Name. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. Sure, onceIn the Dark is over the heat will diminish slightly. Although authorities quicklysettled on Flowers as their main suspect, he wasnt arrested until seven months later. Inside the store, authorities discovered bloody footprints left behind by a Grant Hill Fila basketball shoe. Willie Hemphill Obituary (2017) - Rock Hill, SC - The Herald - Legacy.com 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. But In The Dark was apparently unsatisfied with exonerating the innocent: It needed the narrative closure of guilt, and found its key to that in Hemphill. 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. Because Mr. Evans didnt tell them about the Alabama connection. 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 at the Winona Police Department five days after the murders waiving his rights to an attorney. Its almost impossible to not hate him and to believe he is guilty. 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. In addition, he won an Emmy for the television show The West Wing.. Only now, a new name has surfaced. "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. His age is 79. "I was coming out of Piggly Wiggly and there was a woman, I will never forget her name. Goldberg doesn't remember the alibis Presley or Gamble gave, but he said following up on those wouldn't have been his job. American Public Media reports that Hemphills ex-girlfriend Monkra Moore said she and Hemphill lived together in 1996 and claimed that he was home in Winona at around 7am on the morning of the murders. The day in photos. Memphis is two hours north of Winona, just across the border with Tennessee. Find Willie Hemphill's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. A .380-caliber is hard to control. Current Address: EHZR Hannah Dr, Rock Hill, SC. Tried Six Times For The Same Crime: The Infuriating Case Of Curtis Flowers ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM. 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. Gamble told me that they saw a few licks while they were in Mississippi. He died on December 28, 1908, at his home in the section of Abbeville called Fort Pickens, and is buried in Melrose Cemetary, Abbeville. Yet theyre willing to hand him over to the prosecution, to possibly watch him die. The Dallas Morning News Homepage. "I can't recall seeing him that day," Woods said. Menu. Nothing in the investigative file for the case explains why officers let him go. They did, however, find bullets, bullet fragments and shell casings at the crime scene. Willie James Hemphill has done many terrible things. That might not be so if the whole world wasnt watching, but it is. Wiilie Hemphill passed away in Bryan, Texas. They found out later that Flowers uncle, Doyle Simpson, said his .380 automatic had been stolen from the glove box of his car parked at the Angelica Garment Factory where he worked. Maybe Doyle did the deed and reported his gun stolen to throw everyone off the scent. SEND FLOWERS. But both denied having committed the Tardy murders and said they'd never even been to Mississippi. Case Details. So, maybe Curtis didnt steal the gun after all. 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. But if Curtis Flowers doesnt get relief in the face of these well-publicized facts there will be hell to pay. That brings us to a theory that has been explored extensively by some of the folks currently representing Mr. Mississippi Smoldering: Tom Mangold reports on the Curtis Flowers case in 2009, Dwelling in a land of disbelief: My University Years . It's not like you're going to say, 'Yeah I robbed this 7-11, but I didn't rob that 7-11.'". Presley and Gamble made three runs to Boston during the summer of 1996: once after their June crime spree, once after the pawn shop murders and once immediately after the furniture store murders in Winona. Hours after the killings, authorities interviewed Flowers, who said he had been babysitting the children of his girlfriend, Connie Moore, and also gone to his sister's home and a nearby store. Explosive end to case thats rocked America. Relatives were alarmed to see a swarm of police cars descending on their homes in search of Willie James. INDIANAPOLIS At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. During nearly 30 years of crimes, he's shown a quick temper, and a penchant for daytime robberies and violence against women. 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. He lived near Tardy Furniture at the time of the murders, and near where a gun that might have been the murder weapon was found. 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. Asked if he'd committed the murders at Tardy Furniture, he simply said, "Hell, no.". Saums believes whoever carried out the crime had inside information. Quantico National Cemetery. Hallmon has since admitted he lied. The investigative file contained no indication of what Hemphill said or why he was eliminated as a suspect. I knew Curtis had started to get involved in crack. We encourage you to research and . 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. 2) and Curtis Flowers (No. 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. Detective Goldberg got Presley and Gamble to confess their roles in a pair of murders at a Birmingham pawn shop less than two weeks after the Tardy Furniture murders. "It just kind of jumped out," Ali said. WrongManleans tentatively fingers Doyle Simpson as the prime suspect. I just didnt know how to say it. listing of 6209011-20040428-Willie-James-Hemphill-Criminal-Civil_jp2.zip; file as jpg timestamp size; 6209011-20040428-Willie-James-Hemphill-Criminal-Civil_jp2/ "I was here in Winona," Woods said. Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. Hemphill supposedly had an alibi for the time of the murders, but when In The Dark dug into it, they were able to determine his alibi was barely credible if at all. But there was no mention of the Alabama crimes and suspects in the investigative files the prosecution had turned over to Flowers' defense attorneys. Prosecutors said repeatedly at trial that the only suspect seriously investigated was Flowers. Usually if somebody starts shooting, he said, others will run.. Sure, he had worked at Tardys in the past. He said that side door leads to a ditch that would have provided a better escape route than simply walking back through town as authorities claimed Flowers had. After finding the weapon, Armstrong wondered how the gun had wound up under the house his mother was renting on Knox Street, only 700 feet or so from the furniture store. Last month, the Supreme Court overturned Flowers latest conviction, citing In The Darks reporting. Suppressing the evidence theyve already gathered might mean denying justice to the victims. It wasn't that day." Not the right Willie? Evidence suggests that Marcus Presley was a psychopath who enjoyed random violence for its own sake. Following their Alabama crime spree, Presley and Gamble fled north to Boston, where Gamble had relatives. A photo array that contains Marcus Presley (No. Add a Memory. Not the right Willie? Reporter: Mr Hemphill. And Hemphill had actually lived for a time in Winona. Psychologist John R. Goff tested Flowers, concluding his IQ was 75. But that doesnt make Doyle a cold killer. He took the gun and placed it into a nearby shed. It hurts my feelings.. But there was a three-week gap in the Alabama crime spree right at the time of the Tardy murders. 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. 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. And he's shown a quick and violent temper, particularly with women who don't comply with his demands. He died on July 14, 2000 at age 81. 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. Their names are Michael Lee Boies , Crystal Davis , and six others. Records show he was questioned Hemphill said he was interrogated for hours and held for 11 days before being released. 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. And why didnt DA Doug Evans even consider the Presley-Gamble connection? 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. That night, according to Moore, Hemphill was home with an ounce of marijuana, some of which they smoked together. Willie James Hemphill was born on June 2, 1941. Hemphill says he was in Memphis on the day of the murder and his alibi might check out. 2. The Blues Years : Willie Dixon - The Big Three Trio 1947-1952 (Roots N Menu. In 1996, central Alabama saw a string of armed robberies, where the criminals told store clerks to lie down and held them at gunpoint, sometimes killing them. He said he told investigators he was shopping with a woman in Memphis. Reporter: Were trying to puzzle through this. He said he called Tardy the next day, asking if he still had a job, and she said he didnt. He told the Commonwealth, I think these (APM Reports) folks are just coming up with anything they can to discredit the case. Episode 10 of the In the DarkPodcast was largely dedicated to the strange case ofWillie James Hemphill, a local bad boy with a violent streak who was continually getting cross-ways with the law. While that case was delayed for more than two years, Hallmon murdered three people, including his ex-girlfriend, Marquita Hill, and her mother. Submit an Obituary. Their pattern was to spend a week or so lying low before going on another rampage. But he believed Gamble's denial. The two men had family in both Boston and Norfolk. 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. Tommy Hemphill - Address & Phone Number | Whitepages I dont think they learned anything.. The show revealed that the district attorneys office bullied and threatened people into lying on the witness stand. 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. Now the spotlight is on three other deaths that are linked to the case. Flowers was convicted and sentenced to death in the first three trials, but each time, the verdict was overturned on appeal for prosecutorial misconduct in the first and second trials, and for racially discriminatory jury selection in the third. Willie Hemphill Found 194 people in Mississippi, Illinois and 31 other states. Prosecutors claimed Flowers wore a size 10.5 shoe, and a state expert testified that the 10.5 size was consistent with the bloody footprints. But he never cut ties with Winona, where his grandmother remained and where he committed a slew of small-time thefts in the years before and after the Tardy Furniture murders, according to public records. A surveillance camera revealed that the killer was wielding a 380 pistol that jammed repeatedly. Hemphill said investigators told him he was a suspect because witnesses had placed him on Front Street near Tardy Furniture Store on the morning of the murders and because of the kind of shoe he wore: Fila Grant Hills, the shoe investigators determined had made the bloody shoe prints inside the store. The presence of live ammunition on the floor suggested that one of the killers was using a 380 pistol that jammed repeatedly. He spent 11 days in jail before authorities released him.
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