In The Dark - S2 E11: The End

Episode Date: July 3, 2018

For the last episode of the season, we went to meet Jeffery Armstrong, who, a few years after Curtis Flowers first went to prison, found what might have been a key piece of evidence. What he found -- and where he found it -- offers hints that someone else may have committed the Tardy Furniture murders. Armstrong turned the evidence into the cops. And then, he says, it disappeared.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This is the last episode of Season 2 of In the Dark, an investigative podcast from APM Reports. I'm Madeline Barron. This season is about the case of Curtis Flowers, a black man from a small town in Mississippi who spent the past 21 years fighting for his life, and a white prosecutor who spent that same time trying just as hard to execute him. One day, I went with our producer Samara to find a man named Jeffrey

Armstrong. We wanted to talk with him about something we'd heard he'd found many years ago. Jeffrey Armstrong lived out in the country on a winding road on the outskirts of Winona. It was dusk by the time we arrived. Jeffrey Armstrong came out on the porch. He's a white guy in his early 50s, with blue eyes and a bald head. He was wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt and shorts. How'd you guys find me way out here?

We stood out on the porch. There were some dogs wandering around the yard, and Jeffrey Armstrong told us the story of what he said he'd found one day in 2001, five years after the murders at Tardy Furniture. Jeffrey Armstrong told us that he was over at his mother's house in Winona, over on a street called Knox Street, when he heard their dog Patches in the backyard. And he come out and he was just barking, raising cane, scratching. My mom said, go see what that dog has. Went in the backyard and he had drug a.380 pistol off one of the house. The dog had found a gun, Jeffrey said. And not just any gun, a.380 pistol. That was the same

type of gun that had been used in the murders at Tardy Furniture. And the murder weapon in that case had never been found. What did it look like? It was just a.380 automatic. I mean, I know what it was. Did it look like old, new? It looked like it had probably been there for, I don't know, enough that it started to rust. Jeffrey said the gun he'd found five years after the murders looked like it had been lying on its side for years. He said the rust was all on one side.

Well, in the back of my mind, I knew they never found a weapon from the Tardis murder. I just thought, well, I don't know if this is it or not. Yeah, I mean, you find a.380 pistol, and I think they did determine that's what kind of gun was used. It was the first thing that went through my head. what kind of gun was used. It was the first thing that went through my head. Jeffrey said that a few days later, he got pulled over for speeding by two police officers,

Vince Small and Dan Harrod. And Jeffrey mentioned the gun he'd found. And one of the officers, Officer Vince Small, swung by Jeffrey's mother's house to meet Jeffrey there and pick up the gun. He came and got it. Said he was going to give it to the police chief. And like when you gave it over to the police, did they give you any kind of receipt or anything?

Uh-uh. And were you like asking for one or you're just like, I don't know? I just gave it to them. I wasn't really expecting anything. That's the last I saw it. Jeffrey said he never saw the gun again. He said he never found out what became of it. And for years, he said, no one asked him about it.

And then, one day, years later, Jeffrey ran into Curtis Flower's brother. And Jeffrey told him about finding the gun. And Curtis's brother put Jeffrey in touch with Curtis's lawyers. And in 2006, 10 years after the murders at Tardy Furniture, Jeffrey ended up writing a statement for the defense, describing what he said had happened with the gun. But Curtis's lawyers back then didn't really pursue it. with the gun. But Curtis's lawyers back then didn't really pursue it. It wasn't until 2016, 20 years after the murders at Tardy Furniture, that the defense took a closer look at the statement that Jeffrey had given about the gun. One of the lawyers working on Curtis's

post-conviction petition brought it up in a hearing. Curtis's lawyer asked the judge, Judge Loper, to order the state to turn over any information it might have about the gun Jeffrey Armstrong said he'd given to the police. But the state told the judge it didn't have any information. A lawyer from the state attorney general's office, who was working with Doug Evans, told Judge Loper, quote, who was working with Doug Evans, told Judge Loper, quote, Your Honor, as far as I'm aware, there is no gun. DA Doug Evans didn't say much during this part of the hearing, but at one point, he told Judge Loper, quote,

