In The Dark - S2 E5: Privilege

Episode Date: May 22, 2018

No witness has been more important to the prosecution's case against Curtis Flowers than Odell Hallmon. He testified in four trials that Flowers had confessed to him while the two men were in prison together. Hallmon has an astonishingly long criminal history that includes repeated charges for drug dealing, assault, and robbery. So how reliable is his testimony and did he receive anything in exchange for it? In this episode, we investigate the veracity of the prosecution's star witness.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Previously on In the Dark. that said cookie. Odell got away with everything. He got privilege, a lot of privilege. The following is an involuntary statement from Odell Hall, no middle name, also known as Cookie. You're contacting us, it's involuntary in this statement, is that correct? We haven't promised you any reward or good treatment or nothing, is that correct?

Absolutely. One day last October, I drove out to an old jail in the town of Carrollton, Mississippi. Okay, we're at the old jail. The jail's been closed for about 20 years. It was built right after the Civil War in 1870. been closed for about 20 years. It was built right after the Civil War in 1870. It's a two-story brick building with bluish-gray paint peeling off it and barred windows in the front. Our reporter Parker had gotten permission from the sheriff for us to go in. She got there before me. Hello. Hi. Bring your flashlight. Is there any electricity in here at all?

In this building, I don't think so. Parker had found something she wanted to show me. Okay, so we are entering the jail cells. We walked down a narrow hallway. The cells were on our right, and there was a barred window on the left side that cast a dim ray of light inside. All right, next cell over. We got to the last cell, the one all the way at the end of the hallway. There was a red velvet Christmas bow wrapped around the bars about eight feet up. Someone had left a box of nails and a condom wrapper on the little tray where the jailer would pass food to the inmates. There was an empty bottle of sliced soda on the ground.

The cell door was open, so we walked inside. And as we did, the sunlight faded, so I pulled out my flashlight. And as I shined the flashlight around, I saw something, written on the wall, next to a bottom bunk. Cookie Heart Regina, in this, like like childish, like this teenager handwriting. There's graffiti on the wall that says Cookie. I mean, he definitely was here. We don't know exactly when, but.

This was his cell at some point. Oh, yeah. Cookie. Odell Cookie Hallman. The state's most important witness in the Curtis Flowers case. The man who testified that Curtis confessed to him in prison. This graffiti was the closest I'd gotten to Odell Hallman, and it was strange to see traces of him still in this jail after so many years.

But I wasn't there to look for Odell's graffiti. I was there to look for records of his crimes, and Carroll County stores some of its criminal records in this old jail. I was trying to find out what had happened back in 2001, when Odell Hallman recorded those videos with the DA's investigator. I wanted to find out if Odell had been facing any charges at the time, and whether he'd gotten anything, in exchange for helping the prosecution in the Curtis Flowers case. If Odell had gotten something, that would be really important, because it would contradict what the DA, Doug Evans, has said in court, that he didn't give Odell anything.

And it would seriously call into question whether Odell was telling the truth when he got up on the stand in the courtroom and told jurors that Curtis Flowers had confessed to him. I decided that the way to figure this out would be to look for records that might show if some kind of deal had been made back in 2001. I was looking for any dropped charges or any unusual sentence, anything that might indicate that Odell got something. Anything. For helping out the state.

As best I could tell, no one had done this before. No one had really dug into the full history of Odell Cookie Hallman. I had no idea what I would find. This is Season 2 of In the Dark, an investigative podcast by 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. Some of the old cells in the Carrollton Jail were filled with filing cabinets,

stacked on their sides on the metal bunks. We started climbing onto the bunks to open them, looking for any criminal records that might mention Odell Cookie Hallman. I feel like this is the sort of thing a bat flies out of, don't you? Then we noticed some smaller drawers, just lying out in the hallway. Each one was crammed full of index cards. They were booking cards for the jail. This is just jam-packed in this.

It's like a shoebox full of these cards, these 5x7 cards. Is that a dead spider? Yes, definitely. Let's take them all. Okay. We grabbed these files and hauled them over to a desk in another room.

