He told the podcast he had an airtight alibi. Hemphill's ex-girlfriend Monkra Moore told In the Dark that she and Hemphill lived together on the east side of Winona in 1996 and that he was at home around 7 a.m. on the morning of the murders when she was leaving for work. Fleming had said six times since 1996 she saw Flowers running from the store on the morning of the murders. "I don't understand how she said that.". They didnt question him about other suspects or bring up Flowers name. Marcus Presley and Lasamuel Gamble werent raised at all. He told them that a day or two after the murders he was driving back to Winona from Memphis when his stepfather called him and told him carloads of law enforcement officers had descending on his parents house looking for him. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. Willie James Hemphill didn't come up until the sixth Flowers trial, and law enforcement officers said he was eliminated as a suspect in about five minutes. LOW HIGH. He told APM Reports that he was arrested and questioned in the early days of the investigation. "False testimony is a corruption of the truth-finding process of a trial," Gershman said. Though he was a suspect early in the investigation, according to law enforcement records, and questioned extensively, Hemphill was later released after 11 days in jail and ruled out as a suspect for reasons that remain unclear. The second season of the In the Dark podcast is about the case of Curtis Flowers, who was tried six times for the same crime. Willie James Hemphill was confronted in an Indianapolis courthouse last week, 23 years after police deemed him an initial suspect but later pursued leads against Flowers. If Woods had been at the mall with Hemphill at the time of the murders roughly 10 a.m. she couldn't have been back in Winona any earlier than noon. "Yes, sir," Snow replied. Her rough exterior portrayed a tough, independent woman. 0 Reputation Score Range. Selected filmography. According to the July 8, 1996, police report, store owner Bertha Tardy reported to police that a burglar or burglars smashed through a skylight, tried to break into the safe and stole the side door key. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. Maybe he and Doyle were co-perpetrators. But instead of stopping there, its reporters started snitching to the same system whose injustice they had just unmasked. His full criminal history is too lengthy to reproduce here. Who was he? Who was he? The murder weapon in the Tardy Furniture case was a .380, and an unfired round was found at the scene; investigators believe that might indicate that the gun had jammed. Hallmon told APM Reports that he became a prosecution witness in spring 2001 after being arrested on multiple drug charges. The podcast, which uncovered evidence used by Flowers to get his conviction overturned, spoke with witness Clemmie Fleming. A series of Willie James Hemphill mugshots ranging from 2000 through 2016. For Ali and the other lawyers working on Flowers' appeal at the time, this was a significant revelation. After learning that Willie James Hemphill was an initial suspect in the murders at Tardy Furniture, reporters for In the Dark wanted to find out if he'd ever broken the law before. Their size was a.380. At the time, investigators in Mississippi told the media they were looking into whether the crimes could be connected to the murders at Tardy Furniture. And that omission, a law professor and former prosecutor told the team, could mean a seventh new trial for Flowers, condemined to death for the murders of four people at Tardy Furniture Store. December 6, 1948 August 11, 2018. A witness whose statement put a man on death row for 22 years has performed a remarkable backflip, turning a case on its head. Illuminating Journalism from American Public Media. Gamble told me that they saw a few licks while they were in Mississippi. Law enforcement witnesses had testified under oath in Flowers sixth trial that Presley was never a suspect. Sure, onceIn the Dark is over the heat will diminish slightly. 23 Matches for Willie Hemphill . It takes no imagination at all to imagine Marcus Presley committing a crime like thatwe have the video from the pawn shop. Maybe theyll cover that in their next season. Again, he denied ever being there. Follow him onFacebookandTwitter. Hired by Starz to examine the case, Saums said the crime"suggests somebody who has done it before. Sure, he had worked at Tardys in the past. Willie Hemphill in Virginia. Two weeks later, a picture of Marcus Presley, the shooter in the Birmingham murders, was included in a photo array shown to Porky Collins, a witness in the Winona, Mississippi case. Nine days later, on July 25, 1996, the bodies of two innocent people were discovered in a pawn shop in Birmingham, Alabama. The U.S. Supreme Court decided 7-to-1 that prosecutors unconstitutionally eliminated black jurors during the trial proceedings for Timothy Tyrone Foster in 1987. analysis of his record of striking potential black jurors, Curtis Flowers' prosecution witness says testimony was all 'make believe', Recanted