In the Dark: Recent Episodes
APM Reports
Serial investigative journalism from APM Reports, with host Madeleine Baran and a team of reporters. Season 1 looked at the abduction of Jacob Wetterling in rural Minnesota and the accountability of sheriffs in solving crime. Season 2 examined the case of Curtis Flowers, who was tried six times for the same crime. Also, a special report on Covid-19 in the Mississippi Delta.
Madeleine chats with her colleague Curtis Gilbert about his new show Sent Away, a deep investigative dive into the troubled world of the troubled teen industry.
Episode 1: A dark cave. A tragic accident. A new treatment center. The state of Utah tries to hold it accountable. But that turns out to be harder than you’d think.
Subscribe to the whole series: Sent Away
Support investigative journalism: Donate to In the Dark and Sent Away
During three years investigating the Curtis Flowers case, we’d talked to nearly everyone involved: lawyers, witnesses, jurors, family members, investigators, politicians, and many, many people around town. But there was one person we hadn’t yet interviewed — Curtis Flowers. That is, until one day in early October, a few weeks after he’d been cleared of all charges. For the final episode of Season 2, we at long last talk to the man at the center of it all.
- Read: Will Doug Evans face accountability?
- See photos of Curtis Flowers on Instagram.
- Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
After 24 years, the case against Curtis Flowers is finally over. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch asks the judge to dismiss the charges against Flowers for lack of evidence. Flowers is released from house arrest and free – truly free – at last.
- Read the story.
- Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
College football is practically a religion in Mississippi. And for the players, it's life. As Covid-19 upended their world, the teammates at Delta State struggled to find structure and support for an off-season like no other. Support journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
As the coronavirus swept into the Mississippi Delta, a judge in the small city of Indianola decided to release every inmate she had in jail. That is, every inmate except one. Support journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
In the middle of a pandemic, with so many people suffering alone, it seemed an appropriate time to hear from a Delta blues singer. Enter Watermelon Slim. Support journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
The doctors and nurses at Greenwood Leflore Hospital brace for the pandemic, cordoning off their ICU and preparing for an influx of patients. Then the virus strikes one of their own. Support journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
How do you self-isolate when your home is a single room that you share with 107 men? That's what inmates at Mississippi's infamous Parchman prison have been wondering for six weeks. Support journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
A storm hits Greenville just in time for Easter. Two pastors and a mayor clash over how to do church during a pandemic. Support journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
A new limited-run series from In the Dark, reporting on Covid-19 in the Mississippi Delta. Episodes every Thursday, beginning April 30. Support journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
District Attorney Doug Evans has prosecuted Curtis Flowers for 23 years and six trials. Now he says he's done. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
After almost 23 years, Curtis Flowers is no longer behind bars. For his family, it's a long-awaited reunion. But not everyone in Winona is happy. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
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. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
It's been 11 days since the U.S. Supreme Court threw out Curtis Flowers' conviction. But the story didn't end there. In recent days, there have been three other significant developments, including new details from a key witness, that may determine Flowers' fate. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
On Friday, June 21, after months of deliberation, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its opinion in the Curtis Flowers case. In a 7-2 ruling, the justices threw out the conviction from his sixth trial, in 2010. The decision of what happens next -- whether to release Flowers or begin a seventh trial -- now lies with the same prosecutor who's pursued him from the beginning: Doug Evans. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
After nearly nine years of appeals of his sixth trial, Curtis Flowers finally had his case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. At issue was whether DA Doug Evans tried to keep African-Americans off the jury in the 2010 trial. Flowers wasn't at the Supreme Court -- he remains on death row in Mississippi -- but the In the Dark team was. This is what we saw. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
We resume Season Two with the U.S. Supreme Court weighing Curtis Flowers' case. We preview oral arguments and delve into the allegations at the heart of the appeal: that Doug Evans tried to keep African-Americans off the jury in Flowers' sixth trial. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Our second season spanned a year in Mississippi where we revealed misconduct, injustice and racial divide in the six trials of Curtis Flowers. The U.S. Supreme Court will now decide if the prosecutor racially discriminated in jury selection. In four new episodes starting March 19, we'll go into the courtroom for oral arguments, report the decision and examine the effect of the ruling. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
We answer your questions and report on a fire in Winona. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Curtis Flowers' appeal. Now the justices will examine if District Attorney Doug Evans had a history of racial discrimination in jury selection. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
In Season 1 of our podcast, we reported that the Jacob Wetterling case was a botched investigation. Just yesterday, law enforcement acknowledged it too. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Two months after the season ended, we return to Winona to see what has changed. Turns out, a lot. Curtis Flowers' mother has died. The whole town is talking about the case. Flowers' defense lawyers are including our findings in their legal filings to the Supreme Court. Citizens are trying to file bar complaints against the district attorney, Doug Evans. One man has gone into hiding, his personal safety threatened because he spoke to us. In this update episode, we look at what's happened in Winona since our last episode and what happens next with Curtis Flowers' case. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Lola Flowers, who devoted the last two decades of her life to faithfully supporting a son tried six times for the same crime, died Saturday at a hospital in Greenwood, Mississippi.
