very brutally,
- 7:30Speaker 1: and one of one of them, it was very obvious
- 7:35Speaker 1: from the crime scene that one of them was trying
- 7:37Speaker 1: to run away and were shot more than once. The
- 7:40Speaker 1: rest of them were pretty much shot, you know, point blank,
- 7:43Speaker 1: you know, just like bam, bam bam. I mean it
- 7:46Speaker 1: would it would have been very quick, or there could
- 7:49Speaker 1: have been more than one person involved. And so then
- 7:52Speaker 1: the employee sees this called obviously called the police. They
- 7:57Speaker 1: come to investigate there they've been shot to death of
- 8:00Speaker 1: a three eighty caliber handgun. And so then not long
- 8:05Speaker 1: after that, law enforcement gets a call that someone had
- 8:10Speaker 1: burglarize the car and stolen his three eighty pistol. So
- 8:16Speaker 1: that kind of becomes the driving clue. I guess you
- 8:19Speaker 1: could say that early part of the investigation. So that
- 8:22Speaker 1: gets connected to Oh, what do you mean that gets
- 8:26Speaker 1: connected to Curtis Flowers. Well, the theft of that same gun,
- 8:32Speaker 1: you know, the same type of gun as was used
- 8:34Speaker 1: in the crime. Yeah, my question to you is how
- 8:39Speaker 1: was that theft connected back to Curtis Flowers. There was
- 8:43Speaker 1: witness testimony along the lines of having spotted Curtis in
- 8:47Speaker 1: the area of the car, So that's that's where that
- 8:50Speaker 1: comes from. Well, I mean, when Clarence Thomas disagreed with
- 8:56Speaker 1: the reversal, he said Flowers was clearly guilty and that
- 9:01Speaker 1: the case was not overturned because Flowers is not believed
- 9:05Speaker 1: to be guilty. The case is being overturned because it
- 9:09Speaker 1: was alleged to the prosecutor on multiple occasions struck black gerars.
- 9:15Speaker 1: You can't do that under the constitution. You can't just
- 9:18Speaker 1: you can't strike somebody based on race, and if you do,
- 9:22Speaker 1: you get a reversal. Bam. It's just that simple. Bats
- 9:26Speaker 1: of the Kentucky. Everybody knows the case. Every lawyer knows it,
- 9:30Speaker 1: Kathleen Murphy. When you're striking a jury, it doesn't matter
- 9:34Speaker 1: civil criminal, it could be for jaywalking. You do not
- 9:38Speaker 1: strike gerars based on race, and in every case you
- 9:44Speaker 1: better take notes about why you strike gerars. For instance,
- 9:47Speaker 1: I might strike a gerar because they don't have a job.
- 9:50Speaker 1: I don't like somebody that doesn't know how to show
- 9:53Speaker 1: up on time and be responsible. You don't have a job,
- 9:57Speaker 1: I don't want you on a jury. Now that's just me,
- 10:00Speaker 1: but that's not unconstitutional. I want somebody that is responsible
- 10:04Speaker 1: sitting on that jury. And if I've got a big
- 10:07Speaker 1: red flag that somebody can't even show up to work
- 10:09Speaker 1: and have a job, I don't want to want my jury.
- 10:13Speaker 1: So that is a reason you can strike somebody. But
- 10:17Speaker 1: if you're striking somebody because they're black, ah, and oh,
- 10:23Speaker 1: let's just say you're trying a DUI vehicular homicide, I
- 10:26Speaker 1: don't want somebody that has been already convicted for DUI
- 10:31Speaker 1: because they're gonna think, oh, you know, I was mistreated.
- 10:34Speaker 1: Now this guy probably wasn't dui and blah blah blah.
- 10:37Speaker 1: I don't want somebody that it's blood related to the defendant.