Okay, so we're looking for Adele Hallman on these cards. So where are the H's? They're in this one. This one? Super packed one, yeah. Okay, cool. H's. Harper.

Yeah, and H's. Harper, Harris, Harris, Harris, Harris. They're all stuck together. Hall. Oh, Adele. There he is. Harper Harris, Harris, Harris, Harris. They're all stuck together. Paul. Odell. There he is. Date of birth, 11-19-75. This is Odell. Alias or nickname? Cookie.

There he is. Build heavy. Complexion light. Occupation none. The arrest was for aggravated assault on the day before Christmas Eve, 12-23-92. Oh, here he is again. Adele Hallman Jr. This is from April 7, 1993 1993 for Concealed Weapon. Alias or nickname, Cookie.

Here's another one. Odell Holman Jr. August 14th, 1991. Hold for Reform School. How old is he? 16. 16. Aggravated Assault. Is this another one? You guys, this just keeps going. Holman, there he is again. Odell Holman Jr.

April 7, 1992 Simple Assault Here's another one. July 29, 1991 Aggravated Assault This guy has got so many cards. The booking records in the Carrollton Jail were for just an 11-year period,

and just from one county. Doug Evans District, the Fifth Circuit Court District of Mississippi, has seven counties, spread out across north-central Mississippi. And there are sheriff's offices in each one, and many small-town police departments. Our reporter Parker started calling around to the clerks at all of these places, asking them to dig through their records. And you want arrest records?

Yeah. What was the name you were looking for? Odell Hallman, H-A-L-L-M-A. That would take a while to find because I couldn't tell you where they're at. They're here somewhere. I don't know. Okay. I would have to dig back in the back. I'm still working on it, Ms. Parker.

All our records are in files. I mean and we're kind of old school still. So it takes a while to be digging, you know, since all the way back to the 90s. I hear you. After months of doing this, we ended up with more than a thousand pieces of paper. After months of doing this, we ended up with more than a thousand pieces of paper. Copies of arrest reports, jail bookings, criminal indictments, and we put all of this onto a timeline. The timeline was more than 50 pages long. It began in 1988, when Odell was just 12 years old.

Odell was arrested for aggravated assault. It continued from there. Arrest for fighting, for disturbing the peace, for simple assault, for aggravated assault, for burglary, for stabbing a man in the neck and head. And that was all before Odell Hallman's 18th birthday. In the next few years after that, the arrests continued. Odell racked up charges for trespassing, probation violations, robbery, and assault. But what I was most interested in were four arrests that came in the months leading up to Odell Cookie Hallman giving those statements to the DA's investigator about Curtis Flowers. Those are the videos that you heard in the previous episode. about Curtis Flowers. Those are the videos that you heard in the previous episode.

Here's what happened in the months leading up to Odell recording those videos. Four arrests. First, in July of 2000, about nine months before those videos were made, the cops got a call that Odell was out selling drugs around town. A sheriff's deputy named Brad Carver headed out with his partner, and they tracked Odell down at a gas station. We got there. He was not in his car, so we knew he had to be in the service station. So me and another deputy went inside the service station, and we asked the clerk. She knew who he was because he was from that area.

I said, where's Cookie at? And she pointed. He was in the bathroom. When he come out of that bathroom and saw us, he lit out and went kind of went right through both of us and went through the front door running. And I ended up tackling him. And I tackled him. And that day he had like, probably like 11 crack rocks on him that day. Odell was arrested and held briefly in jail. Second, in February of 2001, three months before those videos were made, Odell was caught with a 9mm pistol. Odell was a felon, and so it was illegal for him to have a gun. He was arrested. He bonded out. 2001, two months before those videos were made, Odell was arrested for possession of marijuana and for armed robbery. He bonded out for that too and went home. And finally, just two weeks after that, Odell got pulled over by some Winona cops. They searched his car and found 132 rocks of crack cocaine. Odell was arrested and held in jail on a half-million-dollar bond. And so, four possible charges hanging over Odell Hallman.

