He told the Commonwealth, I think these (APM Reports) folks are just coming up with anything they can to discredit the case. All times AEDT (GMT +11). Send Flowers. More importantly, Woods said she was certain that she didn't make the trip with Hemphill that day. Hemphills name came up briefly in Flowers 2010 trial. He didnt bother anybody.. Name. He quoted Bertha Tardy as saying he would have to be responsible for paying for the batteries. By the time Presley and Gamble were arrested, Doug Evans wasnt interested in alternative scenarios; he knew Curtis was the killer. Name. The fourth and fifth trials ended with hung juries. Shooting a handgun with accuracy is more difficult than people think, said private investigator Charlie Saums of Ridgeland. Miller also asked the investigator to interrogate Presley and Gamble about the Tardy Furniture murders. 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. Small is now claiming that I never gave (the gun) to him, Armstrong said. <p>Prosecutors have always said that Curtis Flowers was the only serious suspect in the Tardy Furniture investigation. Eight days before these murders, a side door key was stolen. We encourage you to research and . Psychologist John R. Goff tested Flowers, concluding his IQ was 75. Find records of Willie Hemphill . "I was out of the whole jurisdiction in another state.". "If he's guilty, he's guilty.". Although authorities quicklysettled on Flowers as their main suspect, he wasnt arrested until seven months later. Willie James Hemphill was born on June 2, 1941. Willie Dixon - The Big Three Trio 1947-1952 (Roots N' Blues C 46216) FLAC . 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. In that 1963 ruling, the court said: "The suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment.". 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. Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. 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. Who was he? His father had, for just a few months, been the first sheriff in the county, but returned to farming his land. And Gamble wore Fila sneakers the same brand of shoe that left a bloody footprint at the Tardy Furniture scene. While Presley drove the action, Gamble kept his gun trained on the scene in case anyone tried to flee. Episode 10 of the In the Dark Podcast was largely dedicated to the strange case of Willie James Hemphill, a local bad boy with a violent streak who was continually getting cross-ways with the law. Maybe theyll cover that in their next season. A wealthy lawyer who killed his wife and son at close range has been sentenced in one of the most troubling cases the judge said he had seen. 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. Reporters also poked holes in Hemphill . Gamble and Presley are serving life in prison for their Alabama crime spree. If, hypothetically, theIn the Dark team was charged with defending Curtis in a seventh trial even an all-white jury selected entirely of Winona residents couldnt find him guilty. In the midst of the probe, the Mississippi Crime Lab sent a copy of the bloody shoeprint found at Tardy to the lead Boston investigator. View the profiles of professionals named "Willie Hemphill" on LinkedIn. View contact information: phones, addresses, emails and networks. No one was going to all that trouble over the approximately $400 investigators say was in the till that morning. James Mather at IMDb; This page was last . Willie James Hemphill has done many terrible things. Service: 11 am Saturday, March 3, 201. 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. But if Curtis Flowers doesnt get relief in the face of these well-publicized facts there will be hell to pay. Record that.. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. Their names are Michael Lee Boies , Crystal Davis , and six others. In the 1980s and '90s, Hemphill spent time in Memphis. 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. Because Mr. Evans didnt tell them about the Alabama connection. So, if I am forced to pick an alternative perpetrator in this awful case I would lean toward the Birmingham Boys, Presley in particular. Steven McKenzie, the driver of the getaway car in the pawn shop murders, was arrested on August 1 in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. Store employees were threatened with death and forced to lie on the floor. Injustice flourishes in the darkness, and the sun is now blazing in the heavens (at least for Curtis Flowers). In addition, one jailhouse snitch has recanted, he said. He has been behind bars ever since. In the Flowers case, Evans and investigators asserted that Flowers was the main suspect from the beginning, including up to his sixthand, so far, final trial. 0 Add Rating Anonymously. The obituary was featured in The Bryan-College Station Eagle on August 16, 2009. Follow him onFacebookandTwitter. View Tommy Hemphill results including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. Following their Alabama crime spree, Presley and Gamble fled north to Boston, where Gamble had relatives. 0 Rate Willie. He said he would have sent a written report back to Mississippi, so authorities there could check out the stories. Ive been confused of the day from the beginning. In The Dark was clearly righteous in exonerating a black man condemned by a ludicrously unjust system. The case status is Pending - Other Pending. Willie James Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Williae Hemphill. Marcus Presley, then 16, points a gun at pawn shop owner John Burleson shortly before killing him on July 25, 1996, in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. Miller would not comment. Green is a reporter in Toronto. Nine days later, on July 25, 1996, the bodies of two innocent people were discovered in a pawn shop in Birmingham, Alabama. He testified in multiple trials that the other images in the photo lineup were just "filler pictures," chosen "at random" based on some resemblance to Flowers. INDIANAPOLIS At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. 