- 10:42Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of reasons you don't want
- 10:44Speaker 1: somebody on a jury, but you absolutely shall not strike
- 10:48Speaker 1: based on race, any race, bingo. And not only did
- 10:53Speaker 1: it happen one time, but it happened many many times
- 10:58Speaker 1: with the very I mean really, and now you've got
- 11:02Speaker 1: a quadruple killing hanging in the balance. Take a listen
- 11:07Speaker 1: to our friends in WAPT sixteen. We're talking about the
- 11:10Speaker 1: Curtis Flowers. He's already been tried six times for killing
- 11:14Speaker 1: four people at a furniture store in Winona. That was
- 11:16Speaker 1: more than twenty years ago. Today, the nation's highest court
- 11:20Speaker 1: throughout his latest conviction, accusing state prosecutors of intentionally keeping
- 11:25Speaker 1: Blacks off the jury. A decisive decision, A seven two
- 11:29Speaker 1: decision is the US Supreme Court is a pretty resounding decision.
- 11:35Speaker 1: The US Supreme Court overturns Curtis Flowers murder conviction and
- 11:39Speaker 1: death sentence Friday. The Justice has ruled Mississippi prosecutors intentionally
- 11:44Speaker 1: discriminated against Blacks during jury selection for Flowers trial in
- 11:48Speaker 1: twenty ten. They said quote, the state's relentless, determined effort
- 11:52Speaker 1: to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests the
- 11:56Speaker 1: state wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as
- 11:59Speaker 1: few black juris as possible, and ideally theyfore an all
- 12:03Speaker 1: white jury. But on that exact same issue racial discrimination
- 12:08Speaker 1: during jury selection, the Mississippi Supreme Court has found Doug
- 12:12Speaker 1: Evans did the same thing with Curtis Flowers in the
- 12:16Speaker 1: past crime stories with Nancy Grace, we're talking about the
- 12:41Speaker 1: Curtis Flowers. He's already been tried six times for killing
- 12:45Speaker 1: four people at a furniture store. And why Nona. That
- 12:48Speaker 1: was more than twenty years ago. Today, the nation's highest
- 12:52Speaker 1: court throughout his latest conviction, accusing state prosecutors of intentionally
- 12:57Speaker 1: keeping blacks off the jury. A decisive decision, A seven
- 13:01Speaker 1: two decision is of the US Supreme Court is a
- 13:04Speaker 1: pretty resounding decision. The US Supreme Court overturns Curtis Flowers
- 13:10Speaker 1: murder conviction and death sentence Friday. That justice has ruled
- 13:13Speaker 1: Mississippi prosecutors intentionally discriminated against blacks during jury selection for
- 13:19Speaker 1: flowers trial in twenty ten, They said, quote, the state's
- 13:23Speaker 1: relentless determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals
- 13:27Speaker 1: strongly suggests the state wanted to try Flowers before a
- 13:31Speaker 1: jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally
- 13:35Speaker 1: before an all white jury. But on that exact same
- 13:38Speaker 1: issue racial discrimination during jury selection, the Mississippi Supreme Court
- 13:44Speaker 1: has found Doug Evans do the same thing with Curtis
- 13:48Speaker 1: Flowers in the past. You are hearing our friends WAPT sixteen.
- 13:52Speaker 1: I have never had either. Well, I have had an
- 13:57Speaker 1: all African American jury many many times. To start to say,
- 14:00Speaker 1: I've never had a one race jury in my life.
- 14:03Speaker 1: Actually I've had many all African American juries before, never
- 14:09Speaker 1: had an all white jury. I don't think I've ever
- 14:12Speaker 1: even had a predominantly white jerry in all the cases
- 14:15Speaker 1: that I tried. But I do know this, You darn
- 14:18Speaker 1: well better be able to explain why you strike people. Now.
- 14:22Speaker 1: The state claims they struck Jerrars because they knew the
- 14:25Speaker 1: Flowers family, or because they knew the victims in the case.
- 14:30Speaker 1: They thought that would be a pillable error. I don't
- 14:33Speaker 1: understand why anybody would try to keep African Americans off
- 14:36Speaker 1: the jury. I mean, for Pete's sake, one of the
- 14:38Speaker 1: victims is African American. Mister Robert Golden was African American.
