#212 Jason Flom with Curtis Flowers

Wrongful Conviction

Lava for Good Podcasts

True Crime

4.6 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On July 16, 1996, the owner of Tardy Furniture Company and three employees were found shot and killed. Curtis Flowers, who previously worked at the store, was charged with four counts of capital murder. Even though no physical evidence linked him to the crime, District Attorney Doug Evans used coerced and incentivized witnesses and racially discriminatory jury selection to send Curtis to Death Row. When his conviction was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct, DA Evans continued with the same tactics for 5 more trials over the next 23 years. It took the Supreme Court, the Mississippi Attorney General's office, and a podcast called In The Dark to set him free. Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Gunshot Residue Evidence released on October 7, 2020: https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/podcast/s12e2-wrongful-conviction-junk-science-gunshot-residue-evidence Learn more and get involved at: https://www.gofundme.com/f/curtis-flowers https://features.apmreports.org/in-the-dark/season-two/ https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co No1.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Curtis Flowers lived in the small town of Winona, Mississippi and began a job at Tarty
0:06.8	furniture, but while transporting some car batteries, two of them fell off his truck and
0:11.4	the store owner Bertha Tarty said that the damages might have to come out of his paycheck.
0:16.2	After a full day of work, Curtis decided to cut his losses and move on.
0:20.4	On the morning of July 16, 1996, the bodies of Bertha Tarty and three employees were found
0:26.1	shot. One was still alive, rushed to the hospital, but later pronounced dead. After hearing
0:32.0	about the allegedly disgruntled Curtis Flowers, police used a toxic mix of a cash reward and
0:38.3	intimidation to extract witness statements widely varying in detail. They pieced together
0:43.6	a ridiculous narrative of Curtis' whereabouts, including a dubious story about a gun that
0:48.9	his uncle had reported missing. With this flimsy motive and even flimsy evidence, along
0:54.3	with racially discriminatory jury selection, Curtis Flowers was first tried and convicted
0:59.7	of Bertha Tarty's murder. While that conviction was being thrown out, he was convicted for
1:04.6	the murder of one of the other employees, and when the second conviction was thrown
1:09.1	out, they tried to begin for all four murders. After six trials and a trip to the Supreme
1:14.8	Court, this farce would finally come to an end when American public media made a podcast
1:19.3	called In The Dark, shining a bright light on Curtis' case and the racist district attorney
1:24.4	driving it. After 23 long years on death row and another trip to the Supreme Court, district
1:30.3	attorney Doug Evans finally stepped off the case. Upon review, the Attorney General
1:35.8	Mississippi dropped all charges. This is wrongful conviction, with Jason Flamm.
1:47.7	The holiday shopping season is almost here, and small business owners need a plan to
1:51.7	get those crucial holiday shoppers through their doors. Be sure your plan includes radio ads
1:56.5	from iHeardAddBuilder.com. Radio lets you reach customers wherever they go, at home
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Lava for Good Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Lava for Good Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.