testimony, subjective science helps put Curtis Flowers on death row, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. On 03/12/2020 Willie Hemphill filed a Prisoner - Other Prisoner lawsuit against Warden. Even so, they had to wade through a stack of rat-eaten files stored in an abandoned factory to realize he had been booked into jail. Their pattern was to spend a week or so lying low before going on another rampage. Curtis Flowers is on Mississippis death row, convicted of the murders after six trials, but his lawyers, APM Reports In the Dark podcast, the Starz TV program The Wrong Man and others have raised questions about his guilt. The presence of Presley in the lineup raised some questions about the testimony of law enforcement witnesses who'd said under oath that Presley was never a suspect in the Tardy case. Lived In Sidon MS, Indianapolis IN, Prince George VA, Clarksville TN. John Johnson, the DAs investigator, told the jury, I think they talked to him for five minutes. The fourth and fifth trials ended with hung juries. According to the ledger, about$287 was missing from the cash drawer the morning of the murders. He's also targeted women in general and often women carrying purses. … Ive had many trials where no black jurors were struck., But the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned Flowers conviction in his third trial, ruling Evans had intentionally struck African Americans from the jury. Simpson's brother Emmett was an early suspect, too a fact Matthews had himself testified to in the second Flowers trial. Katie Ali had been researching parallels between the Tardy Furniture murders and a string of similar crimes that had happened that same summer in neighboring Alabama. US States (36975K) Current Events (51K) Celebrity (272) Exonerated (117) Favorites (421) FBI Most Wanted (848) Gangsters (49) Historical (131) Interpol (1.7K) . While that case was delayed for more than two years, Hallmon murdered three people, including his ex-girlfriend, Marquita Hill, and her mother. Find 23 people named Willie Hemphill along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. In the sixth trial, inmate Odell Hallmon testified that Flowers told him about carrying out the Tardy murders, helping lead to Flowers conviction. Obituaries Section. Psychologist John R. Goff tested Flowers, concluding his IQ was 75. July 2, 2019 | by Parker Yesko and Dave Mann. Miller, the Mississippi investigator who made the lineup and asked for the two to be interrogated, declined to answer questions from APM Reports. … A bunch of lies., Asked about Hallmons recantation, District Attorney Doug Evans, who has prosecuted Flowers in all six trials, said, Thats why the judge instructs the jury that a jailhouse informant is not very reliable, because they can change their statements very easily, for any reason. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. 6209062-Willie-James-Hemphill-all-documents Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t11p6kj93 Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11.0 (Extended OCR) Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.7 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Page_number_confidence 7.04 Pages 1705 Ppi 300 Scanner Internet Archive Python library 1.8.5 Source In other words, Evans committed two egregiousBrady violations that will, in the days that lie ahead, force the courts to grant a new trial and, just as likely, insist that Doug Evans recuse himself from this case. Does this theft provide a clue as to how the killers made their getaway? When he showed up the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department two days later, he said, they immediately cuffed him and that the investigators made it clear he was a suspect. But there was a three-week gap in the Alabama crime spree right at the time of the Tardy murders. 0 Reputation Score Range. So, if I am forced to pick an alternative perpetrator in this awful case I would lean toward the Birmingham Boys, Presley in particular. You can send your sympathy in the guestbook provided and share it with the family. The bodies of Derrick Stewart, 16, Robert Golden, 42, Carmen Rigby, 45, and Bertha Tardy, 59, were found spread throughout the store and in the back office. But maybe she didnt see anyone at all. State investigator Matthews told the jury he didnt check Hemphills alibi, ruling him out by conversation alone. And he's shown a quick and violent temper, particularly with women who don't comply with his demands. Eight days before these murders, a side door key was stolen. We know that Willie James Hemphill had been residing in Gaffney, Cherokee County, South Carolina 29341. That same day, Horace Wayne Miller, a lieutenant with the Mississippi Highway patrol, asked Norfolk officials to keep him apprised of their investigation. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008); The Social Network (2010) Hallmon has since admitted he lied. Steven McKenzie, the driver of the getaway car in the pawn shop murders, was arrested on August 1 in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. Yet theyre willing to hand him over to the prosecution, to possibly watch him die. Hemphill was held in jail for 11 days, according to county records, though it's not clear why he was held. UNLOCK PROFILE. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark. Saums believes whoever carried out the crime had inside information. Current Address: EHZR Hannah Dr, Rock Hill, SC. Between June 19th, 1996 and June 30thof that year, Presley was involved in five robberies at gunpoint. Hemphill said investigator took his shoes for a few minutes as well as his fingerprints. He wouldnt have had the (mental) capability, he said. The shooter, Marcus Presley (16) and his accomplice, Lasamuel Gamble (18) were arrested in Norfolk, Virginia on August 9, 1996 after two weeks on the run. 2) and Curtis Flowers (No. Share to Tumblr. You may also light a candle in honor of Willie James . All times AEDT (GMT +11). In 1996, four people were killed execution-style inside Tardy Furniture, which faces one of the busiest streets in the small town of Winona. On April 30, 2018, American Public Medias true crime podcast In The Dark began airing its second season, an investigation of the case of Curtis Flowers, a black man in Mississippi accused of a quadruple homicide at a furniture store in 1996. Search by Name. Other facts may help explain why Hemphill initially was a suspect: The shoes he told In the Dark that he was wearing when he was questioned by investigators on July 21, 1996 Fila Grant Hill high-tops are the same type of sneaker that had left bloody footprints at the scene of the murders five days earlier. In addition, one jailhouse snitch has recanted, he said. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case . Nor was there any record of the evidence gathered from Hemphill. The first of these events took place last month when the US Supreme Court tossed out Flowers conviction. If Flowers did what he is accused of doing, he deserves his punishment, Armstrong said. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. And why did Doyles brother, Emmett, run from law enforcement when they came to question him on the morning of the crime? (1870), A.M. (1872), and LL.D. And then Hemphill stormed off, ending the interview. Following his release from prison in 2013,Hallmon tried to run over a Carroll County sheriff's deputy while escaping a drug bust. 614 records for Willie Hemphill. Add a Memory. Shooting a handgun with accuracy is more difficult than people think, said private investigator Charlie Saums of Ridgeland. Hemphill: A lot of people dont like to talk to the press and the police., Reporter: She was actually pretty talkative., Hemphill: Maybe she dont recall the day in question., Reporter: She actually has a really clear memory of that day., Hemphill: I dont know what she told you. Why was he questioned? Willie Hemphill is 80 years old and was born on 04/13/1942. LAYTON - Willie Morris Hemphill, 69, passed away August 11, 2018 at St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. Willie Hemphill. In a sworn statement, one of those criminals, Marcus Pressley, told Flowers' lawyers thattwo of his accomplices in the Alabama crimes were in Mississippi at the time of the Tardy murders. For Flowers, the new information including Flemings changed story adds weight to his case for a full acquittal. But, just like Curtis Flowers, Doyle Simpson fails the motive test. During nearly 30 years of crimes, Willie James Hemphill has shown a quick temper, and a penchant for daytime robberies and violence against women. Share to Facebook. They contained no mention of the Alabama suspects. Investigators John Johnson and Jack Matthews denied on the stand knowing anything about them. Flowers, who had been fired from the store 13 days before the murders, reportedly owed a small amount of money to one of the owners. Told that Woods had a clear memory of being in Winona on the morning of July 16 and learning, outside the Piggly Wiggly, that the murders had just happened, Hemphill interrupted and altered his story. He died on July 14, 2000 at age 81. In The Dark was clearly righteous in exonerating a black man condemned by a ludicrously unjust system. The podcasts decision to try to figure out who may have actually committed the murders at the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi isnt surprising. He said: "If it wasn't for the fact that I had an airtight alibi, I could be the one on death row right now. Evidence of false testimony by prosecution witnesses could potentially get Flowers' conviction overturned, Bennett Gershman, a former prosecutor who now teaches law at Pace University, told the APM reporting team. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window). Willie Headen; Willie James Lyons; Willie Love; Willie Mabon; Willie Smith; Willie Trice; Willie Williams; In Flowers' third trial, Snow testified that the height of the man she saw was between 5-foot-3 and 5-foot-5. "I can't recall seeing him that day," Woods said. It took the In the Dark team a full year to track Hemphill down in an Indianapolis courtroom (he's still getting into trouble). On July 19, the Clarion Ledger did just that, finding wires, broken concrete blocks, parts of childrens toys and a plastic dog bone. I aint saying nothing bad. The July 16, 1996, killings of Tardy Furniture owner Bertha Tardy, 59, and three employees, Carmen Rigby, 45, Robert Golden, 42, and Derrick Stewart, 16, have haunted this town ever since. By the end of the two episodes devoted to the Flowers case, they had all abandoned Curtis as a suspect. But how could a single person (especially a man like Curtis Flowers) dispatch four victims with a bullet to the back of the head? So, if Curtis didnt do this terrible deed, who did? A surveillance camera revealed that the killer was wielding a 380 pistol that jammed repeatedly. And if the two had spent just an hour at the mall assuming the mall, which is now closed, opened as early as 9 a.m. they'd have needed to leave Winona no later than 7 o'clock that morning. <a . Submit an Obituary. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. In The Dark proved that Curtis Flowers was railroaded by an unjust system. Following that arrest, Hemphill committed crimes nearly continuously for the next three decades. Police received a call about the murders at 10:21 a.m. View Actual Score Check Background . The show has won rightful fame for its work helping to save Flowers life. 0 Add Rating Anonymously. Courtroom testimonyshows that Presley was the shooter in the pawn shop murders in Birmingham even though, prior to being shown video of the crime, he insisted that Gamble had been the gunman. On July 14, his mother, Lola, died of surgery complications. Whoever killed four innocent people in the Tardy Furniture store on that fateful day in 1996 was familiar with armed violence and kind of liked it. Their names are Michael Lee Boies , Crystal Davis , and six others. The district attorneys office isnt commenting. How do we create a person's profile? Find Willie Hemphill's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. Willie James Hemphill an early suspect in the Tardy Furniture murders was charged with disorderly conduct last week. He allegedly committed robberies to fund a drug habit. An early suspect in the murders, Willie James Hemphill, who has a long criminal history, lived less than a mile from where Armstrong found this gun in 2011. Willie James Hemphill was born on June 2, 1941. The obituary was featured in The Bryan-College Station Eagle on August 16, 2009. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. We encourage you to research and . Hemphill said investigators tape recorded the interrogation and took notes, none of which was in the file given to Flowers defense attorneys. Thats just standard procedure. APM Reports recently interviewed a man named Willie James Hemphill, who said he was a suspect early in the investigation. More importantly, Woods said she was certain that she didn't make the trip with Hemphill that day. The justices wrote that it was as strong a prima facie case of racial discrimination as we have ever seen in the context of a Batson challenge. As the investigators interviewed for theWrong Man episodes on Flowers point out, the family members of the victims should have been considered suspects until evidence suggested otherwise. APM lead investigative reporter Madeleine Baran found one page among the documents Evans did give the defense attorneys, a form someone named Willie James Hemphill, then 24, of Memphis had signed . The ordeal of Curtis Flowers screams for correction. <p>Prosecutors have always said that Curtis Flowers was the only serious suspect in the Tardy Furniture investigation. Before he disappeared into a men's bathroom, he once again dodged the question of where he was on the day of the murders and insulted two female reporters with vulgarities. A bloody shoe print found in the store (left), and an investigator's sketch comparing the print to the Fila Grant Hill sneakers. What an Alabama crime spree might reveal about the Curtis Flowers investigation. In The Dark also found out that prosecutions star witness, Odell Hallmon, secretly received special treatment prosecutors dropped charges in seven felony cases against him in exchange for his false testimony that Flowers made a jailhouse confession. ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM. In 1996, Mississippi investigators told the local paper they were looking into a possible connection. Willie James Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Willie James Hemphill. Although Presley was only sixteen, he seems to have been the driving force behind these crimes. She said the shoes had belonged to her son, who no longer lived there. Nothing in the investigative file for the case explains why officers let him go. You said that was an airtight alibi we talked to Twanda and she said she wasnt with you that day., Hemphill: They released me based on that. Shortly after the killings, police arrested Hemphill, then 24, who was wearing a pair of the Grant Hill Fila shoes. He freely admitted that he had been a suspect and even says that, although innocent, he would have made