- 14:43Speaker 1: I don't know why that would happen, but I do
- 14:46Speaker 1: know this. I do know that the evidence points to
- 14:49Speaker 1: Curtis Flowers being guilty. For instance, it was shown that
- 14:53Speaker 1: he was the one that stole a three eighty caliber weapon,
- 14:58Speaker 1: the same caliber that was used and the quadruple murders.
- 15:02Speaker 1: Back to you, Jerry Mitchell, what other evidence links Curtis
- 15:05Speaker 1: Flowers to the four murders. Well, there was about four
- 15:10Speaker 1: hundred dollars less than four hundred dollars missing from the
- 15:13Speaker 1: cash drawer, and a state police investigator testified that two
- 15:20Speaker 1: hundred and thirty five dollars was found in his girlfriend's
- 15:24Speaker 1: headboard headboard at the bed. There were also bloody footprints
- 15:31Speaker 1: at the scene, and there was quite a bit testimony
- 15:36Speaker 1: on this. So the footprints were supposed to be a
- 15:40Speaker 1: ten and a half shoe. It was a Fela Fela
- 15:44Speaker 1: made a grand hill shoe and that's that's what it was,
- 15:48Speaker 1: very specific shoe and tied to were able to it
- 15:55Speaker 1: was a little bit of a roundabout way, but basically
- 15:58Speaker 1: tried to tie those back to to Flowers. He was.
- 16:01Speaker 1: Witnesses did say they saw him in those particular shoes
- 16:05Speaker 1: that morning. What kind of shoes worthy aken? It's a
- 16:10Speaker 1: Grant Hill feelings. Peela is a shoe company in They
- 16:15Speaker 1: make a Grant Hill style back then they did you
- 16:19Speaker 1: know basketball player in Grant Hill. Take a listen to this.
- 16:23Speaker 1: Another critical piece of evidence is that Phila footwear impression.
- 16:30Speaker 1: Bloody shoe prints are found at the crime scene and
- 16:33Speaker 1: police figure out they metch Fela's sneakers size ten and
- 16:36Speaker 1: a half Curtis's shoe size, and then they find an
- 16:41Speaker 1: empty shoebox at the home of his girlfriend, but there
- 16:44Speaker 1: was no sneakers in there, and she said that those
- 16:47Speaker 1: shoes belonged to her son. She said they belong to
- 16:51Speaker 1: her son. I know they're a popular sneaker, but we
- 16:54Speaker 1: still have to we still have to think about that.
- 16:58Speaker 1: The gun itself was never recovered. They determined it was
- 17:03Speaker 1: at three eighty. Curtis Flower's uncle, Doyle Simpson, had reported
- 17:09Speaker 1: a three eighty stolen from his car around the time
- 17:15Speaker 1: of the murders. So now you've got two inks with
- 17:19Speaker 1: the missing gun and the gunshot residue. Just if we
- 17:22Speaker 1: have freeze frame at day one, that was more than
- 17:25Speaker 1: enough right to convince the police that Curtis did it.
- 17:29Speaker 1: You were hearing our friends at Stars, their investigative series
- 17:33Speaker 1: The Wrong Man describing the bloody shoe imprint from a
- 17:37Speaker 1: Fiela brand shoe size ten and a half, the same
- 17:42Speaker 1: size the defendant war and the same style who was
- 17:46Speaker 1: wearing that morning, joining me Cloyd Stiger thirty six years
- 17:51Speaker 1: Seattle PD twenty two homicide doctor Bethany Marshall and doctor
- 17:56Speaker 1: Michelle Duprie to Cloyd style or what other evidence do
- 18:01Speaker 1: you find that especially links Curtis Flowers to these four murders?
- 18:06Speaker 1: And again several justice on Supreme Court said, this is
- 18:10Speaker 1: not about guilt or innocence. We're not saying he's innocent.
- 18:12Speaker 1: We're saying the jury wasn't struck correctly. Yeah, that's exactly right.