Your Honor, it doesn't make one bit of difference either way, but for the court's information, the person who gave that information has mental problems. Judge Loper denied the request from Curtis' lawyers. This gun remained a mystery. This.380 pistol that Jeffrey Armstrong had claimed he'd found under his mother's house. Jeffrey Armstrong had told us the gun existed, but the state had said in court that as far as they knew, it did not. So we decided to find out for ourselves. Jeffrey Armstrong had told us that the officer he'd given the gun to back in 2001,

five years after the murders at Hardy Furniture, was a man named Vince Small, who worked for the Winona Police Department back then, but had since left the force. So a reporter, Parker, went to find Vince Small. I wanted to ask you about a story which was about picking up a gun out on Knox Street. Do you remember this at all? Nah.

You don't remember picking up a gun on Knox Street? I don't know nothing about it. This guy, Jeffrey Armstrong, like, dug up a gun, or his dog dug up a gun or something like that, and he gave it to you? Nope. Didn't happen. Didn't happen?

Didn't happen. So this former cop was saying, that story that Jeffrey Armstrong is telling, that never happened. It just wasn't true. But one day, Parker and I were hanging out in the Winona Police Station. I don't like talking through this. But one day, Parker and I were hanging out in the Winona Police Station. The station is a very small, one-story building, across the street from the courthouse. There are only 11 officers who work for the Winona PD. The town only has about 4,500 people.

It was a busy day. There were a lot of people coming and going. I was talking to the police chief, when a police captain named Dan Herod walked by. Dan Herod was the other person who Jeffrey Armstrong claimed to have told about the gun back in 2001. Dan Herod was one of the two officers Jeffrey said pulled him over. Back then, he was a rookie cop, but he's now the chief investigator for the department.

So Parker asked Captain Dan Harrod about this gun. I read a thing about a gun being found over on Knox Street. Do you remember this? The station was noisy, so it's a little hard to hear. Who found the gun? I think it was Jeffrey Armstrong. Captain Harrod told Parker that he remembers when that happened. See, I pulled him over.

You pulled him over? I pulled him over and he said that his dog dug a gun up over at his mama's house. Like burying the yard out there or something. The dog dug it up or something. Captain Harrod said that another officer, who thinks it was Vince Small, went to the house and got the gun. And one of the guys down here working went over and got it, and they gave it to the DA's office, and they sent it to the crime lab. Captain Harrod had just told Parker that this officer had given the gun to the district attorney's office,

and the DA's office had sent the gun to the crime lab. Captain Harrod told Parker the best person to talk to about this would be the DA's investigator, John Johnson. Because, he said, he thinks that's who got the gun from the police and sent it to the crime lab. You need to talk to John Johnson, because I think that's who they gave it to in the DA's office. He was an investigator. I won't say that John from the DA's office is the one that

sent that gun to the crime lab. I just know that they got it and sent it to the crime lab. I know that. Parker asked Captain Dan Harrod whether the gun could be connected to the Tardy murders. That's probably when they sent it down there,

trying to figure out if it was it. Captain Harrod said the gun didn't come back to the police station after that. The DA's office kept it. Because that's how it works, he said, when the DA's office is investigating something. So according to Captain Dan Harrod, there was a gun. Jeffrey Armstrong had turned one over after all. But the cops didn't have it.

The district attorney's office did. The police chief of Winona, a man named Tommy Bibbs, told us the same thing. The gun had been recovered from Jeffrey Armstrong, but he said the police department doesn't have it. Chief Bibbs said the gun had been turned over to the DA's office and sent to the crime lab. But the crime lab told us, through a lawyer for the State Department of Public Safety, that the lab has no record of ever having that gun. We tried to ask the DA, Doug Evans, about the gun, but he didn't respond to our calls.

Parker and I decided to go back to see Jeffrey Armstrong again so he could take us to the place where he found this gun. That's after the break. Hi, this is David Remnick, and I'm pleased to share the news that I'm Not a Robot, a live-action short film gun. That's after the break. and what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world. I encourage you to watch I'm Not a Robot, along with our full slate of documentary and narrative films, at newyorker.com slash video. Take a left, I mean right. Just keep going straight.