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 They also discovered an unfired .380 bullet, which might suggest the gun jammed. In fact, it appears Miller had specifically asked for the photo of Presley from an investigator in Virginia, where Presley and his accomplice, LaSamuel Gamble, were apprehended. He said he called Tardy the next day, asking if he still had a job, and she said he didnt. "The best of my recollection, Mississippi was able to determine that our guys weren't the ones, or there was something that didn't make them right for the Mississippi case," said Mike DeHart, the Alabama sheriff's deputy who questioned Gamble. 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. The prosecutors had said repeatedly at trial that the only suspect seriously investigated was Flowers. Hemphill had previously told police and the podcast that he was not in Winona on the morning of the murders. When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. Willie James Hemphill's alibi doesn't check out TIMELINE: Hemphill's long criminal record. Inside the store, authorities discovered bloody footprints left behind by a Grant Hill Fila basketball shoe. 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. If you recall our last conversation, I wasnt in the city., Reporter: You said you were in Memphis with Twanda Woods. I dont think they learned anything.. Fourteen lawyers. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results willie james hemphill (1955 - 2006) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. 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. But, just like Curtis Flowers, Doyle Simpson fails the motive test. One of them, LaSamuel Gamble, had more money in his possession when he returned to Alabama, Presley said. Presley and Gamble had developed a simplemodus operandi. "Because once you get people on a roll to admitting to crimes, they just don't stop. In 1996, Mississippi investigators told the local paper they were looking into a possible connection. LAYTON - Willie Morris Hemphill, 69, passed away August 11, 2018 at St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. Willie James Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Willie J Hemphill, Willie James Hemphill. 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. NEWSPAPERS. After the second stick up, the two men argued about whether they should have killed the witness. 2) and Curtis Flowers (No. At the time of his first known arrest, in 1990, he was an 18-year-old high school dropout bouncing back and forth between his mother's house in Memphis, Tennessee, and Winona, where his grandmother lived. The criminals used a .380-caliber handgun that sometimes jammed. That day in October 2015, Ali was looking at a photo lineup that law enforcement had used to implicate Flowers in the Tardy case. Again, he denied ever being there. I aint saying nothing bad. In total, he killed four people and wounded three others in the space of just three months. The funeral service will be 1pm Sunday at China Grove A.M.E. Zion Church. Hemphill was born on September 10, 1971. Includes Address(1) Phone(2) Email(1) See Results. 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. 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. James Mather is a British sound editor. And why didnt DA Doug Evans even consider the Presley-Gamble connection? So, if Curtis Flowers isnt guilty, who is? The killer or killers could have used the key to enter the side door, perhaps hiding before the store opened. There is little doubt that Hemphill has done terrible things. . . Its a pretty cold-hearted human being that can kill four people.. After examining the autopsy reportsand crime scene photographs, Baden said the evidence suggests one person maintained control while another person carried out the execution-style killings. ROCK HILL - Willie Abraham Williams, 69, of 1138 Hickory Lane, Rock Hill, S.C., was called home Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008, at Hospice & Community Care.He was born Sept. 7 . On July 2, the podcast, which has been downloaded more than 24 million times in its second season, laid out a lengthy argument that a different man, Willie James Hemphill, committed the 1996 murders. Share Obituary. Whoever did this crime (the Tardy murders) was a good shot.. Are you a sl*t? "We did go to the mall, but it wasn't the day of the killing. 1 hr 4 min . During nearly 30 years of crimes, he's shown a quick temper, and a penchant for daytime robberies and violence against women. 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. Asked if he'd committed the murders at Tardy Furniture, he simply said, "Hell, no.". Why was he questioned? She said that investigators have never questioned her about Hemphill's story. Willie Hemphill. And the gun that Armstrong says he discovered is additionally important . Share to Twitter. (1909). Share via email. Afraid that he would be shot on sight if he didnt surrender, Hemphill turned himself in at the local police station (wearing Grant Hill Filas, the shoes investigators had linked to a bloody footprint at the crime scene) and was immediately handcuffed and booked into the local lock-up. Quantico . Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results Willie James Hemphill (1952 - 2006) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. He didnt mark it or put it in an evidence bag, he told the Clarion Ledger. That same day, Horace Wayne Miller, a lieutenant with the Mississippi Highway patrol, asked Norfolk officials to keep him apprised of their investigation. Hemphill, Willie Mae Willie Mae Hemphill, Born March 8, 1926. Both men bounced from one traumatic living arrangement to another with no respite. The host, Madeleine Baran, carefully noted that only some of evidence seemed to point in Hemphills direction, even though a flimsy case was enough to almost execute the man her show just found innocent. Following a masterful turn as Flowers defense lawyer, the podcast also wanted to play the part of the prosecution. Both involved store employees who were shot execution-style, a .380 handgun that might have jammed, and a suspect wearing Fila shoes. The only other such form in the file was signed by Flowers. Sure, onceIn the Dark is over the heat will diminish slightly. A surveillance camera revealed that the killer was wielding a 380 pistol that jammed repeatedly. After nearly 23 years locked up, Curtis Flowers has a chance to get out on bail if his lawyers can convince the judge to rule in his favor. 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. Find 23 people named Willie Hemphill along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. His mothers mutt, Patches, was barking in the crawl space, causing him to find a gunbeneath the house she was renting. While that case was delayed for more than two years, Hallmon murdered three people, including his ex-girlfriend, Marquita Hill, and her mother. The ugly facts of Hemphills past werent ugly enough for the podcast In The Dark emphasized its clear disdain of him. Prosecutors have always said that Curtis Flowers was the only serious suspect in the Tardy Furniture investigation. Soon that would change. (1870), A.M. (1872), and LL.D. Her sister says she was in the house with her and not where she said she was.. The show has won rightful fame for its work helping to save Flowers life. Not long after Armstrong found the gun in October 2001, two police officers happened to pull him over for speeding. I knew Curtis had started to get involved in crack. Law enforcement witnesses had testified under oath in Flowers sixth trial that Presley was never a suspect. Each victim of the July 16, 1996 murders was murdered execution styleone or two bullets to the back of the head. 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. He's shown a fearlessness about committing brazen attacks and thefts in daylight with high risks and low payoff, in places close to where he's lived and where people are more likely to recognize him. 2. View Willie Smith results in Kingwood, TX including current phone number, address, relatives, background check report, and property record with Whitepages. At first, Willie James Hemphill was calm. <a . On July 19, the Clarion Ledger did just that, finding wires, broken concrete blocks, parts of childrens toys and a plastic dog bone. Law enforcement clearly saw Hemphill as a prime suspect. A .380-caliber is hard to control. In the months before the Tardy Furniture murders, Presley hit a grocery store, a fireworks retailer, three gas stations and three liquor stores. Sign the Guest Book . WIILIE HEMPHILL OBITUARY. Gamble told me that they saw a few licks while they were in Mississippi. It wasnt until 2016 that defense lawyers took a closer look at Armstrongs statement that he found a .380 handgun. Before he left on July 3, he said she gave him $30. Could those responsible for Tardy Furniture murders have escaped a different way? Only now, a new name has surfaced. Submit an Obituary. I know he didnt do it, Archie Flowers said. 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. I just didnt know how to say it. What are we supposed to think? It was his legal obligation, but its easy to see why he didnt. And, unlike Curtis, Doyle had more than a passing acquaintance with organized crime (a mobster once left him for dead in a field outside of New Orleans). Me and her was leaving," he said, forfeiting his Memphis alibi altogether and placing himself a short walk from Tardy Furniture. "[I]t's almost like a hair trigger that would cause a reversal if you've got false testimony that is significant.". Shortly after the killings, police arrested Hemphill, then 24, who was wearing a pair of the Grant Hill Fila shoes. Hemphill's Timeline Willie James Hemphill has an extensive criminal record starting in 1990, just when Hemphill was eighteen-years old. Hemphill said he was wearing his Filas when in walked into the Sheriffs Department. Jessie Mae Hemphill [1]1923-2006 Blues musician, singer, songwriter, guitarist, percussionist Blues musician and vocalist Jessie Mae Hemphill [2] was a paradox. 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. listing of 6209011-20040428-Willie-James-Hemphill-Criminal-Civil_jp2.zip; file as jpg timestamp size; 6209011-20040428-Willie-James-Hemphill-Criminal-Civil_jp2/ Case Details. Willie James Hemphill Birth 27 May 1919 Death 14 Jul 2000 (aged 81) Burial. Nationwide News Pty Ltd 2023. 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. Each victim had been murdered execution styleone or two bullets to the back of the head. Doyle, he said, used to work for Tardy Furniture.. 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. LOW HIGH. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. There are 60+ professionals named "Willie Hemphill", who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. The news was quickly followed by a shocking revelation in American Public Media podcast In The Dark. Six trials and six successful appeals. 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. Curtis Flowers, as any prison guard who has ever worked with him can tell you, has no demons. Judge Joseph Loper asked Evans if the state had any exculpatory evidence.. If youve listened toIn the Darkor watchedWrong Manon the Starz channel, you either came away convinced that Curtis Flowers didnt kill four people in cold blood back in 1996 or you werent paying attention. OBITUARIES. 