- 18:16Speaker 1: So it's more of an alleged prosecut misconduct enough to
- 18:21Speaker 1: have six trials, which is, you know, such a burden
- 18:25Speaker 1: on the victims families that have to go through that,
- 18:28Speaker 1: But you know the things you have and I don't
- 18:31Speaker 1: have a specific list of all the physical evidence, but
- 18:33Speaker 1: you have the circumstantial evidence. He was fired from a
- 18:35Speaker 1: job he had the circumstantial evidence that that key was
- 18:39Speaker 1: taken the three eighty taken out of the truck, and
- 18:44Speaker 1: I thought I read that it was mistaken from his
- 18:46Speaker 1: uncle's truck, so he would have known the gun was
- 18:49Speaker 1: in there and then and then of course I'd be
- 18:52Speaker 1: interested in the climb scene if his boss was shot
- 18:57Speaker 1: in the face, or was there more shot Star than
- 19:00Speaker 1: everybody else. She was the intended target and the others
- 19:02Speaker 1: were just witnesses he had to get rid of. That's
- 19:04Speaker 1: that's the type of stuff I would look at, But
- 19:06Speaker 1: I don't know in this case if that's true. Take
- 19:08Speaker 1: a listen to this. The police took him in for questioning.
- 19:14Speaker 1: They did a GSR test at gun chat residue test.
- 19:19Speaker 1: They found one particle on his right hand, one single particle.
- 19:25Speaker 1: If he did all this shooting, wouldn't he have more
- 19:29Speaker 1: than one particle? He could have washed his hands. Crime
- 19:48Speaker 1: stories with Nancy Grace and the recent breaking news out
- 19:59Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court, the death penalty conviction and a
- 20:03Speaker 1: quadruple murder four people dead has been overturned. Curtis Flowers
- 20:11Speaker 1: sent us to death for a quadruple shooting, leaving four
- 20:16Speaker 1: dead in a furniture store when known to Mississippi. His
- 20:20Speaker 1: case now overturned. The victim's birth Tarty three employees Carmen Rigby,
- 20:27Speaker 1: Robert Golden, and Derek Stewart. I mean as he grazes
- 20:30Speaker 1: this as crime stories. Thank you for being with us,
- 20:33Speaker 1: with me. Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina family lawyer Cloyd Steyer
- 20:37Speaker 1: thirty six years Seattle, p d. Author a Seattle's Forgotten
- 20:41Speaker 1: serial Killer, Gary gen Grant, Doctor Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst out
- 20:46Speaker 1: of la AT. Doctor Bethany Marshall dot com, renowned medical
- 20:50Speaker 1: examiner out of South Carolina. Author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide.
- 20:54Speaker 1: Doctor Michelle Dupree Joining me right now. Investigative reporter from
- 20:59Speaker 1: the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. Author of the upcoming
- 21:04Speaker 1: book Race Against Time. Jerry Mitchell. Jerry Mitchell, take a
- 21:09Speaker 1: listen to this. The police took him in for questioning.
- 21:15Speaker 1: They did a GSR test at gunshot residue test. They
- 21:20Speaker 1: found one particle on his right hand, one single particle.
- 21:25Speaker 1: If he did all of this shooting, wouldn't he have
- 21:29Speaker 1: more than one particle? He could have washed his hands.
- 21:33Speaker 1: That is entirely true to Chloyd Stike or twenty two
- 21:39Speaker 1: years homicide detective and author. I don't have gunshot residue
- 21:43Speaker 1: on my hands. I can tell you that right now.
- 21:46Speaker 1: Gunshot residue is like baby powder. It can come off,
- 21:50Speaker 1: you know if you just brush your hands on your clothes.
- 21:53Speaker 1: The fact that he had any gunshot residue at all
- 21:56Speaker 1: on his trigger hand, I think it's very significent. Yeah.
- 22:00Speaker 1: I'd also want to know how long after the shooting
- 22:03Speaker 1: happened that that test was given. I mean could fall off,
- 22:06Speaker 1: you wash your hands, and you know, although it's a
- 22:11Speaker 1: caveat there, there can be false positives on gunchat residue test. Yeah,
- 22:15Speaker 1: I mean there can be. And little green men could
- 22:18Speaker 1: have come down from ours and gone into the furniture
- 22:21Speaker 1: store and killed four people too. Yeah, that could happen,
- 22:25Speaker 1: but the likelihood of that happening is very very low.