Back in 2001, Jeffrey Armstrong was living with his mother in a little house on the east side of Winona on a street called Knox Street. It's a neighborhood with narrow streets and mostly small houses across the train tracks from downtown. It's also the neighborhood where Willie James Hemphill was living, off and on, back in 1996. Hemphill is the man who told me that he was an early suspect in the Tardy murders.

Okay, so we're on Knox Street. Brown House, right there. Right here? Yeah. Do you mind? I'm going to pull over. We pulled up in front of a small, one-story brown house in the middle of Knox Street. a small, one-story brown house in the middle of Knox Street. And I realized this house was so close to Tardy Furniture, like incredibly close.

We can see Tardy Furniture. Tardy's is right there. Right, you can see the tracks right there. Tardy Furniture was just a block away, just over the tracks. We could see it from where we were standing. It's like if you had found a gun basically anywhere else in this whole city, it would seem less likely, but this spot? I checked the exact distance later.

The house where this gun had been found was just about 700 feet from Tardy Furniture. But this gun was found on the opposite side of town from where Curtis Flowers lived. It's around back. There's like an opening to get up under the house. Like a crawl space? Mm-hmm. Can we check it out, do you think? I don't know who lives here. A man came out the front door, wondering why we were standing there, staring at his house.

So Jeffrey went over to him. Excuse me. Hi. Can I ask you a question? It's going to cost you. What's it going to cost me, man? No, seriously. You mind if we walk to the back of the house?

They just want to look at one thing. Okay. Yeah. It's going to touch nothing, it's going to bother nothing. We just want to look at one thing. Go ahead, help yourself. Hey, thanks. Thank you. We walked through the yard. So we're going around the side of the house. We got to the back of the house and there in the brick foundation was a two foot square opening. The opening was partly covered by a piece of plywood.

There it is, right there. Where the, it's open right now? Mm-hmm. Well, so it was right in here? Yeah. Jeffrey Armstrong said this was the spot where the dog had dragged the gun out in 2001, five years after the murders at Tardy Furniture. A crouch downered inside.

The opening led to a crawl space under the house. It's just a crawl space. Oh, man. It is, yeah. It was dark in the crawl space, so I used the flash on my phone to take a photo so I could see what was under there. There wasn't much.

As far as I could tell, mostly just some dirt, some rocks, some old cables, and a few broken pieces of concrete. If someone had committed the murders at Tardy Furniture and run across the train tracks, they would have run right past this crawl space. But it seemed risky to go this way, because those train tracks were up high on a raised rail bed, a berm. And when you're up on those tracks, everyone in the downtown can see you. It was

hard to believe the murderer could have come this way without being spotted and caught right away, because the murders happened around 9.30 or 10 in the morning, and there were people coming and going all through the downtown at that time. But when I mentioned this to Jeffrey, he told me, oh no, no one would have run over the train tracks. Don't you know about the tunnel? No, I didn't. So Jeffrey Armstrong took me there.

There was a ditch in the backyard of Jeffrey's mother's old house, and it led all the way down to the train tracks. There's the ditch right there. Oh, yeah, and it runs all the way back. It goes all the way down. We followed the ditch toward the train tracks and got to the end of Knox Street. And then I saw it. There it was, the tunnel, right in front of us. And this tunnel, it led under the train tracks.

We stood at the end of the tunnel and peered inside. I'm just curious. Take a look at this. Don't fall. The tunnel was really an old metal drainage pipe, about four feet tall. There was water trickling down the middle of it. It was dark, but I could see light at the other end. Like I said, you can walk right through it. It's been that way since I was a kid.

We used to play in there when I was a kid. We'd ride our bicycles and get off and walk back and forth through there. Not a whole lot to do in Wynonna to keep you busy. Go straight through. Should we go through? Sure. There's a swastika someone drew in there. People in Wynonna don't even know

what the hell that is. People in Winona don't even know what the hell that is. We came out the other side of the tunnel. And emerged in downtown Winona. At first, we couldn't tell exactly where we were in the downtown, because the tunnel had ended in a deep ditch, like maybe six feet deep or even more. So we poked our heads up and looked to our right,

and that's when we saw tardy furniture. It was right there. As I stood in the ditch, I realized that there was an actual path that leads from tardy furniture to the backyard of the house where Jeffrey Armstrong found the gun. And this path was clear and well-defined. It started in a ditch lined with large stones just a few feet from the side door of Tardy Furniture. And it continued through that tunnel, under the tracks, and kept going.