Flowers, 70, had been admitted after experiencing a sudden decline in health. Her daughter, Priscilla, said her mother died early Saturday after suffering complications from surgery.
Lola Flowers, a spiritually devout woman, spent much of her time focused on her son, Curtis, who was convicted of murdering four people in a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi, in 1996. He is on death row in Parchman prison in Mississippi.
Ben Depp for APM Reports
Lola Flowers
Millions of people around the world were introduced to Lola Flowers in the podcast "In The Dark," which investigated the case against Flowers. The final episode of the podcast was released 12 days ago.
Lola Flowers never gave up hope that Curtis would be exonerated and freed from prison. She talked on the phone with Curtis nearly every day and prayed for his freedom. Every two weeks, Lola and her husband, Archie, would drive 80 miles to the prison to visit their son.
"There are a lot of people who say, 'I'd have gone crazy,'" Lola Flowers said in an interview last year with APM Reports, which produced In The Dark. "I say, 'No, God's going to work this thing out.' I do believe. It might not be when we want to, but he's going to do. Curtis is coming out."
Among Flowers' six trials, four juries convicted him and sentenced him to death. Two other trials ended in mistrials when jurors couldn't agree on a verdict. The Mississippi Supreme Court overturned three of the convictions because of prosecutorial misconduct. The conviction from the sixth trial, in 2010, remains on appeal.
Flowers was tried before an all-white jury or mostly all-white juries in each trial.
The APM Reports investigation found that the prosecutor, District Attorney Doug Evans, relied on faulty evidence, questionable forensic science and testimony of witnesses who were clearly not credible. Additionally, Evans' star witness, Odell "Cookie" Hallmon, told APM Reports that he'd lied on the stand when he told the jurors that Flowers had confessed to the murders. "As far as him telling me he killed some people, hell no. He ain't ever told me that," Hallmon said. "That was a lie."
Flowers has maintained his innocence and remains on death row while the U.S. Supreme Court considers his direct appeal of his conviction and death sentence from the sixth trial, in 2010. The case is also before the Mississippi Supreme Court as part of a post-conviction proceeding. Flowers' attorneys have cited APM Reports' findings in recent filings to the Court.
Just two weeks ago, Lola Flowers said that she was feeling even more optimistic that Curtis would win his latest appeal, based on the reporting by APM Reports.
She said she was confident that the findings would make a difference. "I'm sure it will. Pull up all this new stuff, it's got to." Lola said Curtis was also feeling hopeful. "He's so upbeat and so excited about what you all have done," she said.
Flowers was born in Winona, attended public school and lived there most of her life. Before retiring, she was a home health aide. She was active at the Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church in Winona. Flowers was close to her family and had been making plans to go to Texas to attend her grandson's wedding in August.
Lola Flowers is survived by her husband, Archie Flowers; her sons Curtis and Archie; her daughters Priscilla, Charita, Cora and Angela; and many other family members.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
For the last episode of the season, we went to meet Jeffery Armstrong, who, a few years after Curtis Flowers first went to prison, found what might have been a key piece of evidence. What he found -- and where he found it -- offers hints that someone else may have committed the Tardy Furniture murders. Armstrong turned the evidence into the cops. And then, he says, it disappeared. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Prosecutors have always said that Curtis Flowers was the only serious suspect in the Tardy Furniture investigation. But we found a document showing that another man, Willie James Hemphill, had also been questioned just days after the murders. Who was he? Why was he questioned? When we finally found Hemphill, living in Indianapolis, he had some very surprising things to say about the case. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
After re-examining the case, we'd found no direct evidence linking Curtis Flowers to the murders at Tardy Furniture. But we had one lingering question: How did Flowers become the main suspect? Why would investigators focus so much on Flowers based on so little evidence? In short, why Curtis? We decided to find out. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
After investigating every aspect of the Curtis Flowers case, we were nearly ready to present what we'd found to District Attorney Doug Evans. But first we tried to learn all we could about him: his childhood, his years as a police officer and his record as district attorney. Then, finally, we met the man who's spent more than two decades trying to have Flowers executed. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
There's one critical aspect of the Curtis Flowers case that we haven't looked at yet -- the makeup of the juries. Each of the four times Flowers was convicted, the jury was all white or nearly all white. So we decided to look more closely at why so few black jurors had been selected. And it wasn't always happenstance. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Odell Hallmon, the state's key witness in the Curtis Flowers case, is serving three consecutive life sentences. We wondered what he might say now that there are no deals to cut, and he will spend the rest of his days in prison. Would he stick to his story that Flowers had confessed to the Tardy Furniture murders? We wrote him letters and sent him a friend request on Facebook. Weeks went by and we heard nothing. And then, one day, he wrote back. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