a more convincing suspect than Curtis. SEND FLOWERS. Belfast (2021; co-nominated with Denise Yarde, Simon Chase and Niv Adiri) References External links. Willie James Hemphill, age 37, Justice, IL Search Report. When Jeffrey Armstrong heard his dog barking, he went outside tosee the reason for the commotion. "After a short time, we realized that he didn't know anything about the case.". He said he knew nothing about the burglary. LOW HIGH. When In The Dark spoke to Woods, she denied the two were together. Like LaSamuel Gamble, Hemphill wore Fila shoes and had a criminal record. The suspects include the gunman in an Alabama crime spree that summer that bore several similarities to the Winona killings and a violent career criminal who at the time of the murders was living with a girlfriend across from the furniture store. The accused has had his conviction overturned for the sixth time, the woman who put him at the scene of the murders has backflipped on her story and another man has been forced to deny it was him all along. Flowers has remained imprisoned the entire time, for more than 20 years. INDIANAPOLIS At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. Baran found Hemphills booking card showing he had been arrested and jailed a few days after the killing. Winona, Mississippi lies three hours west of Birmingham on Highway 82. Willie James McDaniel Funeral services for Willie James McDaniel will be held at 12:00 p.m., Wednesday, January 26, 2022, at Hemphill Star Church in Boyce, La. 2. Search by Name. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. He explained his suspicion that the gun might have something to do with the Tardy murders. It might mean letting someone get away with an abominable crime. Prior to his death, Doyle came across as a passive man working hard to stay out of trouble. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. The best result we found for your search is William Thomas Hemphill age 80+ in Highlands, NC. In the sixth, he was again convicted and sentenced to death, and his latest appeal was ongoing when the podcast started. Hemphill certainly sounds like a career criminal who is fully capable of committing violence; but he doesnt come off as a psychopathic killerand whoever did the deed at the Tardy furniture store was either a hired killer (or killers) or enjoyed killing people for kicks. WrongManleans tentatively fingers Doyle Simpson as the prime suspect. We encourage you to research and . Jessie Mae Hemphill; Jimmie Gordon; Jimmy "Duck" Holmes; Jimmy Burns; Jimmy Dawkins; Jimmy Holmes; Jimmy Johnson; . It was June 21 just an hour before the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Curtis Flowers' conviction and reporters for In the Dark had intercepted Hemphill at a courthouse in Indianapolis. Name. Willie Hemphill's passing at the age of 97 has been publicly announced by Arnold Family Funeral Services Inc. - Hillside Chapel in Altadena, CA.Legacy invites you to offer condolences and share memori Actually,In the Dark hasnt weighed in on the guilt-innocence issue (thats not what they do), but their careful dissection of DA Doug Evans case against Flowers has left the case in a shambles. Flowers gave authorities conflicting statements about the times he went to these places. As far as him telling me he killed some people, hell, naw, he aint ever told me that. And he was undeterred, at first, when he was told that Woods hadn't corroborated his story. In a remarkable turn of events almost 23 years after four people, including a 16-year-old boy, were gunned down and left inside the Tardy Furniture store in Winona, Mississippi, three things have happened. Sympathy Ideas. So where was Hemphill during the day? Law enforcement clearly saw Hemphill as a prime suspect. But Curtis Flowers is somehow still not cleared of the gruesome quadruple murder on July 16, 1996. That discovery will very likely win Curtis a new trial, but it doesnt necessarily finger the new guy as the killer. View More. Armstrong said a law enforcement officer told him the gun had been sent to the state Crime Lab, determining this .380 handgun wasnt the murder weapon. Wiilie Hemphill passed away in Bryan, Texas. "I haven't heard anything about them," John Johnson, the investigator for the District Attorney's office, had said when questioned about the Alabama suspects at the sixth Flowers trial. Hemphill said he was wearing his Filas when in walked into the Sheriffs Department. APM Reports, the investigative and documentary reporting team based in St. Paul, Minnesota, spent a year digging into the Flowers case for its In the Dark podcast. Suppressing the evidence theyve already gathered might mean denying justice to the victims. "He would have just told me everything and anything at that point," Goldberg said. The two men had family in both Boston and Norfolk. Past Addresses: Shelby NC, Shelby NC +7 more. Yet despite a number of theft and drug charges, probation violations, at least four domestic violence convictions and a girlfriend who alleges he stabbed her 13 times Hemphill has managed to avoid a long stint in prison.