- 22:30Speaker 1: Take a listen to this. The police took him in
- 22:33Speaker 1: for questioning. They did a GSR test at Gunchat residue test.
- 22:39Speaker 1: They found one particle on his right hand, one single particle.
- 22:44Speaker 1: If he did all this shooting, wouldn't he have more
- 22:49Speaker 1: than one particle? He could have washed his hands, he
- 22:52Speaker 1: could have wiped his hands. Okay, could he get gunshot
- 22:56Speaker 1: residue on his hand from being in the police car
- 22:58Speaker 1: from transferring? Yes, yeah, absolutely, yep. There's also the money
- 23:03Speaker 1: that was found in his girlfriend's house. Right, police reported
- 23:07Speaker 1: around four hundred dollars was taken from the cash register
- 23:10Speaker 1: Attardey's and they found about two hundred and fifty dollars
- 23:12Speaker 1: at the girlfriend's house when they hit in the head.
- 23:16Speaker 1: Beware of the hit rights, I mean like banks. That
- 23:19Speaker 1: does mean you know she was hiding his Snashwini. You
- 23:23Speaker 1: were hearing our friends at Stars their investigative series The
- 23:26Speaker 1: Wrong Man to doctor Bethany Marshall if this is correct,
- 23:31Speaker 1: Doctor Bethany Psychoanalyst joining me out of Beverly Heels at
- 23:34Speaker 1: doctor Bethany Marshall dot com. The fact that the furniture
- 23:37Speaker 1: store owner, the woman berthat tardy who fired him for
- 23:42Speaker 1: losing all that money with those batteries off the back
- 23:45Speaker 1: of a truck, if she took multiple shots to the face,
- 23:49Speaker 1: what does that tell you? Well, I'm much more to
- 23:52Speaker 1: know more about the behavioral evidence before commenting on that, meaning,
- 23:58Speaker 1: how did he talk if he had a girlfriend and
- 24:01Speaker 1: the money was found in the headboard, how was he
- 24:05Speaker 1: talking to the girlfriend about the boss? How did he
- 24:08Speaker 1: feel about being fired? Was he obsessing about the boss?
- 24:12Speaker 1: Did he have what we call persecutory distress, meaning that
- 24:16Speaker 1: he felt that the boss had affected his life in
- 24:20Speaker 1: some irreversibly bad way. You know, some people get fired
- 24:24Speaker 1: from a job. They're young, and they say, oh, you
- 24:26Speaker 1: know what, I'll go give another job or I'm employable
- 24:30Speaker 1: in other areas. However, we know many people who get
- 24:33Speaker 1: fired who then go back and commit homicide, like workplace violence,
- 24:37Speaker 1: they have a recent history of having felt that there
- 24:41Speaker 1: was a power and balance between them and another employee.
- 24:44Speaker 1: Sometimes we find that another employee got promoted they didn't,
- 24:49Speaker 1: They feel underpaid, They have a history of violence, and
- 24:53Speaker 1: they feel that their inferior to other people in society,
- 24:58Speaker 1: and that gets placed on the boss. So if she
- 25:01Speaker 1: was shot multiple times in the face the boss and
- 25:05Speaker 1: he had all these behavioral characteristics that would very powerfully
- 25:10Speaker 1: point to him as the perpetrator in this case. Not
- 25:13Speaker 1: only that, but we now learn witnesses place him in
- 25:18Speaker 1: the area of the furniture store the morning of the shooting.
- 25:22Speaker 1: Listen make another save two us concerning the trial for
- 25:26Speaker 1: his flowers, claiming from Matt point owner when you first
- 25:30Speaker 1: saw him? What was his actions? What was he doing? Okay? Uh?