The ditch continued through the backyards of Knox Street. It was all one path. It was the sort of thing that you could pass by a hundred times and never notice. And yet, here it was. The story that the DA, Doug Evans, told the jurors took place entirely on one side of the tracks, the side where Curtis Flowers lived, not the side where Jeffrey Armstrong had found that gun. At trial, the DA, Doug Evans, had said that Curtis Flowers had fled west, past an auto body shop, a convenience store, back through a dense

residential area filled with people, all the way back to his house. Doug Evans put witnesses on the stand who claimed to have seen Curtis walking that route at specific times, witnesses who hadn't made statements until weeks or even months after the murders. But this was a story that Doug Evans told the jurors. It all fit together. It was all one route. It was risky, and it was long. But, Doug Evans told the jurors, it was the truth. But there was another possible route. A route that led through this tunnel, to the other side of the tracks. A route that didn't have any of Doug Evans' witnesses on it, but a route that was much shorter. A route that would have taken maybe two minutes to get from one end to the other. A route that was much more discreet. A route that had a gun at the end of it.

And now, that gun is missing. They'll never know the whole truth. I don't think they'll ever look. This thing has been a mess since the day it happened. For nearly 22 years, over six trials, the case against Curtis Flowers has been prosecuted by one man, a prosecutor who told the court that he never had any evidence that pointed at anyone other than Curtis Flowers,

even though there was another suspect, Willie James Hemphill, a man who'd been held in jail for 11 days. A prosecutor who violated the U.S. Constitution when he struck black people from the jury. A prosecutor who put witnesses on the stand who were clearly not credible. Witnesses who'd given implausible statements months after the murders. witnesses who'd given implausible statements months after the murders, a prosecutor who relied on the work of an investigator who didn't keep detailed notes, and a ballistics analyst who testified that he could be 100% certain of his conclusions,

even when the science didn't support that. A prosecutor who used testimony from three jailhouse informants, all of whom have since said that they lied under oath and have said they got deals. Deals that Evans claimed didn't exist, including the state's star witness, Odell Cookie Hallman, a violent criminal who was treated with leniency, only to go on to kill three people. And this prosecutor, the elected district attorney, Doug Evans, has done all of this in plain sight in a death penalty case. And he's never gotten in trouble for any of it. Curtis Flowers' case remains on appeal.

There's a direct appeal of Curtis' conviction in the sixth trial. That appeal is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Curtis' lawyers have also filed a post-conviction petition. In this kind of proceeding, the defense attorneys can bring up new information, information that wasn't known at the time of the last trial. And they're trying to add some of our findings to their petition. In just the past month, Curtis's lawyers have cited our interviews with Odell Cookie Hallman in briefs to the Mississippi Supreme Court. Just last week, two days after our episode about Willie James Hemphill was released, Curtis's lawyers filed an additional brief, saying that, quote,

stunning new evidence has come to light about Hemphill. The defense wrote, quote, in the 22-year history of this case, none of this evidence was ever disclosed to the defense. Curtis's lawyers wrote, The state has asked the court to block Curtis Flowers from adding this new information to his petition. has asked the court to block Curtis Flowers from adding this new information to his petition. Just two and a half weeks ago, the Mississippi State Attorney General's office, in a filing to the court, wrote that what Curtis Flowers wanted was a, quote, do-over and that the court should not allow it. It's not at all clear whether Curtis Flowers will actually have his conviction

overturned. And even if Curtis is successful and the courts reverse his conviction, that doesn't necessarily mean he would get out of prison, because the DA, Doug Evans, could just decide to try the case again for a seventh time. Meanwhile, Curtis Flowers remains on death row. A friend of Curtis's shared a letter with me that Curtis had sent him from prison several years ago. In it, Curtis wrote, I will stay strong because I know that as long as I keep the faith in God and trust that he will see me through all this, then everything's going to be all right.