That's what was going on when Odell went into that room in May of 2001 with the DA's investigator, John Johnson, and told him that he had information that they would want to help them in the case against Curtis Flowers. Just one week after Odell made that video, one of the charges, the one for armed robbery, was dismissed by the county attorney. Odell did plead guilty to illegal possession of a firearm, and he ended up serving a year in jail. As for the other two possible charges, the drug ones, the ones for possessing crack, Odell wasn't even indicted for those charges, let alone convicted of them.

Those two drug cases seemed to just go away. I tried to find out why that had happened. I called the DA's office, but Doug Evans didn't return my calls. I sent Doug Evans' office a public records request about it. But Evans didn't respond. I thought that someone who would definitely know whether Odell got a deal in exchange for his testimony in the Curtis Flowers case would be Odell's lawyer from back then, a public defender named Lee Bailey, not to be confused with the famous attorney F. Lee Bailey,

who represented O.J. Simpson. Odell's Lee Bailey was actually in the room when Odell made that statement in one of those videos back in 2001. I went to see him at his office with our reporter Parker. What can I do for you? How was today? How was court? Uh, tiresome. Yeah? Yeah, just standing up there all day long and trying to talk to these idiots and So the idiots are your clients. Okay, I got it. I asked Lee Bailey about that video that was made back in 2001, the one that he was there for as Odell's lawyer.

And so, like, in 2001, there's a video where Odell Hallman is giving a statement to law enforcement. Do you remember this? No. I don't remember anything about that. Okay. That was a long time ago. You know, I had a lot of cases.

They all run together after a while. I asked Lee Bailey if he had any documents from Odell Hallman's case from back in 2001. Anything that would show whether the DA gave Odell anything in exchange for giving a statement. Would you have any record of whether or not Odell giving that statement was helpful in his case? Would I have any? No.

I get rid of stuff as fast as I can. I don't want them coming back and saying, I want a copy of my motion for discovery. You see? So if I kept all that, we'd have to have another room with nothing but that. That would be a great room, though. So no chance that you would have that written down anywhere? No. Shoot. Okay.

So Lee Bailey told me that it's possible Odell Hallman could have gotten a deal in exchange for something, but he just doesn't know, because he got rid of the file. But he did tell me how it works when the DA is considering offering a deal to one of his clients in exchange for information. It has to do with the district attorney and assistant district attorney. And it has to do with the law enforcement officer who was arresting him and how they felt about it. It's hard to explain. they felt about it. It's hard to explain.

Sometimes they, say they offer you 10 years. And you go to them, start talking to them about different things, maybe that Cookie could tell them about, you know, other crimes in the community, you see. Then they could come on down if he did that, see? So did he have something that he had that was valuable? I don't know. I don't remember. I went to talk to Brad Carver about this.

He's a deputy who had tackled Odell in the parking lot and caught him with drugs. He's now the warden of the county jail in Grenada, Mississippi, the biggest city in Doug Evans' district. I interviewed Brad Carver at his office at the jail, and I asked him what he thinks happened with that drug case against Odell. He worked something out with someone, either the DA or some other agency, because he didn't stay in jail long. Brad Carver told me he doesn't actually know if the DA made a deal with Odell,

but he told me that Odell was well-known for trying to get out of charges by offering information. I'm going to be honest with you. I know how kooky he was. He hated being locked up. So he had a lot of information on other drug dealers and other people that he would always snitch on or tell stuff on. He would make a little phone call and talk to folks. And see, that would help him a lot, either cut his time down or not even have to go on stuff. And although Brad Carver said he doesn't know how exactly Odell got out of being charged in that drug case, his best guess is that it probably had something to do with the case against Curtis Flowers. I think he also had a lot of pull because he was like an eyewitness or something dealing with the Tardy furniture murders,

and he was testifying on the guy that actually did the killing. So I know he had some, you know, that helped him a lot out of some stuff, too, see. So I think he did. Would you ever hear that directly from, like, an attorney involved in the case or someone at the courts or something like that? I never heard anything like that. But if you didn't have information, you'd expect the man would have been in prison a long time ago. Correct, yes, no doubt. Yes, ma'am.