- 25:37Speaker 1: In which direction you were running? Like chemistry? We've been
- 25:45Speaker 1: away from parts. Okay, what canque your attention to begin
- 25:55Speaker 1: with it? Because I ain't say I was seeing around
- 25:59Speaker 1: and trull card is not ling costume. To Jerry Mitchell,
- 26:06Speaker 1: investigative reporter with the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a
- 26:11Speaker 1: two thousand and nine MacArthur fellow, Jerry, doubt was cast
- 26:16Speaker 1: on the witness stating she saw him running from the
- 26:19Speaker 1: furniture store, but other witnesses seemingly placed him in the
- 26:24Speaker 1: vicinity that morning. Is that true? Yeah, it's super really
- 26:27Speaker 1: like a whole there was a whole long line of
- 26:30Speaker 1: witnesses who kind of were documenting his trail to the
- 26:35Speaker 1: furniture store and then leaving the furniture store as well.
- 26:38Speaker 1: Yet a kind of a whole series of witnesses on
- 26:41Speaker 1: I find it hard to believe that they were all lying,
- 26:44Speaker 1: every single one of them placing him at the furniture store.
- 26:48Speaker 1: For I'm where he was fired. How many weeks? Two
- 26:51Speaker 1: weeks before the shootings. Yeah, it was like right, exactly
- 26:55Speaker 1: like two weeks somewhere in that neighborhood. Absolutely take a
- 26:59Speaker 1: listen to this. And since the last trial, witnesses Odell Hallman,
- 27:03Speaker 1: Clemmy Fleming and Ed mc christian have dragged cannon are
- 27:06Speaker 1: drastically changed their previous testimony that was offered against Missus
- 27:10Speaker 1: Flowers from other pleadings that have been filed in this case.
- 27:14Speaker 1: This court is also on judicial notice that Patricia Hallman,
- 27:18Speaker 1: another witness that testified against miss Flowers in the past,
- 27:22Speaker 1: has been convicted multiple council federal income tax fraud, which
- 27:25Speaker 1: will undermine her credibility. So it seems to me that
- 27:29Speaker 1: a lot of evidence leaks Curtis Flowers to the murders
- 27:34Speaker 1: Number one. Multiple witnesses placed him in the vicinity of
- 27:37Speaker 1: the four murders the very morning of the murders. Money
- 27:41Speaker 1: was taken from the till money was found hidden beside
- 27:46Speaker 1: his girlfriend's bed. Bloody footprints link up to specifically a
- 27:50Speaker 1: feel of Grant Hill Style ten and a half, which
- 27:53Speaker 1: is exactly the shoe he wore and was wearing that morning.
- 27:58Speaker 1: He was seen in the y of the car, his
- 28:01Speaker 1: uncle's car. He knew the gun was in there, where
- 28:04Speaker 1: three eighty caliber was stolen. A three eighty caliber was
- 28:08Speaker 1: used in this case. Someone broke into the furniture store
- 28:11Speaker 1: specifically to get the key to one of the side
- 28:15Speaker 1: doors so they would not be seen at the front,
- 28:18Speaker 1: taking nothing else, and he been fired from the job
- 28:21Speaker 1: about two weeks before gunshy residue on his trigger hand.
- 28:26Speaker 1: I mean to me, that's a pretty strong conviction. The
- 28:30Speaker 1: procedural errors of striking the jury and eliminating African Americans
- 28:34Speaker 1: from the jury, that's why this is being reversed. Crime
- 28:51Speaker 1: stories with Nancy Grace. Justice Britt Kavanaugh wrote that a
- 28:56Speaker 1: white Mississippi prosecutor's gold was to have an old white
- 29:00Speaker 1: jury decided the fate of an African American man accused
- 29:03Speaker 1: of murder, which is unconstitutional. The court's newest justice said
- 29:07Speaker 1: that District Attorney Doug Evans waged a relentless, determined effort
- 29:11Speaker 1: to rid the jury of black individuals. It was Curtis
- 29:15Speaker 1: flowers sixth trial for the same quadruple murder. Kavanaugh pointed
- 29:19Speaker 1: to a pattern, noting that Evans had removed forty one
- 29:22Speaker 1: of the forty two prospective black jurors over the six trials.