Hi, come on in. Good morning. Good morning. How are you feeling? I'm here. One Tuesday this past April, I woke up early to meet Curtis's parents, Lola and Archie Flowers, at their house in Winona, around 6.30 in the morning, with our reporter, Parker. I like your hair.

Thank you. Lola's hair was curled. Archie was wearing a plaid button-down shirt tucked into a pair of khaki pants. Morning. Good morning. How are you doing this morning? Oh, no. Yep.

We're there because Tuesdays are the days that Curtis's parents go to visit him in Parchman Prison, about 80 miles from their home. because Tuesdays are the days that Curtis's parents go to visit him in Parchman Prison, about 80 miles from their home. The prison only allows visitors every other Tuesday. I wasn't allowed to go inside the prison to talk to Curtis myself. The Mississippi Department of Corrections has forbidden me from visiting Curtis, but I wanted to join Curtis's parents on the drive to try to understand what this is like for them. We headed out. Curtis' father, Archie Flowers, got into the driver's seat next to his wife, Lola. Parker and I got in the back.

Well, well, here we go on our journey. It looked like the sun was trying to come out and shine. Finally, right? Uh. So how many times do you think you've made this drive? Twice a month for the 20 years he's been over here. Twice a month for 20 years? I never tried to count and see how many times it is, but we go every two weeks. The first and third Tuesday of the month.

Probably hadn't missed over three in all the years he's been there. Only three? Mm-hmm. Wow. He's lucky to have you, both of you. The Flowers told me that most of the time, there are almost no other families there to visit any of the other inmates at Parchman. Last time, it was like three different families were there.

For the whole prison? Mm-hmm. One of the guards said to us, we know y'all coming, but don't nobody else show up, because we're going to always be there. This is the longest Curtis has been in Parchman Prison at one time, because when he's awaiting trial, he's usually held in a jail, where it's easier for his family to visit him. In the jail, most of the time, Curtis and his parents can even be in the same room, just sitting at a table together. At Parchman though, it's different.

You're sitting behind a glass. He's in one little room and then it's a glass and then you sitting on the other side and you talk on telephone. Once I think every six months if they don't get any write-ups, then you can go in this little room and sit at the table and talk to them. You don't have to talk on the phone. But you can't reach across the line they got on the table. There's a line on the table? Uh-huh.

Like a... They been draw the line and you just can't reach across that line. You sit over here, and he sit over there and talk to you. So when was the last time that you touched him? At trial, when he had the last trial. 2010? Uh-huh. So eight years ago.

Yep. Lola said she talked to Curtis just the night before. Last night he called me. He talked about what he's going to be cooking when he gets out. What he's going to be doing. I said, that's good. Curtis' father, Archie, was keeping his eyes on the road. He can cook. I know he can cook.

Can't beat his mama, but he can cook. He loved looking in magazines where they cook and he'd watch all the cooking shows and whatever. Then he'd tell all the different recipes out of magazines and he'd send them to me and tell me to put them up for him. Like last night, he's going to tell me, don't you be using my recipes. I'm going to use them myself when I get there. I said, okay. I didn't touch them. They're still in the envelope. So you're collecting recipes for him?

Yep. He can't wait until he gets home and he's going to cook this and that. He was telling me about some short ribs last night. I said, I can't wait to taste. We'd been driving for more than an hour. We were now deep in the Mississippi Delta, where the land was flat and the fields were being readied for planting. We were almost there.

That's the last little town you're going to see until you get to Parchman. Parchman was founded more than a century ago as a way to imprison black people after the end of slavery and make money off their labor. Prisoners worked the cotton fields, overseen by guards who beat them with a leather whip. These days, prisoners no longer work in the fields, but Parchman remains a notorious prison. In 2003, a federal judge ruled that the conditions on Parchman's death row were so bad that they

constituted cruel and unusual punishment. We approached a series of brick buildings with a large metal gate out front. So what you see up there now is parchment. All those little buildings here and there. And all them other little houses and buildings still belong to parchment. Everything you see belongs to parchment. Oh yeah, I can see kind of the coils of barbed wire out there. Uh-huh. Yep.