So do you know what he ended up saying to get out? I really don't now. That's kind of over my head. I don't know. It's been 17 years since Odell Hallman became a witness for DA Doug Evans in the case against Curtis Flowers. Odell has testified for the state in four trials. He's become one of Doug Evans' star witnesses. But Odell being Odell, or Cookie being Cookie, his crimes didn't stop after he decided to work with the prosecutor. He kept on breaking the law.

And prosecutors were left with a choice. When the state's star witness gets caught committing crimes, what kind of punishment should he get? It didn't take long for Odell to cause trouble again. In 2003, while DA Doug Evans was waiting to see whether Curtis Flowers' conviction from his second trial would be overturned, waiting to see whether he'd need Odell to testify in a third trial, Odell Hallman was arrested for aggravated assault and robbery. But the charges were dropped entirely.

According to the case file, they were dropped by the Justice Court because of a lack of evidence. A few months after that, also in 2003, Odell got in trouble again. According to news coverage of this crime, quote, a lone gunman went on a shooting rampage, drove by a yard with four or five people in it, No one was injured in the shooting, but one of the bullets did go through the house and struck the TV. Odell Hallman was arrested for it and charged with felony shooting into a dwelling. But the case was dismissed.

The court record says it was because the witnesses couldn't be found. The next year, 2004, Odell testified for the prosecution in Curtis Flowers' third trial, telling the jury that Curtis had confessed to him. Later that same year, while Curtis' conviction from that trial was on appeal, and DA Doug Evans was waiting to see whether he'd need Odell to testify in a fourth trial, Odell was caught with nearly 10 grams of cocaine. A few months after that, he was caught with about 50 grams of cocaine and an illegal gun. All three of those crimes were felonies. By this point, Odell had committed so many crimes

that he was eligible for Mississippi's version of the three-strikes law. In Mississippi, it's called habitual offender. The grand jury indicted Odell, and if he'd been convicted this time, he could have been sent to prison for 30 years without parole. But that didn't happen. Because the DA offered Odell a deal. He decided to drop the habitual offender charge against Odell, and he decided to drop all but one of the other charges against him. Odell pleaded guilty to the one remaining drug charge, and he ended up serving about eight years.

While Odell was locked up, he continued to testify in the Curtis Flowers trials, the fourth one in 2007, the fifth one in 2008, and the latest one, the sixth one, in 2010. During the time that Odell was testifying in those trials, according to the documents we obtained, Odell racked up dozens of infractions in prison. For fighting, for hitting a female officer with a tray, for having a shank, for having weed in his underwear, for trying to bite an officer, and for having what appeared to be a spear in his cell, among many other things. In April of 2010, Odell was identified by prison officials as a, quote,

disruptive core member of the vice lords. I talked to a former police officer named Michael Gross, who used to work in the jail, so we'd see Odell cycle in and out. I talked to him at his house. His kids were in the next room. What was he like in jail? Oh, just terrible. The worst inmate of the prison. Knocking, kicking on the cell all day, even for the other inmates, you know, it was just an intimidator. We couldn't really put him in population because everybody was pretty much scared of him. What would he do to people? Like I said, he had a mouthpiece on him.

He knew how to talk to you here. You know, he's a guy you wouldn't want to trust because, like I said, he could not have anybody. He'll make a German shepherd think he's a bulldog. I know I use a lot of analogies, but that would kind of, you know. That would come off, actually. What kind of guy he was, you know, he can. Even in a jail where you think there's a bunch of guys who maybe also have those skills, but he was better at it. He'd been doing it for years.

He'd been doing it for years. But on the stand, in the Curtis Flowers trials, Odell presented himself as a changed man. He described himself not as a schemer, but as a victim, the kind of guy who's easily misled by the wrong crowd. Odell told the jurors that he used to be especially vulnerable to offers of cigarettes. Odell said, quote, cigarettes hold a big power over you if you ain't got God in your life. But now, Odell told the jurors, Christ had come into his life and, quote, I done start doing what is right for a change. To Michael Gross, the former cop, who'd seen Odell locked up, all of this was hard to believe.