- 29:26Speaker 1: Sherry Lynn Johnson is Flowers lawyer, I think that when
- 29:30Speaker 1: seven members of this court, which is often divided, are
- 29:34Speaker 1: agreed that there was racial discrimination, then that's a powerful
- 29:38Speaker 1: signal that both something went terribly wrong and that the
- 29:42Speaker 1: Supreme Court cares about it. She says, if Flowers was
- 29:45Speaker 1: happy with the decision, even though he's now facing a
- 29:48Speaker 1: possible seventh trial for the murders, you are hearing our
- 29:52Speaker 1: friends at CBS joining me right now. Investigative reporter from
- 29:56Speaker 1: the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, author of the upcoming
- 30:02Speaker 1: book Race Against Time, Jerry Mitchell. If flowers convictions were
- 30:07Speaker 1: overturned four times, the reason he stayed in jail was
- 30:11Speaker 1: because nobody ever said he was innocent. The court didn't
- 30:14Speaker 1: say that, They just said procedural errors required a retrial.
- 30:17Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yees, So it's a count and it's
- 30:20Speaker 1: a capital murder charge. So obviously, at least the Mississippi
- 30:25Speaker 1: defense are typically denied bond in in cases of capital
- 30:29Speaker 1: murder unless the certain stances. Now, was he facing the
- 30:34Speaker 1: death penalty or was did he just get four lives? Hey,
- 30:39Speaker 1: he definitely definitely got the death penalty sentence that was
- 30:43Speaker 1: never carried out. Now, Jerry, another question, We know that
- 30:49Speaker 1: it's been alleged that African American Gerards were struck systematically.
- 30:54Speaker 1: Was what that what happened in his last trial was
- 30:57Speaker 1: that the misconduct in the last trial. I think essentially
- 31:01Speaker 1: the pattern was throughout the cases. But that's my understanding
- 31:07Speaker 1: is essentially with each of the cases, you know, I
- 31:11Speaker 1: think it was something like fifty percent of the potential
- 31:15Speaker 1: black jurors were structed. So that's what happened in his
- 31:18Speaker 1: last trial, they struck, they tried to get an all
- 31:22Speaker 1: white juries. That what happened in the last trial, that's
- 31:24Speaker 1: my understanding. It was just a pattern of behavior. Take
- 31:28Speaker 1: a listen to this. And third trial, mister Flowers will
- 31:31Speaker 1: try and convict of the kapital murder of birth Attardy
- 31:34Speaker 1: Robert Golden, Carmen Rigged Began Derek Stewart. Those convictions were
- 31:39Speaker 1: reversed because the Miss Spreene court found the State of
- 31:41Speaker 1: Missive he had engaged in racial discrimination during jury selection.
- 31:47Speaker 1: And fourth trial, mister Flowers was again tried for committing
- 31:50Speaker 1: awful of murders. In that case, prosecution did not seek
- 31:54Speaker 1: the death penalty. The jury was unable to reach a
- 31:58Speaker 1: verdict and a mistrial was declared. In the fifth trial
- 32:02Speaker 1: and also incidentally the first time I was involved in
- 32:05Speaker 1: this case. Missus Flowers was again tried for committing all
- 32:09Speaker 1: four murders. State of Mississippi reverse course and again sought
- 32:14Speaker 1: the death penalty. The jury was unable to reach it
- 32:17Speaker 1: the verdict and another miss trial was declared. In the
- 32:22Speaker 1: sixth trial, Missus Flowers was tried and convicted for committing
- 32:26Speaker 1: all four murders. The jury imposed the death penalty. Those
- 32:30Speaker 1: convictions were reversed by the United States Supreme Court. The
- 32:33Speaker 1: court found that the State of Missippi had once again
- 32:36Speaker 1: engaged in racial discrimination during jury selection. Another question, has
- 32:42Speaker 1: this guy actually gotten out on bond? Jerry Mitchell? He has,
- 32:47Speaker 1: he has. The judge basically led him out the other
- 32:53Speaker 1: day and kind of signaled, he called it troubling. Is
- 32:59Speaker 1: a morosecutors have yet to respond to defense motion to
- 33:03Speaker 1: drop the charges against Flowers, so he kind of said,
- 33:09Speaker 1: you know, if the prosecutors failed to respond that, as
- 33:12Speaker 1: he put at, the state will reach the whirlwind. Take
- 33:15Speaker 1: a listen to this. And I want to say this,
- 33:17Speaker 1: while I'm on record on this case, I want to
- 33:19Speaker 1: note the troubling fact that in the nearly four months
- 33:23Speaker 1: that this case has been back before the court. The
- 33:26Speaker 1: State of Missippi has taken absolutely no action of any
- 33:29Speaker 1: kind and furtherance of this prosecution, even after being ordered
- 33:33Speaker 1: to do so. The state failed to file a written
- 33:35Speaker 1: response to the motion for bailed. The states also failed
- 33:42Speaker 1: to file a written response to the motion to disqualify
- 33:46Speaker 1: disattorney Doug Evans Evans even though the state again had
- 33:52Speaker 1: notice of that. The state has also failed to file
- 33:55Speaker 1: a written response to the pending motion to dismiss the end.