The Flowers parked and went inside the prison to see their son. But after just a half hour, they were back. So what happened? Oh, they on lockdown. So what happened? Oh, they're on lockdown. The whole thing on lockdown. So you couldn't see them? Uh-uh. The whole place is on lockdown.

The prison was on lockdown. Visiting hours had been canceled. So you came all this way for nothing? Uh-huh. So you'll come back in two nothing? Uh-huh. So you'll come back in two weeks? Uh-huh. Yep. He started driving back to Winona.

Lola kept sighing. Archie was just focused on the road. How are you feeling about Curtis' case? I'm hopeful that it do get overturned again. You know you don't never know. How long do you think it's gonna be like in your mind for that to happen? for that to happen? I really don't know.

I never just tried to come up with a date. I'm just hoping that it happens. Just keep praying that it's going to happen. If the DA, Doug Evans, has his way, there will come a day when Lola and Archie Flowers will make one last trip to Parchman Prison. They'll arrive at the front gates. They'll get scanned and searched, just like always. But this time, they'll be taken in a van to a different building.

They'll get out, and they'll be taken in a van to a different building. They'll get out and they'll be walked inside, down a hallway, and into a room with a big glass window so they can see what's happening in the room right in front of them. They'll sit down and they'll stare through the glass. Curtis will have already been brought into that room. The guards will have removed the shackles from Curtis's hands and legs. Curtis will have climbed up onto a gurney, and the guards will have used belts to tie him down. Curtis will lie flat on his back while the superintendent of the prison reads him his death warrant. Curtis will be allowed to make a brief statement, no more than five minutes. The superintendent will order the executioner to proceed. The executioner will inject a

combination of chemicals into a vein in Curtis's left arm. And then the trials of Curtis Flowers will be over. The End On July 14th, 12 days after this episode was originally released, Curtis Flowers' mother, Lola Flowers, died unexpectedly after a short illness. She was 70 years old. Curtis Flowers asked the court to allow him to attend his mother's funeral, but the Mississippi Attorney General's Office asked the court to deny the request. In a filing, the Attorney General's Office said that District Attorney Doug Evans, quote, has advised that he would strongly object to any request for emergency leave. The judge, Joey Loper, never even responded to the request,

and the funeral for Lola Flowers took place at the family's church in Winona, while Curtis remained in his solitary cell 80 miles away in Parchman Prison. We'll continue to cover any major developments in the case of Curtis Flowers. We'll provide updates here and on our website, inthedarkpodcast.org. There's also a link on our website to sign up for our email list, so you can be the first to know about any big updates in the case. about any big updates in the case. In the Dark is reported and produced by me, Madeline Barron,

senior producer, Samara Fremark, producer, Natalie Jablonski, associate producer, Raymond Tungakar, and reporters, Parker Yesko and Will Kraft. In the Dark is edited by Catherine Winter. Web editors are Dave Mann and Andy Cruz. The editor-in-chief of APM Reports is Chris Worthington. Original music by Gary Meister and Johnny Vince Evans.

This episode was mixed by Corey Schreppel. Photography for season two of In the Dark by Ben Depp. Additional reporting for Season 2 by Curtis Gilbert and Tom Scheck. Web illustrations by Jamie Chismar and Matthew Van Dusen. Data reporting assistance by David Montgomery, Angela Caputo, and Jeff Hing. Additional research by interns Josie Funn and Rylan Ishans. We also want to thank Shelley Langford, Steve Griffith, and the engineering team at APM,

and everyone who listened in on sound edits this season, including Maya Beckstrom, Chris Julin, Hans Butow, Tracy Mumford, Molly Bloom, Max Nestorak, and Alex Baumhart. And thank you for listening to In the Dark. Hi, this is David Remnick. I'm proud to share the news that three films from the New Yorker documentary series have been shortlisted for the Academy Awards. And they are Incident, Seat 31, Zoe Zephyr, and Eternal Father. And they all immerse you in the finest cinematic journalism, exploring themes of justice, identity, and the bonds that shape us. These extraordinary films, which were created by established filmmakers as well as emerging

artists, will inform, challenge, and move you. I encourage you to watch them along with our full slate of documentary and narrative films at newyorker.com slash video.