So did people in the jail think, like the people who worked in the jail, think Odell was credible? Nope. Did anybody think he was credible? No. No, and I don't understand how Doug ever used it. Even, you know, I guess you say these in-jail snitches, they're pretty much what they use. So if Odell had, like, when you were working in the jail, if Odell had come to you and said, hey, I was talking to this other guy in this cell, and he told me he confessed to some crimes, would you believe him?

No, I'd do some investigation, but I wouldn't believe him. Odell Hallman got out of prison in 2013. And not long after that, he was in trouble again. And this time, what Odell did is the kind of crime that people almost never get away with. It happened while Curtis Flowers' conviction from the sixth trial was on appeal, and DA Doug Evans was waiting to see whether that conviction would be overturned, waiting to see whether he'd need Odell to testify in yet another trial, a seventh one. It was 2014, and Deputy Brad Carver got a call about Odell. I basically remember like one morning, we got a tip on him,

a call from a female that gave us some information about him transporting a lot of drugs and weapons in the car and supposedly was transporting some dope to somebody's house to drop it off. The sheriff's office already had two other warrants out on Odell, and so Deputy Carver and two other officers headed out to find him. We saw him coming from the house he was supposed to be coming from, dropping the dope off. Odell was driving away when Deputy Carver and the other officers got there. They turned on their lights and ordered Odell to pull over, but Odell refused.

Deputy Carver and the other officers tried to use their cars to box Odell in to stop him from driving off. Then Deputy Carver got out of his squad car and started walking toward Odell's car to try to arrest him. Yelling, stop, stop the vehicle, you know, don't go, just stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. But Odell didn't stop. Instead, he sped right toward Deputy Carver, like he was aiming for him. He just started coming towards me, and I just kind of dove off out of the way. So if you hadn't dove out of the way, would he have hit you? Oh, no doubt. I mean, he was trying to run me over, yes. He was. I mean, it was, I mean, it was my heart, had my heart racing, you know.

I mean, it was a pretty, pretty big deal. Then Odell fled. As he raced away, he hit Deputy Carver's squad car, and Carver tried to shoot out his tires. I just pulled my weapon and took out the front left and back right tire, thinking it would kind of like maybe, you know, like slow him down, but it didn't. He was running on rims, and he ended up getting away from us. And then, a few days later...

Odell had burned up his car. And now, he was on the run. The sheriff's office got a judge's order to track Odell's phone. And they called in the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force. The federal marshals found Odell hiding out at a Red Roof Inn in Jackson. They arrested him and put him in jail. It seems like one of the more serious crimes you can commit to try to run over a sheriff's deputy. I agree. I mean, correct, yes.

Odell Hallman was indicted for aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. And again, a grand jury indicted him as a habitual offender. If Odell had been convicted of this crime, he would have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He would have been gone for good. But that didn't happen.

Because District Attorney Doug Evans did not push to bring the case against Odell to trial right away. Instead, it kept getting postponed. Months passed. Then a year. Then longer. Why is it years passing? It kept getting postponed. Months passed. Then a year. Then longer.

Why is it years passing? I have no earthly idea. I mean, I just, I don't know. I really, I know it's just, it's a bad deal. I don't, I don't know. It's just how the system works. I mean, I don't know. I mean, you should have been locked up years ago and never, you know, let out the way I feel. I mean, but,'t know. I mean, he should have been locked up years ago and never let out the way I feel.

But, you know, that's... I mean, I have nothing to do with that, so... Once we pretty much give all of our information over to the district attorney's office, we're just, I mean, you know, we're waiting to hear from them, you know, after that, so... I talked to a lot of other law enforcement in the area about Odell,

and they told me they were just as puzzled as Brad Carver was as to why Odell kept getting out of jail, why he was always back on the streets. I talked to a sheriff's deputy named Calvin Young. I don't know what the reason he was being let

release so soon on some of the stuff that he might have been charged on, but he was. I don't know why that was happening, but he would go in and wouldn't long as he'd be out. He was just, what's the word I want to use, just a menace to society, as they would say. This is Michael Gross, the former police officer who'd worked in the jail. He should have been locked up a long time ago. Why do you think he kept getting in and out so quickly? Superman.