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. used to implicate Flowers in the Tardy case. They did, however, find bullets, bullet fragments and shell casings at the crime scene. Even before finding the gun, Armstrong had doubts about whether Flowers played a role in the quadruple murder. Reporter: Mr Hemphill. 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. And the case file doesn't contain the report Goldberg says he would have sent to Mississippi authorities, or any indication of what might have been done to substantiate it. "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. While he was working July 3, he loaded golf cart batteries into the back of a truck. She said she had seen somebody at 7:15 a.m. outside Simpsons car at the factory. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. 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. 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. It was Geraldine. He told the podcast he had an airtight alibi. Reporters also poked holes in Hemphill . And maybe his girlfriend, Katherine Snow, told the authorities that she saw Curtis leaning up against Doyle Simpsons car because thats what investigators wanted to hear. Not the right Willie? Prosecutors said repeatedly at trial that the only suspect seriously investigated was Flowers. We collect and match historical records that Ancestry users have contributed to their family trees to create each person's profile. In the sixth trial, inmate Odell Hallmon testified that Flowers told him about carrying out the Tardy murders, helping lead to Flowers conviction. ADVERTISEMENT BY ANCESTRY.COM. The two men had family in both Boston and Norfolk. They wanted to ask him about his alibi for the day of the Tardy Furniture murders, an alibi that hadn't checked out. 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. Photos. It might mean letting someone get away with an abominable crime. 5 Visits. And Hemphill had actually lived for a time in Winona. 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. Illuminating Journalism from American Public Media. Hemphill also wasnt held briefly. It would indeed have been a solid alibi except it didn't check out. It remains unclear why Mississippi investigators ruled them out as suspects. Saums pointed out that Simpson who has since died lied to police about how he had gotten the gun. Willie James Hemphill was born on May 27, 1919. Their reporters know better than anyone that Hemphill wouldnt get a fair trial. That was a lie, Hallmon told APM Reports in an interview on a contraband cellphone from his prison cell. The answer was yes many, many times. Police arrived at the factory and interviewed employee Katherine Snow. 614 records for Willie Hemphill. Selected filmography. After a multistate manhunt, Presley and Gamble were arrested in Norfolk, Virginia. Goldberg doesn't remember the alibis Presley or Gamble gave, but he said following up on those wouldn't have been his job. His website is. She had at least 2 sons and 1 daughter with James Tobias Whitehead. Does this theft provide a clue as to how the killers made their getaway? 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. He said he knew nothing about the burglary. It is with deep sorrow that we announce the death of Willie James Hemphill (Rock Hill, South Carolina), who passed away on November 9, 2017, leaving to mourn family and friends. "They were investigating that intently back then. Current Address: EHZR Hannah Dr, Rock Hill, SC. He never responded. Grief Support. Resides in Greenwood, MS. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark. Investigators John Johnson and Jack Matthews denied on the stand knowing anything about them. We developed information that Doyle was missing from work that morning for about 30 or 40 minutes, which was about the time of the murders, he said. … 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. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008); The Social Network (2010) 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. That said, I dont see a compelling motive, and none of these people is any more capable of pulling off an outrage on this scale than poor Curtis Flowers. 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 . When Flowers went back on trial, Armstrong heard no mention of the gun by either prosecutors or defense attorneys. Flowers gave authorities conflicting statements about the times he went to these places. Robert Reid Hemphill's brother, James Calvin Hemphill, was born in Due West, South Carolina, on May 18, 1850. He thought back to when Small took the gun. Simplistic journalism ethics call for reporters to follow the facts wherever they might lead. Armstrong questions whether Flowers could have carried out the killings of four people execution-style. Right now, Willie Hemphill lives in Rock Hill, SC. An investigative team from American Public Media has uncovered evidence that law enforcement had at least two other suspects in the 1996 quadruple homicide in Winona that put Curtis Flowers on death row information that was not shared with his defense attorneys. His age is 79. Visitation will be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m . The similarities between the crimes were striking. Flowers, the individuals I reference as the Birmingham boys. The day in photos. Willie James Hemphill was detained for 11 days following the Hardy Furniture murders and wore the same brand of shoes as the bloody footprints found at the scene. with Reverend Shane Russell officiating, assisted by Max Bennett.