- 34:01Speaker 1: So I just will have this caution for the State
- 34:03Speaker 1: of Misissippi if it contends in its dilatory conduct and
- 34:06Speaker 1: if it continues to ignore orders issued by the CORE,
- 34:10Speaker 1: if the State of Misissippi will reap the whirlwind. Well,
- 34:13Speaker 1: I can tell you this much. I typically do not agree. Well,
- 34:16Speaker 1: I never agree with a death row inmate walking free
- 34:21Speaker 1: on bond. But in this case, the prosecutors did not
- 34:25Speaker 1: respond to a bell motion. I mean, that's like not
- 34:29Speaker 1: showing up for a ball game, you forfeit. This is
- 34:33Speaker 1: insane that the prosecutors did not respond to a bell motion.
- 34:40Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, Jerry Mitchell, if he goes
- 34:43Speaker 1: back to trial, I'm sure the same evidence is going
- 34:47Speaker 1: to come in. If he's convicted, do you believe it
- 34:51Speaker 1: will be the same sentence? Because I don't ask a
- 34:54Speaker 1: good question. I don't know. I mean, I actually I'm
- 34:57Speaker 1: actually leaning toward the that he I don't see him
- 35:02Speaker 1: getting tried again. If the state thirty bailing on all
- 35:05Speaker 1: these other things already, it sounds like they're trying to
- 35:09Speaker 1: trip the charges for them. Yeah, exactly. Let me hear
- 35:12Speaker 1: that sound again, Jackie, because someone was speaking to me,
- 35:16Speaker 1: that would be you while you were playing. I need
- 35:18Speaker 1: to hear what the judge said again. And I want
- 35:20Speaker 1: to say this while I'm on record on this case.
- 35:22Speaker 1: I want to note the troubling fact that in the
- 35:25Speaker 1: nearly four months that this case has been back before
- 35:28Speaker 1: the court, the State of Missipi has taken absolutely no
- 35:31Speaker 1: action of any kind and furtherance of this prosecution, even
- 35:36Speaker 1: after being ordered to do so. The state failed to
- 35:38Speaker 1: file a written response the motion for bail. The states
- 35:42Speaker 1: also failed to file a written response to the motion
- 35:48Speaker 1: to disqualify disattorney Doug Evans Evans, even though the state
- 35:53Speaker 1: again had notice of that. The state has also failed
- 35:58Speaker 1: to file a written in response to the pending motion
- 36:02Speaker 1: to dismiss the indictment. So I just will have this
- 36:06Speaker 1: caution for the State of Mississippi if it continues in
- 36:08Speaker 1: its dilatory conduct and if it continues to ignore orders
- 36:12Speaker 1: issued by the Core, if the State of Mississippi will
- 36:15Speaker 1: reap the whirlwind man that judge means business. We wait
- 36:19Speaker 1: as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace Crumbs story, signing off, goodbye friend,