Doug Evans. Doug Evans. Doug Evans is the DA over Carroll, Montgomery, and Natalia. And Grenada. Doug Evans allowed him to continue to stay out. You know, they created a monster. State of Mississippi, that's what I said. With Odell Hallman, they created a monster. With Odell Hallman, they created a monster. The law enforcement officers we talked to said that Odell Hallman should have been put away a long time ago.

What Odell did next would show just how right they were. That's after the break. 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. documentary and narrative films at newyorker.com slash video. In 2016, Odell Hallman was living in a town about 15 minutes from Winona.

He was dating a woman named Markita Hill. They dated off and on for years. They had a son together. Odell would beat up Markita all the time. Markita's brother, Craig, told me about it. He used to hit her a lot, though. Black their eye and stuff. And then when she came home, like, she'd have makeup on or have something covering her eye. He did hit her a lot, though.

In the spring of 2016, Markita moved herself and her 12-year-old son into the house of her mother, Carolyn Ann Sanders. She went to go live with my mother because she had the burglar bar doors, the alarm system. She felt safe down there. On April 27, 2016, at around 2 in the morning, Marquita's sister, Renee, got a phone call. Renee told me about it one day last summer, as we sat in folding chairs under a tree in front of her trailer. The phone call Renee got was from Marquita and Odell's 12-year-old son. He called me with the calmest voice in the world.

Ain't he? Get up. Come down here, my daddy, shot and killed my mama and grandmama. Just as calm. Just like that. He saw it happen. He saw his mama, his dad shoot his mama, and his mom take her last breath. Odell had killed his ex-girlfriend, Markeita Hill, while their son was in the room. According to the Hill family, what happened next was that the boy ran into his grandmother's bedroom and told his grandmother to get in the closet, but his grandmother told him,

no, you get in the closet, so the boy did. Then Odell came into the grandmother's bedroom and shot her in the head. Odell's son was trying to stay as still as he could in the closet. Odell shot into the closet, but he missed just barely. The bullet grazed his son's arm. Odell walked over to the closet and looked inside. His son played dead and held his breath. And then Odell left. And his son picked up the phone and called his aunt Renee. After the phone call, Renee raced

down the street, pounded on her brother's window, and woke him up. Then they rushed over to the house together. Her brother went inside and got Marquita's son. The police hadn't gotten there yet. And while everyone waited for the police to get there, people from the neighborhood started coming out of their doors and walking over in the middle of the night

to see what was going on. It was yard full before any police got there. How long did it take the police? Oh, it was like almost an hour. We called 911. They was like they were busy. The police didn't get there right away because they had other crimes to respond to that night. Odell hadn't just killed Marquita Hill and her mother Carolyn.

He'd been driving around all night on a killing spree. been driving around all night on a killing spree. He went to one house 20 minutes away, crept up to a window, and aimed his gun at a man who was sleeping inside, fired, and shot him. The man died. That man's name was Kenneth Loggins. Odell went to another house and shot a man there five times. and shot a man there five times. That man, Marcus Brown, actually survived. And after all of that, Odell Hallman drove to the courthouse to turn himself in. It was around four in the morning, so the courthouse was closed. By this time, the sun was almost up. Eventually, two deputies arrived, and they arrested Odell and put him in jail. This triple murder was the biggest crime in the area since the murders at Tardy Furniture 20 years earlier. In the Tardy Furniture case, Doug Evans' investigators had met many times with the family members of the victims. This is something that Evans has said is important.