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. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Over the years, three inmates have claimed that Curtis Flowers confessed to them that he killed four people at the Tardy Furniture store. But they've all changed their stories at one time or another. In this episode, we investigate who's really telling the truth. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Investigators never found the gun used to kill four people at Tardy Furniture. Yet the gun, and the bullets matched to it, became a key piece of evidence against Curtis Flowers. In this episode, we examine the strange histories of the gun and the man who owned it. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
The case against Curtis Flowers relies heavily on three threads of evidence: the route he allegedly walked the morning of the murders, the gun that investigators believe he used, and the people he supposedly confessed to in jail. In this episode, we meet the witnesses who said they saw Flowers walking through downtown Winona, Mississippi, the morning of the murders. Some of their stories now waver on key details. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
On the morning of July 16, 1996, someone walked into a furniture store in downtown Winona, Mississippi, and murdered four employees. Each was shot in the head. It was perhaps the most shocking crime the small town had ever seen. Investigators charged a man named Curtis Flowers with the murders. What followed was a two-decade legal odyssey in which Flowers was tried six times for the same crime. He remains on death row, though some people believe he's innocent. For the second season of In the Dark, we spent a year digging into the Flowers case. We found a town divided by race and a murder conviction supported by questionable evidence. And it all began that summer morning in 1996 with a horrifying crime scene that left investigators puzzled. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Curtis Flowers has been tried six times for the same crime. For 21 years, Flowers has maintained his innocence. He's won appeal after appeal, but every time, the prosecutor just tries the case again. What does the evidence reveal? And how can the justice system ignore the prosecutor's record and keep Flowers on death row? Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
The sentencing of Danny Heinrich on Nov. 21, 2016, brought to a close the 27-year investigation into the abduction and murder of Jacob Wetterling. But it didn't end the story. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
When Danny Heinrich confessed in court on Sept. 6 to abducting and murdering Jacob Wetterling and assaulting Jared Scheierl 27 years ago, investigators declared that at last, the public had the truth. But despite Heinrich's excruciatingly detailed accounts, the truth remains elusive. Many questions remain unanswered. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
In November 2012, a police officer named Tom Decker was shot and killed in Cold Spring, Minn., after getting out of his car to check on a man who lived above a bar. The man was quickly arrested and held in the Stearns County jail. He was interrogated but then released without charges. The state crime bureau later ruled him out as a suspect. Investigators turned their focus to another man, Eric Thomes, who hanged himself before he could be charged with the crime. Nearly four years after the murder, Sheriff John Sanner has refused to close the case "because we're still hopeful that new information will come in," he said. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Soon after the abduction and murder of Jacob Wetterling in 1989, Stearns County sheriff's investigators came face to face with his killer, Danny Heinrich, who would confess to the crime 27 years later. Then they let him go. It wasn't the first time that had happened in Stearns County. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
In the 1970s and early '80s, missing children weren't considered a policing priority. You couldn't even enter missing child information into the FBI's national crime database. But that changed quickly. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
Dan Rassier now wishes he'd insisted that police search his family's St. Joseph farm top to bottom the night Jacob Wetterling was abducted. That way, they would have known there was nothing to find. And it would have been harder for them to come back 21 years later to search with backhoes and declare him a "person of interest" in the case. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
The Wetterling abduction story kept getting bigger as the case served as a conduit for public fear and grief. Capitalizing on a growing sense that pedophiles lurked in every shadow, the likes of Maury Povich and Geraldo Rivera joined the cause with sensational retellings of the crime and its consequences. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
The closest you can get to a conversation with Jacob Wetterling about his abduction is to talk to Jared Scheierl. Scheierl was walking home from an ice skating rink in Cold Spring in January 1989 when a man who turned out to be Danny Heinrich forced him into a car, assaulted him, and let him go, uttering some chilling parting words: "If they come close to finding out who I am, I'll find you and kill you." That was nine months before Jacob's abduction. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
When Jacob Wetterling was taken, authorities launched what would turn into one of the largest searches for any missing person in the history of the United States. But that first night, law enforcement didn't cover all the basics. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
The abduction of Jacob Wetterling, which made parents more vigilant and led to the first national requirement that states track sex offenders via registries, took place before moonrise on a warm October night in 1989. Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.
After he disappeared nearly 27 years ago, Jacob Wetterling's remains have been found. Why did it take so long? Support investigative journalism with a donation to In the Dark.