He'd actually campaigned on it. In one of his campaign ads, he said, quote, or the relatives of deceased victims, keeping you informed of all relevant court proceedings, any possible plea negotiations, and your rights to restitution as afforded by law. But in this case, that's not what happened. Fourteen days after the murders,

Renee Hill, the woman whose sister and mother had been killed by Odell, got a phone call. It was a woman from the DA's office. All they told us to come to the courthouse, they had something for us. They didn't tell us what we were coming for or anything. Renee had some family members come with her, but a lot of them didn't,

because it didn't sound like something where everyone needed to be there. It just sounded like some kind of meeting. When Renee got there, she was ushered into a room. Some of the other family members of Odell's victims were there, too. Then, the district attorney, Doug Evans, walked in. If y'all don't know me, I'm Doug Evans, your district attorney. Our office is handling this case. One of the members of the Hill family recorded this meeting with Doug Evans on a cell phone.

And another family member gave me a copy of it. I couldn't let anybody know what was going on up until this point because part of what we were doing this morning, we can't let out what was going on up until this point, because part of what we were doing this morning, we can't let out what's going on. We had a grand jury recalled this morning. We recalled a special grand jury to hear this case, and we indicted Odell on three counts of first-degree murder. Doug Evans told the family members the reason he'd had them all come down was because this whole thing was basically wrapped up. Odell had been indicted just that morning on three counts of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated assault, and one count of illegal possession of a firearm.

possession of a firearm. Doug Evans told them something else, too, that Odell Hallman had agreed to plead guilty, and that actually, he was about to be brought into this courthouse right now, because there was going to be a hearing, and that was going to be it. We gets over there, then they're like, oh, he having court today. He pleaded guilty. We all was like, huh? Also, I want to let y'all know that at this point, it looks like he is willing to plead guilty to the maximum penalty to all of these charges, which is serving the rest of his life without any possibility of parole. And they was like, it was just best he's pleaded guilty to it. And this is, so let the judge just give the sentence,

and y'all deal with it. That's the way they actually just put it to us. Just go along with it. He won't never see the outside again. So you don't have anything to worry about. For Renee and for a lot of other people in the Hill family, life in prison for Odell was not what they wanted. They wanted the death penalty.

Although they barely had a chance to think about it, they just buried their two family members four days earlier. Why do we get to live and breathe and eat when they didn't get to? He didn't give them a chance. So you would hope he would seek the death penalty? Mm-hmm. And it sounds like you didn't, like you had no idea any of this was happening.

Like, Doug Evans didn't come to you and say, would this be acceptable to you? He never called not one of us. Not one. For a district attorney to seek the death penalty in Mississippi, a crime has to meet certain criteria. With a few exceptions, like killing a police officer, it's not enough to just murder someone.

Most of the time, for a murderer to be eligible for the death penalty, the person needs to have committed another crime too, at the same time. Murder plus another felony. There's actually a list of felonies that count. They include child abuse, burglary, robbery, sexual battery, kidnapping, among others. Like in the Curtis Flowers case, Curtis killing four people, that by itself would not have been enough to get the death penalty. Doug Evans needed to show that Curtis had done one of those other crimes at the same time. In Curtis's case, Evans said, that other crime was robbing the furniture store. In the case of Odell Hallman's triple murder, it certainly seemed possible that Odell had committed one of those other crimes, like burglary, when he broke into the house where Marquita was living.

But to figure that out, law enforcement would need to conduct a thorough investigation. They'd need to spend a lot of time investigating each one of the three crime scenes, trying to search all the places where Odell Hallman might have hidden evidence, talking to as many witnesses as they could possibly find. And that kind of work, it just can't happen in a few days.

And it didn't happen in this case. The whole thing was wrapped up in 14 days. 14 days from the night that Odell Hallman went on a killing spree to this moment in the courthouse, when the plea deal had been made and the case was closed. In this meeting at the courthouse, the family members of the victims asked Doug Evans about the investigation. They asked Evans if law enforcement had ever found the gun that Odell had used. Doug Evans told them no. They asked Evans whether anyone had figured out why Odell had done. Doug Evans told them no. They asked Evans whether anyone had figured out

why Odell had done this, what his motive was. Doug Evans told them no. He came up with some different general things, but nothing specific. And, Doug Evans told them, it was almost like as soon as Odell Hallman committed these murders, he regretted it. And I think that's kind of what he said.

He put it down. It's almost like he did it, and as soon as he did it, he regretted it because he turned himself in and he started pretty much admitting what he did right after that. It's not true that Odell regretted the murders right away. Not at all. And the reason I know this is because I got a copy of the incident report that the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office made after the murders. The report from the deputy who went to the courthouse to arrest Odell that morning. That deputy's name is Jim Burton, and in his report,

Burton writes that as he was handcuffing Odell, Odell asked him, quote, if they were all dead. Deputy Burton told Odell he didn't know. A few minutes later, Odell asked if Kenneth Loggins was dead. Burton told him yes. Odell said, good. Then Odell asked if Marcus Brown was dead. Deputy Burton told him no. And Odell said, he should be. After that meeting, the families were led into the courtroom.

Odell Hallman was brought in, too. He was turned toward the judge, and we were sitting at the back. But you could tell by the side of his face, he was standing there with a smirk on his face. He never turned around and apologized or said anything. He never turned around and apologized or said anything. Sometimes people whose family members have been killed or the victims of crimes get to make a statement in court. Did you? They didn't offer us that.

They wanted us to just go along with what was done. Odell pleaded guilty, and he was sent away. Renee Hill can't help but wonder whether all of this was preventable. Whether her mother and sister might still be alive if the DA, Doug Evans, had been tougher on Odell Hallman, back when he was committing all those crimes in the years leading up to the murders. He shouldn't have even been out. Maybe if actions would have been took then, I would have been a different icon. I mean, it has you thinking, why?

Don't anybody want to see justice? Whether she's black, white, or whatever, I mean, it would be anybody. I want to see justice for anybody. Renee and her brother Craig are now raising Marquita's son together. They just marked two years without their sister and mother. Craig Hill told me that what has stuck with him through all of this is how little power he and his family had. I feel helpless.

I feel like we had no help, period. Like, nobody assisted you. Nobody spoke up and said, hey, this is not right. The district attorney, Doug Evans, had made a choice. And it led to disaster. Doug Evans could have pushed to have his star witness, Odell Hallman, locked up years ago. He could have tried to put him away for life, long before Odell had killed anyone. Doug Evans could have done that.

But he chose not to. Odell Hallman is now serving three life sentences at Parchman Prison, the same prison where Curtis Flowers is on death row. I decided to try to reach Odell there, to try to talk to him, to find out what he would say now that there were no deals left to be made, now that he was locked up in prison for life with no chance of getting out. As far as I can tell, the only thing that Odell Hallman has ever said to a reporter was just a couple of words. He'd said it while being led into a police SUV

after his court appearance for the three murders. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit that was too small for him, and he was barefoot. His hands were cuffed in front of him. As Odell climbed into the SUV, a TV reporter asked him a question. Did you do these crimes here, Keith? What do you think, he said.

What do you think? The standard way to reach someone in prison is to send them a letter, and I did that. But we thought there might be a better way to reach Odell. A lot of people told us that Odell, despite being locked up inside one of the most notorious state prisons in the country, was sending out Facebook friend requests. Even the Hill family, the family whose sister and mother Odell murdered, they got those messages too. like maybe a month or two after.

And like, he was sending a lot of people in that area, asking them for money. He was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you send me some money? Like asking people for money. He was asking a lot of people for money in his area. And so one night, our producer Samara sent Odell Hallman a Facebook friend request.

And then we heard back. That's next time on In the Dark. 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. You can see the timeline we put together of Odell Hallman's criminal record, all the arrests, charges, and dropped cases, on our website, inthedarkpodcast.org. And we've also posted a video tour of the old Carrollton Jail, so you can see what it's like. Hi, this is David Remnick, and I'm pleased to share the news that I'm Not a Robot, a live-action short film from the New Yorker's Screening Room series,

has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards. This thought-provoking film grapples with questions that we can all relate to about identity and technology 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.